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8,175 | <p>Prof. X added me as a coauthor on a paper , although my contribution was minor. I told him so, he insisted and said it was necessary for me (I can't give details). Later my relation with Prof X seriously soured. I asked that he remove my name from the paper: I already have an OK publication record (about 100 citations) and I didn't want to pollute it with an undeserved paper, especially in view of the souring of my relation with Prof X.
I had an essential contribution in all my previous papers. Prof X said it was impossible to remove my name since it was already submitted. I reluctantly accepted. The paper was rejected. Prof X wants to resubmit it to a less prestigious journal. I definitely don't want my name on it. Prof X insists to keep my name, saying that re-submitting the paper without my name might harm his reputation in the community. I can't claim to be white as snow : It's clear that I should never have accepted to have my name on this paper in the first place. I don't want to antagonize him further, but what should I do now ? Is it true that resubmitting without my name can harm his reputation ? Isn't there some way around this ? (My field is Math/Physics/Engineering. I can't give more details).</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8177,
"author": "F'x",
"author_id": 2700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Standards (and customs) for coäuthorship depend heavily on your field, but if you contributed to the work reported in the paper, you might first want to consider actually accepting coäuthorship:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Unless you think the work is actually crap, there is no downside (having a few not-so-great papers doesn't actually hurt, even if it doesn't help your career).</li>\n<li>If you worked with prof. X, it might be nice to have something (a paper) to show for it.</li>\n<li>The relationship may have soured, but are you ready to burn that bridge? If he insists on coäuthorship, a flat refusal will annoy him, probably because it would hurt him for some strategic reason.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Now, on the other hand, it's entirely your choice to make. Nobody can force you: if it comes to that, just flatly state that you do not wish to be a coäuthor on the paper. After that was made clear, and in writing, there is little chance prof. X will submit it with your name behind your back: that would be a very severe breach of ethics, and grounds for immediate retraction of the paper when you find out.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, on the question of whether resubmitting without your name can actually hurt him… yeah, it could be an annoyance. There are a few people (editor and referees for the first paper) who would have knowledge that the same paper was submitted twice with different author lists, which definitely gives a bad impression of the senior author.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8181,
"author": "MaybeAnotherPhD",
"author_id": 6117,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6117",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>The relationship may have soured, but are you ready to burn that bridge? If he insists on coäuthorship, a flat refusal will annoy him, probably because it would hurt him for some strategic reason.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This happens more than you think (user6114), it is common. Again the choice is yours. A know a few students that had this \"offer\". Offer to put someone has co-author or offer to be co-author...the decision is 100% yours.. but ... if the paper was alreday submitted you shouldn't ask to take out your name.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8205,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Adding to (and emphasizing parts of) the answers by Fx and MaybeAnotherPhD: </p>\n\n<p>First there seems to be two issues: (1) you were added to a paper by the first author where you did (and still do) not think you deserved it and (2) you now are in conflict with the first author and may not want to be associated with him/her.</p>\n\n<p>I think you can approach this from another perspective. Based on the assumption that you pursue an academic career, does this paper hurt you by, for example, it being bad science, or the first author being a <em>persona non grata</em> in the community? If the answer is no to these questions, I would as a general rule say, leave it. To follow up, there is not much you can do without raising a lot of commotion and probably risk being branded yourself even if that is not true.</p>\n\n<p>I can understand your feeling of not being worthy of co-authorship, and my only comment there is that it is of course not good to be part of a paper if you cannot defend its content in some way or another. But, I think many end up being added to papers where their input may be marginal. I see it as a natural part (problem) of the process. Of course to add people left and right as a rule is something to be combatted, so save your energy for those cases.</p>\n\n<p>Then to cap off by the uncomfortable truth, the system we live in pushes us to publish or perish (as was the title in a Science debate article some time ago). With time this paper is just one of many in your list and simply adds to your publication list. If it is good you may benefit from citations and that might be your reward in the end. In other words being a little pragmatic doesn't hurt.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8206,
"author": "user1129682",
"author_id": 6132,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6132",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I wouldn't know if people care for a change in the list of authors as long as its length does not become ridiculous compared to the length of the paper. </p>\n\n<p>If you don't want your name on that paper, have him remove it and go all the way! If he refuses you can always go past him and approach the editors directly. Explicitly stating to the editors \"I had no part in this contribution\" would hurt his reputation more than anything else by a long shot!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8230,
"author": "David Ketcheson",
"author_id": 81,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Gift authorship is unethical. At my institution it is explicitly forbidden by policy. Check if your institution has a similar policy; you may be able to use that as justification for your request.</p>\n\n<p>Also, since you made a minor contribution, I would ask him to simply put your name in the acknowledgments. If he's worried the editor will view this change badly, you can offer to write a note to the editor explaining that you requested the change.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8175",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6114/"
]
|
8,180 | <p><strong>What minimal responsibilities can a student expect from their day-to-day supervisor?</strong></p>
<p>In my institute, we usually have the head of the institute as the formal supervisor, followed by another day-to-day supervisor. In fact, the head of the institute does nothing, and the day-to-day supervisor is the one who is supposed to do the PhD supervision.</p>
<p>A few institutions do codify the responsibilities of advisors and supervisors. See, for example, the <a href="http://www.gsu.uts.edu.au/policies/codeofpractice.html" rel="nofollow">"Code of Practice for Supervisors, Advisors and Research Degree Candidates"</a> from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, and the <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/study/2015-2016/university_regulations_and_resources/graduate/gps_gi_guidelines_policies_grad_student_advising_supervision" rel="nofollow">"Policies and Guidelines on Graduate Student Advising and Supervision"</a> from McGill University in Canada. Are these guidelines universal?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8189,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think it is reasonable to expect two things from a day-to-day PhD advisor. The first is a willingness to meet in a timely manner and discuss expectations and the second is a willingness to deliver on agreements in a timely manner. If there is something you need/want from your day-to-day PhD advisor, then ask him/her about it. If you are concerned that your request is unreasonable, then ask colleagues or here.</p>\n\n<p>The problem with answering the question in general is summed up in the \n<a href=\"http://www.gsu.uts.edu.au/policies/codeofpractice.html\">UTS link</a> you provided:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>At the outset it is important to acknowledge that the nature of the\n student-supervisor relationship cannot be mandated, largely because it\n needs to be flexible and take into account the particular\n circumstances of the research project, the student and the supervisor.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As far as the universality of formal guidelines about expected behavior in regards to advising students, all universities provide a faculty handbook that has some minimal guidelines, but generally it is not as long or formal as the links you provided.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8193,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em>Based on my experiences...</em></p>\n\n<p>Based on those I know, the guidelines you link to are <em>not</em> general.</p>\n\n<p>The day-to-day supervisor approach is typically implemented passively because the main supervisor (i.e., the guy in absentia most of the time) is too busy to actually manage the students. For this approach to be practical, the day-to-day supervisor must have expertise in your research and must be aware of the general research path of the group (i.e., can provide not only advice but direction).</p>\n\n<p>For what it's worth, most labs with a day-to-day supervisor in addition to the main one will be more difficult to work in as a graduate student. The only case where this can be a benefit is where the formal advisor is some ridiculously well-known figure in the field, and your just being in their lab will lead to opportunities down the road. For the majority of labs with this setup, though, it's simply because the formal advisor is too busy to deal with (or otherwise disintereted) the graduate students, and has set up someone else to deal with them. This typically leads to communication issues, lack of guidance, long delays in your advisor reviewing your work & publications, and frustration. I would approach these setups cautiously.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><em>Edit based on comments:</em> The main reason these setups tend to fail is that the supervisor's unspoken job description is one that will never be filled; replicate the domain expertise and research experience of the advisor while essentially being a graduate student counselor. Anyone who can do that will be running their <em>own</em> lab, not helping you manage your students. </p>\n\n<p>This means that those who <em>do</em> take the job either don't have the relevant domain expertise to adequately answer student questions, or relevant research experience to design, run, and analyze data from a complete research project. Any lacking expertise translates into \"lets just wait until your next advisor meeting\", which adds long delays to <em>everything</em>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8199,
"author": "che_kid",
"author_id": 6093,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6093",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'll add that Guidelines, Codes, and the like are almost meaningless in academia, simply because it is easier to herd cats that to get a bunch of independent, highly-intelligent group of people to follow some set protocol or rules. Try attending a faculty meeting and you'll see what it's like. An institution may have guidelines, but there is probably very little chance of enforcing them.</p>\n\n<p>You'll find supervisors/advisors on both ends of the spectrum. Some will want to be in the day-to-day operations, micro-managing all the details. Some will meet with you, then say \"Come back in a few weeks when you have progress\". The most common method seems to have weekly meetings to discuss progress and provide insight/expectations on advancing the project. </p>\n\n<p>This is the interesting part about academia. You aren't really taught how to supervise others, or people skills in general. Most academics seem to just go with their instinctive, personality inclinations, or they simply do what their previous supervisors/advisors did. </p>\n\n<p>I'll add that if you're not getting along with your supervisor, either you need to discuss the problems, or plan a move.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8180",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6117/"
]
|
8,184 | <p>I am very new to this grad school process and currently overwhelmed to the point of tears.</p>
<p>I graduated from Stony Brook with a degree in Sociology in 2010. I was also admitted to Alpha Kappa Delta that year. I was a teaching assistant for 2 classes and had a 3.28 gpa overall but a higher gpa in just sociology.</p>
<p>I took time off to earn money and just give myself a break. I work as a babysitter, make pretty decent money, and I enjoy what I do but I want to go back to grad school now. I have no research experience, I am currently studying for the GRE, reading up on some information and I honestly don't know where to start or if I have a snowball's chance in a furnace of getting in anywhere.</p>
<p>I would like to go back Fall 2014 (giving myself time) and I am looking at programs like Cornell, Rutgers, and Syracuse (probably more as time goes on) and thinking the only way I am getting into any of those is if the faculty has pity on me. I feel I am intelligent and could do grad work, I just don't know how I can prove to admissions I can so they will let me in. I'd really like a Ph.D but if I have to start off with a masters to get into the school, I will. Although my fear of asking this question is currently taking over since I fear someone will squish my dream of grad school like a slow moving spider, if I don't ask, I won't be able to go forward since I don't know where to begin...</p>
<p>Honest advice or information would be much appreciated. I want to go to grad school and I am willing to find ways to make that happen, just no idea where to begin.</p>
<p>Thank you so very much ahead of time...^^</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8185,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The first advice I have to give you is perhaps the most important: in the immortal words of <em>The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,</em> <strong>DON'T PANIC</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>First, identify the schools to which you'd be interested in applying. You should find a reasonable number (6 plus or minus 2 is typical), and plan on some \"long shots,\" some \"typical\" schools for you, and one or two schools which you would have as a \"fall back\" option—in case none of the \"long shots\" and \"typicals\" work out for you. </p>\n\n<p>You should also find people who can write letters of support for you. This is perhaps the hardest part for you. Luckily, you've finished relatively recently, so you should be able to find people in academia who can write some letters of support for you. If you have a few people such as employers who can vouch for your work ethic, that could also work.</p>\n\n<p>Doing well on the GRE will also help, but it isn't likely to make a huge difference except in \"borderline\" cases.</p>\n\n<p>One thing that might help your case is to get directly into contact with people at the various schools you'd be interested in attending. If you can organize a meeting with some of the faculty there and present your case in person, that can leave a more positive impression than just submitting an application \"cold.\" </p>\n\n<p>The other thing you can do to help your case is to have a <em>clear and compelling explanation</em> for what you want to do, and why you feel a master's or a PhD is the right way to accomplish those goals. I see far too many applications from candidates who otherwise might be viable who can't elucidate a single reason to go to graduate school beyond. Having a compelling plan can go some ways toward convincing skeptical faculty members that you are serious about graduate studies.</p>\n\n<p>In addition, you can consider all of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/324/how-do-you-get-a-bad-transcript-past-ph-d-admissions\">the advice about getting a bad transcript past admissions</a> as additional suggestions for how to proceed.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8187,
"author": "Dan C",
"author_id": 1069,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1069",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me recommend to you Phil Agre's <a href=\"http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/grad-school.html\">Advice for Undergraduates Considering Graduate School</a>. This essay is about 12 pages, with sections such as \"What is Graduate School?\", \"Do I want to go to Graduate School?\", \"Research\", \"Applying to Graduate School\", \"Letters of Recommendation\", and \"Getting Accepted to Graduate School\".</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 13922,
"author": "avi",
"author_id": 6240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6240",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Check this site, which is supported by the Andrew Ng (of Coursera and machine learning class fame) : <a href=\"http://graddecision.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://graddecision.org/</a> this will walk you through entire process and has lot of good information and advice. </p>\n\n<p>Basically figure out where you want study and why that school, prepare a kickass Statement of Purpose(SOP) and contact your professors for letter of recommendations(LOR). And yes, give GRE soon as deadlines mostly in December. </p>\n\n<p>All the best :D</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8184",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6121/"
]
|
8,194 | <p>One of my students is an escort/stripper and she has offered me (and other faculty in my department) her "services". I am pretty sure my initial reaction of "thanks for letting me know, now can you answer the question about how to calculate the standard deviation", may not have been the best reaction. The offers have continued. My head of school is aware of the issue, and has asked if I want him to do anything.</p>
<p>Is the student doing anything wrong by offering her services to me? For what it is worth, prostitution is legal in the UK. Is this any different then a student telling me she works in a restaurant?</p>
<p>What is the correct response in a situation like this?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8196,
"author": "F'x",
"author_id": 2700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"pm_score": 9,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>First, <em>“thanks for letting me know”</em> is not an unambiguous <strong>no</strong>. I suppose most people would actually get it, but she already appears to have boundary issues, so you should make it much clearer. The best thing to do would be to make it clear to her that you consider <strong>her propositions to be out of line</strong>. You can add, that while you don't think badly of her because of it, <strong>such offers have no place in the classroom</strong> (or in a student/teacher relationship).</p>\n\n<p>In fact, you would probably do the same if she insisted on asking you to come have dinner at a restaurant she worked at: you'd be annoyed by it, because it is detrimental to her (and others) attention. I regularly have students who ask out-of-line questions, and I try to be firm: while I'd be happy to discuss if we were friends, we are not and my class/practicals/whatever is not the right place for that.</p>\n\n<p>However, there is a distinction between talking about sex and dining: the law makes a distinction in many countries, including UK. From UCL's HR webpages (as an example):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Sexual harassment can take the form of ridicule, sexually provocative remarks or jokes, offensive comments about dress or appearance, the display or distribution of sexually explicit material, unwelcome sexual advances or physical contact, demands for sexual favours or assault.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>which clearly covers your case, whether the sexual advances are of a paid or an unpaid nature.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, regarding your head of school: <strong>the student clearly has boundary issues</strong>, probably for making the offer in the first place and definitely for renewing it multiple times after you declined. So, yeah, <strong>I would suggest your head of school or a counselor having a talk with her about it</strong>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8197,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think her offer is more than just a simple bribing. It is an intentional act to jeopardize your career and put you in trouble. Unfortunately it is a method used by some women to disturb and manipulate men and when they get disappointed they can easily pretend they are the victims of sexual abuse. Due to the fact that sexual relationships between people are not as simple as other relationships, her offer cannot be compared with inviting you to a restaurant. I think it is better you not only reject her offer but also report her offer and try to document it. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8198,
"author": "gerrit",
"author_id": 1033,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your initial reaction was <em>thanks for letting me know, now can you answer the question about how to calculate the standard deviation</em>.</p>\n\n<p>This answer is ambiguous and at risk for misunderstanding. I guess you mean <em>no</em>, but you're not saying <em>no</em>. If taken literally, this answer says neither <em>yes</em> nor <em>no</em>. Myself, earlier in my life, would have interpreted <em>thanks for letting me know</em> as an expression of interest, which explains the repeated offers. In sensitive cases like this, I think it's important to be very explicit:</p>\n\n<p><em>I am not interested in your professional services and please do not offer them again.</em></p>\n\n<p>Like this, at least it is beyond doubt that you have replied negatively. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 96383,
"author": "Tom Au",
"author_id": 755,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/755",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From what you say, the student's actions are not illegal in your country. Most people, including most administrators of educational institutions, would consider this \"wrong.\" The reason is very simple; it could constitute bribery, or a at least a conflict of interest. Apparently, this has happened to a number of people, your university is \"wise,\" and is willing support you (and others).</p>\n\n<p>The next time it happens, give her an uequivocal \"no,\" and tell her that you don't expect to have to tell her again. You might add that you are \"happily married\" or \"in a good relationship\" if that is the case. The \"second next time,\" you might threaten to report her to the university. In any event, whatever you do, make it clear that her behavior is inappropriate, and will not be tolerated.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8194",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929/"
]
|
8,200 | <p>I've noticed that while there's no alternative to going through the actual paper in detail, it often helps if I've gone through the presentation based on the paper, which the authors had used while publishing their papers. (Mostly because, the few presentations on TCS papers that I've seen have good geometric examples/illustrations which may have been instrumental in getting the intuition in the first place, but the brevity required by CS conferences mean very few of them make it to the published paper!)</p>
<p>While a few authors graciously maintain the links of such slides on their web-pages, most do not - and I haven't even seen a single CS conference maintaining such documents on their web-page!</p>
<p>So, I've the following questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Since I'm ultimately interested in understanding their work (and extending it if possible), is it considered OK to email the authors for the slides (if they still have it)? </li>
<li>If it is, do I have to justify/explain why I want the slides, or would just a polite request do (with minimal explanations on my part to keep the mail short!)? </li>
<li>Would making such a request more than once make the author feel offended, and/or make them think that someone who can't read papers at the highest level without "assistance" isn't exactly someone worth helping out?</li>
<li>If there are 2 authors listed, without any implications about who is the corresponding author, should I mail both of them at the same time (which may lead to both of thinking the other would be responding), or separately (which may lead to duplication of efforts!)?</li>
</ol>
<p>I'm not sure what to tag this query with - feel free to re-tag/add more tags as you see fit!</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8201,
"author": "gerrit",
"author_id": 1033,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p>It's never a problem to ask. In particular if you are interested in extending their work, they should be interested in providing you with more information. Perhaps the extension will happen in collaboration with them, but at the very least you're going to cite their paper. In my experience, views on sharing slides vary, but the objections I've heard related to unpublished material; I understand that in your situation, the material is already published.</p></li>\n<li><p>I would explain why. It's polite to do so. But do keep the mail short. You could write that if they're interested, you can provide more details on your ideas; like that, you don't swamp them with unrequired information, yet you're open from your side in stating your ideas. Such an offer shows that you trust them, and as they need some trust in you if they share their slides, that is probably a good idea.</p></li>\n<li><p>I don't think they would feel offended. </p></li>\n<li><p>Depends on the field. If there is no clear first or corresponding author, I would contact either one of them. They would probably either reply or forward the e-mail to the other author.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8202,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li>I think it is reasonable to make such a request but your success will depend on how it is done. If you clearly express your interest and reason for asking as well as express your understanding if they were to decline, you have made a humble request which should not offend anyone. If you can I think it would be even better to try to talk to the person directly (putting a face on the request). This takes some guts but is clearly worth it if you think you have significant use for the results of the paper. If you get a no, you might be able to ascertain what the reasons of the no might be, there might be personal or copyright reasons. </li>\n<li>The answer to this is perhaps given by 1 already. Yes, short but with enough details to give the person the clear reasons why you would benefit from the presentation.</li>\n<li>Turning it into a habit is probably not advisable unless the person you ask becomes more of a mentor than just a source for information. I think most people want something back and perhaps admiration might just not be enough.</li>\n<li>I would say, yes, contact both with the same mail. Sending two separate requests would probably just be seen as fishy.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So in short, be brief clear and polite in your request and be honest about your reasons for the request. Just remember that the response will vary from person to person so there is no guarantee for success in every case.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8203,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Unless there are reasons that a presentation is considered proprietary (the ground rules of the conference, or it occurred in a non-conference setting, such as a presentation at a corporation or program review), it is unlikely to be a problem to email the presenter for a copy of the slides. </p>\n\n<p>A short note with the email indicating where you saw the presentation, and why you're interested in it, is never remiss, as it shows active interest in the researchers work. With respect to how often to ask, I'd wait a few weeks between requests; otherwise, you will be seen as being a bit too \"pushy.\" </p>\n\n<p>With respect to coauthors, usually the first author is the presenter, unless otherwise indicated. It's probably best to contact the first author initially, and then move to additional coauthors if there's no response.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8200",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79/"
]
|
8,214 | <p>I don't know how to start, truly, but lately I've been involved with some projects in pure mathematics and I've grown frustrated and disappointed. I don't think that pure mathematics is so inspiring; my intent is to move on to study some applied math but most teachers in my department aren't that dedicated to it. All I see are theoretical approaches to problems "that applied sciences may be interested some day".</p>
<p>By talking to a colleague of mine who is seriously considering moving on from Math to Physics, he told me of some engineering departments who might accept someone with a master's degree in their Phd programs. There are some areas I like that might have a connection with what is studied in some Engineering Phd programs, like applied ODE and Dynamical systems and I'd love to put some programming on what I do.</p>
<p>But every teacher I talked about this so far tells me to avoid this kind of migration, since it brings a loss of academic focus and it might be hard for me to find a job later as a teacher. There is no strong tradition in Mathematical Engineering as there is in other countries (I know that such courses exists in Italy and some other European contries).</p>
<p>So I'd like to know some thoughts from more seasoned students and researchers out there. Any advice is welcome.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8215,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Most CS graduate programs would be quite happy to admit a math major. It might be tricky early on if you have zero programming experience, but depending on the kind of work you're interested in, you could be in a strong position. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8216,
"author": "Paul",
"author_id": 931,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/931",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have been in your shoes, as I migrated from mathematics to computational engineering. While my math background gave me some advantage, I remember it was difficult to make the transition because I was very unfamiliar with a lot of the key concepts in engineering. What really helped me was watching online courses (MIT, IIT, etc...) in the material I was missing... Of course, I had an entire year to prepare for it. If you have a lot of time to make the transition, by all means do so and you shouldn't have \"too much\" trouble. But if you're pressed for time to make up for a lack of engineering background, it can be quite overwhelming. It's best to hit the ground running in graduate school.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8217,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The most likely domain of interface for a mathematician with engineering would be in the realm of \"computational engineering,\" in which numerical algorithms are used to study physical and engineering systems. This work is highly interdisciplinary, and requires close collaboration among all of the different researchers involved, as very few are experts in all of the areas with which they are concerned.</p>\n\n<p>However, there <em>is</em> a certain amount of logic to the idea of staying in one's \"home\" discipline. It makes it easier to figure out \"who you are,\" which can make starting your career a bit easier. One possibility might be to pursue a degree in <em>applied</em> mathematics, in which you study problems relevant to engineering, rather than remaining in \"pure\" mathematics. This might be a reasonable compromise that keeps you in the mathematics field, while still allowing you to pursue topics in areas that interest you more.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8218,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The only problem with switching to a particular field of engineering is that you'll be missing a core set of knowledge particular to that discipline that will hinder your progress for a while. For instance, you would probably do great in many electrical engineering sub-diciplines, but if you've never taken a circuits or signals course, you're going to be lost for a while before you can learn that material.</p>\n\n<p>If you already have research experience, that will count for a lot, but I would suggest finding an engineering program that would allow you to take a few undergraduate courses during your first year or two in order to get up to speed. If you find a professor that is looking for a mathematics-savvy graduate student to fill in the gaps in his/her lab, that might be the best way to get your foot in the door. You've got skills that could be very valuable to the right lab, and if you use those as leverage to join a particular lab/research team, you'll be able to fill in the missing pieces to your new field and move forward with your own degree.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8214",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6087/"
]
|
8,221 | <p>I have worked in a few high profile research institutes for my PhD and postdoc, and find myself a little intimidated by the "strong opinions" and arguments that seem to crop up at the principal investigator level. My personality is somewhat more laid back or agreeable, and I find myself wondering if this would be seen as a "personality flaw" in the somewhat cutthroat funding and scientific world (or at least that part I am exposed to). I'm sure it helps to have a strong opinion of one's own work, but I sometimes find it hard to do so, as I tend to be more self-critical and more concerned about stating something correctly and figuring out what is "right" than necessarily being self-promoting and overconfident in my own abilities, but I feel like that ends up manifesting as some sort of fundamental flaw in relation to others I see advancing into the faculty ranks.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8222,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am sure a psychologist could provide an indepth analysis to a large part of this question. I am not a psychologist so I will try to stick to what I think I can answer. First, it is usually the big and loud heads that stick out and are seen, there are probably just as many quieter academics in similar positions that you do not see or hear. </p>\n\n<p>I am sure it is possible to talk yourself into a top position but not without showing excellence in your science, usually reflected in a publication record and funding success (sadly to a lesser extent teaching). But, the academic record on paper is typically what counts and it would only be in an interview situation between two equally talented candidates that things can be swung. But even then, I do not think the ego would necessarily have an advantage. Then there is the question what happens after you are employed and how one develops as a person but that is out of scope for me.</p>\n\n<p>A problem more timid persons experience is to strike the right tone in pushing ones own merits. Taking advice from entrusted clleagues is a good way forward. But, as a whole a \"big ego\" in the negative sense is not necessary, a good academic record is.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8226,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think a \"big ego\", or at least a healthy dose of self confidence, is necessary for survival as an academic. Our jobs are one of repeated failure. Success rates on grants, publications, experiments, and job applications are often less than 10%. In the face of such frequent failures an abundance of confidence is a require for maintaining ones sanity. Further, many departments verge on dysfunctional and there is generally someone looking to push you down to get ahead (I am not saying everyone is out to get you, but there is generally at least one person in every department looking to get ahead at your expense.) Being confident, outspoken and to an extent self prompting is useful for dealing with these people. The difficult part is not being too self confident and too outspoken and being able to admit when you are wrong.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8242,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's important to distinguish inner from outer perspectives here. Someone that is perceived as 'having a big ego' might not feel that way inside, and might be compensating for a bad case of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome\">Imposter Syndrome</a>. Or they just might have a big ego through and through :). </p>\n\n<p>As others have pointed out, what you really need is a thick skin, in order to deal with the constant rejection you'll face (jobs, papers, grants, awards, ...). You can acquire a thick skin by having a big ego (\"People are too stupid to appreciate my genius\") or by being bull-headed (\"I don't care what people think: I think this is interesting\"), or by other coping mechanisms. This is an <strong>internal</strong> focus: it doesn't matter what you show on the outside. </p>\n\n<p>Occasionally though, it's helpful to <em>project</em> an aura of confidence and assuredness, most commonly when you're interviewing, or when you're psyching yourself to write a grant or pitch a project. Again, this is an <strong>external</strong> focus: it doesn't matter how you feel on the inside. </p>\n\n<p>Ultimately, you'll (hopefully) find a harmonious balance between what you project to the outside world, and how you feel on the inside. They don't have to necessarily be the same view though: they rarely are. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8245,
"author": "Slothario",
"author_id": 6190,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6190",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You don't need an ego. In fact, ego just makes life more difficult in many ways. All you need is to able to project confidence, and the ability to assert yourself. A simple ability to stand your ground and stand behind your opinions, even if quietly so. </p>\n\n<p>Think about the guy or gal you know who doesn't talk too loudly but everyone listens when he or she speaks. Try to emulate <em>that</em> person, not the egos in the room. People generally dislike people with big egos, but they love people with genuine confidence. People will respect the hell out of you for it. </p>\n\n<p>There are many resources online regarding how to project confidence--I suggest looking there. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 11443,
"author": "Namey",
"author_id": 7930,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7930",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A \"big ego\" is definitely not necessary. Of all the scholars I have interacted with, the biggest-shots were often less egotistical than the average person. Especially at the highest levels of academia, the strongest work often comes from those who are willing and able to listen to and improve on the ideas of others.</p>\n\n<p>However, you do need to make yourself heard. You do need to be bold. I do not know a single successful tenure-track person who sits on ideas until they are sure that they're right. You don't find out an idea is right by mulling it over. You find out by formulating the problem rigorously, by testing a hypothesis, and by subjecting it to the most scathing peer-review you can find (not necessarily in that order, as you might do some of these steps multiple times). There's no harm in being self-critical or unsure that you're right. There is harm when that hinders you from taking the necessary steps to find out if you're right.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 46074,
"author": "StasK",
"author_id": 739,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/739",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Academia, as many other fields, is the survival of the fittest game. If you see PIs with big egos (or rather if most of the PIs you see have big egos), then it means that this is the personality trait that academia cultivates, albeit unknowingly, implicitly and subversively.</p>\n\n<p>Academia is a race against time -- if you hesitate about your research idea for too long, and wait to perfect it, you will either be scooped, or will run out of your time in your (presumably rather junior) position. Submitting something that is just \"good enough not to disgust the three referees\" that you yourself know isn't the greatest paper, and getting it published, gets you the confirmation of \"Aha, I am a smart enough person to game the system\". Then you learn to salami-slice it to boost your # of publications; then you learn to attribute collaborative teamwork to yourself when your chair asks you, \"How many papers have you published this year?\" -- all these things sound a lot like \"I, me, myself\", and occasional big carrots (your R01 grant; your tenure) are obviously about <strong>you</strong>. When you do this for 20 years in a row, your skin gets so thick that it looks very much like a big ego from outside.</p>\n\n<p>Don't worry, you will see big egos in most other fields at the higher levels -- think real estate development and golf, which are closely intertwined, anyway; you would not find folks in these lines of work very approachable.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8221",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6174/"
]
|
8,223 | <p>When meeting some scientists in person, I've had good conversations with decisions upon interesting plans for research cooperation and personal visits. But then, subsequent contact by e-mail is difficult, where the other party either doesn't reply at all, or very slowly (several weeks +). However, when I then meet them again at a later date, they are still enthusiastic about the project (where the bulk of the work is mine) and a short in-person discussion makes more progress than the past months of (lack of) e-mail have. So it appears that a lack of interest in the project does not explain the lack of response. The project is scientifically interesting, fits with my PhD, and the visit enhances my chances of finding a post-doc after my PhD (it's a very good institute for my field).</p>
<p>I understand that many scientists are very busy and flooded by e-mail, but it feels sad to abandon a potentially interesting project just because communication by e-mail is not working well. I'm quite sure it would work if I were in the same building. What strategies exist to mitigate this problem? I can think of:</p>
<ol>
<li>Try to ask a common acquaintance to poke him/her (my local colleague has a shared friend with him/her). Pro: Might get indirect feedback as to why the irresponsiveness. Con: involves 3rd party (may or may not be on-site) not necessarily involved.</li>
<li>Send reminder e-mails (<em>did you see my e-mail from 20 February?</em>). Pro: increases chances of being noticed. Con: may be considered annoying</li>
<li>Phone. Pro: hard to run away. Con: I don't like phoning and I don't like being phoned.</li>
<li>E-mail someone sitting in the neighbouring office. Pro: neighbour has small step to irresponsive scientist. Con: a bit strange to involve someone I don't even know</li>
<li>Give up on the project. Con: means no project and no visit.</li>
<li>Try to do the project without their input. Pro: no need for communication. Con: might waste a lot of time by trying known dead-ends that I'm not aware of. </li>
</ol>
<p>What other options exist? What advantages and disadvantages have I not thought of? What is wise to do?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8224,
"author": "F'x",
"author_id": 2700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>First: that situation is common. Actually, that situation is <em>very</em> common. You listed a large number of options that come to mind, let's discuss them a bit:</p>\n<ol>\n<li><p>For me, that's the best.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Reminders don't cost you much, but they can only go so far before you risk being annoying.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><strong>I would strongly advise phone or Skype</strong>. Don't get me wrong: I hate phone too. It has the inconveniences of both verbal communication (you need to reply fast, and have no time to smith your words precisely) and written communication (you don't see the other person's face and non-verbal indicators). However, it helps if people are unresponsive to email. Also, consider that maybe <em>they</em> like phone better than email (some people do!).</p>\n<p>As I said, Skype (or any video-chatting tool) might be a useful alternative to phone. Some people hate it, some people love it, so be sure to ask if they would consider it.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><strong>No</strong>. You can ask a friend or common acquaintance to poke them, but don't use someone you don't know well. <strong>Unless it's their job</strong>, of course: if you communicate with a big boss or dean or whatever, it is fine to use his personal assistant or secretary to check up on things or remind him of deadlines.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>and 6. It's your choice to make, not much we can say here.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<hr />\n<p>To your (already good ideas) I would add an important one:</p>\n<p> 7. <strong>Set yourselves</strong> (or give him) <strong>a goal and a deadline</strong>. On one occasion where you actually meet him, use his enthusiasm to set an (achievable) goal, possibly with an associated deadline: decide that you want to present this work at this occasion, or submit to a given special issue that has a deadline in 6 months, or want to have the project finished by September to hire a post-doc with funding from the John Doe Foundation, …</p>\n<p>Whatever the deadline is, it will spur contributions from his side. The research environment puts people under a lot of pressure with bureaucracy and deadlines. If your project doesn't have any visible deadline, he will never get it done. So, create one, even if it's more of a pretext. Then use that deadline as a hammer!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8225,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I recognize this all too well and I do not have a patented solution. This is in part because the reasons will vary from case to case. I have found that collaborations will be easier in two cases: The first is when the collaborator is driven by their own agenda and can see a strong personal gain apart from the collaboration. This might seem a poor excuse for a collaboration but, I think, reflects the stress most are under. The second is when you strike up a true friendship and simply enjoy each others comåany apart from the science. This should not be underestimated even if it is hard to chose collaborators based on such premises. Over to the answer.</p>\n\n<p>If you think you have a collaborator where a mutual interest to collaborate exists according to the above, the best way is to arrange to visit for a couple of weeks. This can be folowed up by a returnvisit at some stage. Under suchcircumstances you can work in relative pace and you can set up short and unintrusive meetings under a short period with your collaborator. Such a visit can be preceded by some homework but expect to do most yourself if the initiative is yours.</p>\n\n<p>A visit is certainly possible in all other cases as well but if the personal chemistry/interest is not strong to begin with, I do not know how successful you will be. Uncertain in any case. You will also likely end up doing most of the work throughout the process.</p>\n\n<p>The bottom line is that unless the project (paper) is priority one on everyones list, you run the risk of not getting much response and certainly not much drive from your collaborators. It just seems to be the nature of things. I am sorry if this sounds negative but the times when I have done work during visits (going away or receiveing a visit) have seen a much higher success rate.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8228,
"author": "Andy W",
"author_id": 3,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to the fine answers here already, I've found helpful to get the ball rolling to <em>do work on my own</em> and then send that along to the colleague. </p>\n\n<p>It seems to me that often a substantial block is if project has some ambiguity, and if a person can't devote a large amount of time to it they will put it off in favor of more concretely defined goals. Doing some work on your own can frequently help to refine the goals of the project and how the collaborator fits in.</p>\n\n<p>Obviously you can't do the whole project on your own and need feedback, but often there are substantial amounts of work you can do on your own. A literature review, an extensive outline, writing particular sections of a paper, preliminary data analysis etc. are almost always good candidates.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8234,
"author": "Paul Hiemstra",
"author_id": 4091,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4091",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One point that I would like to stress is to set a new date for a live/skype/phone talk at the end of each meeting. In this way you avoid having to email someone for a new date, and you minimise the risk of your communication dying down until the next live meeting. There is still the risk of the appointment getting rescheduled, but at least a rescheduled appointment is more concrete than waiting for an email back that never shows up. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8223",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033/"
]
|
8,229 | <p>Suppose after graduating from a PhD program, you don't do a post-doc. Are the chances of getting a tenure-track position severely reduced? Also is it possible to do a post-doc after a completion of a masters program (probably should be called a "post-masters")?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8231,
"author": "silvado",
"author_id": 3890,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>What people expect from a candidate for a tenure-track faculty position is the ability to guide research and to set up an independent research group. The candidate will have to prove extensive (almost) independent research experience and a research vision to last for many years. A post-doc candidate will be stronger in these requirements than someone just graduating with a PhD. It is not impossible to get a tenure-track position directly after the PhD, but I think chances are better with a post-doc. </p>\n\n<p>Nevertheless, if you just graduated and there is a position announced which fits your profile, by all means apply for it. Even if you're not successful, it may give you valuable experience.</p>\n\n<p>All types of faculty positions I know of have a formal PhD requirement, so usually it is not useful to skip that.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8232,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let us start from a different perspective. What is required to get a tenure-track position? </p>\n\n<p>I would say that two things are primarily used as criteria in the selection process: number of publications and ability to secure funding. Related to the publication list is of course aspects of publications, publication rate number of citations and the impact factor of the journals in which you publish. Exactly how these aspects are weighted is varying. Note that rates are important so it is not exclusively a matter of pure numbers.</p>\n\n<p>In both cases time is an aspect and obviously you will standa a better chance the more merits you can accumulate which takes time. I do not know what other possibilities might exist to get some time to improve your merits. In some cases you might be temporarily hired to do teaching. Teaching will of course also be a merit but not on the expense of research. and under such circumstances contnued research output may be a challenge. So obviously a Post-Doc should give you a head start but I would not see it as an exclusive prerequisite.</p>\n\n<p>\"Post-Master\": Since this concept does not formally exist, I could see there being opportunities to partake in research by being a lab-assistant or something similar. Any opportunity to widen your experience and possibly getting you into the research activities, especially publishing would be beneficial fo r the future.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8233,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The purpose of a postdoctoral fellowship is simply to gain the skills detailed in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/3328/73\">this answer to a similar question</a>, notably:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Get involved with obtaining funding </li>\n<li>Build an international reputation</li>\n<li>Start collaborating with external parties</li>\n<li>Learn how to manage projects and a lab</li>\n<li>Start to devise a strategic research plan</li>\n<li>Improve your publication record</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If you have all those things from your work as a graduate student, then you should have no problem finding employment and furthering your academic career immediately after you earn your PhD. Most students don't, which is why they try to find a postdoc position to help them gain these skills before attempting to run their own lab.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8238,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Currently, I believe this is a very field-dependent issue. In physics, for instance, it would not be possible to get a faculty position without a postdoc (or even <em>two</em> postdocs) unless you're an Einstein-level talent. In some fields, such as engineering, it may still be possible to get a position directly after a PhD—but in such cases that candidate is usually told to take a year or two, do a postdoc, and <em>then</em> start the faculty position.</p>\n\n<p>However, I think that it is in general a <em>very</em> bad idea to just \"take some time off\" if one is planning to pursue a faculty position. Working in industry or doing something that keeps one active in research is probably OK, but a \"sabbatical\" that doesn't contribute toward a CV in any way will likely set off some hackles on the part of the search committee. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8229",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6185/"
]
|
8,236 | <p>I'm interested in knowing what percentage of math phds actually succeed in landing a tenure track academic job?</p>
<p>Also, does a phd from <a href="http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/group_i">AMS Group 1</a> guarantees you an academic job in top universities? If not what other factors come in to role to play?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8237,
"author": "Dan C",
"author_id": 1069,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1069",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>No.</strong> No one single factor guarantees you an academic job in a top university. Whether or not you land such a job is a combination of many things. These include, </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>talent </li>\n<li>hard work</li>\n<li>motivation </li>\n<li>quality of research </li>\n<li>quality of teaching</li>\n<li>ability to network and get along with people</li>\n<li>ability to communicate (both orally and in writing)</li>\n<li>success in securing external funding</li>\n<li>luck.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If you want such a job, here's what I recommend. Choose an area that you're passionate about, go to the best school (most challenging and \"highest rated\") that you can get into, and work with an adviser with a strong publication record. At each step along the way, surround yourself with (and learn as much as you can from) the most successful people possible. </p>\n\n<p>You can find a partial answer to your question about percentage by reading the annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences (by the American Math Society):</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/annual-survey\">http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/annual-survey</a></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8244,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As I said in the comments: The success rate of the population will tell you little about YOUR chances of success. You are better off focusing on ways to improve YOUR chances.</p>\n\n<p>To answer the second part of the question, most hiring committees at top universities for tenure track jobs primarily considered your publication record, your ability to secure funding, and your fit to the department. The fit to the department is tricky. It generally includes either research area or ability to teach a class, but may also include departmental politics. Sometimes an applicant can be such a poor communicator (often discovered during the interview) or be a known pain in the ass that this can influence the decision, but generally the decision is based on publications, money and fit. I would venture to say that more often than not the rankings do not chance based on the interviews/campus visits.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8252,
"author": "Paul Hiemstra",
"author_id": 4091,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4091",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I understood in the Netherlands somewhere around 5% ends up in a research position. This also includes people who after their PhD leave academia, so the percentage for those willing to continue is a bit higher. Ofcourse, as others already said, these general statistics do not say what your chances are, but it does illustrate that it is hard to find a position. In the Netherlands, it is important to get, apart from a good publication record, into a prestigious grants system (Venice, Vidi, Vici system). The first step is essentially a prestigious postdocs, the second leads to assistant professorship (fixed position), and the final one to full professorship. Getting into such a winning streak is important, successful projects make it easier to get new ones, I.e. the successful become more successful.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8254,
"author": "sds",
"author_id": 5829,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5829",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>An additional parameter to consider is <strong>fashion</strong>: some research fields are deemed sexy and some aren't (and that assessment changes with time unpredictably!), and your chances of finding a position depend on the current perception of your field by the senior faculty.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8236",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/86/"
]
|
8,239 | <p>I was recently going through an article (which I was told is fundamental in the area of my new project) published in a respectable medical journal. In short, the paper is about the similarities between a particular sub-type of tumor cells versus a particular type of stem cells in the body, then they go on to investigate what that similarity might indicate.</p>
<p>Barely two pages in and I realize that the authors omit what I consider to be critical data when motivating the use of two particular proteins as markers in establishing their fundamental assumption, that their immunohistochemistry findings are representative of the reality and that their model is valid: </p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Accordingly, we screened all known ..... markers against our ..... data to determine which, if any, decrease with differentiation (data not shown). Of all the potential ... markers, we found that X and Y are the best candidates, and they were therefore used in this study.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now it might not be a big deal to some but I find it important to see that omitted data, since: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>I am not that informed in that particular type of biology</p></li>
<li><p>Seeing that their "real" findings are built on the results of the aforementioned screening, the validity of their research is practically depending on the decision of using those two markers.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Which brings me to my question: <strong>Are there any cases where not showing "critical" data in such a manner is acceptable or common?</strong> I know that some journals do not accept "data not shown", but obviously it does happen in better journals as well...</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8240,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em>Critical data</em>? Probably not. But, I have seen many papers with data left out simply because of paper length restrictions, and in all cases other graphs and data appropriately contributed to the papers' fundamental arguments.</p>\n\n<p>In the cases where I wanted to see the data that was omitted, I've written one of the authors and they have almost always forwarded it along. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8241,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is of course difficult to judge this particular paper without having seen it so I will stick to general terms.</p>\n\n<p>I do not see any reason for not representing all data in some form. When I say represent I mean that the complete data set can be given in terms of, for example, statistical measures which would at least provide some way to see or judge whether the subset shown is truly representative. But, I still have a hard time seeing a good reason for omitting it without clearly explaining on what grounds.</p>\n\n<p>Journals allow supplementary information and so it seems reasonable to use that option if it exists in th eparticular journal. In very old papers where plots were mae by hand, there may be some excuse if not everything is included.</p>\n\n<p>As I see it one of the fundamental principles of scientific publication is reproducibility. That requires access to all data. There are of course instances where this i snot possible such as when patient journals are involved. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8243,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I think it is perfectly reasonable to not \"show\" data. For example, consider a multivariate randomized control trial with two groups. If there are a large number of partially correlated dependent variables, the data are not suitable for graphical or tabular presentation. What we are potentially interested in is if there is a difference between the two groups. We can \"see\" that from a single sentence about a statistical test and a comment that the data are not shown (so people do not go looking to find the figure).</p>\n\n<p>In a biology example, maybe you are counting the number of intact cells after two different treatments. There may be hundreds of slices that result in two numbers. What exactly do you want to see? </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8266,
"author": "Rex Kerr",
"author_id": 669,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/669",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From the way you've described it, it sounds like the choice of markers was somewhat arbitrary. Presumably they had figures that demonstrate that the markers they <em>did</em> choose are good at marking whatever-it-is that needs to be marked. Thus, the fact that they looked at howevermany others is immaterial to the scientific content of the paper and is rightly omitted.</p>\n\n<p>Now, that data could well be useful to someone else for whom markers X and Y are inadequate (maybe because of expression problems or tissue type or whatever). It would be useful to the scientific community to know what that data is (if indeed it was done carefully enough to be worth anything--maybe it wasn't, but it didn't matter because X and Y checked out). But there's no requirement to be especially helpful to the rest of the community (or to avoid being sloppy in some areas as long as you go back and do it carefully/right once you know what you're doing). So it seems reasonable to me.</p>\n\n<p>(Again, inferring from what you've said. If that screen was what <em>told</em> them that X and Y had the properties that they thought, and there is no other confirmation, then they'd <em>better</em> show that data in convincing detail!)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8269,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>What constitutes \"data\" is a highly subjective issue. If \"data\" means \"all scientific output,\" in many cases this exceeds what can reasonably be shown in a paper.</p>\n\n<p>In molecular simulations (my particular field), we may generate <em>gigabytes</em> or even <em>terabytes</em> of data for individual papers. This data needs to be crunched down and represented in figures that process the data and make sense of it to the reader, as it is plainly impossible to show the reader the same data over and over again. Thus, we choose to show only the most essential information, rather than deluge the reader with more information than can be handled either visually or in tabular form.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8239",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674/"
]
|
8,246 | <p>I notice that some universities have academic positions known as lecturers. Are these positions different from professors? Are transitions from instructors to the professor track relatively easy. This position seems similar to the adjunct professor position. </p>
<p>Note that I am talking about universities in the USA.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8247,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The terminology of positions differ from country to country. Lecturer has its origins in the British system. I know that when positions in other (non-English speaking) countries are announced internationally they may use this terminology. This is of course because each language have their own words for different positions. There is no straight translation between these systems including the system used in for example the US consisting of Assistant, Associate and Full Professors. The form of the employment also varies from country to country for historical reasons. A Lecturer is probably similar to an Assitant Professor, whether it is a permanent position or not probably varies.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8248,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In the US, I've mostly seen the title \"Lecturer\" applied to non-tenure-track, mostly non-research teaching positions. For what it's worth, <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecturer#United_States\">wikipedia agrees with me on this</a>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8249,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In many places in the US, thinking of research-oriented universities, \"lecturer\" or \"instructor\" is not at all like assistant, associate, or full prof, and is not tenure track. \"Lecturer\" and \"instructor\" are closer to \"adjunct\", and are teaching-oriented. Sometimes the positions are effectively long term, but most often just year-by-year, or even term-by-term. Any transition from these positions to tenure track would be unusual, although in the more recent economic upheaval, sometimes people take such positions just to be employed for a year, waiting out the job market.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8250,
"author": "Paul",
"author_id": 931,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/931",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I used to be a lecturer at a university in the southwest USA. As a lecturer, I was charged with only teaching lower division undergraduate courses (freshman & sophomore level). In general, research and service is not a requirement for lecturers (unlike professors), but we are required to teach a larger load than professors. And we were generally yearly appointments with no chance of tenure.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8257,
"author": "Ben Norris",
"author_id": 924,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/924",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Agreeing with the other answers, \"Lecturer\" is often the title given to full-time non-tenure track (i.e. contractual) faculty who typically only have instructional duties. Depending on the style of the institution, it may or may not be possible to move into the tenure-track. Lecturer, however, is not always a \"dead-end\". Some schools have a separate promotion system to reward and promote their non-tenure track faculty (similar to the way you would reward and promote staff). At these institutions there might be ranks, like Lecturer I, Lecturer II, Senior Lecturer, etc.</p>\n\n<p>Disagreeing with the other answers, the term \"adjunct\" usually refers to a part-time instructor. Adjuncts usually have few if any opportunities for advancement. At many institutions, adjuncts may be distinct from Lectures (as a Lecturer is a full time appointment). My institution confusingly calls full-time and part-time instructors \"Lecturer\", but then proceeds to treat them as very different types of employee.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8271,
"author": "Jeromy Anglim",
"author_id": 62,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I can give the Australian context.</p>\n\n<p>\"Lecturer\" is a rank in Australia.\nThe typical hierarchy is \"Associate Lecturer\", \"Lecturer\", \"Senior Lecturer\", \"Associate Professor\", \"Professor\" (see this <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_ranks_%28Australia_and_New_Zealand%29\">discussion</a>). Thus, on the academic ranking scale from A to E, lecturer is B.</p>\n\n<p>However, it is also common for anyone who gives lectures in a university to describe their job in terms of \"being a lecturer\". In this sense \"lecturer\" is an often informal job title that may be used by an academic at any academic rank. For example, someone might ask you what you do for a living and you might answer \"I'm a lecturer at a university\". Such a response could be given by someone at any academic rank. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8387,
"author": "Uranchimeg",
"author_id": 6257,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6257",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am teaching in University (Mongolia). In our country calling every person who is teaching in university, first \"Lecturer\". We are starting from assistant lecturer, lecturer, senior lecturer going on. If you have PhD degree you can go to next level: Associate Professor and Professor. But in generally all calling like lecturer. If you are already in Professor position your teaching hours is reducing and increasing hours for research and projects.\nDifferent between Lecturers and Professors in our meaning sounding like, have academic degree or not. But not every body can become Professor who have PhD degree. You have to be lead some main research direction or field, you have to write books about your field. \nBig difference from European countries Professor position in our university is not lifelong. After every 3 years you have to be accredited. If you are enough good by this process you can keep your position, if not your level is reducing.\nI am agree that Professor have to concentrate more to research and Lecturers can be focused for teaching.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 27702,
"author": "Josh",
"author_id": 21155,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21155",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm a staff member at an American university. Lecturers here don't take on graduate students (Research Assistants) to advise for their thesis, guiding their research, etc. which is a major component of a professor's duties and legacy.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8246",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6185/"
]
|
8,251 | <p>2 schools I applied to accepted me in early Feb.</p>
<p>The other schools I applied to have yet to respond and their sites say their admission decisions typically occur mid-march.</p>
<p>Is it accepted to contact the departments ahead of time requesting information on your app status given that you don't want to make the other schools wait too long?</p>
<p>My apologies if this is the incorrect forum to ask this question.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8253,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Most graduate schools in the U.S. follow a policy that accepted candidates are not required to make a decision until a set date agreed upon by the schools (April 15th, I believe). This means you can (and should) take as much time to make your decision as you need. It sounds like you do need to make your decision earlier than that deadline (but it might be worth finding out if the other schools do follow that policy and simply asked you to make a decision earlier), so contacting the other schools is probably a good idea.</p>\n\n<p>Remember, however, you are making a decision that will at the very least directly affect the next four to six years of your life, who you work and collaborate with, future contacts, where you live, and what your future employment prospects are! So, I'll reiterate: take the time you need, and get as much information as you can if you are up against a hard deadline.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8255,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As Chris mentioned, USgraduate programs have a common deadline. International programs have different deadlines and operate on a very different system. Sometimes this is unfortunately used as a cudgel to get students to commit to a particular group by giving a short window in which the offer is valid. </p>\n\n<p>That said, if you are faced with such a dilemma, I would recommend accepting the best offer you have at the time when the decisions are due. If a better offer comes along, u can reconsider your decision. You should note, however, that rescinding your acceptance is not something that is appreciated, particularly if you are planning to join a particular professor's research group as part of the admissions process.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8251",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6192/"
]
|
8,256 | <p>I've started a PhD recently and seen a few students from other universities visit our lab for a few days or maybe few weeks. The other university pays all expenses which many times amount to thousands of dollars. Most of the time, the visiting student gets a place, brings her/his own laptop and does research the way he does it at his university. </p>
<p>What's the point of this? Couldn't the visiting student just stay at his university and discuss his research with our lab on Skype? </p>
<p>One explanation I thought of is face to face networking but the cost seems to high for that. Or it may be an excuse to travel and see the world, but that's quite ridiculous. I also asked the visiting students, but they told me they didn't know.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8258,
"author": "Zev Chonoles",
"author_id": 222,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/222",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For me, one of the main goals of visiting the grad schools I was interested in was to figure out whether the location was somewhere I'd want to live for the next 5+ years. If the research is a good fit at a given school, but you'll be mugged, or miles away from civilization, or miles away from the nearest Thai restaurant, or whatever else that'd make you miserable, that's something you'll at least want to know when making your decision, and I think spending a few days at each of the places you're (seriously) considering is helpful in that regard. </p>\n\n<p>Also, I think you're underestimating the value of face-to-face networking. Walking around the department, chatting with the grad students, professors, etc. you bump into is much easier than scheduling a Skype session with everyone you might conceivably talk to, and yes, there are certain non-verbal cues that you'll miss when video chatting. And the general atmosphere is something to take into account too; do the grad students seem to get along, hang out together, help one another? Does no one come to their office because the building is too depressing? </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8259,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The main goal, from my experience, is the facetime with many different people. Skype is nice, but it's primarily intended for conversations with very few people. A visit allows students to to talk to many professors and students face-to-face in a short timespan, get to know the place, interact with students in a lab, and get a sense for what the place is like, something which is impossible over the 'net.</p>\n\n<p>Also, this gives the university a good chance to see what the <em>student</em> is like. It's easy to look good on paper and can put on a clean shirt (pants optional) for a skype interview. It's a lot harder to keep up a fake act in front of dozens of faculty and students over a one-or-two day period.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 16088,
"author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX",
"author_id": 725,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my experience (both sides: visiting and being where other students visit), the purpose can range all the way </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>from very narrowly defined purposes, such as learning a particular technique/method<br>\n(I'm chemist. You will not learn phyico- or bio-chemical lab techniques efficiently via skype sessions)</li>\n<li>to \"exploratory\" purposes like finding out whether a collaboration is feasible and brainstorming topics.<br>\nOf course this implies that it may turn out during the stay that for some reason the initial idea is not or not yet feasible.</li>\n<li>Or even just networking. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Most of the time, the visiting student gets a place, brings her/his own laptop and does research the way he does it at his university.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In my experience this happens when</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>collaboration as intended turns out to be impossible early during the stay: then the best option for the student may be to use the time away from the home lab to catch up with that pile of things-to-be-done. Depending on how far away the host institute is, getting an earlier flight home plus possibly the hassle of finding some place to stay because you sublet your room and the discussion whether you will be reimbursed for a room that you leave earlier but don't get refunded for that may be out of question. </li>\n<li>External constraints and/or bad planning lead to the visit being just in the wrong time: I once had the option to do a visit but that was possible only during holiday time at the host institution - not that I didn't meet the people I wanted to meet, but the meetings were spread over a longer time. (I did get quite some work done off the todo list in the meantime - but I certainly was a bit \"homeless\" at the host institution for some of the time)</li>\n<li>Bad planning of the type that some supervisors decide who (student) is to visit whom (student) and when, and one or both of the directly affected people don't really have the time. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Side note: Consider the cost of </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>further up the career path, people travel thousands of km for a visit of few hours. </li>\n<li>I had a scholarship where I was expected to put in a full day's travel to have a 1 h meeting with my mentor or give a 10 min presentation. Likewise, the mentor put in almost a full day's travel in order to have a few hours visit to my lab. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>As for what the guest's institution gets out of that:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Besides the obvious <em>chance</em> to successful collaboration or training on certain methods if the research stay is successful,</li>\n<li>it can be seen as part of the student's training (that applies particularly if e.g. a scholarship pays for the visit) \n<ul>\n<li>In a way, you have to learn how to do a research stay before becoming really efficient at that,<br>\njust like your home institution is probably not going to get that much out of your first conference visit, but without a fist, there will never be the efficient 5th conference visit. </li>\n<li>Even just \"living\" in the hosting group will add experience how other groups handle their research life. </li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Possibly, they wouldn't have gotten the student without: e.g. when I negotiated for the PhD student position, my prof threw into the deal that he would put me in contact to some other groups so I could do a research stay abroad (we did work, though, and I was paid by the hosting institution, not by my home institution)</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 16089,
"author": "Cape Code",
"author_id": 10643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The other answers cover your question from the student's and general research point of view pretty well. But if your question is why do <em>universities</em> encourage visiting students and student exchange, I can think of 2 reasons: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Publicity and improvement of their international reputation </li>\n<li>Gaining a few more points in the university rankings (example: Times Higher\nEducation has criteria named 'International Outlook')</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>On a less utilitarian note: international collaboration is, on the long haul, generally beneficial to research (even though there are a lot of exchanges that bring much less to science than to the local nightlife sector).</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8256",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/477/"
]
|
8,261 | <p>I am the teaching assistant for a course in economics, and one of my responsibilities is marking examinations.</p>
<p>I had just finished marking the midterm, and the grades were very poor. The details are (approximately):</p>
<p>Mean: 23%<br>
Standard Deviation: 5%<br>
Min: 4%<br>
Max: 68%<br>
Number of Students: 84</p>
<p>Upon consultation of the professor, I was told to scale the grades. The method he had given me was to add a fixed amount to each student's grade such that the mean would be 72%.</p>
<p>To me, this seems to be an inadequate way to correct the distribution of grades and would be unfair to the students who did score much higher than the class mean.</p>
<p>My question is, <strong>what is the best way to rescale the grades for an examination such that the it is fair to all the students in the class?</strong></p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8262,
"author": "che_kid",
"author_id": 6093,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6093",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are several ways you could scale the tests. You could take the top score, make it 100%, then add the same amount to everyone's scores. You could take the average, add a certain amount to everyone's score so that the new average is some value you desire. You could have a sliding scale so those with lowest scores get most added, while those with highest scores get least added. </p>\n\n<p>Without knowing the desired outcomes or what constitutes an \"A\", \"B\", or \"C\", it is hard to say what you should scale your scores to.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8264,
"author": "Rex Kerr",
"author_id": 669,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/669",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>First, let's acknowledge that this was a <em>horrible</em> test. You have almost no power to discriminate between the different abilities of the students with a mean of 23% and a standard deviation of 5%.</p>\n\n<p>Then you have to decide what to do. Personally, I'd decrease the weight of this test in acknowledgement that it was a poor test (or allow students the option of letting something else count for more). But if you just want to solve it numerically, there are the following constraints:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>You can't have a top score of more than 100%</li>\n<li>The mean is required to be 72%</li>\n<li>You want all differences to still mean something</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>If you add 49% to the grades, you get a mean of 72% but your top score is now 117%. You could cap it at 90-95% or so, but the top students would be indistinguishable. So you'd have to scale back by squashing the grades also, e.g. by multiplying the difference from 23% by (28/45) to get it back in range. This will make the students distinguishable but not <em>meaningfully</em> so.</p>\n\n<p>Really the best option is to change the grading scheme so that you have a higher mean and more distinction between different scores (to the extent that this is possible). For example, you can give a number of points for attempting a problem at all, a number of points for writing down anything which has a bearing on the right answer, etc..</p>\n\n<p>You can just directly transform your old scores into new scores with the mean and deviation you like, however. Let <code>icdfG(p)</code> be the value at which the probability of getting a lower percentile score <code>p</code> from a Normal distribution with mean 0 and standard deviation is 1. Then you can just calculate percentiles and map</p>\n\n<pre><code>new score = 72 + icdfG(percentile)*10\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>or something to get a mean of 72 and a standard deviation of 10. (Your top student in a class of 84 would have a percentile of 83.5/84 if you did it this way.) Your top student would have a score of 97 under this scheme (and the second to top a score of 93)</p>\n\n<p>Otherwise, you're probably best off using a nonlinear transform; <code>arctan</code> is a nice function for that since it will squash down the tails; and you probably want a SD of at least 10 not 5, so you could do something like</p>\n\n<pre><code>new score = 72 + 50/Pi * arctan((score - 23)/10)\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>which would give a max score if 93.5, a min score of 54.7, and one standard deviation up and down would give 79.4 and 64.6 respectively.</p>\n\n<p>But again, the better options are to devalue the test as a bad test, and to change the grading scheme (an awful lot of work, but it will give fairer results).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 123122,
"author": "Sam",
"author_id": 103097,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/103097",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Take the sqrt of the raw grade (present raw grade as a percent) and you will get something that looks ok.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 123127,
"author": "guest",
"author_id": 103024,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/103024",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Do exactly what he said! Not from slavish obedience but because it works surprisingly well. IOW add 49% (= 72%-23%) to each person's grade. [Actually now that I think about it...even simpler is to just add 50%. Very easy to understand.]</p>\n\n<p>New scale:\n Mean: 73%\n Min: 54%\n Max: 118%</p>\n\n<p>The average is now a \"low C\". (Assuming normal 60-70-80-90 F-D-C-B-A boundaries.) This mean is probably a little lower than normal but is reasonable enough that you don't get cries of murder for the tough exam. (Especially since they are getting thrown a bone versus no change.) And probably the class needs some remnant of a \"spanking\" for doing poorly. So low C is a good mean for this individual test.</p>\n\n<p>The min will be an F now but not such a killer that semester is lost for those who failed it (if they do well rest of course can pass the course, maybe even eke out a gentleman's C). And there will probably be a handful of Fs but not that many. Some failures out of a group of 84 is normal.</p>\n\n<p>The student who got 68% will have an over 100% mark now. Which she probably deserves. It quells some of the complaining from the Hermione Granger types that feels slighted when the standards are lowered after they perform well and the class gets a break. </p>\n\n<p>I think if you try it, you will find a very reasonable grouping into F/D/C/B/A set. Plus it has the added advantage of doing what you were told (merely as a bonus). Plus...you don't need to totally overthink this. It is one test out of a few.</p>\n\n<p>One further added benefit is the simplicity. Instead of having to explain some gawdawful transform (like binning each quintile or square root of arctangents). You just have a quick difference. Easy to process for you. And easy to understand for the class. Sometimes simple better beats complicated perfect.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8261",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
|
8,265 | <p>I mean both the salary a department offers to new hires and to already hired faculty members. I would prefer answers specifically about math departments, but I would also be interested in answers about departments in other STEM fields as well as other fields such as the humanities or the social sciences.</p>
<p>My motivation for this question came from another question I asked recently on another <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/197oit/how_do_university_math_departments_improve/">website</a>. I had asked specifically how math departments improve and received the answer that with enough money, a math department could hire and keep the best researchers in some specific field. Now I'm asking here to confirm that that is indeed the case for math departments, but I am now also interested in seeing if this applies to all departments in academia in general.</p>
<p><strong>EDIT</strong>:
I cannot give a specific criteria for "quality" as I assume this may vary from field to field. What I can say somewhat concretely, though, is that research productivity should be weighted above attention to teaching. Of course, if a department happens to have one or two extremely productive researchers in some specific field but does not offer a PhD program, then I would not considered that department a top department.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8267,
"author": "Rex Kerr",
"author_id": 669,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/669",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I know people who have changed their mind about where to go for ~20% increase in salary. It wouldn't make them go to a terrible place instead of a great one, but it was enough to weigh advantages. I also know people who have not changed their mind about where to go for a >30% increase in salary, but that this was viewed as somewhat surprising by people who heard it (given that the places were otherwise not <em>that</em> different).</p>\n\n<p>Based on this very limited data set, I would speculate that in the 20-30% range you'd have substantial power to attract faculty members a tier higher than your reputation would otherwise allow.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8268,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>There are several main <em>financial</em> factors faculty candidates must consider when weighing offers:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Salary and resultant standard of living</li>\n<li>Overall compensation package (health, retirement and pension, other benefits)</li>\n<li>Institutional support (resources, personnel, infrastructure)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The first two are with respect to the financial resources committed directly to the faculty member; the last is the amount of resources committed to the professor's working group. It is difficult to say how much the different factors are weighted, as this is highly subjective and personal.</p>\n\n<p>However, I would caution against considering <em>absolute</em> salaries as a metric; salaries always have to be considered relative to the cost of living in one's environment. (Would you rather have $50,000 in New York City or $40,000 in Akron?)</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8265",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5985/"
]
|
8,270 | <p>I heard for the second time today that a discipline is "superfluous". This comment was made by a young assistant professor, who does not do research in this discipline. Just to be fair to the commenter, that was not a serious comment, but just a casual remark.</p>
<p>However, I think deep in his mind he believes that this discipline is "superfluous". And deep in my mind I have the same doubt from time to time. Can a discipline be superfluous? How do you know whether a discipline is worth researching or not?</p>
<p>PS: In this case this discipline is HCI (human computer interaction), but you could replace it with any other discipline.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8272,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Superfluous usually means unnecessary. So the person is claiming that a discipline is unnecessary. Presumably, this is a claim that can be investigated further: does research in that discipline have any kind of external impact ? does it affect other related disciplines ? Is there at least a path from the questions being asked to some future impact ? </p>\n\n<p>In fact these are all good questions to ask about any discipline, whether it's deemed superfluous or not. And these are good questions to ask about one's own research in a discipline. </p>\n\n<p>p.s While this is off topic, there's a common feeling among CS folks that HCI is either fluffy or superfluous. All of these people are also forbidden from using a Kinect, any video game console, a tablet interface, or even a smartphone. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8273,
"author": "Luke Mathieson",
"author_id": 1370,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1370",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The first question is open to the typical mathematician's answer: Can a discipline be superfluous? Yes, of course it <em>can</em>. More usefully however, I think there's a more nuanced version which is also interesting: can a discipline <em>as an academic research area</em> be superfluous? This is a different (though not completely disjoint question): an area can be very important, but conducting research \"in it\" is unnecessary.</p>\n\n<p>Using your HCI example, it's clearly not superfluous in the general sense, but is it necessary to devote academics to it when there's plenty of corporations who are going to perhaps do the work anyway? (I do have an opinion here, but the phrasing here doesn't necessarily indicate it, and it's not really worth discussing in this forum.)</p>\n\n<p>The second question is much, much harder though (in the general case). If you can tell, reliably, if a discipline is superfluous, you are worth a lot of money in many, many fields. The obvious example is large swathes of mathematics, sometimes the uses that make them relevant don't appear for centuries. Other areas seem really important, but produce nothing that ever proves relevant (or to really emphasise the point, <em>hasn't yet</em> proven relevant).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8285,
"author": "posdef",
"author_id": 5674,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's a tricky subject really... The questions are clearly very subjective, or rather any possible answer to these questions would be subjective.</p>\n\n<p>For what it's worth, I <em>do</em> think that a field can be superfluous, in the meaning that a field might get outdated, or \"deprecated\", based on the assumption that more money (and time) invested in that field will most likely not yield any significant results. One such example I can think of is, anatomy. It used to be a critical area of research within medical faculties, but during the second half of the 1900s anatomy research has shrunk and eventually died out in many, if not all, medical research institutes. </p>\n\n<p>Whether or not a field is worth researching is a HUGE question, in my humble opinion. Even deciding on whether or not a specific idea within a field is worth the trouble is tricky, and I believe it's a quality that a few of us may have, or develop after many years in research. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8270",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/773/"
]
|
8,274 | <p>I just graduated with a Ph.D. in Asia. And I'm considering to look for a postdoc position in US in the field of computer science (to be specific, machine learning and computer vision). But I don't want to go for a faculty position (at least I don't want to at this moment) in the future. I'd prefer to find some research position in industry or some research institute in US. My question is that do you think one or two years' postdoc experience really helpful for a research career, considering it may not be that easy for an oversea student to directly get a research position in industry or research institutes?</p>
<p>Some of the advantages I can think of are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Postdoc's supervisor's networking with other people in industry or researh institutes</li>
<li>More publications before job hunting</li>
<li>Get to know more people in my area</li>
</ol>
<p>Hope to hear some advice from you. Thank you very much.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8275,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Although CS post-docs are somewhat rare compared to many other fields, you have the right idea that it is a good idea as a stepping stone for further research or faculty positions down the road. If you're willing to take a position and can find one, I don't think there are any downsides if you do indeed continue to publish and make contacts. I would also suggest broadening your search to European positions, as there are many excellent opportunities at outstanding institutions there, as well.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8276,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It's hard to define \"helpful\": yes, it's better to do a postdoc in a top place rather than staying at home, but if you want to work in research industry, it might be better to do some development for a year rather a completely unrelated postdoc in the middle of nowhere. </p>\n\n<p>If you want to apply for a position, you have to understand the competition you might be facing: positions in the top research labs (public/private) are highly attractive, and you would be facing people with good achievements in academia (publications in top venues, PI for important grants, extensive network for collaboration, etc), and/or people with good achievement in industry (project managers, success for a specific product, good contact with academia, etc). </p>\n\n<p>So, the question is not whether it's good or not to do a postdoc, but what will a particular postdoc bring to you: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>a different research topic, increasing your multi/inter-disciplinary skills</li>\n<li>a very promising research topic, potentially increasing your visibility by publishing at top venues</li>\n<li>a collaboration with industry, thus increasing your academia/industry network</li>\n<li>etc</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>A good approach could be to check, when available, the CVs of the people working at a research lab you could be interested to, as it could give you a good idea of what they did before joining the lab. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8274",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4284/"
]
|
8,278 | <p>I have gotten an idea in the field of Computer Science that it can result in a research paper. The problem is that I lack the adequate background in one part needed for this research, mostly mathematical stuff. I have contacted one professor in Europe by email, and asked some mild questions about some topics that could be helpful. The doubt that I have is if I should better tell to that professor about my whole research idea, so maybe he/she would be able to help me more.</p>
<p>Actually I am a university lecturer and independent researcher, but in the university that I am working they do not give any salary or benefits for making research. I am doing this mostly because I like it.</p>
<p>Should I tell to that professor my whole idea? or maybe that person could steal it and because he/she has research funds can do it and leaving me aside?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8281,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>You need to consider what role you want the math professor to take: are you looking for a co-author, a collaborator, a consultant, or a service provider.</p>\n\n<p>Since you lack background in one area and are working in a place that does not prioritize publications, I would consider bring the individual on as a co-author. If that is your decision you need to provide the co-author with everything you are planning on doing so that he/she can make an informed decision. This obviously puts you at risk of being scooped. This then leads to the question of how to minimize the chances of being scooped. The first thing to remember is most researchers do not want to get into a publish first race. Scooping tends to be accidental and a result of two people independently starting the same/similar projects. You can minimize your chances by contacting an established person who is known to play \"nice\". The second thing you can do is to bring the research along as far as you can without the collaborator. This means they will be starting from so far back that it is unwise to enter the race.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8282,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is a common in most fields, I am not a mathematician and hear it occassionally in my field as well. The simple answer is that there are never any guarantees against that someone will/can \"steal\" an idea. I write quotation marks because there is a grey zone between really taking it and getting own similar ideas based on pieces of information.</p>\n\n<p>One way to establish \"ownership\" of the idea is to provide something tangible that provides documentation of the idea with your name on it such as an abstract from a conference, poster contribution or something similar. I cannot see if this would be possible in your case, given that you say you are lacking some pieces.</p>\n\n<p>Approaching another scientist to establish a collaboration is a good idea. I would not use the suspicion that the idea will be stolen as a basic assumption, the large majority of scientists do not steal ideas in my opinion. So the problem is to increase your knowledge about the person(s) you intend to contact. Does someone in your neighbourhod know the person(s)? Try to hear if they have a reputation (good or bad, no partuclar reputation is also good in my opinion). Then write and ask about the interest in collaborating, specifying what expertise you seek in the collaoration. How much you wish to reveal of your complete idea is difficult to say but you will have to provide enough detail to clearly explain why the sought expertise is required. If you then have some way to indicate the your idea is known as your idea by others, it may work as a deterrent but I would avoid being to \"paranoid\" in the first approach.</p>\n\n<p>I do not know if this will help you in your quest but getting to know your possible contact will help to remove the unknowns which are instrumental in building your uncertainty.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8287,
"author": "tomasz74",
"author_id": 5973,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5973",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't have a big academic experience yet, but would like to share what I learnt.</p>\n\n<p>First of all if you have an idea you can write a technical report where you describe what you doing, what you found up to that point. If you place the technical report on the University website, you can always say that you started with the idea and you wanted to develop it to a research paper but you have a trace that it is yours. (If you don't have data and results yet, you can write technical note where you describe what you going to do)</p>\n\n<p>Second thing I learned is that if you have a good name on your paper just after your one, the paper will be somehow \"stronger\". Probably researchers will look first for the name of a well known professor and his publications instead of your one if you don't have many. Your name should be first anyway as it is your idea. In future your paper will be cited more often and will get better score. As far as I know it is worth to have co-authors.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8294,
"author": "Dikran Marsupial",
"author_id": 2827,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2827",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Collaboration (and co-authoring) is generally a good thing in science. Very few people can be a real expert in more than one field, so if you lack the skills needed to write a solid paper, recruit someone as a collaborator (but always make sure that their contribution is appropriately rewarded or other researchers won't want to work with you).</p>\n\n<p>I would tell the prof that you have a good idea for a paper, but that you need to work with a mathematician and ask him/her if he/she would like to collaborate, and then decide whether to tell him/her the details once you hear what sort of terms would suit him/her. Be direct and up-front about what you want; it may not go down too well if the Prof. gets the idea that you are trying to milk them for the information you want via the \"mild questions\" without them getting due credit.</p>\n\n<p>In my experience though, the easiest way to get a mathematician you can trust is to marry one. ;o)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8309,
"author": "Nobody",
"author_id": 546,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You already asked him some mild questions. Obviously, you feel that the answer from him is not enough for you to go on. You need more info for you to carry out your research.</p>\n\n<p>Ethically speaking, if he participates in your research, you need to give him credits for his contribution. At the very least, you need to mention him in the Acknowledgement section in your paper.</p>\n\n<p>Or, you can cite his contribution in the paper. I have seen authors do this by saying some thing like</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <blockquote>\n <p>J. Doe (private communication, 2013).</p>\n </blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You can refer to <a href=\"http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/11/\" rel=\"nofollow\">this link</a></p>\n\n<p>It would be even better to include him as a coauthor. It’s up to you.</p>\n\n<p>If you want to be the single author of the paper and worry that he might steal your idea after you tell him details of your idea, then I would suggest you to</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <blockquote>\n <p><strong>Narrow down the math stuff to general math only questions.</strong></p>\n </blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You are working on CS related research, he may or may not know what you are up to. He may not even be interested in your CS subject. Most mathematicians just want to do math stuff only.</p>\n\n<p>Once you can narrow down your questions to math only, not only you can ask him but also you can ask your questions on public forums such as our sister site Math SE or MathOverflow. (I see that you already asked a question on Math SE. Have you tried MO?)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 78979,
"author": "Raúl Machado",
"author_id": 63643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63643",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, I strongly suggest you to study THAT yourself. \nAt the end of the day, if the \"professor\" collaborates with you, and if he made a mistake, you will be to blame as well. \nLikely, the \"professor\" will tell you things like \"sure I can help you\" when in reality he will pass it to one of his PhD students.\nYou claim to have a Computer Science degree, right?\nThen, you have some math background. Well, use that to study that for yourself. Get better on math. Do not think about the paper now, but about learning.\nAs a researcher you have learn so do it. \nThen, if you further believe you want help, look for it. \n(Maybe I can help you, btw)\nGood luck :) </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8278",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6144/"
]
|
8,279 | <p>I have my paper back from a reviewer. The main point is that a quality of the image is not good enough for the publication. I reproduced this image from another paper (with permission) but the only thing I could do, was a print screen of the original and paste into graphical software. I improved the quality by smoothing, but it is still not good enough for the publisher. </p>
<p>The reviewer comment: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The quality of the figures 1 and 2 is still not good. I recommend authors convert the schematics into vector graphics.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I can't find what and how to do it. Did you have a similar problem and solved it?</p>
<p>EDIT to explain what is on the figure:
The figure shows elements of a vehicle with dimensions (numbers), different coordinate systems, force... it is rather complicated and maybe I could redraw the arrows (alhough many of them) but the background is a photo of the element.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8280,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is difficult to provide a detailed reply without knowing more about the figure, for example if it is a photograph or a line graph. I will therefore concentrate on the general aspects.</p>\n\n<p>First, the best would be if you could get some form of original from the author (or whoever) has the copyright). Screen dumps are clearly not sufficient since printing requires high resolution (300 dpi in final reproduction size is a commonly quoted resolution in journals)</p>\n\n<p>Second, if it is a line graph, and it sounds as if that is the case, I would argue that the best way is to put the image in the background of a vector-based drawing program such as Inkscape/Illustrator/Corel Draw and manually redraw the figure. This is done by placing the illustration in a background layer and then draw lines in the program to reproduce the background. This requires learning a vector-based software and is a tough solution for the short-term but one I strongly recommend for the long-term. If the plot is based on data, for example a scatter graph, then you could digitize the data and re-plot it as long as you think of the re-plot as a version of the original plot and not use data points for additional analysis.</p>\n\n<p>There are of course numerous kinds of complicated plots where the second approach will not work so trying to get the source would be the first choice. Screen dump quality bitmaps will be rejected by most if not all journals.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8283,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Without going into the <em>how</em> of your question (which @Peter Jansson answered succinctly), I would say that going forward you should always try to have the best quality graphs when you provide a submission. That means they should either be vector graphics (i.e., graphics that do not rely on bitmapped representation but rather are scalable), or high DPI (dots per inch); I try for 600dpi in all images that aren't vector.</p>\n\n<p>Tips: if your graphic has a .jpg, .gif, .png, or .tiff extension, it is not a vector graphic. If it has a .eps or .pdf extension, it <em>may</em> be a vector graphic, but you need to zoom in to ensure that the lines are not turning fuzzy. If it is a .svg, it is (I think) a vector graphic, but I always do the zoom test to make sure.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, always do a zoom test on all your graphics in your PDF submissions. I've had vector graphics turn into bitmapped graphics during the conversion-to-PDF stage. If that happens, you need to figure out where the problem is taking place and fix it (e.g., it could be that your conversion from .eps to .pdf for an individual figure changes the image, and another conversion tool might be able to handle it properly).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8286,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Many PDF viewers (including Adobe Acrobat, Skim, and Preview on the Mac) can be used to copy regions out of a PDF file as independent PDF files. (A typical workflow is to select a rectangle with the marquee tool, Copy, and then New from Clipboard.) In particular, you can extract pixelmap graphics from PDF files at exactly the same resolution as they appear in the source PDF, and you can extract vector graphics. If there are undesired elements of the paper that overlap the figure, you can usually remove them in Adobe Illustrator, which reads and writes PDF files natively, so editing will preserve vector graphics and pixelmap resolution.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8279",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5973/"
]
|
8,291 | <p>I feel awkward addressing myself as Dr. X or Prof X. I know that this is common practice (e.g. in emails, letters, etc..). In emails, I prefer to just use my initials or first name. Is this a common experience (i.e. not wanting to be addressed as Dr. or Professor)?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8292,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Use whatever you feel comfortable with. That said, you should also tailor it to the type of correspondence when necessary. A formal letter should include a formal address for yourself, and less formal can be more or less whatever you'd like. In dealing with students, I generally sign school related emails as \"Dr. G.,\" (with just the first letter of my last name) but I've also taught classes where I've gone by my first name exclusively, and let the students decide how to address me, after telling them it is fine with me if they use my first name. More formal student correspondence (e.g., if I'm cc'ing another instructor, or if the matter involves the administration) gets my full last name, and correspondence to colleagues is almost always my first name.</p>\n\n<p>I also have a signature block, that includes my title, full name, email address and (sometimes) my telephone number.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8307,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've been using my initials as the \"sign-off\" for my emails as long as I've had my email account. The difference between a formal email and an informal one is whether or not I include the \"name block\" or if I leave it out, which greeting I use (\"Dear Prof. X\" or \"Dear Y\"), and which valediction I use (\"Sincerely\" versus \"Thanks\" or \"Cheers\" or the like).</p>\n\n<p>Normally, I don't know many people who sign their full names to an email. For an <em>official letter,</em> however, your address should be your full name, unless you know the recipient well enough to be on a first name basis with them. (And even then you might still opt for the full name!)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8321,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There seems to be two questions/issues here.</p>\n\n<p>A lot of people I know do not use Dr/Prof/PhD when referring to themselves and in email signatures. I would say that this is quite common and perfectly acceptable.</p>\n\n<p>The final statement you make is \"not wanting to be addressed as Dr. or Professor.\" I think this is quite a bit rarer. I know a lot of people who tell students that they can call them by first name or Dr, or whatever they are comfortable with. I also know people who say \"please call me by by first name\". I don't know anyone who ever says \"please don't call me Dr. or Professor.\" I would go so far as to say that demanding someone not use an honorific, or being offended when they do, is uncommon and not proper.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 25627,
"author": "enthu",
"author_id": 15723,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think that it depends on type of email or letter you are writing. </p>\n\n<p>When you are writing an official email, it is better to use your initial as <code>Dr.</code>, but when you are writing to a friend I prefer not to use <code>Dr.</code> or <code>Prof.</code>. However, It all depends on the person. Some people prefer to be called <code>Professor Doctor Name Surname</code> even by their close friends and some other are nicer and using their given name is sufficient for them.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32911,
"author": "anomaly",
"author_id": 17411,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17411",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This answer is US-centric and based on my own experiences, so take it with a grain of salt.</p>\n\n<p>\"Professor\" is a job title; \"Doctor\" is an academic title. Unless you're dealing with your students (in or outside of class), it's usually not necessary to refer yourself or to be referred to as \"Prof. Lastname.\" It's common, at least in the United States, for anyone from grad students on up (and occasionally undergrads) to refer to each other by their first names, even over email. </p>\n\n<p>A signature block is a good way to get around the issue; something like:</p>\n\n<pre><code>Dr. Firstname Lastname\nFlorple Professor of Theoretical Blorplonomics\nFoobarbaz University, Room 12-345, (555)-123-4567\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>conveys your rank and title without having to worry about whether you should address yourself as Dr. Prof. X, Prof. X, Dr. X, etc. (In most situations, at least in science in the United States, being a professor implies that you have a doctorate, so the \"Dr.\" above isn't necessary. The same line of thought about the email signature applies to doctors outside of academia, though.)</p>\n\n<p>Personally, I generally just use my name, without any titles, except when (a) I'm in a formal or professional setting; (b) most of the people I'm around don't have similar titles; and (c) it matters professionally that I have such titles. Those situations don't occur very often.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8291",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6210/"
]
|
8,295 | <p>I am asking with respect to decoding a job ad for an assistant professor position at a US University. The ad essentially asks how my talents and goals relate to a 'liberal arts environment'. Previously I associated 'liberal arts' with the major that goes by that name, or thought that it simply meant well-rounded, which is something a student could get at any school. So I guess another version of my question is, what isn't a liberal arts environment at a US university?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8296,
"author": "jcmeloni",
"author_id": 6194,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6194",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While I don't mean to make these binaries -- because they really aren't and there is a lot of fluidity in humanistic endeavors involving technology and likewise technology that is deeply invested in humanistic thinking, etc -- what \"<em>isn't</em> a \"liberal arts environment\" is a STEM environment (science, technology, engineering, math). </p>\n\n<p>Working in a liberal arts environment in general means there is room for and the expectations of independent and outside-of-the-box thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving, rather than what some might call more rigid practices and procedures. Often, a premium is placed on one's ability to communicate opinions and interpretations effectively, and to listen to and consider alternatives -- sometimes to the point where the conversations and the path toward problem-solving ends up more important and useful to the organization (and yourself) more than the actual answer itself. Projects and research tends toward better and fully understanding human nature and society, rather than tangible products, per se. </p>\n\n<p>Or, it could simply mean you'll be working with a bunch of English and History professors instead of Biology professors.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Note</strong>: This answer was written when this question was at <a href=\"http://workplace.stackexchange.com\">The Workplace SE</a>, and it did not have specifics about the position itself as it does now. This answer is more appropriate for someone taking a general staff position within a college or university and not for a faculty position that is already in a specific field.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8299,
"author": "marialopex",
"author_id": 6210,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6210",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A liberal arts environment generally focuses on teaching, research, and service. Teaching seems to be the biggest component of a liberal arts environment. Service is also important. A good research program is important also, it is just that more time is spent teaching and honing teaching skills. Usually, teaching evaluations have more weight than publishing in high impact journals.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8303,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is an important distinction to make between a \"liberal arts <em>college</em>\" and a liberal arts environment in general.</p>\n\n<p>The former indicates a particular kind of school, normally without graduate schools and professional degree programs, which specializes largely in undergraduate education. While faculty and students do participate in research activities, they are not nearly as extensive or as important as at research universities.</p>\n\n<p>The liberal arts environment, on the other hand, is the tradition in which essentially all modern Western university operates. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8295",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4269/"
]
|
8,297 | <p>First some background. Two years ago I joined a research group as a research associate. My intention in obtaining that position was to publish with the group and build some academic capital, but in the two years I have been there, I have been steered toward support work and software development, and away from research. I have not been included in any of the group's publications and have had to publish unrelated work on my own. </p>
<p>I subsequently found out that to justify the Ph.D. requirement for the position I hold, my employers added a few sentences to the job description to suggest that research would be the central focus of the work. Within my group I am seen as a system administrator and IT specialist. This is apparently what my employers really wanted.</p>
<p>I’m also acutely aware that I lack the superior eloquence of my more persuasive colleagues. (This inability would hamper me not only in academia but in virtually any career.) My superiors cannot be persuaded that the system I have been assigned to create, intended to demonstrate (nonexistent) technical capabilities to a skeptical funding agency, has already been executed by several competent, experienced and well-funded teams of more than one person. The project is an all-consuming, deeply anxiety inducing death march for which I am underqualified. Against this, I have at least three competing projects which cannot receive the exclusive, full-time attention each deserves, and I am continually interrupted with trivial software installation requests and technical failures rare enough not to have been documented in the ever-expanding global online archive of technical minutia, to which StackExchange is a prominent contributor. The perspective is that information technology hasn’t specialized in the past 30 years–nothing is too trivial to undertake (except for them) or too specialized and technical to require immersion and consistent practice. It is the menial and urgent work of cleaning digital bedpans.</p>
<p>I don’t have a family or children–I did not want them. I wanted to work in an environment where I could be paid for research. The compensation is $24K less than the administrative position I previously held. I feel that it is self-defeating for me to continue supporting professors, postdocs, and postgraduate and undergraduate students. There is little incentive to promote an individual assigned to projects that provide funding for the group, and to activities that support the research efforts of others, but which are unlikely themselves to result in publication. </p>
<p>But since my work as a mental technician is valued, I'm wondering whether I might as well seek better compensated employment outside of academia, where I would not have the indignity of supporting persons whose career opportunities are foreclosed to me.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8300,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This sounds terrible and also highly questionable on the part of the research group. To provide help is difficult since the question really is one for you to solve in the sense that you need to think about your options. As I understand you stand very good chances of getting employed if you decide to leave your current position so employment does not seem to be the issue. This is a positive aspect of the situation because you have a \"way out\".</p>\n\n<p>The decision is whether you value to continue with research (in its true sense). Added to your will is also the market of research positions. A careful check of what is out there and also possibly some contacts with groups/persons that are working on topics that within your sphere of interest. this allows you to sound out your possibilities so that you could set a time frame on your decision, when to pull the plug.</p>\n\n<p>So i think the decision is exclusively yours and it hinges on probing your interests and the possibilities around you. I hope this is of some assistance.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8302,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your writing certainly does not betray a \"lack of eloquence\"; in fact, it's probably better than most of the computer scientists I know!</p>\n\n<p>That said, as JeffE has indicated, you are being mishandled by your employers, and I would strongly encourage you to find a new position as soon as possible. However, it is important to point out that your situation is <em>not</em> academic versus industrial, but instead good employer versus bad employer. The distinction is crucial.</p>\n\n<p>In any position, there will be parts of your job that are less appealing than others; the absolute \"dream job\" which you're happy about 100% only exists in Utopia. The key is to make sure that the important parts of your job give you more satisfaction than the less desirable aspects take away. Here, this clearly isn't the case. That does <strong>not</strong> mean that you can't find what you're looking for, either in industry <em>or</em> in academia. What it does mean is that you need to find it somewhere else than where you are, because it's clear the job isn't going to change in any sort of meaningful way in the short term.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8310,
"author": "CyberFonic",
"author_id": 6215,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6215",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Perhaps the situation in Ireland is different from other parts of the Commonwealth. But I would have thought that the role of \"research associate\" would be that of a support person and not on the track to acquiring a PhD nor a means of building up \"academic capital\".</p>\n\n<p>In my experience, you'd first need to acquire a PhD as the first step to building up your \"academic capital\" - another term for publish or perish (aka get funding or perish)</p>\n\n<p>In the absence of more information it would appear that there is a difference between what you thought you were being hired for and what your employer hired you to do. Another point ... you say \"employer\"; is that an academic institution? or some enterprise undertaking research?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8311,
"author": "H. D.",
"author_id": 6216,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6216",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You are being taken advantage of. </p>\n\n<p>You should check the rules at your institution relating to authorship. It sounds like you have made a significant intellectual contribution to the papers that were published, so you deserve to be listed on them as an author. There are means by which you can have yourself rightfully listed as an author on the papers.</p>\n\n<p>The practice of more established academics taking advantage of postdocs and research assistants is widspread in university departments worldwide. Your situation is all too common.</p>\n\n<p>It does however sound like that you \"walked into\" the situation a little bit, and that you should have been more assertive and forthright from the start about your role in the team, your contribution to the papers that were published, and your rights as an author.</p>\n\n<p>You should move on and view the situation as a learning experience for next time, and improve your self confidence and assertivenes.</p>\n\n<p>Btw not sure what not having a wife and kids has to do with anything apart from you are able to take more risks with your career?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8312,
"author": "Fabian Fagerholm",
"author_id": 2645,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2645",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The answers so far have many good points: you are being abused, you have been misled, you would do well to seek employment elsewhere, perhaps you were not assertive enough, and so on. But I believe <em>none of that matters much compared to your decisions from this point on</em>. You sound like a person who prefers to think ahead and plan important decisions rather than improvising—many researchers are thinkers who want to weigh their options and take their time to come to decisions. If you wish, you may plan for retribution and for taking a fight, but in the end this will not make your current workplace any more healthy for you to work in. I would suggest the following concrete steps of action:</p>\n\n<p>Find the job advertisement you responded to, the written job description, your letter of application with any supplements (even if it was just an email), your employment contract, and any other documents (including emails) that pertain to the decision to accept your current employment. File these together in a place where they are safe and where you can find them if needed. Make copies. <em>Assert to yourself that you were promised something that was not delivered.</em></p>\n\n<p>Gather the articles you have written or started to write, regardless of whether they are published or not. Also, make a list of other work you have performed during your employment. For example, list the features you have implemented in the software system you described. File them together in a place where you can easily find them. <em>Assert to yourself that you have performed well in your work despite the situation.</em></p>\n\n<p>Look for a new job that is certain to either include research opportunities or to be totally unrelated to research but limited enough to allow you the mental capacity you need to conduct research on your own. Perhaps this position can be found within your current university, but in another group. Choose carefully and ask direct questions about what is most important for you: \"how many days a week will I be able to work on research?\", \"how many days a week will I have to do overtime?\", etc. Ask to meet one or two of your potential co-workers and ask them if they believe you would get what you are looking for. Be friendly and remember it is not their fault your current supervisor is misbehaving. <em>Assert to yourself that you can consider the options in your own time and that the responses to your direct questions are what matters in your choice, not feelings that you are fabricating out of previous bad experiences.</em></p>\n\n<p>Agree on the date when you will start in the new job, taking into account the conditions of your current employment. When you have signed the contract for the new position, immediately notify your current supervisor that you will move to another job and ask for a prioritised list of tasks that you should complete before leaving. Complete these tasks to the best of your ability and ask for a letter of reference. <em>Assert to yourself that you have fulfilled the conditions of your employment and are entitled to a reference.</em></p>\n\n<p>If your supervisor asks for a reason for you leaving, or becomes unreasonable, explain shortly that based on the job description, you thought you had a research position but it has turned out to be a technical position. Your supervisor is likely to try to bargain with you, and try to promise you more research opportunities in the future. Don't trust this promise—it comes from the person who misled you and who cannot be trusted. Stay firm but polite and state that you feel it is time for you to move on. Keep repeating this if the supervisor insists: you wanted to do research but the position is technical, and it is now time for you to move on. <em>Assert to yourself that you have no obligation to explain your personal choices.</em></p>\n\n<p>If your supervisor does not write the letter of recommendation, politely but shortly remind him a few (three) times (do it over email and save the emails), but then let it be. He will owe you one, and if you ever meet in the future, he will be the one who didn't behave properly. <em>Assert to yourself that you have resolved the situation by your own actions and that any remaining problems are not yours.</em></p>\n\n<p>If you got a new research position, engage frequently with your new supervisor and agree on writing a joint article. Make it something simple that you can complete soon. Focus on getting that article out, even at the expense of other assignments. Then keep repeating the exercise, taking on larger and larger projects, involving other members of your group. <em>Share your successes and failures in your new job with your supervisor and your peers, and listen to their encouragement and advice.</em></p>\n\n<p>If you didn't get a new research position, relax in your new job. Don't take on new things and just let your supervisor assign tasks to you. However, always carry out those tasks well. In your spare time, you can now complete the work you had started before, and build a small portfolio to support you in applying for a research position. <em>Assert to yourself that you are not going into the game that your supervisor went into—you proceed in your own pace.</em></p>\n\n<p>The most important thing after getting out of your current situation is not to bring with you any maladaptive behaviour that you may have developed as a result of the stressful and unreasonable environment you have worked in.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8297",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6211/"
]
|
8,305 | <p>I help with typesetting of one scientific journal: I recieve the articles in the form in which they were finally accepted, and I re-format them etc. to make them ready for publication. Currently, my title in the journal colophon says: "<strong>Graphic Design and Typesetting: M. Name</strong>".</p>
<p>However, I get the impression that this position is in the scientific jargon usually called "<strong>Copy Editor</strong>", which would suit the colophon quite well since there are other "Editors" listed there (Language, Guest, Editor-in-charge, etc.). I want to make sure whether this is appropriate or not.</p>
<p>So: <em>Who am I?</em></p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8306,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A copy editor is usually the person who runs through the manuscript checking that it adheres to the style of the journal. this includes checking references, checking figure numbering but also spelling and language, in short almost everything. The copy editor improves the paper from these formal/technical points of view. It is not usually the copy editor that typesets the paper because that is usually done by a typesetter involved with the printer. Having said that, with purely electronic publication it is more likely that this task would also end up with a copy editor. Thus the old demarcation lines between copy editor and printer may be less and less clear. </p>\n\n<p>The editors usually handle scientific content and managing contacts between reviewers and authors on matters of the scientific content as well as making decisions. The name for this varies a lot between journals.</p>\n\n<p>So who are you? Your current \"title\" may be OK but if you also improve the formal and technical quality of the paper, copy editor would be most appropriate.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8308,
"author": "JRN",
"author_id": 64,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>According to <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_editing\">Wikipedia</a>,</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Typically, copy editing involves correcting spelling, punctuation, grammar, terminology, jargon, and semantics, and ensuring that the text adheres to the publisher's style or an external style guide [...].</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You say that you \"re-format\" articles. I assume you mean things like changing font and paragraph attributes. If you do not change the text (e.g., correct the errors), then perhaps the title \"copy editor\" is not the best fit for you.</p>\n\n<p>However, Wikipedia states that</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The role of the copy editor varies considerably from one publication to another. Some newspaper copy editors select stories from wire service copy; others use desktop publishing software to do design and layout work that once was the province of design and production specialists.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The last statement supports Peter Jansson's comment that \"the old demarcation lines between copy editor and printer may be less and less clear.\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8315,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In order to answer your question, let me explain my view of copy editing and typesetting</p>\n\n<p>In my field, after an article is accepted it is copy edited and then typeset. The role of the copy editor is to check for consistencies with the journal style, find grammatical and typographical errors, and provide guidance to the typesetter. The copy editor often produces a short list of \"author queries\" where the copy editor has found \"inconsistencies\" (often unused references or undefined abbreviations). Generally I receive a copy of the double-spaced manuscript with the copy editors markup and the typeset article. We are then expected to make sure the typeset manuscript is \"correct\".</p>\n\n<p>I don't think there is a difference in prestige between copy editor and typesetter, they are really different roles (or different perspectives of the similar roles). You say in your comments that you do not like the title, I would talk to the publisher/editor-in-chief about changing it. You can either approach this from a graphic design vantage (the list will look better) or from a professional prospective (I edit I don't do graphic design). The key is you need to know what you want to be called.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8305",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1471/"
]
|
8,316 | <p>I think the title says it all, but here it goes. I am a final year PhD student in pure mathematics. My PhD has been running smoothly and I will graudate on time next summer. </p>
<p>This year I started applying for postdoctoral/assistant professor positions in Europe and in United States. The reviewing processes for these positions have already started, for example the earliest one started in mid December. </p>
<p>As times passes I start to worry that the reviewing process will take longer than I expected. I understand that the people in the search committees have other things to do an that they may have large numbers of applicants to review. But as someone who will be unemployed next September, I am worried that there might not be enough time for me to look for alternatives if these applications turn out to be unsuccessful. </p>
<p>Hence, I would like to ask what the normal period of time is for a recruiting process to finish. A side question might be if I would be notified if my application was unsuccessful. In a few job announcements it is stated that only the successfull candidates will be contacted. Hence if it is not stated otherwise in the job announcement, can I assume that I will be contacted no matter the outcome?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8317,
"author": "Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson",
"author_id": 519,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/519",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>First off, timings are very different in different countries. I have experience applying in Germany, UK, US and Sweden, with radically different time scales. The US runs on a very steady clock, where there tends to be a season for applications, for interviews, for notifications, and relatively few events happen outside this rhythm, while elsewhere is much more anarchic with respect to timing. </p>\n\n<p>Shortest time periods I have had in the UK where a polite refusal has shown up as quickly as within about 2 weeks after the deadline.</p>\n\n<p>In the US, you would usually apply during September-January, interview January-March, and be offered a job February-May or so. Slightly different timings are in effect for postdoctoral positions versus professorships, and there tends to be a second round of applications when schools scramble to cover teaching needs for the fall.</p>\n\n<p>My experience with the US also indicates that you should <strong>not</strong> expect full information from everyone. Finding out you were not considered by simply not hearing anything from the school for several years is not an unusual situation.</p>\n\n<p>UK schools have been diligent about letting me know one way or another.</p>\n\n<p>German schools have sometimes delayed up towards 2-3 years before letting me know.</p>\n\n<p>And the Swedish system is a beast almost entirely unto its own. For one thing, the process is utterly transparent: the list of applicants, as well as external reviews of the candidates and the minutes of all the committee meetings are all a matter of public record, and is usually distributed to all candidates directly as a matter of courtesy. The process is one of the lengthiest I have ever seen — it is in no way seen as unreasonable that well over 1 year passes from application deadline to notification. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8318,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From what I've seen, the time highly depends on the formality of the recruiting process. For some postdoctoral position where the recruitment only depended on the PI of the project funding the position, the process was very short, i.e., a couple of weeks between the deadline and the interview. On the other hand, I've witnessed, for a lecturer position, a deadline in June and candidates for the interview contacted in late September (but I guess the summer break does not speed up the process). </p>\n\n<p>Usually, when they mention that only successful candidates will be contacted, they also mention a notification date: \"If you haven't heard from us by the X, then consider yourself as unsuccessful\". I've also seen cases where the announcement didn't say that only successful candidates would be contacted, and yet they didn't contact unsuccessful candidates. </p>\n\n<p>In any case, if there is a position you're particularly interested in, do not hesitate to contact the recruiters, if only to know when you might get an answer. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8319,
"author": "Nicholas",
"author_id": 1424,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1424",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You mention that you are worried that you will not have enough time to apply for alternative jobs if you are unsuccessful in your primary choices. </p>\n\n<p>When I am in job seeking mode, I apply to every job that I would find acceptable, irrespective of what other jobs I have applied for. </p>\n\n<p>I assume the worst for any given application - even those for which I can tick every box and satisfy every criterion. I do not live in hope. I apply, consider my application a ticket in a lottery, and look for the next job to apply for.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8320,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In general I think it is best to assume that unless you are successful you will not hear about any decision. In other words rejection letters are fairly uncommon. This is not a good thing, but it is a fact of academic life. From a university prospective the hiring process is not finished until they have a signed contract. This might not happen until months after a formal offer is made and verbally agreed to. In the cases where HR sends out notifications, it is often not until the search is over.</p>\n\n<p>A reasonable coping strategy is immediately after submitting the application to assume that you have been rejected and not think about the application again. If you miraculously get an interview you will then be happy. Immediately after completing the interview, you should again assume you have been rejected.</p>\n\n<p>As for the uncertainty influencing the job search, you need to be applying for everything and anything. If you are lucky enough to get a position, you then need to decide if you want to accept it. Unfortunately the job market is so competitive that a position in hand is almost always better than a position applied for or a position yet to be announced.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8334,
"author": "Ben Webster",
"author_id": 13,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think the timetable in Europe is a little more chaotic, but if you haven't been told you're under consideration at a job in the US in mathematics by the end of February, it is extremely unlikely that you are going to get it. </p>\n\n<p>This not to say that lots of offers don't go out in March and April, but those are usually to people who already know they are on a short list or have been interviewed by this point. You might want to inquire with committees about whether you are still under consideration (it's fine to do this <em>once</em> by this stage, I think).</p>\n\n<p>Of course, there are exceptions (there are even a few jobs being posted now), but I would definitely start looking into alternatives. My personal perception is that this was a very tough year for postdocs in mathematics in the US, so lots of good candidates have had trouble finding jobs.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/28 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8316",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6221/"
]
|
8,322 | <p>I currently have a degree as a Master in Computer Sciences, and i was always wondering on how to call myself in a more "short" manner. For example, a PhD might introduce himself as a "Doctor" to other people, but how does a MSc call himself: "Master"? "Mister"? "MSc"?. </p>
<p>Talking to some PhD and MSC acquaintances, they had the same doubt about it, and i think this might be a good place to inquire about such topic, and i could not find another related question to answer myself.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8323,
"author": "F'x",
"author_id": 2700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>According to proper etiquette you may use <em>Master</em> as a title (as in “Master Segovia”) if and only if you are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>the heir apparent of a Scottish viscount or baron</li>\n<li>a boy not old enough to be called “Mr.”</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The <em>New Oxford American Dictionary</em> (which gives the above information) also lists the archaic use as a “title for a man of high rank or learning”, but (a) that is archaic, (b) it was not linked to a specific degree, just a courtesy title.</p>\n\n<p><strong>There is no formal title</strong> in British English or American English to designate someone who holds a Master's degree. <em>Get over it, and earn a PhD! :)</em></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8324,
"author": "grauwulf",
"author_id": 5760,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5760",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You would not address yourself as 'Master so-and-so' but there are circumstances where is it not inappropriate to include your graduate degree with your name; 'So and So, MSc'. The obvious examples of this type of use are publications and presentations. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8325,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>While my Internet search has come up sparse, I think most etiquette guides suggest that you do not refer to yourself with honorifics. There are some exceptions where the honorific carries immediate pertinent information. For example, it might be acceptable for a medical doctor walking in a exam room to introduce herself as \"Dr. Jane Doe\", to indicate their role in the relationship, although I prefer \"Your doctor Jane Doe\" since it clearly separates honorific from role.</p>\n\n<p>As for how to refer to an individual with a masters degree, there is no associated honorific.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/02/28 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8322",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4560/"
]
|
8,330 | <p>I have a Belgian colleague who is <strong>“Prof. Dr. ir.”</strong>. What does it mean?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8331,
"author": "blackace",
"author_id": 4467,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4467",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In some countries you use all of the titles one holds (e.g. Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium etc.) </p>\n\n<p>In plain English it means someone who holds the profession of engineering (can be just bachelors or masters) who has a PhD and who is a Professor (senior ranked, depending on the system can mean a full professor or even an associate prof).</p>\n\n<p>Edit:\nThe tricky bit is what constitutes holding the professing of engineering. In Netherlands/Belgium it is automatic once you have the degree from a technical uni (e.g. Delft or Eindhoven). In some places you need to be a certified engineer to hold it (e.g. Malaysia or Mexico as I understand).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8333,
"author": "Stylize",
"author_id": 3966,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3966",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Ir. means a masters degree in Engineering. </p>\n\n<p>source : Belgian Education :)</p>\n\n<p>I added a \"reference\". This Prof. Dr. Ir. received a M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven), Belgium</p>\n\n<p>Also, from wikipedia:\nBelgium</p>\n\n<p>In Belgium, there are two types of engineering degrees:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\"Burgerlijk Ingenieur\" /\"Ingénieur civil\" or \"Master of Science in Engineering\" (abbrev. \"ir.\") - 5 years study (3 BSc. + 2 MSc.)</li>\n<li>\"Bio-ingenieur\"/ \"Bioingénieur\" or \"Master of Science in Bioscience Engineering\" (abbrev. \"ir\") - 5 years study (3 BSc. + 2 MSc.)</li>\n<li>\"Industrieel Ingenieur\" or \"Master of Science in Industrial Sciences\" (abbrev. \"Ing.\") - 4 years study (3 BSc. + 1 MSc.)(3 BSc. + 2 MSc. in 2013-future) (for the Flemish Region)</li>\n<li>\"Ingénieur industriel\" or \"Master of Science in Industrial Sciences\" (abbrev. \"Ing.\") - 5 years study (3 BSc. + 2 MSc.) (for the Walloon Region)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://people.mech.kuleuven.be/~jswevers/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">link</a></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8556,
"author": "DennisH",
"author_id": 5744,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5744",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em>This is true for Germany, but I am not sure about other countries.</em><br>\nThe doctoral title you hold, unlike other titles, can be a voluntary addition to the name. It is therefore the only title you can add to your passport.</p>\n\n<p>Based on the situation, you can leave it out though. Most colleagues left it out on their doorbell, some add their field (like the engineering in this case); partially to avoid people with the flu ringing at their door.</p>\n\n<p>Adding your field to your title can help in other situations as well, since it simply conveys what you are doing in three letters or less. People from your, or related, fields can then simply judge what subtopics best to look into, while talking to you at e.g. a conference.</p>\n\n<p>The addition of the Prof. tells people that you are (also) holding a teaching position, or at least where at some point. This shows people even more of what you do. Being yet another bar to pass, some people don't like it being left out, when addressed.</p>\n\n<p>So: trying to tell people more about him, your colleague added eight letters and three dots to his name. Pretty neat, for a CV, right?</p>\n\n<p><strong>EDIT:</strong> Changed, based on information given by <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22/pieter\">pieter</a>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 55793,
"author": "Dodo",
"author_id": 42312,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/42312",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Ir. is a title equivalent to a Master's (it takes five years to get as far as I know since all technical/natural sciences Masters are two years, on top of the three year Bachelor) but from a technical university, so therefore in a technical field. I have an MSc. (2 years) and a BSc. (3 years) and thus can use 'Drs' (Doctorandus) which is a title used in the Netherlands. Had I done this/a similar degree in another university, I would have gotten 'Ir.'.\n<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctorandus\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctorandus</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer%27s_degree\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer%27s_degree</a> for explaination on the 'Ir.' title. I don't know how much is true of the statement that it often takes seven years, even though it's a five year program.</p>\n\n<p>I know people who have 'Ir.' but are not an engineer (at least not in the classical sense) but have studied something like biotechnology or molecular biology.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 71813,
"author": "Ir. Wisoot SRIRUENG",
"author_id": 57124,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57124",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm\"Ir.Wisoot SRIRUENG\".I'm a Thai Engineer which I've been Certified/Register by Malasia Engineering Council.\nI was graduated in Welding Engineer and Master of Science(MSc.Env)also including \"International Welding Engineer(IWE)\"Diploma register from IIW (International Institute of Welding).\nIr is used for Certified/Register Engineer in Malasia that shown you're a professional registered engineer.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 76599,
"author": "Prof-maulud Maulud",
"author_id": 61598,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/61598",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Prof-DR-Ir refers to three professional titles: (1) Prof - Professor (2) DR - Doctorate Holder (3) Ir - Professional Engineer.\n<strong>Prof</strong> is normally awarded to one who lectures in a university. He might or might not have a PhD or equivalent. But current university's requirement requires all Professors to have a PhD.\n<strong>Doctorate</strong> is a doctoral level qualification ie above master. This could be PhD or EngD or now a new one IndDoc\n<strong>Ingeniur</strong> refers to engineers with a minimum BSc in engineering. This is a Board of Professional qualification after a graduate sat for the professional exams after a minimum of 3 yrs experience in field and management. \nSo if a person holds the title <strong>DR Ir</strong> he is a doctoral holder in engineering. And if he holds <strong>Prof DR Ir</strong> he is a professor in a university who is holding a doctorate in engineering.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8330",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700/"
]
|
8,337 | <p>I'm a third year PhD student. I'm not getting much guidance from my adviser. We only meet once a month, and he keeps giving the same general advice. As a consequence of that, we have had to cancel one project since I have no motivation at all for that project.</p>
<p>Now having the new project, things are getting the same. I'm worried about my progress as some of my lab mates are about to graduate. What should I do? I realized my responsibility in driving the project by myself, but most of the time my idea are discarded. Recently when I showed my result, he claims that's garbage without any reasons. What should I do? I'm really thinking of dropping out if situation is not getting better.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8338,
"author": "blackace",
"author_id": 4467,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4467",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>\"we have had to cancel one project since I have no motivation at all for that project\". What exactly is the relation between having a meeting once a month and not being motivated? This to me sounds more like an excuse rather than a good enough reason. </p>\n\n<p>In the third year of your Phd having one meeting a month is not too bad. Your supervisor is assuming that you know your way and at this stage you should be left to figure it out yourself rather than him spoon feeding you. Of course he will still have strong opinions and might say what you have done is not the right way. It might be that he is busy/not happy with you/thinks he has mentioned to you before how you should do it and you are not listening or that you have a problem in your relation that you don't even know of. If for instance you are just not motivated the way you described its not unnatural for your supervisor to not be so happy with you. </p>\n\n<p>Next time you meet him once he rejects your idea ask him for suggestions and guidance on what to do. Ask politely and genuinely, and if he is not forth coming explain that you need help to figure it out. If he says your results are garbage ask him given his freaking awesome powers and knowledge how he would have done the work differently. He is only human and sometimes complementing somebody can go a long way. At all costs try to be more motivated and don't exhibit the behavior you described in the first part of your message. That's not going to do you any good and might be the root cause of all of this pain.</p>\n\n<p>I don't see why you should drop out after investing so much time and effort. It is in the interest of both of you to sort out the situation and no PhD advisor would like to see someone dropping out after three years (at least for their selfish interests). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8339,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n<p>I'm worried about my progress as some of my lab mates are about to graduate.</p>\n<p>I'm really thinking of dropping out if situation is not getting better.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Before you pull the nuclear trigger and drop out, I strongly suggest that you take some time to figure out when you want to graduate and <em>what you have to do to accomplish that goal</em>. Be very specific (e.g., "I will prepare the following work for conference X, which has a submission deadline of Y;" "I will be ready to propose to my committee on Z"). Once you put this on paper, you can go to your advisor and ask him to review it with you, and to make suggestions or provide other guidance. If you can't get your advisor to agree to the plan, at the very least go to another professor (possibly the ombudsman, if there is one) and talk over the plan with him/her. You need something concrete or you could linger forever.</p>\n<p>I was lucky in that my advisor forced me to come up with a plan early on (within the first year of working with her), and we came to an agreement on what that plan was going to be. The proposal stage of your eventual PhD work is a similar agreement with your committee. I had a tacit agreement from my advisor that if I met all the goals, I'd be ready to graduate, and I worked hard to make all the deadlines I had set. That in itself was a big motivation, and it worked out.</p>\n<p>As far as your projects go, you <em>must</em> be personally invested in getting them done. That's one of the driving factors in <em>every</em> Ph.D, and you (hopefully) have an intellectual desire to work on the project, so I suggest trying to get into the mindset that you really want to find the answer to the questions posed in the project. That's the fun part of being a scientist, after all! :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8423,
"author": "Uranchimeg",
"author_id": 6257,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6257",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are want to have this degree You have to motivate you by yourself, too. Just wait hints from supervisor is not enough. You have to work in your research idea and you can request a bit your supervisor by diplomatic way. You write to him email every week and can give to him update reports, what you doing and how is your progress. Of course, you will nee hints. But I must have some own idea about your future thesis and you better have to work on this idea. You can try write paper to conferences. Conference reviewer evaluation is always good impact to researcher. If just you want you can find way and your method how you can handle situation. Just give to your self some time. And please think, what is important for you! If PhD is important you have to move... You must work by yourself, first...</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 17439,
"author": "Armand",
"author_id": 1428,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1428",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Welcome to the PhD world... </p>\n\n<p>Where the advisers have little time for you and your ideas are always bad... </p>\n\n<p>... Until you realize that the PhD is a learning process as well! Learning how to do research, how to be independent, how to have integrity and how to push the boundaries of science by a tiny delta... </p>\n\n<p>In the course of those 3 years I am sure you have learned a lot and have become critic about what you do and what others do as well. That is the first step to understand your work was not all in vain!</p>\n\n<p>Find a hint from your adviser, something he inspires you to do and something you think he is right about! (there has to be something, after-all he is still your adviser after 3 years...). \nUse that hint as inspiration (although you don't love the muse) and work on something you believe is good. Your adviser is not the only reviewer of your work, scientific community (those papers we submit) are also an evaluation of our work. </p>\n\n<p>Get inspired from the adviser, evaluate your work through scientific community and have confidence.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8337",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6233/"
]
|
8,340 | <p>This is probably only relevant to the UK, because in the USA, PhD funding usually come from the department/university through fellowships/TA/RA.</p>
<p>I applied for PhD at a UK university and got admission. The university also runs an extremely competitive named scholarship competition (for example, <a href="http://www.ox.ac.uk/feesandfunding/prospectivegrad/scholarships/university/felix/" rel="nofollow">this one</a> - not the one I got, just an example) that offer holders can compete in. I was fortunate enough to have won the scholarship. However, I am going to turn it down for a funded PhD at another school.</p>
<p>Is it alright to state that I won this scholarship on my academic CV but turned it down? If this was a typical USA PhD funding offer (fellowship/TA/RA), I would not consider stating it on my CV.</p>
<p><strong>Edit:</strong> This is a similar but slight different question from the "duplicate" because I am not asking about the "typical" PhD fellowship/TA/RA that is awarded to candidates admitted to PhDs in the USA. I am talking about competitive/prestigious scholarships like Rhodes and Gates-Cambridge scholarships that one has to apply for outside of the regular admissions process.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8341,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It might be worth mentioning this while you are applying for PhD positions. But after you have obtained a PhD position, it will be fairly meaningless, as what will matter is how you perform in your PhD studies (ie, number/quality of publications).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8342,
"author": "Sylvain Peyronnet",
"author_id": 43,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think that the information that you have won several competitive PhD scholarships is by itself meaningless: you have won one, this is enough information to ensure that you have a potential.</p>\n\n<p>The real interesting information is why you chose one specific scholarship amongst the ones you won. If you state on your CV all the scholarships you won but didn't take, be prepared to answer to the \"why this one\" question. And be very careful on your answer if you don't know the profile of the asker.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8345,
"author": "Noah Snyder",
"author_id": 25,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If the award is sufficiently prestigious then you should list it, otherwise you should not. </p>\n\n<p>If you declined a Rhodes scholarship you would be very foolish not to list it on your CV. In the US you should list declined NSF or DoD graduate fellowships. However, you do not want to look like you are padding your resume with extraneous information, so I would advise against listing more than one declined award, and would advise against listing any declined awards that are not well known. In most circumstances the declined scholarship isn't going to give any important information that couldn't be gotten from just listing the scholarship you did accept.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8363,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Having easy access to your complete funding application history is critical in the UK. It is not uncommon for funding agencies to ask if you have every applied before. Some of the research councils are now tracking the number of unfunded/triaged applications you have made. As part of my annual review, my university wants to know how many funding applications I make every year (both funded and unfunded). Since I need information about both my successful and unsuccessful applications, I need a place to keep it. For me, the obvious place is the long version of my CV where I keep every piece of information about my academic life. My feeling is if something doesn't make my \"long\" CV, it gets forgotten. </p>\n\n<p>It is also important to remember that most people don't want to see an unedited version of your long CV. You haven't said which version of your CV (you have more than one right?) you are thinking about including this information on. If you are talking about a 1-page summary CV for promotion to full professor, hopefully you have many more relevant things to include. If you are applying for a research support job where your job might be to help students apply for PhD fellowships, then it is probably of critical importantance.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8340",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1190/"
]
|
8,349 | <p>What is the appropiate position for the 'Acknowledgements' in a paper? Are there policies by (mathematical) journals where to put them?</p>
<p>Furthermore, is it common to make acknowledgements a \paragraph (in Latex), rather than a \subsection or a final \section?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8350,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Acknowledgements generally go a separate section after the conclusion. <a href=\"http://www.elsevier.com/journals/research-policy/0048-7333/guide-for-authors#48000\">You can see the Elsevier advice on acknowledgements sections here</a>. If you have a specific conference or journal you are submitting to, and want to know what other authors have done, browse some of the previous volumes' papers or proceedings.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8351,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am sure the position may differ slightly beween journals but commonly it is placed after the conclusions and before the reference list. In some cases the Acknowledgement may be a note at the end of the paper. The journal would hopefully clearly indicate where they want such information in the manuscript. Please refeer to the \"Instructions for Authors\" (equiv) for any journal you are considering. If you are unsure, ask the editor.</p>\n\n<p>As for the (La)TeX question, the formatting will obviosuly differ depening on the instructions for the specific journal you are targeting. Many journals also have specific (La)TeX classes for manuscripts which may provide further insights into hpow the journal wants the paper structured.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8353,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I generally make acknowledgements their own <code>\\section</code> and place it at the end of the paper's body, before the references or any appendices.</p>\n\n<p>But I really don't think it matters. The referee is not going to care, and it won't affect the acceptance or rejection of the paper. If the journal has a preference, you will hear about it from the copy editor when the time comes to correct the proofs. </p>\n\n<p>You might as well check the Instructions for Authors to see if it addresses this, but otherwise, just pick something reasonable and don't worry about it.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/03 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8349",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6222/"
]
|
8,356 | <p>I am an industry based researcher. I research and write policies mostly relating to workplace issues such as codes and manuals. I have just completed my PhD in a related field.</p>
<p>On my CV, I can include about 10 years of industry research (plus my qualification as above). As far as I know, industry research is not considered in the same light as peer-reviewed articles.</p>
<p><strong>Question:</strong> How do I make industry research a selling point in my CV (in the academic world)?</p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> I have no peer-reviewed articles to my credit and there is no possibility of publishing my industry based research outcomes in the wider sense.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8357,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The relevant issue is how to make your research meaningful to your application. Since this would typically not get much attention in a CV, the best place to do this will be either in your cover letter or in the introduction to your research statement.</p>\n\n<p>If your industrial research has informed your choice of problems to study as an academic, or has expanded your skill set, this is information you should relate to the committee. However, if the work is completely unrelated, you may have a hard time convincing a committee that it's worth considering as related experience (beyond the traditional justification of industrial experience in and of itself).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8435,
"author": "D.W.",
"author_id": 705,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/705",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think there might be some confusion. If you write policies, codes, and manuals, that most likely does not qualify as (scientific) research as the term is generally understood by the research community (or the academic community). In our context, (scientific) research generally refers to systematic investigation that leads to new knowledge. The end result of (scientific) research is some new knowledge that was not previously known before.</p>\n\n<p>I know that in other contexts, people sometimes use the word \"research\" in a different way. For instance, they might talk about \"researching an issue\", by which they mean, go find newspaper articles, scientific papers, policy briefs, etc. on the topic and read them to get up to speed on the topic as quickly as possible. That's a fine meaning of the term \"research\", but it's not research as the academic or research community mean it. That kind of activity generally is not a replacement for what academics call (scientific) research.</p>\n\n<p>(Scientific) research is also usually published in a peer-reviewed conference or journal. Academics may give credit only to published work. There are good reasons for this. For one thing, academics value discovering new knowledge and making it available to humankind. If you haven't published, you haven't advanced that agenda. For that reason, if researcher X discovers something new but doesn't publish, and then a year later researcher Y discovers the new thing and publishes, we usually award credit (\"priority\") to researcher Y, because researcher Y published. Also, peer-reviewed publications are one of the ways that we evaluate the quality of work. Typically, folks on a search committee are not expert in your area and may find it difficult to directly evaluate the quality of your work. If it has been published in a peer-reviewed conference/journal, that speaks to its quality; and the more selective the conference/journal, the more of a testament to quality it is. If your work hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed forum, it's harder to know whether it's any good (and there may even be a suspicion that it wasn't published in a peer-reviewed forum because it wasn't good enough or would not have been able to survive peer review). So, publications matter for hiring. I'm not saying that unpublished work is never taken into account, but it's a much higher hurdle if none of the work has been published, and you need to be honest with yourself about the situation.</p>\n\n<p>I noticed that you asked a similar question about a month and a half ago (<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/7278/705\">Does my work in industry carry any weight in academia?</a>). You got similar answers, and some very good advice, at the time. Perhaps it'd be worth starting by reviewing the answers you go to the earlier question, and then editing your question to provide more context and detail, taking into account what you've read there.</p>\n\n<p>Also, you haven't given us much to work with: for instance, you haven't told us what field you are working in; you haven't told us why your work wasn't published and cannot be published in a peer-reviewed forum; you haven't told us what aspects of the industry research you think might be relevant to your application or what options for how to include it in your CV you have considered; you haven't told us what was the work you did in industry, or what the novel scientific contributions were, or what its impact on industry was. The less information we have, the less likely it is that we can provide useful advice.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8447,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Emphasize strengths that mirror what would be expected for a 10-year Academic career:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>No peer-reviewed publications? List instead all the internal white papers you've written. </p></li>\n<li><p>Mention any academic collaborations when describing roles. (No collaborations? List internal cross-departmental collaborations.)</p></li>\n<li><p>List trainees/interns you've mentored.</p></li>\n<li><p>List any important talks/presentations you've given related to your research. It won't be the same, as the level of discourse when talking to other researchers is different than when talking to senior managers, but it does demonstrate presentation experience.</p></li>\n<li><p>Get very strong letters of recommendation attesting to your strength as a researcher, communicator, and mentor.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8501,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Industry research experience, like almost all research experience, only counts if there is a tangible outcome (e.g., grant income, patents, or peer-review publications). In the absence of a tangible outcome, the research experience (industry or otherwise) and contact (industry or otherwise) are nice, but not worth very much. If you want to make you past experience a selling point, you need to create some tangible outcomes. If the experience is valuable in an academic setting, then 10 years of experience should allow you go generate a tangible outcome quickly. Maybe one of your industry contacts will fund a study or provide you with unique data that could be used in a peer-reviewed publication.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/03 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8356",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4475/"
]
|
8,359 | <p>Archiving of papers and projects is very important for most of the people, and everyone has a method of it. </p>
<p>I, personally, try to have different folders for different papers. In the folder of each paper, in addition to my manuscript, I keep my simulation files, experimental data, program codes, etc, in different subfolders. Also, I try to keep track of my revisions on the paper, reviewer comments, my response to reviewers in different subfolders. My method has the advantage of all the related material for a paper are together, and I can quickly track the whole process from initial submission to the final proofreading. However, this usually leads to duplicated files. </p>
<p>I work with both my office desktop and my personal Laptop. I transfer my files between these systems by a flash memory. I agree maybe cloud technology is a better choice in this age, but I postponed it because of my poor internet connection at home.</p>
<p>I am curious to know how others approach to archive their works. I also hope to find some methods more efficient than mine, or get some tips to improve my method.</p>
<p><em>Edit at 2 Apr 13:</em>
Thanks to these great answers, it is almost a month that I use <strong>Git</strong> for my version control. Also, I manage my repositories in the <strong><a href="https://bitbucket.org/">Bitbucket</a></strong>, which gives me unlimited storage for unlimited number of projects. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8360,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I have a similar approach with folders, with two additions:</p>\n<ol>\n<li><p>Everything goes into a revision control system. In my case, I've got some things in <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Subversion</a> repositories, and others in <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercurial\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Mecurial</a> repositories (I've also dabbled with <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28software%29\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Git</a>, but haven't made the final transition). The benefits of revision control are that you can always go back to a previous version, you won't have old versions littering your folders, and sharing with collaborators is relatively easy. This should take care of your duplicated-file problem.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>I also use Dropbox extensively, in order to have my files available on any computer at any time. Dropbox provides a modicum of version control (30 days worth), but it should not replace a proper revision control system. It does provide a cloud-based backup of your work.</p>\n<p>Finally, regardless of how you're keeping your work arranged, make sure you keep an off-site backup (e.g., via Dropbox or personally-controlled media).</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8361,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The question of archiving and synchronizing is a good one and for me relates also to backup and storage as key questions, particularly when working on more than one computer. I will describe what I do without implying it is THE solution, it works for me. I have my work computer as well as a desktop at home. I also have several laptops.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>On the two desktops at home and work, the data resides on the harddisk, organized in a folder system that has developed over time. I have two 600 Gb 2.5\" portable harddisks which I carry between work and office and which I use as shuttle/backups by synchronizing with the desktops at home and work. I use a software called Total Commander (shareware), which works fine for me but I am sure others can be used. This way I have three copies, at work, at home and on the portable disk(s), at all times (except in the worst case antyhing produced between syncs).</p></li>\n<li><p>I do not have any data on my laptops but use the 2.5\" as an external hard disk when I am away from home and work. I keep a second 2.5\" for backup if I am away for longer periods and try to transport the two disks separately, one in carry on and one in checked in luggage. (I have to add I do not have any secret data so I do not worry about disks being stolen apart from my own losses). I could have all data on the laptop as well but have opted for having a faster but smaller SSD disk in the laptop so my data will not fit.</p></li>\n<li><p>I use drpbox to keep a limited number of files that I use frequently and most often need to share with others. I also use Dropbox to deposit files that I think I might need for specific purposes when out of the office as an extra backup and to be able to access quickly. I do not use Dropbox as a backup but rather backup dropbox occassionally, particularly collaborative files.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>This works for me and the solution has developed over time and now the synching is a natural begin-end of the work day and I live with three (four when I synch the second, pure backup, hard disk) exact copies. I could go for an automatic backup as well but have not felt this was worth it at this stage. With this system, I always carry with me all files I have ever produced. I clearly see this will be impossible for some activities but will be quite feasible for most.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8362,
"author": "Dikran Marsupial",
"author_id": 2827,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2827",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I do something vaguely similar, however I also use a makefile to integrate the simulations with the LaTeX source code for the paper (generally there are also a set of MATLAB files that generate the contents of tables and the figures). Then if necessary, the experiments can be repeated and the results stitched in to the paper again, just by typing \"make\". However, more recently I have been having to make a lot of use of my universities High Performance Computing facility, which makes it much more difficult to do this. It works nicely for more simple projects though.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8379,
"author": "Eric Marsh",
"author_id": 5631,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5631",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p>I generally write in LaTeX and do statistics in R so those can be easily versioned in a Git repository on BitBucket. On a sidenote, I chose BitBucket over GitHub that because collaborating is easier as it allows you to set up repos that can be forked but you can still prevent the forker from sharing it publicly. GitHub on the other hand (at least when I last looked) required you to tightly integrate into teams. Also, using Git submodules allows me to include common parts (such as my BibTeX files) into multiple projects without duplication of versions (though technically it does reside in multiple places on the drive), however this sometimes causes me some grief because I'm not very skilled with Git.</p></li>\n<li><p>I have tried to acquire additional space in every way I can for Dropbox. It is now large enough that I can generally keep 100% of my active projects (some of them are the Git repos from above) in it. This way everything is always backed up offsite with no intervention. Because I work out of Dropbox as opposed to \"My Documents\" or the like, I also can seamlessly move from my Windows box at work to my laptop running Ubuntu or OSX. This also means that my stuff is not only backed up in the cloud but also on my other machine's hard drive. One tricky thing for me is the sharing between the two OSes on the laptop. For that I keep the Dropbox in a shared partition, to avoid wasting 2X the disk space.</p></li>\n<li><p>Finally, I do an incremental backup every week or so when I think to plug my external drive in. That external drive is well cared for in a fancy case with fans and it is usually powered off except when I'm backing up. It never leaves my home.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So I have the storage part pretty well worked out. However, I'm constantly trying to tweak the organization part. Right now I keep a projects directory in my Dropbox with multiple subprojects labeled like \"2012-XXX_YYY_ZZZ\" in some attempt to sort them. In these directories are generally subdirectories for study materials (I work with human-subjects), analysis, notes, and any products such as papers that came from the work. In the analysis directory is generally a subdirectory with the actual R code. I try to name that directory something like R_git, as I generally use the ending to signify that something is backed up elsewhere in another repo. My system gets difficult when I create a product (such as a paper) based on two projects (perhaps two studies). In that case I usually just move the paper subdirectory out to the main projects directory to avoid duplication. I do sometimes find myself searching through directories trying to remember where a given paper was stored, so clearly my system needs more work.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8383,
"author": "Jez",
"author_id": 358,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/358",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Several great answers here already, but here's a few more things to consider:</p>\n\n<p>You could take a look at <a href=\"http://rsync.samba.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">rsync</a> (graphical interfaces are available) and <a href=\"http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/\" rel=\"nofollow\">unison</a> for synchronising data/documents between different computers (and/or a USB memory stick). Rsync is simpler but unidirectional, though you can effectively do a full sync by rsyncing in one direction then the other. Unison is much more powerful and results in the two copies ending up identical, letting you specify which files to ignore, how to resolve conflicts, etc. I use unison every day to keep my laptop and desktop in sync.</p>\n\n<p>Also, don't discount your own university's networked storage if available, which will usually take care of backup and give you a level of protection against most problems short of a nuclear bomb. This can be slow when accessed offsite, for example, but for ours I find it doesn't matter too much as long as your files aren't enormous. If nothing else, it can be useful as a \"master\" copy that you synchronise your other copies against.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, however you choose to organise your files and folders, spend a few minutes writing down <em>how</em> you're organising them in a read-me file so that, if the worse should happen, your colleagues can understand how to access your files and your work won't be wasted.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35236,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Toward the less-addressed organizational aspect of the question, I find that I need to maintain a fairly structured organization in order to effectively manage my papers, presentation, code, etc. over time. My methods result in a minor amount of duplication, but it is rare and there are never more than 3 copies of a document at the very most. This is, of course, my own idiosyncratic system, but perhaps it will be useful as inspiration or a template for how you think about developing your own.</p>\n\n<p>First, my driving principles of organization:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Since collaborative projects have to be shared in so many different ways, I do not use any specialty organizational software, but just the hierarchy of the file system.</li>\n<li>My primary sorting heuristic mirrors how I organize my time (and how it is attributed to projects in funding bookkeeping)</li>\n<li>Higher level directory names are shorter, since they are more persistent and more frequently typed; lower level names are as long as they need to be to understand what they are far in the future.</li>\n<li>No directory should have more than a dozen or so subdirectories</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Following these principles, my first layer of directories are sorted by the main business functions of academia:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>pursuit</strong>: all proposals and funding pursuit goes here</li>\n<li><strong>projects</strong>: this directory contains one subdirectory for each funded project that is currently active (plus one for each major line of preliminary work). Rationale: each grant/contract needs to have its activities tracked individually for reporting to the funder.</li>\n<li><strong>internal</strong>: administrative dealings with my institution, such as travel receipts, training documents, and internal process documents go here. Travel receipts get their own subdirectory.</li>\n<li><strong>service</strong>: professional service, including teaching, recommendation letters, conference organization, seminar series, journal editing, and reviewing. One subdirectory for each major topic (e.g., one for each conference, another for all recommendation letters).</li>\n<li><strong>notes</strong>: all personal notes and reading, with a subdirectory for talk notes, another for manuals, and another for downloaded papers (with further subdirectories for major topics)</li>\n<li><strong>sites</strong>: contains one directory for each website where I am one of the maintainers.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Every one of these also contains either an archive subdirectory, where I move completed tasks, either by topic (e.g., pursuit, projects) or by year (e.g., internal, service).</p>\n\n<p>In any second-level directory, I maintain a README file that tells me what I will need to know when I re-visit something after forgetting all about it. The directories for funded projects also have a stereotyped structure:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>contract</strong>: This is where all contract documents go for funded projects.</li>\n<li><strong>admin</strong>: all reporting, deliverables, etc.</li>\n<li><strong>publications</strong>: each paper gets its own directory; the conference presentation for a paper and any derivative papers also go here.</li>\n<li><strong>presentations</strong>: all presentations not directly associated with a paper go here</li>\n<li>Beyond that, there are directories for each major strand of work in the project</li>\n<li>For publications, every published paper (and supplement) also gets a copy, with a long informative name including the year, in the publications directory for my professional website.</li>\n<li>For collaborative projects, there may also be a top-level split between internal and shared, with certain documents having a master version in internal and a second copy in shared.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Finally, everything that I care about must be backed up in two different ways: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>By the backup system of each machine that I use.</li>\n<li>By means of some sort of synchronization software (with version control when possible). I am currently using a mixture of SVN, git, Mercurial, Dropbox, and BitTorrent Sync, chosen per-project based on the collaborators.</li>\n</ol>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/04 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8359",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5644/"
]
|
8,364 | <p>If you are invited to give a departmental seminar and the department offers to put you up for up to two nights, how long should your visit be? I find it a little rude when our speakers arrive an hour before and leave an hour after the seminar. Do you have to spend a full day at the host department?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8365,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Think of this as an opportunity, rather than an obligation. </p>\n\n<p>Find people in the department who are doing interesting work and try to organise a short meeting with them. Volunteer to hang around after your presentation to talk to PhD students (and ensure that your presentation has some appeal to keep people around). Ideally, try to have a fairly full schedule to maximise the benefits gained from the opportunity, though avoid having every minute planned so that you can have spontaneous extended discussions with people, should the opportunity arise.</p>\n\n<p>Planning ahead is probably key, as not everyone will be able to accept an unannounced visitor for a lengthy discussion. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8366,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 6110,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6110",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In my opinion, it is not rude to make only a brief visit, especially if you accept with, e.g. \"I would love to come, thank you, but I'm afraid I can only come there for the afternoon - I hope that is okay?\"</p>\n\n<p>Certainly I agree that it is as great idea to stay for the whole day if you can.</p>\n\n<p>I've noticed that perception of etiquette seems to differ a lot from person to person. Whether or not it is okay to recommend a taxi from the airport (as opposed to picking up the visitor yourself), whether or not to take visitors out for a late drink (or karaoke!), whether to put them up in a hotel or your house, how long to encourage them to stay... these are all aspects where I've seen things done differently. But a small minimum of communication beforehand and flexibility during the visit seems to suffice to guarantee a good visit.</p>\n\n<p>If you're the one visiting, I would certainly recommend at the very least hanging around the department some and going out to dinner with your hosts (assuming they invited), but it's more or less up to you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8367,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>People who give invited seminars are quite busy. It is frequently the case that they may have to come late or leave early. However, unless the guest is local, it is usually considered normal for a guest to spend a day visiting the department. The reason for this is that many times there are people who wish to meet with the visiting speaker, and thus an extended schedule is necessary. Cutting the visit short may also deprive <em>you</em> of meeting people who might valuable future collaborators for your work efforts.</p>\n\n<p>However, in circumstances where the visit does need to be curtailed due to length, the more important it is to communicate this with the host organization <em>in advance</em>. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8368,
"author": "StasK",
"author_id": 739,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/739",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are the one organizing the trip, telling the visitor that you are covering one or two nights' stay is enough of indication that the department wants to host a long enough visit that would allow meeting with other faculty, post-docs, and possibly grad students. If the visitor does not take the hint, you may have to ask them, \"So basically you are refusing to meet with our department?\" -- and you can actually take it to the chair and ask whether it would make sense to withdraw the invitation, as this visit is the event that is supposed to benefit the department, not just hit the financial bottom line. Basically, whoever is paying for the trip should be fine with an abridged visit. If the department is paying for it (the round-trip ticket will be a fortune for the same day trip), it has all the rights to have the visitor to themselves to ask questions and promote the young researchers of the department. If somebody's grant is paying for the trip, then let have them waste the money. I ran a department colloquia series for a year, and never had an issue like that with any of the visitors, including some biggish wigs. (We are sort of ways away from big airports in a US midwestern college town, so there is little physical opportunity for the visitors to escape; it's not like you are taking a train ride from one university in Boston to another.)</p>\n\n<p>If you are the one visiting... well, if you don't take the hint, you will lose respect of that whole group. If you are a young researcher, that may be a big hit to take: people talk, and in a year or so, the rumor may spread to half of your discipline about your rudeness. If you are a named prof with $XX million of external funding, you don't have to give a s$%t about anybody, and by now everybody else in the discipline knows that much about you already.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/04 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8364",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929/"
]
|
8,369 | <p>I am a graduate student in mathematics working on functional analysis of quantum information (basically using matrix techniques in some well-known problems). I am presently applying for postdoctoral positions (in both Mathematics and Quantitative Physics departments). However, I am not getting any reply from most of the places and got a few rejection letters as well. Since I am from Mathematics, I cannot apply to experimental groups (where there are more openings). Again, being a Mathematics student and working in Physics (even though there are obvious connections between them) is not seen as a good example among certain parts of the physics community and the majority of the Mathematicians in this part of the world (personal opinion based on certain bitter experiences). I do not know whether it is the same in other places as well. </p>
<p>I feel that I have not projected myself by writing a good research statement. I have written it after reading the first few entries of Google search results as well as advice from the AMS. I have mostly highlighted my present work, with only a short discussion of future ideas. </p>
<p>To make my life more complicated, I want to move out of the present problems which I am working presently and choose some new problems for my postdoctoral research. I have a peripheral knowledge about the works of different groups. However, modifying my research statement according to the research work of each group is, I think, difficult (as I need to spend time to read their works and spot exactly where my knowledge can be used in their problems and so on). The reason for not having time is I am simultaneously working on some research problem as well as writing my thesis, which I need to submit in the coming months.</p>
<p>In this situation, how do I write a good research statement? I want to convey the message to potential employers that, while I have not done research on their problem yet (though I know them to certain level), given an opportunity I can learn and do work in their areas.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8372,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Writing a postdoctoral research statement should not be a huge exercise. Unless you are applying for a major postdoctoral fellowship, I would not necessarily expect a huge research statement. In many cases, in fact, you may not need a research statement at all to apply for a postdoctoral appointment; a cover letter, CV, and list of references may suffice. (When I hired my current postdoctoral associate, those were the materials I asked for.)</p>\n\n<p>Now, that said, your statement should provide a few pieces of information:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>A brief description of your current project, and any major research skills or tools you have acquired as a result of your training.</li>\n<li>A brief summary of the kinds of problems you would like to study as a postdoctoral associate. If these are aligned with the interests of the group you are applying to, this is even more helpful.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Ultimately, however, when you are applying for a postdoctoral position, you are applying to a specific individual, who will be the one reviewing the applications. What I am looking for is someone who has actually responded to <strong>my</strong> job posting, not just <em>a</em> job posting. That means I want to see a clear statement that the applicant has thought about what we do in my group, and how her skills will contribute to the project for which I'm advertising. If there's no such indication, I'm much less likely to take the application seriously, <em>unless</em> there are mitigating factors (lots of publications in top journals, strong recommendation letters from colleagues I know, and so on).</p>\n\n<p>Finally, I should also point out that the quality of your written English could be improved. While this might seem to be a minor issue, a poorly written statement can be enough for me as an advisor to think twice about hiring someone, simply because I would worry about my ability to communicate with the candidate. (Furthermore, someone whose communication skills are somewhat deficient will have a harder time finding a position than someone proficient.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8373,
"author": "grauwulf",
"author_id": 5760,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5760",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em>\"I have written [my research statement] <strong>after reading the first few entries of Google search results</strong> as well as advice from the AMS.\"</em></p>\n\n<p>I haven't read your research statement but I would suspect that reading the first few entries off of Google may have been insufficient to fully support your consideration for a post-doc position. </p>\n\n<p>Also, get someone to test read your research statement. Get some feedback on how to improve your documents and revise-revise-revise. Best of luck.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/04 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8369",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4462/"
]
|
8,380 | <p>I was reading the following article by Mathew Might. <a href="http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-apply-and-get-in-to-graduate-school-in-science-mathematics-engineering-or-computer-science/" rel="noreferrer">HOWTO: Get into grad school for science, engineering, math and computer science</a></p>
<p>I saw the following the paragraph</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What doesn't matter</p>
<p>GPA? I don't care if it's 2.0 or 4.0. I won't even look at it. The school you went to? I'll judge you the same whether you went to Nowhere State U or a top-ten school. Transcripts? Never seen one. GREs? Irrelevant. Where you work/worked? Unless it's a research lab, it's not important. I don't think these items have much predictive capacity as to whether or not someone can complete a Ph.D.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is Mathew Might telling the truth?
For me it's very hard believe that GPA, GRE scores and undergraduate school don't matter. I used to think that they play an extremely important role in grad school admission.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8381,
"author": "posdef",
"author_id": 5674,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am not doing my PhD in CS or maths but based on my experience, I believe it's a <strong>yes</strong> and a <strong>no</strong>, more specifically: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I don't think these items have much predictive capacity as to whether or not someone can complete a Ph.D.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>... is an accurate assessment of the situation. Being a grad student is sort of waking up in a different world, what you have done previously isn't really indicative of what you are capable of doing during your PhD. Most PIs are aware of that...</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>GPA? I don't care if it's 2.0 or 4.0. I won't even look at it. The school you went to? I'll judge you the same whether you went to Nowhere State U or a top-ten school. Transcripts? Never seen one. GREs? Irrelevant.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Sadly, I don't think this is all that common. How a professor chooses a student varies a lot, and I don't think your GPA etc will be irrelevant to some profs. Especially not if you are in a number-driven, cold-heart-competitive place... </p>\n\n<p>What's more common however is that your grades won't be the only criteria. They will most likely not be a deal-breaker. You will most likely get a chance to explain why you did good on some courses and worse on others. Primarily you will get a chance to explain what you <em>like</em> to do with your career. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8382,
"author": "grauwulf",
"author_id": 5760,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5760",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is highly dependent on the program. Two programs that I applied to were polar opposites and demonstrate the variety in a very succinct way, I think. </p>\n\n<p>School 1: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>GPA south of 3.5? don't bother applying.</li>\n<li>GRE quant scores south of 700(1)? don't bother applying.</li>\n<li>Never published or fewer than 5 years professional experience? Seriously, why are you wasting our time.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>School 2:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>GPA north of 3.3 are preferred, GPA north of 3.5 will get preference, but we can work with you.</li>\n<li>GRE scores should be submitted if you have them and they are still valid.</li>\n<li>It is strongly recommended that you have relevant academic or industry experience</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The only real difference between the program admissions is that school 1 accepted baccalaureates on a straight path to PhD and school 2 requires a recent masters degree in one of a few rather specific fields. </p>\n\n<p>This was my experience but your mileage may vary. As I say, it's very dependent on the program.</p>\n\n<p>(1) I don't claim to understand the new-fangled system, sorry. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8386,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The more popular the school and program, the more likely it will use test scores and transcript grades as \"screening tools\" to weed out uncompetitive applications. However, there are probably reasonable thresholds that exist on both measures; exceed those, and your exact GPA and GRE scores probably won't be taken into much consideration.</p>\n\n<p>Ultimately, though, GPA should play a much stronger role in GRE, if only in the sense that somebody who does outstandingly in the core classes but struggles in \"general education\" classes that don't pertain to the field will probably have an easier time than somebody who has a better overall GPA, but weaker grades in the major. GRE scores are only correlated with performance in coursework; I don't think it has much to do with actual aptitude for research (although it may have some correlation).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8422,
"author": "Professor X",
"author_id": 6272,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6272",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This depends greatly on the field. I have been in graduate admissions committees in two different fields.</p>\n\n<p>Field A: the subject GRE in this field is a joke. The committee doesn't look at it, and doesn't look much at the regular GRE's. It's all recommendation letters and grades in the relevant courses.</p>\n\n<p>Field B: the subject GRE in this field is very difficult. The committee is very reluctant to take anybody who scored less than the 90th percentile on the GRE. (Of course, you have to have good grades and recommendation letters as well.) </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/05 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8380",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/86/"
]
|
8,388 | <p>Does your country have any academic degrees after the PhD? If yes, what is it called and how graduating this degree? </p>
<p>Additionally, what is a Post-Doc? Is it a degree or something else? I have seen some people refer to a post-doc in their CV as they would a degree. Is this acceptable?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8389,
"author": "Paul Hiemstra",
"author_id": 4091,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4091",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In general, a PhD is the highest degree you can get. A postdoc is simply a research position that is not permanent, i.e. no fixed contract or tenure. There are some exceptions, for example in the German system where you can get your Habilitation, which is a degree after you get your PhD. But in most systems there is nothing beyond a PhD in terms of degrees.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8391,
"author": "Phorce",
"author_id": 6258,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6258",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As @Paul Hiemstra pointed out, the highest degree level is a Doctorate (Dr) however, with this in mind, there are different academic titles that you can gain if you work at a University or high-educational institute. Here are a few:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Senior Lecturer (Usually appointed to a academic with a level of experience, this is usually how many years they have been at a University).</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Master Lecturer (This is usually a rank about a Senior Lecturer) </p></li>\n<li><p>Reader (This is someone who usually has a vast amount of knowledge and a strong academic background who is employed by the University not so much to lecturer, but, to carry out research for the university).</p></li>\n<li><p>Professor (<em>I believe this title is different in the US</em> but this title is given to an academic who has an outstanding background in research and has published books, received a lot of funding for the particular University.) A Professorship is not something that can be studied for, it is something that is achieved and you are selected for by a special panel.</p></li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>You can find more about titles <a href=\"http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/titles/titlebook.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a> </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8392,
"author": "410 gone",
"author_id": 96,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Many countries have higher degrees than the PhD.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.uea.ac.uk/calendar/section3/regs%28awards%29/doctor-of-laws,-of-letters-and-of-science\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">In the UK</a>, there's</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Litt.D Doctor of Letters / Literature</li>\n<li>DSc Doctor of Science</li>\n<li>LL.d Doctor of Laws</li>\n<li>D.D. Doctor of Divinity</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Each of these typically requires the submission of a body of work - a research portfolio - together with a critique of the work. Or they may be awarded as honorary degrees; see the links above for the requirements for the degrees from the University of East Anglia (Litt.D, DSc, LL.d), and the University of Oxford (D.D.), accordingly.</p>\n\n<p>A post-doc is just an academic research job that's typically done after attaining a PhD. It's not a degree in its own right</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/05 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8388",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6257/"
]
|
8,399 | <p>Imagine an education model in which teacher/supervisor/mentor does not teach the syllabus to students. Instead, just pushing them towards key topics, and students must study by themselves. The teacher only control/supervise students to keep studying in right direction, but no professional teaching.</p>
<p>This is something like supervising academic research projects at graduate level.</p>
<p>I am curious if there is a pedagogical model/category/method of this kind for education (at lower levels)? For example, is there any example for teaching by this method in any school or university around the world? If yes, what is it called? I had no appropriate keyword to search for it.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8400,
"author": "Alex Grede",
"author_id": 6266,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6266",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY, USA. There are two ways in which this can happen. We have an independent study in which the student will learn about a topic with some guidance from a professor and write a paper about it, this has a broad variety of possibilities only some may fall into your category. One thing that everyone does is a senior design or capstone project where there is generally a faculty adviser but the student works to apply what you he or she has learned and present at the end of the year. This is in many ways similar working on a thesis, but as an undergraduate will take less time and be less intense. This is used in at least in the engineering school and physics department.</p>\n\n<p>There is somewhat a third way, but does not contribute to the students transcript unless the student specifically does an internship for a research group. This is undergraduate research, and the student will contribute to research projects ongoing at the university that have faculty overseeing. In this scenario you may be mentored more by graduate students than faculty or staff.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8401,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Problem-based learning is one approach that fits your description. From <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem-based_learning\">wikipedia</a></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of problem solving. Students learn both thinking strategies and domain knowledge. The goals of PBL are to help the students develop flexible knowledge, effective problem solving skills, self-directed learning, effective collaboration skills and intrinsic motivation. Problem-based learning is a style of active learning.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>A related approach is <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquiry-based_learning\">inquiry-based learning</a>, which allows the idea to be used on a much smaller scale than problem-based learning, which, based on what I have read, tends to be rather resource intensive and require vast amounts of planning from the teaching staff.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/06 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8399",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/406/"
]
|
8,405 | <p>Sometimes, I have been noticing some postdoc open position announcements that, besides the usual prerequisites (PhD, an excellent CV, programming skills, etc.), asked the candidates to have publications in the most important conferences in the field.</p>
<p><a href="http://mine.kaust.edu.sa/Pages/JoinUs.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">For example</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[...] Candidates need to hold an earned Ph.D. (or be near completion)
in computer science or in a related field with good programming skills
in C/C++/Java/Matlab. Successful candidates are expected to be
self-motivated and have <strong>a good publication record (at least have one
paper accepted by premier conferences or journals like KDD</strong>, <strong>NIPS</strong>,
<strong>ICML</strong>, <strong>IJCAI</strong>, <strong>AAAI</strong>, <strong>SIGMOD</strong>, <strong>VLDB</strong>, <strong>ICDE</strong>, <strong>TKDE</strong>, <strong>TKDD</strong>, etc.) and good
command of English. [...]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I was quite surprised to read announcements like this (if one made an excellent research, who cares where it has been published?).</p>
<p>Are cases like these rare or quite common?
To get hired for an academic position (like postdoc for example), is it so important to publish in top-level conferences?</p>
<p>Is the conference fame considered <strong>more important</strong> than the paper scientific relevance for a hiring process?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8406,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I can't comment on whether the practice of explicitly pointing out that publishing in top conferences makes a stronger record is common, although I suspect it is taken for granted rather than spelled out. But, from the perspective of a hiring committee, being published in a top conference generally indicates that</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>The research is excellent.</li>\n<li>The work has been peer reviewed by other top researchers in the field.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Both of these indicators will give a hiring committee a better feel for a candidate's potential for future top quality work.</p>\n\n<p>By publishing in a lesser conference or journal and without those indicators, a closer reading of the publication would be necessary to make a better judgement.</p>\n\n<p>To comment on your question about whether the conference is more important than the work: for most people, I would assume (and hope) the work itself is more important. But the reality is that hiring committees need to differentiate candidates, and judging by conference/journal quality is one way to accomplish that goal. Additionally, trying to read all candidates' papers, and then trying to judge the worth of the research without necessarily being an expert in the sub-fields themselves, would probably be futile at worst, and frustrating at best.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, strong letters in support of the candidate are probably almost as important as the research itself, especially if the letters point in particular to example publications that demonstrate outstanding work.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8407,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I believe it is not rare, at least when considering the <a href=\"http://research.cs.wisc.edu/dbworld/browse.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">DBWorld</a> calls. CS is oriented towards conferences and people value top conferences more than anything else. Although I am just young researcher, I may say <strong>people are going crazy for publishing in top conferences</strong> in CS. I saw some professors target only and only top conferences. </p>\n\n<p>I do not know whether this is a good thing to the field and I wish to hear from experienced researcher in the field how things was before 10 or 15 years.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 164237,
"author": "Harper",
"author_id": 135177,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/135177",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The requirement to have a strong publication record on top-tier conferences is very common and it is important when you look for academic positions. I believe it is well-known and well-accepted among the researchers. I study databases and when I started my Ph.D., my advisor told me that he wants me to have three to four publications before graduation. When he talked about where to publish them, these were the exact words he used, "<em>Having one ICDE does not hurt</em>." What do you think this implies?</p>\n<p>I fully agree with you by saying "if a research is excellent, who cares where it is published". But my friend, just as in all human activities, hiring committees always seek to achieve the job with the lowest cost. With more and more Ph.D. and PostDocs going into the job market, the committee members definitely have no time to read in detail the research of every applicant. Considering you are a committee member having 100 resumes at hand for one position, but you can only arrange 10 interviews. what is the fastest way to filter some candidates out? You know the answer.</p>\n<p>All the efforts in a hiring process are simply to make you outstanding among competitors. Top-tier publications, strong recommendations, etc. When everyone has them, you have to have them. You also ask "Is the conference fame considered more important than the paper scientific relevance for a hiring process?". Well not always. For example, a "Best Paper Award" in ICDE may count more than a regular VLDB (I am actually not sure about this.) But people believe a regular SIGMOD/VLDB is better than a regular ICDE or EDBT, which is most of the time true.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/06 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8405",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/379/"
]
|
8,410 | <p>First of all let me apologize for the title, as it is perhaps very vague. The issue is as follows; I have stopped printing my articles and instead starting reading them on screen via my library manager software (Papers2). </p>
<p>The problem is that I find it's MUCH harder to focus when I am reading on screen and thus takes much longer for me to read articles on a screen. It's almost like I get some sort of digital dyslexia... As possible reasons, I figure small things like new mail notifications, screen brightness, sitting/standing posture etc all weigh in somehow. But I suspect that the subliminal association of "how I normally read stuff on a screen" might have a larger effect. In other words since I am normally skimming through stuff when I am in front of the screen, my brain might try to take in information the same way when I am trying to read an article, which of course is a recipe for failure...</p>
<p>I wonder if it's just me or if this is a common phenomenon? Additionally I would appreciate if I could get some tips on how to tackle this problem. Obviously printing all papers is an option but it's neither elegant (creates a mess on/around my desk) nor is it environment-friendly. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8411,
"author": "grauwulf",
"author_id": 5760,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5760",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I have terrible eyes and this is a very real problem for me. Although I'm not an eye care specialist I can say anecdotally that there are a few things that have really made all the difference for me. </p>\n\n<p>First: if you wear glasses, get the computer lenses. Usually they are some kind of an off yellow to cut glare. These really help to reduce eye strain. </p>\n\n<p>Second: look away from the screen every few minutes. Try to focus on objects away from the screen that let you change your focal distance. I find that doing this for just a few moments at the end of every paragraph really helps. </p>\n\n<p>EDIT: Use natural light if you can. I've found that turning my desk so that the ambient light from the window illuminates my screen has also helped me a lot. You have to be careful of glare but when I finally got everything situated it made a notable difference. </p>\n\n<p>Third: media counts a lot. If you're going to use a tablet or eReader look for something that has front/side lighting. Many people like the new Kindle paperwhite but I prefer the Kobo glo. If you're looking for a more stationary solution then I highly recommend a good projector. Prices have come down quite a bit and you can now get an 'OK' projector for just a couple of hundred dollars. It will take a little bit to acclimate yourself to the new reading format but once you do I think you'll find that you like it. I know that I do.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8419,
"author": "Lisa",
"author_id": 6271,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6271",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you have a Nook/Kindle I've found it surprisingly easier to read on those devices. Kindle allows you to email files to that device and it appears in just a few min. There are glitches of course, but I find it a good middle ground. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8424,
"author": "410 gone",
"author_id": 96,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have a similar issue with reading on screen. There doesn't seem to be a commercial A4-sized e-ink reader, which is what I'd ideally read digital copies on.</p>\n\n<p>So, when I'm onlu skimming a paper, I'll do it on-screen.</p>\n\n<p>But whenever I'm serious about digesting a paper, I've switched back to printing it out.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8425,
"author": "Irwin",
"author_id": 5944,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5944",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I suggest a number of things to consider.</p>\n\n<p>1) If you're suffering from glare issues or similar, try to reposition yourself so that the light comes from behind your monitor and reduces glare.</p>\n\n<p>2) As has been suggested in comments, try a tablet. I personally use an iPad for much of my paper reading and it works well. Some advocate the smaller tablets because of their lighter weight (the iPad does feel a little heavy over time, and it's hard to hold in one hand for long amounts of time).</p>\n\n<p>The benefit of an iPad or another tablet is that it feels much more like reading paper than sitting at a computer does. You can sit down at a couch or in a chair and lounge back. In addition, the iPad has a high-quality screen. You can also easily make annotations with good software. I personally use iAnnotate, but there are many options.</p>\n\n<p>3) Many computer monitors, and especially laptop screens, are poor quality. If you want to do a lot of reading on the computer but do not want to try a tablet, consider getting a good-quality external monitor.</p>\n\n<p>Most monitors are TN monitors, which have good response times, but have poor contrast ratios, poor viewing angles, and poor color accuracy, as well as limited refresh rates. IPS panels, in contrast, have much higher everything, but are more expensive. The vast majority of laptop displays, for example, are TN panels, as are the vast majority of computer monitors under $350 (at the 24\" size). It may be worth looking at a higher-quality monitor if you believe that it will help your reading and you want to persist reading on the computer.</p>\n\n<p>If you're trying to read on a television-as-a-monitor, don't. Television screens aren't good for text reading.</p>\n\n<p>A benefit with getting a monitor is that larger monitors generally make people more productive, so even if you buy a monitor and still decide not to read from the screen, you're probably going to still benefit from it work-wise.</p>\n\n<p>--</p>\n\n<p>Basically, your mileage will vary. I've heard of people who have no problems with reading on screens (I'm one of them, though I did get some strain after a while and ended up switching to iPad for much of my reading). I've also heard of people who see flicker and get eye strain viewing certain monitors, with varying severity - some had severe pain after minutes of ANY monitor.</p>\n\n<p>Personally, I feel that if you're still struggling to be productive after a week or two with new hardware (and, hardware is NOT cheap) then I'd consider just going back to paper. While the amount of paper that you have to archive and throw out can be sometimes rather depressing, it's actually a rather cheap alternative compared to purchasing a $500 tablet or monitor which has toxic waste, metal, and unrecyclable materials.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8431,
"author": "Javeer Baker",
"author_id": 4475,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4475",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I write long policy documents and instead of printing them, I tend to proof-read them on the screen.</p>\n\n<p>I use perhaps the most inexpensive way: the 'text to speech' program. This is inbuilt in the Mac computer. I aware there are better programs available but they are not free.</p>\n\n<p>I basically highlight the text and press the key combination and the computer reads the text back to me. All I do is follow the document on the screen without too much effort. No eye strain etc. </p>\n\n<p>This is quite relaxing as you can hear the words and in the case of proofreading you can gauge the quality of the pros etc.</p>\n\n<p>It works with all types of documents (pdfs and even webpages).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8434,
"author": "avi",
"author_id": 6240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6240",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Even I had similar problem, I asked few people I know & I came to know about this software called F.Lux. It provides a different lighting according to the time. And you can set it as per your convenience. I suggest you to give it a try : </p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://stereopsis.com/flux/\">http://stereopsis.com/flux/</a> </p>\n\n<p>It's a freeware, available for Windows/Mac & even for iOS (jailbroken) & Android. </p>\n\n<p>My second suggestion is to look away from screen for ever few mins. Currently I use a timer to remind me (sometimes I even forget this lol) & I make sure to look away from screen for every 30-45 mins. For this I use Time Out app in my Mac. Similar app should be available for your OS too.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8448,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Lisa has a good point but I'll just go into a little more depth with my experience (perhaps a little too much for a comment).</p>\n\n<p>I use a Kindle DX (e-ink, big) and while it's not perfect it is so much better than a tablet. I find that reading on a tablet or monitor my eyes become quite tired quite quickly, but not with e-ink displays. The problem is that the Kindle (at least mine) does not zoom well into PDFs. However, the Nook (e-ink) did (sister has one) and even for my Kindle I can use Calibre (free) to convert PDFs to the native Kindle format. Calibre does work well for text-heavy articles (if there are not too many columns - the simpler the better) but if you have a lot of creative formatting, it's not quite so great.</p>\n\n<p>The nice thing about the Kindle DX is that you can hold it on the side and you can read PDF articles well by jumping back and forth (read top 1/2 of first column in one view, then next page to view the bottom 1/2, then previous page to read the top 1/2 of the other column, etc.).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8453,
"author": "Yamevoy",
"author_id": 6279,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6279",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to the above suggestions, I find problems with text that stretches too far across the page. In that case, I do a copy and paste to a Word document, then put the text into columns. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8566,
"author": "Matt",
"author_id": 4530,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4530",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Get a large (22\" or 24\") display with 16:9 aspect ratio that has a mount that will allow you to put the display in portrait mode. You'll also need a video card that can support portrait mode display (most do this nowadays). This is ideal for reading PDF journal articles formatted for print because you can see a whole page at a time without wasting screen real estate or squinting to read tiny fonts.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 23274,
"author": "Superbest",
"author_id": 244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/244",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think one big reason I dislike reading on screens is the fact that I am basically shining a flashlight in my eyes for hours.</p>\n\n<p>With software, this is less of a problem for two reasons: First off, the visual scheme is designed for a monitor (and not designed for paper but shown on a monitor like with books or articles). Second, the image is very dynamic, so paper isn't an alternative anyhow.</p>\n\n<p>The first thing to try is to turn down the brightness of your monitor. This may seem to make it very dark at first, but backlight is different from contrast. I find that I easily get used to the lowest brightness setting on my monitors after an hour or so. If the wall or desk space behind your computer is dark, you may also want to put a weak desk lamp so that it shines behind your monitor and reduces the contrast of the wall vs. your screen.</p>\n\n<p>If you do a lot of reading, you should consider rotating your monitor (most newer mounts support this) to have it oriented in portrait instead of landscape.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://justgetflux.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">F.lux</a> was already mentioned, and it can be very helpful, but I think it's more to do with effects of using a computer at late hours at home. At noon, a f.lux filtered screen will look about the same as without a filter anyway. If you are lucky enough to have a fancy monitor, you might even find sophisticated software to control contrast and brightness.</p>\n\n<p>I have had a much better experience reading books on a Kindle. Because the screen is not backlighted, but instead gets illuminated by ambient lighting, it is much less irritating. Unfortunately the PDF support of Kindles isn't very good, you must scroll through each page as if it was a picture, and for papers which have small type, multiple columns and frequently refer to figures on other pages, the Kindle's interface will dirve you crazy. Kindle DX has a larger screen, about 8\", though still not as big as a paper.</p>\n\n<p>An alternative is, if you can find an HTML version of your article, to read that in your Kindle using the Web Browser.</p>\n\n<p>Since you are stuck on a computer, I would recommend reading in a software such as Foxit Reader, which have very nice tools for highlighting and annotating. You could even invest in a drawing tablet such as Wacom to help you draw on figures and so on.</p>\n\n<p>IMO this is a lost cause and you should print articles. You have read books and papers from actual paper for decades of your life, including in childhood. Your brain and your eyes are probably accustomed to it much better, and there might be psychological cues which help you focus (not to mention distraction on the computer like email, software popups and so on).</p>\n\n<p>The paper consumption can be quite big, but honestly, how many \"more important\" uses for paper are there besides scientific research? In any case;</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>You can use low-grade, recycled paper</li>\n<li>You can print on both sides, or reuse single-side paper as scratch paper</li>\n<li>You can recycle your own papers after you read them</li>\n<li>Only print papers that you actually want to read, instead of skim for 5 minutes (this should consume a very small amount of paper compared to your other daily activities)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Like you say, it's easy to end up with a huge mess. But that's a question of being organized. If you are a little proactive and develop a reasonable filing system (even a few manilla folders with labeled tabs can do wonders), you can keep the vast majority of the clutter under control very easily.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 165956,
"author": "Sam",
"author_id": 138113,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/138113",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are several relatively new 13.3' e ink devices on the market now that could give you what you are looking for — good experience of reading articles digitally, making notes on the margins and highlighting parts of the text: Two Boox Max; Fujitsu Quaderno A4; Sony Digital Paper 13.3; QuirkLogic Papyr; Ratta Supernote.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/06 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8410",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674/"
]
|
8,416 | <p>How do I formulate research interests in my CV? When talking about my field, I like to include some context, such as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The climate of planet Earth is a complex system. Detailed observations are needed for improving our understanding of individual components and their interaction. Additionally, long-term, large-scale monitoring is required to study the climate system in its entirety. Observations from space are important for both kinds of observations. I am particularly interested in applying space-based observations the atmosphere, for example, for the hydrological cycle. Additionally, I think foo is important because of bar, and would like to research foo deeper.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But on a CV, space and attention are scarce. An alternative would be:</p>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Space-based observations of the atmosphere</li>
<li>Foo</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>But this appears a bit bald to me. I think the context, the motivation, should be relevant: <em>why</em> are my research interests as they are?</p>
<p>What is a better alternative for describing research interests on a CV?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8418,
"author": "posdef",
"author_id": 5674,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>An advice I got when I started worrying about how to form my CV was to include a short paragraph under the title \"Profile\" which would practically be the only freetext bit of the CV, where I <em>describe</em> myself in short and to-the-point sentences. The rest of the CV was supposed to be sort of an enumeration of what I have done, what I can do etc etc. </p>\n\n<p>So I think if you want to have your research interests in your CV, it would make sense to purify the core of what you want to say and plug that into such a \"profile\". Alternative, or rather a complement, to that would be to mention your research interests in a cover letter which you would most likely need to write for any position you'll be applying to. </p>\n\n<p>I guess it all depends on what kind of a CV you are going for.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8420,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Don't even use bullets; just provide a list of keywords/phrases identifying your subfield. At least in the US, departments ask for a separate research statement in addition to your CV. That's the place to explain your research interests in detail and give them context; there's no need to do that in your CV, too.</p>\n\n<p>For example, when I applied for faculty positions, my CV included the following lines between my contact information and my education history.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>Research Interests</strong></p>\n \n <p>Algorithms, data structures, and lower bounds; computational and discrete geometry; computer graphics</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I've served on the faculty recruiting committee in my (top-10 US computer science) department for several years; this approach seems both standard and effective. Personally, when I read a CV, I only spend a second or two on the self-declared research interests and jump straight to the publication list.</p>\n\n<p>(Posdef's answer suggests giving more context in your cover letter, but I think this is pointless. I don't know anyone who has ever read a cover letter.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8426,
"author": "walkmanyi",
"author_id": 1265,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1265",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>What is a better alternative for describing research interests on a CV?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><strong>include a brief (1-3 sentences) free form blob, basically a research statement</strong>. Something like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I work to remedy the effects of human air pollution of natural environment. I focus on monitoring quality of air and water quality in urban areas, especially XYZ. My main achievements include A, B and C.</p>\n</blockquote></li>\n<li><p><strong>include a list of keywords of your research interests</strong> underneath the blob.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The blob and keywords should fit to the first page of the CV package.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/06 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8416",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033/"
]
|
8,427 | <p>Sabbatical leave is very common as it is nice to spend a year as a visiting professor in another university and experience a new environment.</p>
<p>It is very beneficial for the host university to have temporary faculty members free of charge (no salary is normally paid by the host university). <strong>(1) How do host universities attempt (if they do) to attract visiting professors?</strong> Of course, there are job advertisements for hiring visiting professors, but I think they are paid positions and different from normal sabbatical leave.</p>
<p>Visiting for research purposes should be arranged with the leader of the host research group. Thus, the arrangement is at a personal level (somewhat similar to hiring a postdoc researcher.</p>
<p>Visiting for education purposes should be arranged at the level of the department chair.</p>
<p><strong>(2) How can a professor find a visiting professor? Is it chancy? to meet a colleague interested to host?</strong> Or s/he must contact many professors and department chairs to find a vacancy?</p>
<p><strong><em>(1) & (2) Who should actually initiate this process? The guest professor or host university?</em></strong></p>
<p>(possible 3) Is there a system to facilitate this process, as it is of mutual interest, or everything is left to chance? For example, European Union emphasizes the mobility of students/professors through different programmes. Is there such a system for sabbatical visits (in its classical form of completely working at the host university for a period of time, not guest lecturing as it is common in Europe).</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8438,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I do not have direct experience with sabbaticals, however the professors I've known that have taken them have been explicitly sought out for the respective sabbatical at a particular institution (as a visiting professor), by colleagues that they personally know professionally (i.e., from being in the same field and interacting via conferences, collaborations, etc.).</p>\n\n<p>In other words, it boils down to networking, and almost certainly doesn't come out of nowhere. If a professor is planning a sabbatical, he or she will probably already have colleagues willing to host, or will start the process by calling up a colleague and pitching the idea. I would gather that it isn't likely that there are too many successful cold-calls to departments that lead to sabbaticals.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8496,
"author": "bill s",
"author_id": 6308,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6308",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Each time I've taken a sabbatical, it has started with an email (or, in years past, a letter). Write to the person (or people) you would like to collaborate with, and let them know you have a sabbatical coming up. Of course, knowing them already will make it much more likely to be successful. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/06 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8427",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/406/"
]
|
8,428 | <p>In the discussion made in comments to this <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8330/what-does-prof-dr-ir-mean">question</a>, it has been stated that in France, it is possible (though improbable) to become a professor without having PhD. It made me curious if there is such possibility in the United States. I know that in 1970s there were leading professors in the US university who had only MSc. However, I think the main focus was on knowledge in the past, but now formalities are much more important.</p>
<p>Anyway, I am curious if the current regulations in the US universities allows this at all? For promotion to full professor, one needs to be assistant/associate professor. In the past, having a PhD was privilege, but it is now mandatory for holding any assistant/associate/full professor.</p>
<p>Does the current regulations allow a professor without PhD to teach PhD students?</p>
<p>This question is about impossibility vs. improbability.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8430,
"author": "Noah Snyder",
"author_id": 25,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Casson\">Andrew Casson</a> never completed his Ph.D. and is a Professor at Yale University (and was previously a Professor at UT Austin and UC Berkeley).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8432,
"author": "Ben Norris",
"author_id": 924,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/924",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>At most US institutions, you need the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_degree\">terminal degree</a> in your field. For many fields this is a PhD, but in some it might be an <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Education\">EdD</a>, a <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Musical_Arts\">DMA</a>, a <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Public_Health\">DPH</a>, a <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Theology\">ThD</a>, etc. However, all of these degrees are considered to one level or another to be research doctorates. Presumably faculty positions at a medical school require an MD or equivalent. Likewise for other professional schools. Positions in the visual arts, theater, dance, creative writing, cinematography, etc., may only require the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Fine_Arts\">MFA (Master of Fine Arts)</a> degree, as it is considered to be the terminal degree in those fields. </p>\n\n<p>\"Regulations\" about the requirements to hold certain academic ranks and perform certain academic duties (like mentor graduate students) are made at the institutional level. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8455,
"author": "che_kid",
"author_id": 6093,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6093",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Short answer - it depends. You mention teaching PhDs, so I assume you don't mean community or state colleges where a PhD may not necessarily be required. If you mean tenure-track or tenured professor at a \"University\", then I would say it's difficult, although certainly not impossible. To make a blanket statement applying to all U.S. institutions would just be silly. But I would consider it a rare occurrence for a non-PhD to step into the tenure-track role. </p>\n\n<p>There are a number of non-tenure track professorships (adjunct, teaching, practicing professional, or whatever title an institution gives them) that don't necessarily require PhDs. Note that these professorships are typically focused on teaching rather than scholarly research and usually don't come with any tenure guarantees. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 15656,
"author": "J.W.S.",
"author_id": 10722,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10722",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I was thrown out of a small mid-western college (not a university) in my first year. I was persuaded to apply to Harvard about 8 years later. I took the exams and was admitted. I paid my way by working a 40 hr/week full-time job, admittedly against the rules, at an electronics firm throughout the 4 years. I graduated with a decent, but not outstanding A.B. in a scientific field, and had, incidentally, become Chief Electronics Engineer at the firm where I had been employed. This was followed by employment in diverse research environments, then in a think-tank in Cambridge and, finally with two offers of tenured full professorship at major universities. I took one, and thus became a full professor at a major university without ever having taken a course in graduate school or having had any prior appointment as Assistant or Associate Professor. I am currently Professor Emeritus and continue to direct PhD candidates. The answer to the question is, therefore, YES</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 15658,
"author": "Zach H",
"author_id": 8857,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8857",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another counterexample: <a href=\"http://www.bard.edu/academics/faculty/faculty.php?action=details&id=2847\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Walter Russell Mead</a>, who joined the Bard faculty in 2005 and received tenure in 2010 if I am not mistaken. Admittedly, Bard does not grant doctorates, but it is regarded as a strong liberal arts college.</p>\n\n<p>I'm under the impression that there are strong incentives to have faculty with terminal degrees for accreditation purposes, but historically it was not unusual and you can find more recent examples, though they certainly fall in the improbable category.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 23115,
"author": "Nicole Hamilton",
"author_id": 9553,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9553",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Whether you get special consideration probably depends on how special you are. <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Lynn Conway</a> joined the University of Michigan as a full professor of EE and CS in 1985 with only an MSEE. But she had some other stuff going for her, like having co-created the Mead-Conway revolution in chip design. She didn't have a PhD but she had already become a Fellow of the IEEE.</p>\n\n<p>Lynn is a friend of mine and when I've asked her about her appointment, she's waived the question away, insisting that exceptions can always be made. But I'm a lecturer today in that same UM EECS department where she held her appointment before retiring and when I recently asked our chairman if it could still be done today, he insisted it would never happen. Not anymore.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 110631,
"author": "Ben",
"author_id": 87026,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/87026",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The ability to enter academia without a PhD varies substantially by faculty. In faculties that train people for \"the professions\" it is more common to encounter academics that have come from a professional background but do not have a PhD. For example, many academics in Law faculties are professional solicitors and barristers and their expertise comes from this background, rather than from a postgraduate research degree. Many academics in Medicine faculties are medical doctors who do not have PhDs (though they still have the title \"Dr\" from their medical degrees). The same is broadly true of other \"professions\" such as Actuarial Mathematics, some areas of Business and Commerce, so areas of Engineering, etc.</p>\n\n<p>Having said this, there is no doubt that the situation is changing rapidly over time, due to a rapid increase in the supply of PhD graduates in all faculties (see e.g., <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Cyranoski et al 2011</a>, <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472280a.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">McCook 2011</a>, <a href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4309283/pdf/nihms562644.pdf\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Larson, Ghaffarzadegan and Xue 2014</a>). As the pool of PhD graduates increases, there is greater competition in credentials for academic positions, particularly at entry level. This seems to be leading to a situation where entry-level academics are expected to have a PhD. In some places this is now mandatory (see e.g., <a href=\"https://www.timeshighereducation.com/doctoral-level-thinking-non-phds-need-not-apply/422244.article\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Gibney 2018</a>, <a href=\"https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/mandatory-phd-policies-lead-boom-academics-doctorates\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Baker 2018</a>). Growth in PhD graduates and the resultant inflation of entry-level qualifications has been so rapid that there is growing concerns of an oversupply of PhDs that cannot be absorbed into academia \n(see e.g., <a href=\"https://www.economist.com/node/17723223\" rel=\"noreferrer\">The Economist 2010</a>). Senior academics who entered the university system prior to this boom have usually achieved enough in research and their profession that having this degree is not an important addition, so there are still many academics at higher levels without PhDs. However, for people seeking entry into academia at lower levels, the proportion of entrants with PhDs is increasing rapidly.</p>\n\n<p>Speaking from personal experience (though not at US universities), when I went through university in the late 1990s and early 2000s (in Australia) there were many academics without PhDs, mostly in the faculties listed above. In the Law faculty at my university, most academics were professional lawyers, and less than a quarter held a PhD. In the Actuarial school, the academics were actuaries, and none of them held a PhD (though one was working towards it). Encountering an academic without a PhD was extremely common. Since this time it has become uncommon to encounter an entry-level academic without a PhD.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/07 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8428",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/406/"
]
|
8,436 | <p>I am writing my thesis and came across an image on Wikipedia that I would like to use. The licensing on this image is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwide.
In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so:
I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Should I still include a reference to indicate this image is not my own work, if so, who should be given credit (the author is not known in this case)? </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8437,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Should I still include a reference to indicate this image is not my\n own work</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>YES</strong> If the idea is not yours, you need to reference it.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Who should be given credit</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That is a harder question. Ideally, you should find the original author/source. Given a reasonable attempt to find the original author/source fails then reference the secondary/reproduction (i.e., wikipedia/wikimedia).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 29730,
"author": "Franck Dernoncourt",
"author_id": 452,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here are the recommendations from <a href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Wikimedia Commons</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Content in the public domain may not have a strict legal requirement\nof attribution (depending on the jurisdiction of content reuse), but\nattribution is recommended to give correct provenance.</p>\n<p>Other restrictions may apply. These may include trademarks, patents,\npersonality rights, moral rights, privacy rights, or any of the many\nother legal causes which are independent of copyright and vary greatly\nby jurisdiction.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The rest of the page is very informative as well.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/07 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8436",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4533/"
]
|
8,440 | <p>A school that I am applying has a list of available topics, along with their descriptions, which I can choose from. I already select one topic which matches my interest and background, I also contact a professor who will supervise on that topic and he encourages me to go for it. However, as the application process, I need to write a research proposal. It makes me confused as the topic and research description are already defined. I can add some comments on the topic and then relate my background to it, but it will be a personal statement instead of research proposal. So, I wonder in other universities, what students are expected to write in their research proposals when they select a pre-defined topics.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8441,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I would ask the professor who encouraged you to apply what the best strategy is.</p>\n\n<p>In any case, a good idea is to take the topic proposed in the list you mention and write about that. Make it your own. Try to develop your own approach to the topic. Elaborate more on what needs to be done. Explore some related work a find out what has been written. This will help demonstrate that you have what it takes to be a (top) PhD student.</p>\n\n<p>Avoid simply writing a personal statement on top of the research proposal. They probably want to see how you think about the research topic and would approach it. </p>\n\n<p>If possible, get the professor to help you out. Not by doing the writing, but by providing comments and possibly related work. (Note that professors are busy, so s/he may not have time to do this.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8442,
"author": "grauwulf",
"author_id": 5760,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5760",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A research proposal should address several things, whether the topics are predefined or not. Yes, you propose a topic but you also want to address: why you selected your topic, any background you might have in that area, how you intend to approach your research, methodologies you intend to employ, relevant standards and rigor, and (possibly the most important) how your research on the chosen topic will advance the related body of knowledge in your discipline. Of course this would all be at a very high level but it should all work toward advancing your argument. I think it also helps to keep in mind that any research proposals or statements that you write are intended to be persuasive in nature. When the reader finishing reviewing their proposal there should be no doubt that you're the best person to do what you want to do, and if you don't do it there will be a potential void of knowledge in your discipline. All you have to do is convince them of that. </p>\n\n<p>Final tips: edit often, get lots of test readers, revise-revise-revise, and when you submit it - let it go and don't let it get to you. I've seen people drive themselves nuts waiting to hear back. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/07 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8440",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4481/"
]
|
8,443 | <p>I had two papers approved for a workshop in a IEEE conference and I'm going to send the camera-ready version soon.</p>
<p>Is it OK to have one paper cite the other? If it's OK, do I have to reference the other paper as "to appear"?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8445,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is okay for each paper to cite the other. </p>\n\n<p>It would be better if more accurate publication details were given. Sometimes the published will add this information (this happens at Springer for LNCS volumes). Perhaps you can alert the editor of the fact, and they might be able to make sure that you have the right information for the citation or they can ensure that the publishers do the right thing.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8446,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>This is acceptable, and fairly common. You cite as usual, and the citation itself would be identical to a standard citation with the exception that the date and page numbers would be replaced by the phrase \"in press\".</p>\n\n<p>From the <a href=\"http://www.historians.org/PUBS/Free/ProfessionalStandards.cfm#Reputation\">American Historical Association's \"Professional Standards\" page</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The AHA suggests the following lexicon.</p>\n \n <ul>\n <li>\"In Press\": the manuscript is fully copyedited and out of the author's hands. It is in the final stages of the production process.</li>\n <li>\"Forthcoming\": a completed manuscript has been accepted by a press or journal.</li>\n <li>\"Under contract to . . .\": a press and an author have signed a contract for a book in progress, but the final manuscript has not yet been submitted.</li>\n <li>\"Submitted\" or \"under consideration\": the book or article has been submitted to a press or journal, but there is as yet no contract or agreement to publish.</li>\n </ul>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8449,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, it's fine. I would probably cite it as follows:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>First Author and Second Author. This is the title of this paper, which is also found several times in the paper itself. These <em>Proceedings</em>, 2013.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/07 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8443",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6275/"
]
|
8,450 | <p>I am a professor and researcher in mathematics and my research is kind of on the theoretical side. Online, I discovered a mathematician who had written some papers with ideas similar to mine, and we corresponded and discussed possible collaboration. Then he wrote an entire paper, listing both of us as authors on the front page, and sent it to me. I didn't think it ethical to take any credit for a paper I had no part in writing, so I discontinued all contact with this person. Has anyone here had a similar experience? How common is this?</p>
<p>I am becoming very disillusioned with the pure research game. People spend huge amounts of time on self-promotion because there just isn't that much demand for their work.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8452,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I have heard stories about some (mostly weak) young mathematicians include the names of some people (influential enough) to facilitate the acceptance of their papers or to help them for employment, grants, etc. In fact, two years ago, an almost innocent case of this was going to happen to me. In Iran, most departments of mathematics have this (written or non-written) rule that a master or a PhD student should have at least one paper with his/her supervisor, otherwise she cannot graduate or she misses some points from her thesis grade. I had a master student and she wanted to get the highest grade and therefore she asked me if I allow her to write a weak paper and include my name as a co-author of the paper. I deny it and she missed 1 (out of 20) from her thesis grade. Of course, to compensate the 1 point unfair reduction, I defended her and asked the jury to not reduce any more points from her grade. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8454,
"author": "che_kid",
"author_id": 6093,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6093",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Without knowing too many details of your situation, could you perhaps give the other author the benefit of the doubt? Cutting off all contact does seem harsh (unless you have other reasons) for what could simply be a misunderstanding.</p>\n\n<p>I don't know the conventions of your field, but it seems in many science fields that authors are added if they contribute intellectual ideas on the research, not necessarily for doing the research. Other authors simply add support in some fashion, so get added. It is not uncommon to have many authors on a science paper. It does in fact get tricky because one can offend others by not including co-authors. </p>\n\n<p>I'm of the opinion that it's probably better to include someone who contributed in some fashion than not include them. You could argue that this dilutes research and is a \"pure research game\", but honestly, one paper is not going to make or break anyone's career.</p>\n\n<p>Could this author simply have been trying to extend kindness, or perhaps thought you had a bigger role in the research than you actually felt you did?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 44554,
"author": "Blaisorblade",
"author_id": 8966,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8966",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To answer your stated question: the only general requirement for your authorship on a paper is that you contribute to the research significantly, and that generally doesn't imply co-writing it — contributing to the ideas can be significant, especially if the proof becomes trivial with an idea you contributed. (I've heard mathematicians describe \"significant contribution\" very differently — say, that PhD students are expected to draft papers, get advising and feedback from their supervisor, and not list their supervisor as coauthor — unless the student failed to contribute to the project).</p>\n\n<p>Now, you have similar ideas. In my experience, tracking down who originated an idea among people who did work together can be very hard, and joint credit can be an easier solution which is accepted in our community (in Computer Science, Programming Languages).</p>\n\n<p>However, since all authors are jointly responsible for the claims in the paper, I've been taught it's very bad style to add somebody to a draft without his permission; submitting the paper without your knowledge/consent would be unethical, but dropping contact is not only brisk, but ambiguous. Couldn't he genuinely (in good faith) think you were okay with the draft, but didn't have time to respond?</p>\n\n<p>In fact, if he thinks you contributed to the research, to publish it ethically, he'll need either your agreement to have your name in, or your agreement to have your name out.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 159225,
"author": "Kostya_I",
"author_id": 78612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/78612",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You were completely wrong in thinking it was unethical to co-author a paper you had no part in writing, or that the other person did anything wrong. Quite the contrary.</p>\n<p>Contributions to papers may take very different form; one can merit a co-authorship without writing a word if one contributed essential ideas. As a famous example, Adelman of the RSA code fame did not participate in inventing the code; what he did was defeating dozens of previous attemps by Rivest and Shamir. When they came up with a proposal he could not defeat, they included him as a co-author.</p>\n<p>By doing what they did, your correspondent simply acknowledged that discussions with you helped him to solve the problem, in which case it is customary to offer a co-authorship. Of course, you might feel differently, e. g., that you only communicated common knowledge, in which case it would be appropriate to decline the offer. But from other side, it was just new to them; how could they judge whether it's common knowledge or your unique perspective or the result of you thinking on this problem specifically? For them, it's only ethical to make sure they don't err on the wrong side of it.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8450",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6278/"
]
|
8,456 | <p>I am an undergraduate research assistant in a biology lab. I was having an informal conversation while working at lab with my professor and a colleague of him. In the middle of our conversation, my professor passed a racially insensitive remark at me (I can reproduce here if someone wants to know). However, he realized it and walked away immediately. I am very upset. </p>
<p>But after few hours, he came back and he was conversing with me like nothing happened, but I am still upset. Can you all tell me how to handle this? My options are to ask him if he did that unknowingly or to keep quiet. But I really want to know if he feels sorry for what he said. I really don't want to complain to his superiors, but I want him to apologize to me for what he said. Is this unreasonable? if not, how should I go about dealing with this person?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8457,
"author": "Nobody",
"author_id": 546,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In your question, <em>However, he realized it and walked away immediately.</em> and <em>But after few hours, he came back and he was conversing with me like nothing happened</em></p>\n\n<p>indicate to me that he felt sorry and didn't know exactly how to deal with it.</p>\n\n<p>Professors are also human. They make the same mistakes others do.</p>\n\n<p>I would suggest you to talk to him in person about this incident <strong>politely and seriously</strong>. Tell him that you are upset with the remarks he made earlier and explain to him why. Don't be emotional.</p>\n\n<p>Whether or not he will apologize is up to him. If he doesn't offer apology to you after you talk to him, then talk to his superiors if you want the apology.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8458,
"author": "posdef",
"author_id": 5674,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I guess it depends on the personalities to a certain extent but it's always good to talk to the person, to weed out any misunderstandings and/or give that person a chance to explain him/her-self. </p>\n\n<p>If I were in your shoes, I would start by asking the person if you can have a 1-to-1 meeting, during which I would take up: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>what you heard him/her say</li>\n<li>that it bothers you for reasons: A,B,C ...</li>\n<li>and that you wonder if he/she meant what was said, or if it was untimely and insensitive joke. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Given the offense is really bothering you, I personally wouldn't advocate for keeping quite and letting it go. Insensitivity aside, if your boss has racially-demeaning or insulting opinions, then it's probably not the kind of place you want to work at anyways. It would be better to know that...</p>\n\n<p>I have to stress that even though my suggestion might seem confrontational, with right tone and choice of words I am certain it would not appear so to the professor in question. For reference, check out <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication</a> </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8467,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>He didn't mean it</strong>. I am not sure whether it is a good idea to bring the issue again.<br>\nI think your professor felt sorry about it and thats why he left and came back (<em>a good indication he has nothing against you</em>). </p>\n\n<p><strong>I really suggest not to make it public nor bring the issue again</strong> and as long as he is a fair and kind professor, that is what you need. If the racial issue comes again, then that is another story. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8471,
"author": "nikow",
"author_id": 6289,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6289",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You say you have two options - to ask or to ignore. Actually you have many options - infinitely many. One of these would be to get to know your professor better. This I recommend. </p>\n\n<p>There are compusive disorders that impell people to say shocking things. Tourette's syndrome is an extreme case, but there are others. Sometimes we just do stupid things.Some people find it terribly hard to apologise. We humans are very complex.\nNobody knows what it feels like to live in inside another's skin.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8475,
"author": "Fuhrmanator",
"author_id": 3859,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3859",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>See if your campus offers <strong>diversity training</strong> (a Google search of <code>allintext:diversity training faculty site:edu</code> shows that many US institutions offer this). </p>\n\n<p>If so, go to the organizers of the courses and ask for advice about what to do. Before you mention the name of the faculty member to them, ask what would be the consequence of giving that information.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 34593,
"author": "Stephen",
"author_id": 26848,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26848",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Actually, I was in a very similar situation once. It didn't actually bother me as much as it seems to bother you.</p>\n\n<p>But - I could tell on the inside that the professor in this situation, felt <em>really really</em> bad afterwards. I could tell that he was a good guy, but just made a mistake.</p>\n\n<p>After that, he treated me extremely well in order to 'make up' for what he did. Though, I didn't say anything about it or ask for an apology.</p>\n\n<p>If you really want an apology, confront him professionally about the issue. It was his mistake. And afterwards, I believe he will treat you with the at most respect in order to 'make up' for what he did.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 62102,
"author": "Captain Emacs",
"author_id": 45857,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45857",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I tend towards <em>not expecting an apology</em> at a gaffe. If it doesn't repeat, you can assume they were possibly mortified themselves. If you insist on an apology, you may even get it, but what's the point, beside making them lose face? (Well, some people expect that as compensation for themselves being insulted, but you should ask yourself if you really need this).</p>\n\n<p>An apology which is given freely and by own initiative is worth by far the most.</p>\n\n<p>If the offence repeats, you can assume it's not a gaffe. Now you could really insist on an apology, but in my experience, it shows more aplomb, and, in fact, is far more powerful, to then move towards acting coldly, aloof and professional. This shows <em>you're</em> the boss here and <em>they</em> the immature kid (even if age-wise, it's reversed).</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8456",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6280/"
]
|
8,460 | <p>I teach quite a few 'unprepared' students and I find they struggle with finding source material on which to base their reports. Basically, they need to read a lot and apply theories to different companies.</p>
<p>Where should I draw the line when giving them advice? I certainly do not do any searching or reading/filtering for them but if they choose a company and need to report on it, is it acceptable to give them some ideas about famous events at that company which might have happened a decade ago (or more but would still be acceptable for the purposes of the report)? Or, should I require them to do search, even for old events, and if they can't, then they can't and fail?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8461,
"author": "F'x",
"author_id": 2700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The purpose of teaching, which includes both your lectures, later guidance on their projects <em>and also includes evaluation</em>, is for them to learn new skills. So, the question you should ask yourself is: <strong>what skills do I want them to learn, and how do I achieve that best?</strong></p>\n\n<p>Typically, it seems to me that (if you have enough time for it), it is <em>very</em> important to teach them not only to read, filter and digest information, but also to search for it (Information Age and all). So, you might want to make “searching for relevant information” a required skill. But that doesn't mean you should help them acquire it. In fact, you probably should:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>advertise it as an important part of what they are expected to learn</li>\n<li>help them learn it, i.e. show them how it's done</li>\n<li>evaluate them based on their performance</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>However… even if you do all that, it still doesn't mean you can't help them if they miss something. After all, if you are teaching them how to best look for information, they might realize it's a good idea to come to the expert they know in that particular field… <em>you</em>, their teacher. So, maybe they will come asking</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>here are the relevant events I found about X in the archives… do you think I missed something?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>or even:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I see a spike in the data around the fall of 1974, and I have searched but couldn't find any event possibly related to that company, do you know of anything that might explain it?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>in which cases you might want to answer them, if it seems they did their due diligence.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8933,
"author": "Nobody",
"author_id": 546,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think the problem most students are facing is <strong>too much information on the net</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>For example, if your assignment for them is to figure out the <em>Impact of 2008 financial crisis to GM</em>.</p>\n\n<p>If they google for \"2008 financial crisis GM\", they would get about 4,030,000 results.</p>\n\n<p>The first one on the list is, <em>Scholarly articles for financial crisis 2008 GM</em>. If you click on that, you get 300,200 results. Do you expect them to read through all of them? I don't believe so.</p>\n\n<p>I believe most undergrad student today do know how to search. But, they may have trouble with filtering them out because of the large volume of info they get on Internet.</p>\n\n<p>In order to help them, you need to figure out how much time it would take them to find the info you want them to find, assuming they would do the search themselves.</p>\n\n<p>In other words, you need to do the homework first. Pretend you know nothing about the subject. Search on the net. Find the info yourself. If you can do it in a reasonable time, then you can expect them to do it. </p>\n\n<p>Using the example above, I cannot find the document you want me to find in a reasonable time frame unless you tell me specificly what you are after.</p>\n\n<p>The line you want really depends on the assignment and student's willingness to learn. I don't think typing keywords is a problem, how to choose keywords and what to do after the search are what's troubling them.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8460",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692/"
]
|
8,464 | <p>I've had to grade quite a few essay papers in the classes I've taught, and I've suspected some may have plagiarized but I never really pursued check on them because it would be too time consuming to check their sources and pursue any/all possible sources where they may have copied from. </p>
<p>What's the easiest way to check for plagiarism? Is there a search engine tool that one could use to upload a paper and check for it? I doubt it, but other than that, I don't know of any other way to check for it than to put in more effort than I have time for.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8465,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my department/university we have access to some systems for checking for plagiarism but most of us end up using Google, believe it or not. The reasons are that the plagiarism systems (we have access to) seem to work on a limited subset of work and that Google is extremely easy to use. My suspicion is that the existing systems may be tailored to specific subjects and may be excellent within these. So I would simply say, test your suspected essay by inserting sentences or even larger (key) parts of paragraphs into Google and see what comes out.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8466,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are plenty of tools out there. The best 'seems' to be TurnItIn. It's costly so if the school won't pay for it, you might not be interested. My school does not so I found other options.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://plagiarism.bloomfieldmedia.com/z-wordpress/software/wcopyfind/\">Here is a tool</a> called WCopyFind that is very good at finding plagiarism when one student copies from another but it will not find something online. After collecting papers for several semesters it has been catching more and more and most students take the same easy way out.</p>\n\n<p>There are other options if you search for online plagiarism checking but they are not as robust as this tool above...however to really see the benefits, you need to maintain a library of old papers to compare against. What I like about it (besides being FOSS) is that it is highly configurable (consider a match 6 words in a row, or consider a match 9 words in a row where 70% of the words match). It all runs local (since there's no internet search) so it's quite fast.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8477,
"author": "user6296",
"author_id": 6296,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6296",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If your school uses blackboard, d2L, or something of the sort...plagiarism detection (if that's what we can call it) is built into the system. For blackboard, the program is called safeassign. Students submit their papers through safeassign (I'm convinced that just telling them about this program cuts down on plagiarism), and then the program gives you a report (ie 23% plagiarized). A couple of great things about the program: it gives you the source where the student lifted the information and keeps a running database of papers so that students cannot use each others assignments. It makes the process totally objective, and you won't have to worry....the program does all the work. Good luck!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8495,
"author": "bill s",
"author_id": 6308,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6308",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You can also do it yourself using google. Pick a single idiosyncratic phrase from the manuscript and search for it in quotes. It is amazing how often you will find search results have that same phrase followed by and preceded by the same words as in the paper. If so, you have found plagiarism. I once found a term paper substantially ripped off from a MS thesis (from a small schol in Australia) using this technique. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 31638,
"author": "Haley Osborne",
"author_id": 24225,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24225",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Recently, I had to check several texts for plagiarism, and I used a free plagiarism checking tool (you can <a href=\"https://www.google.com/#q=free+online+plagiarism+checker\" rel=\"nofollow\">google for one</a>, there are a few that are returned). You just copy and paste text there and if it is copied from any published source the tool will detect it and provide you with the link to the source. That's how you can actually check the accuracy of references as well. Though the tools are not designed for academic purposes, it works well for checking any kind of papers. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 31662,
"author": "Village",
"author_id": 600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some of the plagiarism tools do not seem to be effective against bilingual students who plagiarize and then translate the works with machine translation. It only takes 1 minute to catch:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Select and copy a random sentence from the paper containing some rare words.</li>\n<li>Paste this sentence into an on-line translation tool, set to translate from English to the student's L1.</li>\n<li>Copy this output and search for it in your favorite search English.</li>\n<li>If the search preview finds a sentence word-for-word match, copy that address.</li>\n<li>Translate the whole address from that student's L1 to English and compare that with their paper.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Since most students who plagiarize are also lazy, many do not seem to bother with editing the translation, so I've caught many students who submitted papers in this fashion where the output from the Web translation service was identical to the output they gave me.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 67440,
"author": "Karla Ferrin Huntsman",
"author_id": 52893,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/52893",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Please note that some \"free plagiarism checkers\" will turn around and sell the papers that are submitted to them to other students. Be careful with their use.</p>\n\n<p>I find TurnItIn to be well worth the cost. Even though students can check their own papers through the system, this is a GOOD thing because it teaches students what is plagiarized and what is not. If the student has to make adjustments to ensure that they aren't plagiarizing, isn't that what we want them to do?</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8464",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/931/"
]
|
8,468 | <p>I expect to be graduating with a maths BSc (with an honours year, in Australia) in the not-too-distant future. I’d like to pursue a PhD in pure maths, with the view of becoming a research mathematician. I’ve found it quite difficult to find information on what exactly the application process entails, and when I need to start worrying about it. I have some specific questions, but what I’m really interested in is if there’s a compiled source of advice and information for math PhD applicants internationally.</p>
<ol>
<li>It seems that many universities have a specific (December in the USA) deadline, does this mean PhDs have to start at a particular time of year?</li>
<li>I see that occasionally people advertise a particular PhD position they’d like to fill, on some particular research topic. Is this kind of PhD different from the “generic” kind and have a different application process?</li>
</ol>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8469,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <ol>\n <li>It seems that many universities have a specific (December in the USA)\n deadline, does this mean PhDs have to start at a particular time of\n year?</li>\n </ol>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Usually, students apply on December for the Fall entry (August/September of the upcoming year).</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>2.I see that occasionally people advertise a particular PhD position they’d like to fill, on some particular research topic. Is this kind of PhD different from the “generic” kind and have a different application process?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Really can't ansnwer and it is case specific but usually such advertisements contain information about how to apply, expected time to start, minimum requirements and expected stipend (if there is any). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8472,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are two main models of organizing doctoral programs:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>The American system: graduate students proceed through a combined master's and doctoral program, usually starting with coursework, then taking some sort of \"qualifying exam\" to become doctoral candidates within the department. Admissions are handled at the department level.</p></li>\n<li><p>The \"German\" system: doctoral candidates are <em>employees</em> rather than <em>students.</em> Candidates for a position must apply directly to the group of the professor who is sponsoring the project. There is no coursework phase, as applicants are expected to have already completed their master's degree. (However, they can \"audit\" courses if needed.)</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I would suspect that these represent the \"poles\" of the spectrum; most other systems I'm aware of fall somewhere in between. [Note that even the German system is adopting some features of the American system, and is thus starting to become a hybrid.] </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8468",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6282/"
]
|
8,479 | <p>I am writing a thesis for my M.Sc. dissertation, and I am struggling to identify how big the contribution of my paper has to be.</p>
<p>I've heard professors in our campus saying "you don't have to save the world, just add a little bit of something to an already existing work." But that is vague and seems too little for an M.Sc. program. Do you have any advice on what could be considered a sufficient contribution? </p>
<p>Ps. My field is distributed systems (cloud computing) and it would be nice if you could explain it in that context. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8480,
"author": "Paul Hiemstra",
"author_id": 4091,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4091",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In my opinion and experience, it is relatively rare for an MSc thesis to yield truly original research resulting in a paper. The primary goal of a MSc thesis is to teach you important research skills: come up with a general idea of what to do, researching literature, coming up with a specific question that you want to address, performing research (computations, fieldwork, lab experiments), and finally writing it down in a thesis. If you successfully complete this cycle, I think your MSc thesis is a success. If the thesis, after some editing, is original enough to end up as a journal paper this is a big bonus. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8485,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em><strong>This is largely depends on your supervisor expectations.</em></strong><br>\nSome professors have certain requirements for their MSc students to graduate (i.e. publishing one paper) others do not have contribution requirements and knowing the literature is enough to them.<br>\nEven if you do have publishable work, some professors will keep pushing you and you will end up with three years MSc thesis similar in away or another to a PhD thesis. </p>\n\n<p>In general, you are required to <em>know</em> the current literature of your subfield/problem area <em>very well</em> and summarize it in a thesis. It is definitely better to implement/compare different techniques, trying to identify challenges and trying to tackle one of the challenges.</p>\n\n<p><em>For example, your general area is cloud computing, your thesis topic is about materialized views or query processing under cloud computing infrastructure. This requires finding the current literature of query processing, how it is different under cloud computing settings and what are the main research challenges</em></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8486,
"author": "Legendre",
"author_id": 1190,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1190",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>MSc thesis requirements vary. It is best to ask your course director.</p>\n\n<p>I know some students in the UK getting distinctions for literature reviews, while other departments only give a distinction if the work is publishable or potentially publishable.</p>\n\n<p>I was in fact at an UK university where MSc dissertations quite regularly gets published either during or a little after the course.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8498,
"author": "bill s",
"author_id": 6308,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6308",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As someone who supervises MS and PhD students, your question makes me very nervous. Why are you now, at this point in your career, trying to sneak by accomplishing as little as possible? You are at the age and time when you should be envisioning great things and trying to create new knowledge (or at least add to it). I always tell my students that the aim of the MS is to generate something publishable (conference or journal paper). The reality is that not all achieve this (and I still let them graduate) but this is what you should aim for. It is for your advisor to know the field, but you need to ask him/her the question: where is this topic publishable? When can we take it to a conference (or to a journal)? If the advisor can't see how your work could be publishable (if it works out as you plan), then find another topic or find another advisor.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 76512,
"author": "Mark",
"author_id": 57912,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57912",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The requirements probably change depending on where you are, but, having just finished my MSc in the UK, I can tell you what I was told supervisors are looking for in a Master's dissertation.</p>\n\n<p>Some of the requirements I had have already been listed by seteropere. Basically, demonstrate you know your chosen topic very well, identify some challenges, perhaps try to tackle one.</p>\n\n<p>But the main thing that supervisors here are looking for is that you have gone beyond the material in the course. They want to see that you took what you learnt throughout the taught part of the masters program and applied it to something that wasn't covered, or in a way that wasn't discussed. Alternatively, you could also choose a topic that wasn't covered at all in your course and provide an overview of it, discussing challenges, open questions, important examples (which is where dissertations that are basically just literature reviews come in, as mentioned by Legendre). </p>\n\n<p>Good luck with your thesis! Unfortunately I don't know much about cloud computing, but I hope this helps anyway! </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8479",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6299/"
]
|
8,481 | <p>No starting point for scientific collaboration is better than face-to-face conversation. Conferences are good places to meet potential collaborator, but another way is to invite them to visit your institute/group and negotiate for possible collaborations.</p>
<p>However, when inviting a colleague from long distance (e.g. crossing the Atlantic), it is difficult to cover the cost of the flight (particularly as it significantly varies and hard to justify its necessity). Sometimes, the visitors has better access to available fund to cover his/her trip. Of course, it is easier to cover the cost of accommodation.</p>
<p>How do you invite a potential collaborator to visit your institute when you cannot cover his/her flight cost? Isn't it rude to invite someone and quote you must come on your own expenses as we cannot cover it? Note that the relationship is quite formal with least personal acquaintance (no joint work yet).</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8483,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 6110,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6110",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>With apologies, and a firm understanding that lack of funding may be a dealbreaker.</p>\n\n<p>It would certainly help if you can cover part of the expenses: \"If you are ever in [Country X], I hope you will also visit [my institution] and we would be happy to pay for your hotel [or else do you have a couch?] and pay for around [small number] towards your travel expenses. You are of course very welcome to make a special trip but I regret that funding is tight and we would be unable to pay your international travel expenses.\"</p>\n\n<p>... or something like that. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8484,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p>Some schools do offer certain amount of money to help in invited speakers' expenses. </p></li>\n<li><p>If you do not have any sufficient fund to cover this, you can ask your\ncolleagues (i.e. other faculty members) to help you out. Note that if they won't benefit from the speaker then most likely they will not participate in this. </p></li>\n<li><p>Meet him/her in a conference; this seems to be a very realistic option. Actually, I think it is a better idea to meet him/her in the conference even if you are able to cover the expenses. Meet over cup of coffee and discuss the potential contribution and if needed settle another appointment at the hotel lobby. </p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8493,
"author": "F'x",
"author_id": 2700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Try to arrange their visit close to a conference in your field that is held on your continent</strong> (domestic or intra-European flights are cheap, so you can probably cover that). Either have the visit just before or just after a big conference which the visitor will attend anyway means easier funding <em>and</em> easier scheduling for them (most people can only schedule so many around-the-world business trips per year). I have used that “trick” a lot, both when inviting people and when visiting other groups.</p>\n\n<p>Also, look for binational grant programs that may be awarded for such purposes, there are some (but it obviously depends on the countries involved).</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8481",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/406/"
]
|
8,487 | <p>I am a graduate student in physics and every other month or so I get an e-mail from someone who wants a grad school or even postdoc position. These e-mails often start out "Dear Professor (<em>my name</em>)," (I'm not a professor) and go on to explain that they are a motivated student looking to do a PhD with me, sometimes referring to a position that I am supposed to have advertised (I didn't). In the past I have often sent a reply in which I try to be disinterested but helpful, pointing them to the jobs section on our website which explains clearly who to contact.</p>
<p>I'm asking because today I got another one:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would be pleased to join for the PhD Studentship position into your institution for (<em>field that has nothing to do with my institution</em>) research.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Oddly specific and inaccurate at the same time. I don't mind just deleting it. However, I'd like to help if I can.</p>
<ul>
<li>Why do people do this? To me, it seems counterproductive.</li>
<li>How can I help them onto the right track?</li>
</ul>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8488,
"author": "F'x",
"author_id": 2700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>What you describe is a form of academic spam. As any spam, people do it because:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>the cost appears low</li>\n<li>you can do it in bulk</li>\n<li>the success rate is indeed horribly low, but if the number of emails sent is large, the product of (success rate) x (number of emails) can be non-negligible.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>While the above analysis is probably true if you're selling sildenafil citrate, I think it does not hold in academia, because hiring decisions are typically a well-controlled process, and not an “on the spot” decision by a single person in power.</p>\n\n<p>My policy regarding such emails is: my time is precious (in fact, it is most probably the main limiting factor in my scientific productivity). So, if there is at least one blatantly untrue or gross discrepancy in the email I receive, I do not reply. (That can include: getting my affiliation wrong, getting the research field wrong, referring to a position I didn't advertise, etc.) </p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><em>Added for clarification:</em> getting the title wrong does not, in my own system of value, consider a “blatant error”. Obviously, emailing a graduate student with “professor X” is weird, but you have to consider that honorifics, titles, etc. depend on country/research system. Thus, many people use “professor” when they refer to permanent staff, when they are not sure if the actual title is “Dr.” or “prof.” or whatever… It is, in my view, a really minor issue.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8489,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I see a fair number of these letters as well. Some see more genuine than others but as you state some do not even hit the main subject in which my department work. I see these as desperate attempts to get a foothold somewhere. In some cases, and I must emphasize that I cannot support his with hard proof, it seems having some form of official documentation may provide enough basis for persons to get the necessary background for visas and hence possibility to travel. </p>\n\n<p>I am sure there are all kinds of reasons for these mails ranging from the perfectly honest, however misdirected, to the pure opportunist with alternative motives. The true tragedy is that the genuine contacts may become rejected because of the sheer number of mails.</p>\n\n<p>I would recommend that each department/graduate school set up some form of standard reply, perhaps pointing at a web page stating how to apply. In our case PhD positions are offically advertised so contacting the department (me) is of no use.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8494,
"author": "blackace",
"author_id": 4467,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4467",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I think we all get these emails and being famous and more senior probably means getting more of them. I am not famous or senior so I get one/two of these a day. <strong>I reply to them all. I am not sending man to mars and and can spend 30 seconds to reply to someone who sent an irrelevant one or spend a bit of time helping someone who was genuine and/or had a high calibre and went and studied my work. Naturally the quality of my reply depends on the quality of the email I have received.</strong> Thats the least that I can do. I must confess at times it has been a one liner saying \"at least do a bit of research and see what I do instead if this generic meaningless email and have attached my boilerplate text explaining why this is not helpful and what they should do\" but also sending a three pager, correcting mistakes I have seen in CV, cover letter and/or proposal and calling people I know to help somebody out. </p>\n\n<p>Why do I do this? Yes it takes time and we are all busy but I enjoy the fact that I am in a position to guide someone and help them out in bettering themselves. <strong>Many have done this for me before and believe it or not those guys who replied were really helpful</strong>. I do the same in hope that it might inspire someone, help him/her succeed and give them the sense that people do care about you and want to have your back. Same way many people are in this community who give their time and help strangers they don't know.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Now answer to the question:</strong>\nWrite a boilerplate text for the ones who send you random stuff. This is not the last time you will get something like this. Explain why this is not going to help and what is the correct way. You only have to do this once and whether they take your advice or not is their choice...</p>\n\n<p>In future if you become an academic please do try to help people and don't see their efforts as SPAM if you feel they are genuine and have tried. Also give the benefit of the doubt to the ones who send random emails. They might just be desperate and need some help. Preparing some text to explain the above might actually help someone. It might be that he/she has got bad advice about how to go about finding positions etc. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8487",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6301/"
]
|
8,490 | <p>I have studied Physics (Diploma) and since 3 years I work as a Software Engineer.</p>
<p>But I am starting to miss the high degree of intellectual challenge. So I am thinking to go back to academia. Unfortunately my Diploma grade was B (German 2), likewise the grade of my in-depth elective Theoretical Particle Physics. I think I could have done better, but my mother died of cancer during my Diploma thesis and this didn't leave much focus and time for me. Plus I started working on a Web App in the last 2 months of my studies. Other grades were better, my Math elective (Functional Analysis) was A+, likewise Theoretical Physics. My undergraduate studies' grades were mixed, between A+ and B-.</p>
<p>My thesis also does not look so well. Because of a lack of time it has orthographic errors, discussion of results is too short and the source code snippets in it look ugly. Once I applied for a job through a head hunter and after they saw my thesis they completely lost interest in me as a candidate.</p>
<p>So question: how hard is it in such a situation to apply for a PhD Programme and is it a good idea at all? What would be a good strategy when applying? I am interested in Mathematics, Theoretical Physics, Mathematical Physics or Computer Science.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8491,
"author": "James Last",
"author_id": 6239,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6239",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In Germany even some renowned research institutes mention in the job offers that people with at least grade B should be encouraged to apply for a position. So I don't see here a major problem for you. No one looks on your pre-diploma grades, this is now different with the bachelor AND master degree. But you have to make a presentation of your diploma work for the job interview. I don't know what speaks against adding results that you worked out after that thesis to make the work more impressive, as you didn't have as much time as other students with a scholarship or rich parents and were forced to work besides your diploma work, especially as the diploma needs 12 months in germany. If they want you to send them your diplom pdf, than of course you have to look for another group.</p>\n\n<p>The major problem I see is that you wrote your thesis now 3 years ago, and 2-2.5 years is also a deadline I saw several times in such german PhD job offers, as after some time you simply loose knowledge. </p>\n\n<p>Nonetheless you should try it, write a few dozen applications and look how much invitations for a job interview you get and in what fields, but be clear what your motivation is. Your question does sound to me like you a bored and desperated in your current job, that is not the best reason for a Prof. to hire you, you should show interest in a specific topic, related to your diploma work would make your motivation to do a PhD more credible to me.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8497,
"author": "bill s",
"author_id": 6308,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6308",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>If you're serious about getting into a grad school, then you need to take the initiative. In your situation, just sending off applications is unlikely to be enough. What you need to do is to get someone on the inside of an institution to want to work with you. So -- contact individual professors and let them know that you are interested in working with them. This means you need to figure out who they are, what they work on, and, when you contact them, you need to make it about why you can be of help in their research area. It's a lot of work, but the process will probably be good for you as well, narrowing down what it is you really are interested in, what your abilities are, and what kind of work you want to do. Good luck!</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8490",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6302/"
]
|
8,502 | <p>I have just learned of the 'PhD by published works' which appears to be a fairly common program for schools in the UK. Is this similar to an honoris causa conferral or is it some separate program? </p>
<p>After reviewing materials on the Oxford Brooks & Warwick sites it appears that the entire program is just preparing a defense, which sounds a bit like Habilitation at first pass but it also seems that these programs are not restricted to current PhD holders. </p>
<p>Can anyone shed a little light on this for me?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8503,
"author": "Pieter Naaijkens",
"author_id": 22,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A doctorate \"honoris causa\" is awarded by universities to recognize a person's outstanding contribution to science, or sometimes also society. It is a honorary degree (so you cannot apply for it), and not very common. Usually the people who receive such a degree already have a doctorate.</p>\n\n<p>The Dr. habil. is a degree that only exists in some countries, such as Germany, Austria, France and Russia. Basically it gives you the right to teach courses at a university. You can only get it after getting a PhD, and usually requires writing another thesis and giving one or two lectures on topics in your field.</p>\n\n<p>I do not know what a \"PhD by published works\" is, but it sounds to me like a PhD program where the thesis basically is a collection of published (presumably peer-reviewed) articles by the student.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8512,
"author": "Tara B",
"author_id": 5955,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5955",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>While it may be common for universities in the UK to <em>offer</em> such a degree, I'm not sure it's at all common to obtain a PhD in this way (i.e. 'by published works'). I think it is mainly aimed at people who have been involved in research for some time (especially as university staff members) without a PhD, but who have published material equivalent to a PhD thesis. (As you will have read, for the Warwick program one must be either a member of staff at Warwick or have graduated with a Bachelor's degree or equivalent at least seven years ago.)<br>\nGenerally someone applying for such a program would have already published the works they are planning to submit, and therefore as you say the program will consist primarily of preparing for the oral examination (often called 'viva' in the UK). Although you probably have to prepare some kind of extra document as well (in the Oxford Brookes program this is a 'critical appraisal' of the works being presented).</p>\n\n<p>This is, as Pieter has already explained, very different from either a habilitation (which is at a higher level than PhD) or an honorary PhD (which in general can honour any kind of accomplishment and doesn't require the holder to have done research at PhD level or indeed to have a university education at all).</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/10 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8502",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5760/"
]
|
8,506 | <p>Possible benefits: More grant money through other departments</p>
<p>Possible drawbacks: A significant fraction of their research might not be seen as research that benefits the department's standing in the area.</p>
<p>But what about others?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8513,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't think either of the points mentioned above are relevant. If there's the potential for more grant money there should be evidence of it by tenure time. As for \"benefit to the department\" the real question is how good the work is, and if it's recognized in the larger communities. </p>\n\n<p>From the tenure-seeker's perspective, one potential benefit is a much larger pool of letter writers. A downside is the \"jack of all trades\" problem, where each community can only comment on a portion of the work, and the work itself is not perceived as excellent in any individual community. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8537,
"author": "StasK",
"author_id": 739,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/739",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you've been doing interdisciplinary research for five years, and now approach the tenure process without a clear idea of how to sell your case, consider it failed, and start looking for a job elsewhere, before you are under an immense pressure of finding a good job in a one-year grace period after the end of the world as you know it.</p>\n\n<p>If you were hired specifically for interdisciplinary research, and your offer letter stated that, and your time was split \"50% + 1 hour in computer science + 25% in department of Roman languages + 25% in agriculture\", with a clear explanation as to how you are to be evaluated by each of the parties involved, then these explanations should have served as the guidelines to build your research program. If you were hired to do the theory of parallel computing, but later decided that it would be cool to do some extra work in Roman languages because you liked their research questions, and thought you could contribute with your data mining algorithms that would uncover nuances of how Latin and French are interconnected (and you did, by their standards); and you proposed some GIS tools for horticulturalists to use that have become the industry standard software -- that's all fun and fine, but if you did not discuss that with your CS chair, this was likely a waste of time, as in terms of parallel computing, this time was as good as playing squash. Your annual reviews in the main department should have indicated so, if your department would ever care to guide you (not all departments do, though).</p>\n\n<p>Spending time in another discipline is very fruitful for finding interesting research problems (as typically most disciplines don't talk to one another, and there's a wealth of problems to be solved using other disciplines' tools), but it also means that you have had less time to spend in your home discipline, which nearly inevitably means a weaker CV: fewer grants, fewer publications, lower quality research. (That's essentially <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/8513/739\">Suresh's last point</a>).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 23608,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Interdisciplinarity can help or hurt, depending on how your work is perceived by the experts in each of the two (or more) fields. If you are seen by the experts in field A as doing excellent work in A, and if you're also seen by the experts in field B as doing excellent work in B, then this situation improves your chances for tenure. If, on the other hand, the experts in field A say something like \"not so great in A, but it's impressive that (s)he also does B,\" while the experts in field B say something like \"not so great in B, but it's impressive that (s)he also does A,\" then you're in trouble --- the people evaluating you for tenure will see \"not so great\" and ignore \"impressive\". So, if you can do excellent work in both areas, do so, but if you can't, then it's better to do excellent work in one field than mediocre work in two.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/10 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8506",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77/"
]
|
8,507 | <p>Before deciding to do one's PhD under a certain professor, what questions should one ask of his/her former and current students?</p>
<p>Many students (including me) are not sure what exactly to ask. May be a community wiki here might be a general source for such students.</p>
<p><strong>Please recommend <em>phrasing</em> of the question(s) also.</strong></p>
<p>This is a related question, <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/158/how-to-evaluate-potential-advisers-on-grounds-other-than-their-research-publicat?rq=1">How to evaluate potential advisers on grounds other than their research/publications?</a> but it is much broader. I'm looking for specific questions to be asked to the students. Also manner in which to ask :)</p>
<p>P.S. I have accepted an answer, but feel free to add more answers if you think they differ than the ones already given.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8510,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Disclaimer: I am not a student. I am the "potential advisor" (PA)</p>\n<p>For current students:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>does PA have time to meet with you when you need help? Or does PA want too many meetings?</li>\n<li>how much guidance are you given? Too much? Too little?</li>\n<li>is the relationship "work only"? Do you talk about non technical academic issues?</li>\n</ul>\n<p>For former students, the comment by Anonymous is dead-on.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8514,
"author": "Piotr Migdal",
"author_id": 49,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I think the most important is:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Are you happy with your PhD in general?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It covers a lot of issues, but usually you don't want to do a PhD in a place where students are unhappy and frustrated. The good thing is that if students feel really bad, they rarely hide it.</p>\n\n<p>The next things are related to:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>General contacts on the line student-advisor (How much contact and support can you expect, both for research and administrative stuff?).</li>\n<li>Funding (Is it a problem or a non-issue, e.g. for attending a conference?).</li>\n<li>Research (What the actual research looks like? What is the toughest part, biggest emphasis on, the most time-consuming part, etc?)</li>\n<li>How much time does it <em>typically</em> take to finish PhD? Does it happen often that someone drops out? </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Other questions will depend of things <em>you</em> consider important. You may expect a lot of autonomy, or a lot of guidance. You may expect a very ambitious programme, or a PhD-life balance. You may like to teach, or you may like to keep it at minimum. You may be eager to travel a lot, or prefer to stay mostly in one place. You may be more into a particular branch of science or methodology, or into another...</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8516,
"author": "Sander Heinsalu",
"author_id": 6313,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6313",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Link to the urch.com forum discussing exactly these kinds of issues: <a href=\"http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/63673-questions-ask-current-graduate-students-prospective-schools.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Questions to ask current graduate students</a></p>\n\n<p>The problems people have differ greatly by field, e.g. the funding issue depends on whether students are supported by grants of their advisors (sciences and engineering) or by the university. Also whether the courses in the field are popular among undergrads (many teaching assistant positions available) or unpopular (the opposite). The questions you should ask should address the common problems in your field.</p>\n\n<p>Edit: forgot the shameless self-promotion: I wrote about the <a href=\"http://www.sanderheinsalu.com/ajaveeb/?p=142\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Suggested questions for admitted graduate students\">suggested questions for admitted graduate students</a> once in my blog.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8518,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A couple of variations on Anonymous's fabulous comment:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>\"What do you want to do when you finish?\" </p></li>\n<li><p>\"How is your advisor/department helping you prepare for your eventual job search?\" — Be wary of confused blank stares, even from the younger students.</p></li>\n<li><p>\"Where did your advisor's former students go after they finished their PhDs? Where do they work now?\" — Be wary of \"I don't know.\" Compare with the answers to the first question and with your own career goals (even if they're not well-formed).</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8520,
"author": "Mark Adler",
"author_id": 4342,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4342",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>#1 question (for former students): How long did it take for you to graduate?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8523,
"author": "bergie3000",
"author_id": 6322,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6322",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Is your advisor planning on going on sabbatical any time soon?</p>\n\n<p>My horrible advisor did this during my second year (he spent the year in Ireland instead of the US) and it did not help my efforts at all.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8541,
"author": "bill s",
"author_id": 6308,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6308",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Every professor is unique, every student is a bit different. The most important thing in a grad student/prof relationship is that you can work effectively together. If the professor can work well with his current students, then he can probably work well with new students. So what you want to find out is: does the professor give the students the environment they need to flourish? Do the current students work together extensively, or do they compete with each other? (For example, do students collaborate on papers or does everything funnel through the prof)? Are the current students excited about their research projects? (You can figure this out by asking them to describe what they do). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8569,
"author": "Theresa Liao",
"author_id": 5988,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5988",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p>Do/Did you (the current/former PhD) enjoy working in this supervisor's research group? Do research group members work with each other collaboratively and help each other? And ask the PhD student to elaborate. </p>\n\n<p>This question tries to get at what the research group dynamic is. This is fairly important in my opinion - the last thing you want to concern yourself with is politics in the research group. I have seen PhD friends frustrated by this.</p>\n\n<p>Ideally you should ask this question in a less formal setting (some grad school visits will have time for social events). And sometimes you meet grad students who are comfortable sharing their experience openly. If you are not comfortable asking this question, as it can be an awkward question for the supervisor's current PhD, you can simply observe the interaction between group members, and between group members and the supervisor. </p></li>\n<li><p>Is the supervisor generally available? Does it take a long time to arrange a meeting to meet with the supervisor (used to be the case with my supervisor because he was so busy)? Does the supervisor respond immediately and effectively (another friend's supervisor tend to leave questions to last minute)?</p></li>\n<li>Are group members expected to work 24/7 or 9-to-5? Some supervisors expect you to reply to emails immediately, and some work strictly business hours. </li>\n<li>Does the supervisor take a hands-on or hands-off approach? Are students expected to be really independent with lots of freedom, or are they guided/directed along the way with less freedom?</li>\n<li>Does the supervisor support his/her students to consider career paths outside of academia? Some supervisors only want their students to go into academia, and it will be harder to discuss options with such supervisors.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>For Q2-Q5, the right answer will depend on your own preference - what you want is a supervisor whom you will work well with.</p>\n\n<p>And, I know you ask specifically about questions, but make sure you watch their body language and see if the lab members seems comfortable with the supervisor or not. This says a lot about the supervision style.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 194007,
"author": "Tilly",
"author_id": 168522,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168522",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm a supervisor not student these days. I had things go rather wrong as a student, quit my project and moved to a new team and restarted everything. I knew about my proposed supervisor's field reputation (excellent - I still think this even after things went wrong) - I knew nothing about what they were like as a supervisor (they sucked).</p>\n<p>This also should be more a conversation over coffee - you don't want them to feel like they are being grilled or are under evaluation from you. Remember, if you accept an offer they could be your colleagues so you are selling yourself to them too. Keep things positive on your end.</p>\n<p><em>How would you describe their supervision style?</em> Different styles suit different students, know about yourself as best you can. I know of advisors that have contracts and forms that students fill in after each meeting summarising their understanding of the key points and next steps that advisor then responds to and they both sign -> student speaking of this loved it, I would have run screaming.</p>\n<p><em>How would you describe the group dynamics?</em>\nYou usually aren't just working with the supervisor but the group. Even if your project does not involve the group - these are your colleagues. How do they tend to function? Is it everyone on their own? Collaborative? Collegiate but not collaborative?</p>\n<p><em>Did you have much / a lot of freedom to direct your own project?</em></p>\n<p><em>What sort of involvement have you had in funding proposals (grants / commercial etc.)</em>\nThis can be good and bad - too much involvement and you are taken away from your core business. But some involvement can really help develop skills useful for industry and academia, and can help land that next position.</p>\n<p><em>Does your supervisor include you in opportunities</em>. Will their "big name" actually get you anything? Remember "big names" are often super busy, so there needs to be a trade off (big names do help just by reputation, but it isn't everything).</p>\n<p><em>How involved are you in the larger group / School / Institute / University?</em>. Just useful to know how they tend to work, and again knowing what sort of person you like to be. If you just want to focus on your project and nothing else, being expected to engage widely will feel like a drain. For others it is great career development opportunities (and helps them stay sane while studying).</p>\n<p><em>What are your career goals - how well have they been supported through your studies? Have they changed through your project</em>\nHelpful to understand their perspective. Also good to know if the supervisor is super helpful if you want to become a copy of them, and not helpful if you have different goals.</p>\n<p><em>What's a typical work week look like for students (hours, office vs lab vs field, wfh vs in office, group meetings, paid work etc.)</em>\nThis is important information about work style and allows you to evaluate whether you will have a nice work environment (based on what you value) and good work-life balance (based on what you value). If your supervisor says I expect people to work 9-5M-F (or set your own hours), but the typical is 8-8M-Su then that's really important information. Even if your supervisor is happy with you doing a "standard" day, will you feel comfortable keeping that balance when everyone else isn't? How much "other" stuff are students typically doing and how will that affect your plans?</p>\n<p><em>With paid work (teaching, tutoring, research assistant stuff that is not on your thesis) - how well does the number of hours you are contracted to do match to what you are expected / end up doing?</em>\nIf you pick up 10 hours teaching a week will you typically spend 8 hours on it? or 20? Important to be able to make an informed decision about what you want and can afford. You might earn double what you'd get at Maccas so might be fine that 10 on paper = 20 in practice cause you still earn as much and are happy with the work, or you might resent what really is wage theft and an illegal, dishonest and exploitative practice.</p>\n<p><em>What's the administration of your studies like eg reports, presentations, hurdles etc.</em>. No external oversight is a problem - you do need some outside your supervisor review that your project is at an appropriate standard, is practical and realistic with resources (including time), and you aren't being hung out to dry. You need some way to raise issues and have people whose job it is to deal with them if they happen (and they are not uncommon - even with good supervisors). But, too much administration and it becomes a burden. Understanding what is required is just nice additional information. It probably won't be the same for you - universities love to change up their admin frequently in my experience.</p>\n<p>Question about the project and funding others have proposed are also really important, I've focussed on the "other" stuff that often gets missed.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 194022,
"author": "Michael_1812",
"author_id": 125334,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/125334",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A lot of important criteria have been mentioned here. There is, however, one integral criterion which, in my opinion, covers everything: the careers of this professor's former disciples. Using internet, you can easily gleen this info.</p>\n<p>My long-term friend is a professor at a university, which is regarded very good but not fancy (not in the Ivy League, or alike). However, young people are trying hard to join his group -- and some choose it over Ivy League offers. Aside from him being a brilliant scholar and a devoted teacher, an important reason for his popularity is that (a) all his postdocs become professors; (b) all his grads get postdoctoral fellowships (not just regular postdoctoral jobs, but fellowships) -- and eventually they also get permanent academic positions (usually, faculty at good schools). The people in the community know this, and regard it as a great luck to work with him.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/10 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8507",
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|
8,509 | <p>My paper was rejected from a journal. However, remarks of one of the reviewers were useful, and I incorporated them into the next version of the paper.</p>
<p>Is there a general pattern of acknowledging such contribution (in the Acknowledgement section)?</p>
<p>Or should I leave it, not to advertise information that the paper was rejected from a particular journal?</p>
<p>(As a side note, this paper was rejected two times, each time with one positive review, and one of type "OK, but I think it is not of general interest".)</p>
<p>EDIT:</p>
<p>In my case (as in general in my field) reviewers were anonymous. (Otherwise I would just use their names.) </p>
<p>And in my case the helpful comments were in positive reviews (but I doubt whether it changes anything).</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8511,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, I think it is good to acknowledge reviewers as you consider doing. It is the editor who rejects any papers based on the results of reviews so the reviews may still be very constructive and indeed helpful in improving a paper. So I would suggest something like the following</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>We/I (gratefully) acknowledge the (critical) review by X on an earlier\n version of the manuscript.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There are many ways to express it and what words you wish to use is up to you and the way you wish to express your gratitude. I would not add the name of the journal(s) where the reviews were conducted (other than in the letter to the journal editor accompanying your MS submission).</p>\n\n<p>I also would like to take the opportunity to add that the following issue, not that it applies to your case but more to point out some bad practices for the community. The poor behavior concerns when someone acknowledges a famous persons review just to gain leverage in resubmitting it to another journal. I have seen how persons have used reviews stating that the paper should be rejected because it is \"crap\" as a \"most valuable input to help improve the manuscript\". Since no-one typically knows what this review did, the gut reaction is to think it must have been valuable since the reviewer is well known. For this reason it is good to provide the review/revisions from the old MS when re-submitting it so that the review-revision work becomes obvious to the editor.</p>\n\n<p>As a final point, I would not add the acknowledgement of any reviewers new or old until the time when your MS has been (hopefully) accepted in the new journal.</p>\n\n<p>EDIT: Based on the good comments by Tara B on anonymous reviewers and how to distinguish reviews from old and new MS I would write something as the following</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>We/I (gratefully) acknowledge the (critical) review by two anonymous reviewers as well as the (critical) review by another anonymous reviewer on an earlier\n version of the manuscript.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Words in parenthesis are optional and can be exchanged for others that better suit your needs.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8515,
"author": "Tara B",
"author_id": 5955,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5955",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Piotr has asked that I add one of my comments as an answer. Please note that I am a fairly inexperienced academic, so don't take anything I say too seriously!</p>\n\n<p>Firstly, I'll reiterate one of my comments on Peter Jansson's answer:</p>\n\n<p>You really really should not mention journal names or the fact that the paper was previously rejected. The journal you are publishing in would not appreciate it! (It makes it clear they were only your second, or in this case third, choice.)</p>\n\n<p>Since you say that the helpful remarks of the earlier reviewer were about grammar, typos and a few small changes throughout the document rather than something that substantially changed the exposition of your paper, I think that conveying your thanks directly to the reviewer via the journal's editor (which you say you have already done) is probably a more appropriate acknowledgment, especially given the difficulty of making it clear you are thanking a reviewer from a different journal while not mentioning any names or the fact that the paper was rejected.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8521,
"author": "JRN",
"author_id": 64,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I use the phrase \"I thank an anonymous colleague for [providing an important idea].\"</p>\n\n<p>This implies that the idea came from someone else, but it doesn't explicitly mention that the paper was previously rejected or reviewed.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8538,
"author": "StasK",
"author_id": 739,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/739",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have been waiting for a chance to pull a prank like </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I would like to thank 15 anonymous referees from 5 journals to which this paper was submitted for their helpful comments.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>but, as many people said, few journals will appreciate this sort of remark. It is true that this is what happens with most papers, so if we are to be honest and transparent, we should just state this sort of history. And it happens to the top researchers, too, although some people, judging by their productivity of 10+ papers a year, never get even requests for revisions.</p>\n\n<p>May be a weaker form would be </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I would like to thank the three anonymous referees and the associate editor of [THIS JOURNAL], as well as several other anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Sometimes, it happens that the most important revision was actually a couple of journals ago which really improved the paper, but that journal still did not accept the paper, so it cruised through another editorial board or two with just minor language remarks.</p>\n"
}
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| 2013/03/10 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8509",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
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|
8,519 | <p>I had an amazing time at my REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) last summer. I would really love to do another one this year.</p>
<p>Problem is, I am about to graduate, so I will technically not be an undergraduate this summer. I do intend to continue my education in graduate school in the Fall, and have been admitted somewhere.</p>
<p>I've been told that I should just kick back and relax this summer so that I'm fully unwound for grad school, but I don't have any money to travel, all my friends will have left for their grad school already, and there's really nothing that would stress me out more than sitting around and doing nothing for three months. I love to travel, make new friends, and learn cool stuff, so I think doing another REU would actually be the perfect way for me to unwind.</p>
<p>At my last REU, we had a student who had graduated that year and was about to go into a Master's program. It was rumored that she had omitted/lied about this on her application and the admissions people just didn't look into it carefully. I don't know if this is true, though. It seems possible that the program staff simply felt her application was strong enough to warrant making an exception - after all, she wasn't <em>going</em> to grad school yet.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is it possible to be admitted to a mathematics REU the summer between undergrad and graduate school?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If not, would offering to go without pay (for only room and board) make any difference? What about REUs in physics, or compsci, or other sciences which might want somebody with a math background?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8527,
"author": "Willie Wong",
"author_id": 94,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I quote from the <a href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2013/nsf13542/nsf13542.htm\">NSF REU guideline</a> (emphasis mine):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>Eligible Student Participants</em>: Undergraduate student participants\n supported with NSF funds in either REU Supplements or REU Sites must\n be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or permanent residents of the United\n States. An undergraduate student is a student who is enrolled in a\n degree program (part-time or full-time) leading to a baccalaureate or\n associate degree. Students who are transferring from one college or\n university to another and are enrolled at neither institution during\n the intervening summer may participate. High school graduates who have\n been accepted at an undergraduate institution but who have not yet\n started their undergraduate study are also eligible to participate.\n <strong>Students who have received their bachelor's degrees and are no longer\n enrolled as undergraduates are generally not eligible to participate.</strong>\n For REU Sites, a significant fraction of the student participants\n should come from outside the host institution or organization. Some\n NSF directorates encourage inclusion in the REU program of K-12\n teachers of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Please\n contact the appropriate disciplinary program officer for guidance.\n Within the framework of the basic eligibility guidelines outlined\n here, most REU Sites and Supplements further define recruitment and\n selection criteria, based on the nature of the particular research and\n other factors.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So this means that (a) your host will not be able to receive funding for you from the NSF if s/he accepts you into the program (b) on the other hand if you and/or the PI of the grant is able to secure funding otherwise, there's generally no rule saying that a student in your position cannot be involved in research in some way. </p>\n\n<p>You will need to individually contact the REUs you are interested to find out whether they'd be willing to grant you the leeway. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8528,
"author": "Henry",
"author_id": 8,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>REUs are almost all a specific NSF program which, as Willie points out, generally doesn't allow students in your situation.</p>\n\n<p>However the programs called \"summer schools\" (not to be confused with credit bearing courses offered by universities in the summer) often do allow graduate students (and some have graduate students as their main target).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8534,
"author": "Aru Ray",
"author_id": 948,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/948",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There do exist programs for this period of time (between undergraduate and graduate programs). The ones that comes to mind are <a href=\"http://www.edgeforwomen.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">EDGE</a> (which you can see on their webpage is limited to women) and the <a href=\"http://pcmi.ias.edu/program-ugss/2013\" rel=\"noreferrer\">PCMI summer school</a>. I believe there are others, as Henry points out one should google 'summer school' instead of 'REU' to get at them. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8535,
"author": "StasK",
"author_id": 739,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/739",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You could consider doing an internship (for statistics openings, see <a href=\"http://www.amstat.org/education/internships.cfm\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.amstat.org/education/internships.cfm</a>), although doing this mid-March is jumping on a train that had left the station, judging by the deadlines. You also need to have something more applied in your resume than pure math to be of interest to industry folks, too.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 67645,
"author": "Chris Rackauckas",
"author_id": 47971,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/47971",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Not all REUs allow graduating undergraduates, but some do. I know for a fact that the <a href=\"http://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/student-research-programs/\" rel=\"nofollow\">RIPS</a> programs (both the ones in UCLA and Hong Kong) do. I personally did the REU in Hong Kong after my senior year and it was an amazing experience.</p>\n\n<p>Note that this is an exception since the REU funding isn't directly REU funding but through the math institute IPAM, so maybe there are similar practices at other math institutes such as the REU in Minnesota run by IMA, though I am not certain because I do not have personal experience with the others.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/11 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8519",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5735/"
]
|
8,529 | <p>I've not seen this question before, so I'll ask it after feedback I received on <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8106/how-to-gain-research-experience-after-master-program">this question</a>.</p>
<p>I've finished my MBA in the UK and was awarded distinction but would like to find a research group to work with. I'm no longer in the UK (or even Europe) and would like to find a research group with which I could work on a telecommuting / remote basis.</p>
<p>My goal here is not for income (though it's OK if it led to some). My goal is to build my research experience with the thought of pursuing a PhD (business / intercultural management / something in that general area). My MBA didn't result in a lot of research guidance for me so I feel like there are so many things that I don't know and I want to 'fix' that.</p>
<p>Any ideas how someone can find a research group who would be interested in working with someone remotely for free (obviously there is a time and attention commitment from both sides, which is not exactly free)?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8546,
"author": "Googlebot",
"author_id": 406,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/406",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is actually of mutual interest, but really hard to find an opportunity. Although, you are offering your time for free, group leaders are reluctant to take this risk to leave their research somewhere that they do not have direct (everyday) control. Note that you should work on a research project currently funded at that research group. In other words, the group leader should complete that project in the corresponding timeframe. Thus, too conservative to put the project completion at risk in favor of having a researcher free of charge.</p>\n\n<p>Sorry for this negative answer, but IMO (maybe others have better approaches), the only possibility is to directly contacting some research groups and negotiating about this possibility. Remember that the judgement will be merely based on your experience and potentials. Once again, IMO, the only chance is if the group leader can find your profession useful for a part of the project, which is not critically sensitive.</p>\n\n<p>Conclusion: there is no system for this, you need to convince the group leader personally.</p>\n\n<p>Note: Another solution can be finding an independent researcher like yourself for starting a personally funded research project, but I think this is not what you are looking for.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 13361,
"author": "Blaisorblade",
"author_id": 8966,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8966",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Are you referring to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/8326/8966\">this answer</a> on how to gain research experience after a masters? That changes things.\nThat answer suggests to do menial work for some research group. That's one of the few things where people might care less about you being remote, as long as you do the job — after all, they'd likely try to get students to do it. Especially if you can get (with some luck) to coauthor a publication, but that's often hard to discuss upfront.</p>\n\n<p>But is that relevant? I'd disagree with the poster there. But you should ask a professor in your field — possibly one you'd want to apply for; a bit like <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/8114/8966\">this other answer</a> suggested. If they think this experience might count, then go ahead.</p>\n\n<p>If you don't have research experience, it's hard for you to know how to approach research. That's what you're supposed to learn in a PhD (or to a little extent in a research master).</p>\n\n<p>If you're not followed often enough by a supervisor, I believe you're unlikely to learn enough research skills.</p>\n\n<p>I'd probably recommend some book like <a href=\"http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0226065669\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">\"The Craft of Research\"</a> to get started; the problem is, there's tons of stuff you can only learn from a good supervisor.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/11 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8529",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6073/"
]
|
8,542 | <p>I'm finishing a PhD in Sweden this year and seeking a post-doc in the United States (atmospheric remote sensing). It is clear that a job in academia is not a <em>nine to five job</em>; nor do I want it to be. I often work late in the evening when I'm on a productive spur. When an important dead-line is coming up, one needs to work harder, and there is no overtime paid. I accept that. However, no matter how much I'm interested in my research, I do enjoy and need a reasonable amount of spare time, too; relaxing on the weekends, occasionally a long weekend away, and sometimes a longer trip, such as three weeks in the wilderness.</p>
<p>Regarding the normal work ethos for early-career academics in the United States, I have a hard time judging what is normal and what is excessive. Some examples:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wrong-with-chemistry/" rel="noreferrer">Erick Carreira letter</a> warning post-docs that he <em>expects all of the members of the group to work evenings and weekends</em>.</li>
<li>My apparent naïveté in believing that <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8427/how-to-arrange-sabbatical-leave#comment14691_8427">a sabbatical means not working</a>, despite Wikipedia <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbatical" rel="noreferrer">describing it</a> as <em>a rest from work, or a hiatus, often lasting from two months to a year</em>. I was thinking of my friend, who spent a year between his PhD and his first post-doc travelling from France to Mongolia mostly on foot.</li>
<li>Someone <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1816/do-interviews-require-taking-vacation-days/1817#comment2888_1817">commenting</a> <em>I am not a good role model, but when I don't work on a Sunday, I count that as a vacation day</em>.</li>
<li><a href="http://nasa.orau.org/postdoc/description/faq.htm" rel="noreferrer">NASA postdocs</a> having <em>no employment-related benefits such as paid vacations, sick leave, or unemployment compensation</em>.</li>
<li>Question <em><a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/5005/1033">How do we end the culture of “endless hours at work”?</a></em></li>
</ul>
<p>We don't have such a work-ethos where I'm at. I belief that working too hard risks stress and burn-out, and does not increase productivity in the long run, nor human well-being. I want to do science. Doing science makes me happy, but having time to relax while not doing science is important for me.</p>
<p>Does the selection of examples I gave above represent a normal situation in U.S. early-career academia? Should I expect an attitude where asking for a 3-week holiday during the summer is considered as being not serious, or is the situation in practice usually not as bad as the examples above make it sound? How hard to early-career academics in the United States work, really?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8543,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
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"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><strong>TL; DR: 51 work hours a week with 12 vacation days a year</strong></p>\n\n<p>It is very difficult to assess how hard someone works. It is relatively easy to quantify the input (number of hours worked and the number of vacation days taken) and the output (papers and grants). In 2003 the Sigma Xi post doc society in the US began collecting data from 7600 post docs across 46 different US institutes about a number of issues including hours worked, vacation days taken, papers published and grants submitted. A summary report <a href=\"http://www.sigmaxi.org/docs/default-source/Programs-Documents/Critical-Issues-in-Science/postdoc-survey/highlights\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><em>Doctors without Orders</em></a> is available. <a href=\"http://web.archive.org/web/20091108011347/http://www.sigmaxi.org/postdoc/all/your_research_short.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Aggregate data</a> is available via the Wayback Machine. I believe this is the best data set available to answer questions regarding the input and output.</p>\n\n<p><em>The self reports suggest 12 days of vacation a year and 51 hours a week on average with 25% taking less than 7 days and working over 60 hours. The self report of the publication rate is around 3 with one grant application.</em></p>\n\n<p>While self reports of hours work and publications are potentially biased, they might be a better measure of the perceived \"hardness\" of work than the actual hours worked. Obviously it would be nice if the publication and work rates were objectively verified. Obviously, publication rate and hours worked may not be the best metrics of how hard someone is working. <a href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0030-1299.2008.16551.x/abstract;jsessionid=CC804A06C2CF1F16CA61EAFA01AC2962.d03t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false\" rel=\"noreferrer\">This study</a> found that alcohol consumption was negatively correlated with output. It is not clear if high alcohol consumption is positively or negatively correlated with how hard one works, but it might be relevant. Finally, <a href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/01/03/the-least-stressful-jobs-of-2013/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Forbes</a> has a report that University professors have the least stressful job, so maybe despite the hours, we don't actually work that \"hard\".</p>\n\n<p>The comments to the questions suggest that understanding the input/output function would be desirable. This should be possible from the raw data of the Sigma Xi study, but not from the aggregate data, to determine if the inputs (hours worked) predict the outputs (papers and grants). I would be surprised if there was not a strong correlation, but also wouldn't be surprised if there were a number of outliers (i.e., lots of input and little output and little input and lots of output). Now, publication rate may not be the best measure of output as it doesn't consider quality. A <a href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17470248\" rel=\"noreferrer\">psychology study</a> found that impact factor is not correlated with publication rate suggesting that quantity and quality, as dubiously assessed by impact factor, are not correlated.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8551,
"author": "Googlebot",
"author_id": 406,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/406",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I wanted to follow the <em>@F'x</em>'s advice on avoiding <em>easy answer</em>, but I had to add some points:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>There is no constant working style across the United States. In academia, the working fashion significantly varies from university to university, from department to department.</p></li>\n<li><p>IMO, there is much more emphasis on effectiveness in Sweden. Instead, in the United States, there is more focus on timeframes.</p></li>\n<li><p>To my knowledge, it is rare to <em>force</em> post-doc and other researchers to work during weekends, though many of them normally work during off-hours to be successful in the forthcoming competition (in continuing their career).</p></li>\n<li><p>Duties during sabbatical (simple teaching and lecturing) is much less than official duties at home. In other words, an academician needs a long refreshment leave far from heavy duties, but not completely off. It is similar to working holidays (in immigration terminology).</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>In conclusion, if it is a post-doc position, the working rules are mainly defined by the group leader, and for assistant professors, this is the university atmosphere, Dean, and department chair controlling the working fashion.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Note:</strong> Once again, this answer is based on personal experiences rather than statistical data.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8552,
"author": "bill s",
"author_id": 6308,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6308",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Why is this question being singled out for a higher standard of \"statistical\" reasoning than any other post on this site? I offer my experiences as an early career engineering professor in the US as \"anecdotal\" evidence, and do so with at least as much credibility as respondents on an anonymous survey. </p>\n\n<p>In my experience, it's not at all about how \"hard\" you work (i.e., the number of hours per week) - it is about what you accomplish. In my first year as an academic I attended 7 conferences, authored or coauthored 4 journal articles, wrote three NSF grants (one of them successful), began projects with 2 grad students (both of whom eventually graduated with PhDs), taught three classes (two of them new to me) and served on the curriculum committee. That's the kind of involvement you should be expecting. With that said, nobody is going to look at how many days of vacation you take, how many hikes you take in the mountains, or how many times you spend an extra day or two at a conference location exploring the area. It is about managing your time effectively and accomplishing things (that will appear on your CV). Finally, the day of truth arrives at the tenure decision, and no one will care about weekends or vacations: but about your contributions to the field (papers, conferences, grants) and academic reputation (as evidenced in your letters of recommendation).</p>\n\n<p>As for the sabbatical question, it is not a vacation. Most academics who take sabbatical go to another institution (industry or University or lab) and work with new people in an effort to learn about new things. Sure, there are fewer responsibilities (no teaching, no committees) and fewer distractions, but this is why it works! The last sabbatical I had, I finished writing a book and entered a new research field (helped by my new colleague-friends). At my school we have a laughable method of oversight: at the start of a sabbatical one writes a two or three page description of what the planned activities are and why they are beneficial to the researcher and the school. At the end of the sabbatical, one writes a two or three page summary of what has been accomplished. As a whole, professors are self-motivated, love their work, and care about the intellectual legacy (the works, students, and influence) that they leave behind. Sabbatical is an effective way of getting out of ruts, of opening new doors, and of expanding knowledge.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 48304,
"author": "henning",
"author_id": 31917,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31917",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would like to put StrongBad's instructive <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/8543/31917\">answer</a> somewhat into perspective.</p>\n\n<p>In a survey*, 55 percent of newly hired faculty (tenure-track) at a large regional university in the U.S. called the present year the busiest of their life. These faculty members were also asked to self-assess their weekly working time. They estimated a mean of almost 60 hours per week, not very much above the finding reported in StrongBad's answer.</p>\n\n<p>However, when the same persons were asked to keep record every fifteen minutes of whether or not they were doing productive work, they recorded a mean of <strong>some 30 hours per week</strong>. (This probably excluded things like writing emails or taking phone-calls, but it expressly included teaching with preparation and grading, office hours, committee meetings, scholarly reading and writing.)</p>\n\n<p>This is not to suggest that these scientist were hypocritical; they probably felt overworked most of the time. The divergence between reported and actual working-time could be due to the social expectation, possibly more entrenched in the US than in Sweden, that scientists must be \"hardworking\", or due to biased self-perception grounded in a high stress-level, or both.</p>\n\n<p>From this, one may take the practical lesson that it is extremely important both for sanity and productivity to separate work from recreation and \"having a life\". As to the OP's primary question, <strong>early career academics in the U.S. do work hard, but there is a difference between working hard, working long hours, and working productively</strong>; moreover, at some point, the former and the latter may be inversely correlated.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>*<a href=\"http://www.academiccoachingandwriting.org/assets/uploads/Boice%20Procrastination,%20Busyness%20and%20Bingeing.pdf\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Boyce, R (1989). Procrastination, busyness and bingeing, in: Behaviour Research Therapy 27(6), 605-611.</a> (<a href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2610657\" rel=\"noreferrer\">PubMed link</a>)</p>\n"
}
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| 2013/03/11 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8542",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033/"
]
|
8,547 | <p>Many times, the page number in pdf is different than the printed page number. How to make sure the other person doesn't get confused when we say "it's on Nth page".</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8549,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Refrain from referring to the printed/PDF page number at all, and refer to something more concrete, like \"in section X\" or, of course, a particular figure number if you're referring to a figure.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8550,
"author": "F'x",
"author_id": 2700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you're talking about the PDF of a paper published in an academic journal, then the answer is unambiguously: <em>refer to the journal page numbers</em>, i.e. the numbers at the bottom of each page. Those are the ones features in (almost all) citation styles.</p>\n\n<p>Otherwise, if the document is a random PDF found on the web (not coming from a journal), just avoid referring to pages. If you absolutely must, refer to the page numbers printed on the paper, as it is the only thing that makes sense to someone who would print the document.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8558,
"author": "mankoff",
"author_id": 185,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/185",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In informal communication like email I use a notation along the lines of \"page X (PDF page Y)\". By providing both numbers, it is easy for whoever is browsing the PDF to figure out if X or Y is referring to the internal page numbers or the PDF page, and then use whichever one they want to find the content.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/12 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8547",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2643/"
]
|
8,557 | <p>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbatical">Wikipedia definition</a> of sabbatical doesn't match how I think of an academic sabbatical. What does it mean to go on academic sabbatical, and does it depend on the country? </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8559,
"author": "Googlebot",
"author_id": 406,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/406",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The definition of sabbatical in Wikipedia refers to labor terminology rather than academic sabbatical leave. As a privilege to employees, they can have temporary unpaid leave (for any personal reason) without losing their job.</p>\n\n<p>However, academic sabbatical historically is somehow different. When a scholar needs peace of mind to focus on a challenging issue, s/he will visit a new institute to experience a new atmosphere. While still being in the academic environment, not having heavy official duties.</p>\n\n<p>There are several motivations for a sabbatical leave (at least as I have seen):</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>A manager finishes an administrative position (e.g. Dean), and wishes to rest in a different atmosphere, but not far from academia.</p></li>\n<li><p>A researcher working on a new idea, prefers to focus on his/her work somewhere with less commitments on everyday responsibilities (e.g. teaching, advising, etc).</p></li>\n<li><p>A researcher is exploring new possibilities and opportunities, spend some time in a new department to live with new colleagues for a while.</p></li>\n<li><p>A researcher is collaborating with another group and spend a year in the host research group as a visiting scientist/professor while being on sabbatical leave from his/her institute.</p></li>\n<li><p>A professor in a mid-level university finds a temporary position in a top university. This is the base for many visiting professors in the US universities, e.g. international professors can experience working in the US universities. Even there are associate/assistant professors who find a post-doc position in the top universities, and use sabbatical leave, not to lose their job at home.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>In any case, sabbatical allowance mainly depends on the university employment rules.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8560,
"author": "F'x",
"author_id": 2700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Situations will depend widely on country and on the employer, because a sabbatical leave is something between you and them: <strong>it's an arrangement between an academic and her employer that lets her “take a break” without fully losing the benefits of their position</strong>.</p>\n\n<p><strong>The nature of the break, the activities one has during the sabbatical, and the benefits retained during the length of the sabbatical can vary completely</strong>. For example, a sabbatical can take the form of an unpaid leave for six months or a year, during which the researcher will sail around the world. However, in the modern research system, sabbaticals generally consist of periods where the academic gets time to:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>focus full time on a given research project (most often, an emerging project)</li>\n<li>visit another group to advance an existing project or help create a new collaboration</li>\n<li>spend part time or full time launching a research-related business</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It is common for universities to support those researchers who are granted sabbaticals with some income, typically somewhere between half salary and full salary.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>You can browse the web to see sabbatical policies at various universities. Here's the <a href=\"http://academicaffairs.uoregon.edu/academic-and-sabbatical-leaves\" rel=\"noreferrer\">description</a> at U. Oregon:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Sabbatical leave is a paid period of released time designed to reinvigorate and restore one's academic energies, and to provide a base for future intellectual development and achievement. During the leave period, a faculty member may receive between 50 and 100 percent of salary depending on the length of the leave and the school, college or other administrative affiliation.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
}
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| 2013/03/12 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8557",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929/"
]
|
8,564 | <p>My problem is a bit unusual and I would love to get some advice…</p>
<p>I'm a first year PhD student in social-sciences and I already got my proposal approved. I moved back to my home country (where I am currently doing a PhD) after completing an undergraduate and an MSc. I am very unhappy here. </p>
<p>I would like to have a future as an academic. The only reason I decided to a PhD in my home country and not abroad was because I was determined to try, stay, and make it work here, but recently I been thinking it was a mistake. I am thinking more and more about discontinuing my program here and applying for doctoral studies in the UK, as a new student (after a bit of online research I found that they rarely accept a transfer and it is best to start as a new student). </p>
<p>I would love to get your thoughts regarding my situation, </p>
<ol>
<li><p>I am considering sending an email to a potential supervisor but I am not sure how to explain why I want to drop-out of my current PhD program without talking my university down? How do you suggest I do that?</p></li>
<li><p>Did anyone had a similar experience or have some advice? </p></li>
</ol>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8568,
"author": "aug2uag",
"author_id": 5815,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5815",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p><strong>PhD without challenge is meaningless,</strong></p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Most of us don't know what is PhD until we are broken in like a baseball glove,</strong></p></li>\n<li><p><strong>You will never escape politics in academia, in your household, and elsewhere.</strong></p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>You should re-evaluate if spending the next 4+ years of your life pursuing your studies is worth the effort; and if you have an actual desire to pursue your studies. There aren't many benefits, and the major contributing factor should be your interest in the subject matter, field/area, or potential position as faculty or other.</p>\n\n<p>I think one year is not enough time to have an opinion, and by the time you are able to have one it will be too late to change!! Last thing you want to do is upset your PI, and odds are they will make you pay in the short or long run.</p>\n\n<p>With that said, many frequently change labs due to advisors departure or other reason. You can certainly find a lab, but I think anyone would be concerned your jumping ship to their own, and want to bring your baggage too! There is such a thing as integrity, and it is uncommon for another advisor to pick up someone's project out of the blue as they are mostly concerned on their own.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8699,
"author": "Piotr Migdal",
"author_id": 49,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It happens that people change their PhD programs (I know a few.)</p>\n\n<p>Basically what you lose is:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Time (usually you need to start from the scratch),</li>\n<li>Relationship with advisor (the latter is not always the case).</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If, for any reason, the first year was bad, it is rather unlikely that the next ones will be better (I have never met anyone who is enjoying PhD more and more with each year...). Moreover, if you don't like it, maybe your advisor does not like it either and eventually you won't be able to finish at all.</p>\n\n<p>But beware - \"grass is greener...\". You can experience the same problems in other places. So here are the most important things:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>What is not working?</li>\n<li>Do you have any reasonable argument that in the target place such thing is better?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>(Anyway - if you are <em>very unhappy</em> after one year (of 3-5 more years to come), then just change it to another PhD or to something different (don't disregard other careers). It's better to end up with \"wasted\" years or a \"suboptimal\" career than hanging on a tree.)</p>\n\n<p>HOW to do that is a different question (or questions - because it involves both application to a new program and quitting your current one). See e.g.:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5610/current-phd-applicant-applying-to-another-university\">current PhD applicant applying to another university</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1243/apply-to-phd-after-expulsion-from-another\">Apply to PhD after expulsion from another</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6032/switching-from-one-area-of-graduate-study-to-another\">Switching from one area of graduate study to another?</a></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 21082,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think the other answers here are really good and speak directly to the question, but I want to add one other relevant comment. <em>If you want to have an academic career in the USA, then do your PhD in the USA.</em> For an explanation why, see my comments <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16899/canada-vs-australia-for-the-academic-career/16930#16930\">on this previous question.</a></p>\n\n<p><strong>Edit</strong></p>\n\n<p>To my surprise, there's a lot of objections being raised against my view here. I'm surprised because I've expressed similar view at least two other times on different questions here: <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17879/what-are-the-major-informal-obstacles-students-face-when-they-go-abroad-for-a-re/18284#18284\">one</a> <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17405/how-would-a-small-liberal-arts-college-view-a-phd-from-germany-or-the-uk-factor/17406#17406\">two</a> and both answers currently (1:30 EST, 18 May 2014) have positive votes.</p>\n\n<p>The explanation for the discrepancy seems to be this. When the remark is something more like: \"If you want a job in the USA, do the PhD in America,\" then it gets up voted. On the other hand, if it's the generalization: \"Do the PhD where you want to get a job\" (the original, unedited formulation I originally gave above) it tends to get down voted/mixed reception, and most of the negative comments seem to come from folks in continental europe. This suggests that I am inappropriately generalizing from my experience (I'm American), and the advice may be different in (among others) Australia and Continental Europe. </p>\n\n<p>Therefore, I've amended the advice above and suggest you take it with a grain of salt.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 44904,
"author": "Jatin",
"author_id": 34110,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34110",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are unhappy in the first year itself then you should change it. It is not rare these days. You should not see it as a bad move on your part. However when you go to another place, and if you keep the same attitude and complain again then it will be bad on your part. One advice, if you have already decided to change your PhD, then it would remove red flags if you could ask your referees and get a couple of lines in support of your decision written in your letter of recommendation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 44970,
"author": "aparente001",
"author_id": 32436,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32436",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are many reasons one might not want to do one's PhD studies in one's home country, especially if that country is in the third world. It might have to do with a low level of academic rigor. It might have to do with the culture shock one gets upon returning to one's native land after living abroad for some time. It might have to do with feeling stifled by family, religion or culture. It might have to do with violence and/or corruption. I'm sure I left some possible reasons out.</p>\n\n<p>Could you send out some feelers to a couple of universities that interest you, to start with?</p>\n\n<p>I agree that you don't want to say anything insulting about your present institution (in writing). You can get a lot across by writing with delicacy. For example you could talk about seeking greater academic rigor, or looking for an institution where independent thought is highly valued.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/12 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8564",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6123/"
]
|
8,570 | <p>I catch myself too often thinking about how to become more visible and present online instead of doing Great Research™.</p>
<p>But how important is it to be very visible online for academics and researcher anyway?</p>
<p>Here are my assumptions, numbered only for easy referencing.</p>
<p>The bad:</p>
<ol>
<li>Tenure committees and such don't care for twitter follower </li>
<li>Public bodies that provide funding don't care how many people have you in your circle</li>
<li>Colleagues might look down on you, because your blog posts are not scientific enough</li>
</ol>
<p>The good:</p>
<ol>
<li>Writing a blog can be a good exercise in writing about your topic</li>
<li>If you are looking for a job or position, it can be helpful <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_and_only_if">iff</a> your potential boss is also an 'onliner'</li>
<li>It makes it easier to network and getting in contact with other people who work on the same problems</li>
<li>It might help you to get work, invited to talks and book contracts in the normal world.</li>
<li>(For CS) Uploading and advertising your code will make your research results more used</li>
</ol>
<p>Are my assumptions correct? What did I miss? How do handle your online reputation? </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8571,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The first general answer that comes to mind is that it depends on what you do online. Adding professional material into the public domain will probably be very positive if it is good and useful. Engaging in academic discussions (through a blog for example) on what might be considered serious topics such as ethics, scientific fraud, pedagogics, your research etc. would probably not construed as negative either. At least as long as you treat the writing there as seriously as you would do any academic writing.</p>\n\n<p>The \"lightweight\" activities such as Facebook and Twitter may have its points especially towards students and attracting students towards scientific activities and thinking. But, ones reputation in such medias would probably not be of much value unless one builds up a reputation that is leading. I suspect you may have to become a leading scientist before anyone really takes notice of your social media contributions.</p>\n\n<p>What single persons find positive or negative of the points in your lists will likely be very variable but I think the different media have their (almost) separate audiences. Social media might be excellent to communicate science to the public. The problem is that it will always be your personal communication and not yours as a representative of your department/university etc. unless the activity is somehow endorsed.</p>\n\n<p>The bottom line as I see it is that what is good or bad highly depends on what <em>you</em> communicate not in which way you do it. Keeping a high academic standard should not be negative anywhere.</p>\n\n<p>Becoming buddies as you suggest in \"Good 2\" sounds almost bad to me since in the case of academic employment, that employer will likely be thought of as having a conflict of interest. On the other hand being visible and not \"buddies\" is probably only a plus in such a case. About \"Good 3\" and \"4\" I doubt anyone will hire you or invite you to give talks based on internet visibility unless you have something solidly academic to back it up. It is your core academic reputation that will open doors for you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8572,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are looking for a job in academia, having a presentable website is a plus. If you put your website address on your CV and you also have Google Analytics for your website, you'll notice an explicit spike in your website traffic when (if) hiring committees are looking at your site (unless, of course, your site is popular enough to reduce the extra hits to noise). Google Analytics even has a fancy mapping tool so you can see, for instance, that the Cornell hiring committee is looking at your website when you see fifteen extra hits from Ithaca within a couple of days.</p>\n\n<p>Additionally, having a website is a good place to put your publication listing (and, of course, your CV) with links to all of your papers. When someone meets you at a conference and wants to see what you've produced, searching for your name to find your website should be easy. Many faculty members also have their class listings and curricula on their websites, and those resources can provide other indicators to your hire-ability if you're looking for a job.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8573,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Generally speaking, online presence is not so important <em>with respect to your career advancement in academia</em>. Your professional stature is based on your publications, presentations, connections, and ability to obtain grant funding. When you look for positions, you'll be judged primarily on these criteria; blogs and media appearances are a very minor factor, if considered at all.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, it may be beneficial in other respects. A strong online presence can significantly boost your visibility to those <em>outside</em> the academic environment. This can lead to consultation opportunities, collaboration opportunities with those outside of academia (think business ventures), and possibly job leads in industry. To the extent you're interested in those, you may want to invest in creating a strong online presence to help you advertise yourself.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8577,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Consider the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/616/is-web-presence-important-for-researchers\">related question</a> on having a web page. In some communities it would seem laughable NOT to have a personal web page (and in parts of CS it's considered silly not to have your own domain!). </p>\n\n<p>My feeling is that the general issue of an \"online presence\", whether it be blogs, twitter, or other social mechanisms, will become a non-issue as everyone starts placing their material online by default rather than by choice. </p>\n\n<p>We used to joke in our department that we only want to hire people with active blogs (because a few of us blog actively). But now that isn't even a distinguishing factor: more than not, people have personal blogs and other forms of online presence. </p>\n\n<p>As a general rule, don't force it. Understand that an online presence is something you should become accustomed to having, but take advantage of the fact that it's not yet the norm. Experiment with what works for you. Don't write a blog if it's not something you find comfortable. Or try it and see if you like it before deciding to do it. An online presence is not An Online Presence: it's merely another method to express yourself. If you don't have things to express, it doesn't matter what medium you use :)</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/13 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8570",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2698/"
]
|
8,574 | <p>I have submitted a paper several years ago and its referee process took about three years and I had to revise the paper six times to get the final approval. The paper had two helpful and knowledgable referees and I appreciate their comments and suggestions, but I have also had the following problems with their suggestions:</p>
<ol>
<li>sometimes their comments contradicted each other. For example, one of them wanted me to add a discussion and when I added that part he wanted me to remove it in the next revision. </li>
<li>they often wanted to expand the scope of the paper, but due to some technicalities I had to consider some restrictions to get the expected result.</li>
<li>they gave me new comments and proposed new modifications after every single revision, while they could suggest all their comments in their first report and this made the referee process this long. </li>
<li>one of the referees wanted me to address some related works in other papers in my paper, which was actually unnecessary.</li>
</ol>
<p>I pretty much obeyed all their suggestions and comments and finally the paper was accepted and now it has been published. Although I learned a lot during the referee process, I wished I could negotiate with referees and do not have to obey them in every little detail. Besides I had this feeling that I have somehow lost my freedom as the author of the paper during this process and I have no control on my paper any more. I had to do whatever they asked me even if I was not completely convinced it is a right thing to do. I have also had some of the abovementioned problems with the referees of my other papers. You perhaps know that journals often have this policy that you either should implement all the changes suggested by referees or withdraw the paper. This policy leaves little room for negotiation. So my questions are:</p>
<p><strong>An author, in order to discuss his/her points with referees and do not obey some of their suggestions and comments or ask them to not delay the referee process further, what is the best strategy to negotiate with referees? Is there any diplomatic way for this negotiation or we have to obey referees all the time? Have you ever had similar problems with referees of your papers? How did you overcome these problems?</strong></p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8576,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>You perhaps know that journals often have this policy that you either should implement all the changes suggested by referees or withdraw the paper.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Which journals have such a policy? I don't think this is the case for any AMS, MAA, or SIAM journal, for example, and I'm not aware of any journal with such a policy (although of course I have direct experience with only a small fraction of the journals in mathematics). Here's how it works in the cases I'm familiar with:</p>\n\n<p>Any changes suggested by the referees are merely suggestions, which do not need to be followed if the author and editor are in agreement. If the change involves fixing a mistake or correctly attributing work, then no responsible editor will accept the paper until the situation is resolved (either by making the change or establishing that it is not needed). Matters of clarity are also taken seriously. However, some referee suggestions are just opinions that the author may reasonably disagree with.</p>\n\n<p>It's perfectly reasonable to write to the editor and say \"Here's a new draft of my paper. I've made changes A, B, and C proposed by the referees, and I'm grateful to them for identifying these issues, but I have not implemented D and E. I think those changes are not truly needed, because ...\"</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>what is the best strategy to negotiate with referees?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I'd think of it instead as negotiating/discussing with the editor. The editor is the one who makes the decision, with the referees providing advice and expert opinions. Ideally, you'll be able to convince the referees that not all of their proposed changes are necessary, but the editor is the only person you need to convince if the referees are stubborn.</p>\n\n<p>Editors are used to this. As an editor, I've occasionally written an acceptance letter (conditional on revisions) that says explicitly that only some of the changes are really needed, and even when I don't say so authors certainly don't always make all the changes.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8585,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>This is a response drawn from my combined editor/author/reviewer experience (for what it is worth). As has already been stated, you negotiate with editors not with referees. In most cases (there are likely always exceptions) the reviewers provides reports to the editor who makes decisions based on these and should, in my opinion, also evaluate the review reports and provide you with some direction for how to proceed. Reviewers will also provide the editor with comments that you will not see and which can influence the editors final remarks. I think some editors are not taking their responsibility seriously when they let the reviewers \"dictate\" changes. A review is an (educated) opinion (in the best case) and not a truth (we have to remember that as reviewers). The editor is not a god (or a semi-god) either and it is always possible to disagree with him/her (I have to remember that). Keep in mind that the editor still has the power to reject papers if he/she thinks it is in the best interest of the journal.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>If reviews conflict, a good editor should provide you with some guidance. You can also weigh the conflicting views against each other. Sometimes one or the other are based on misconceptions which may result from unclear writing so always explore that avenue when you disagree with a comment.</li>\n<li>Expand the scope. Again, I would expect an editor to provide some final direction. If none is given I think it is fair to approach the editor and state your opinion and ask for clarification.</li>\n<li>Extending the process. This sounds quite unacceptable to me. I can possibly see this happening when getting new reviewers in after each round but again, the editor should put an end to the process at some point (sooner rather than later). I wonder what your expected turnover time would be for the journal you describe. Several years is completely unacceptable to me and within my field.</li>\n<li>Requests to quote. If not necessary then they are not necessary. I would make my case to the editor and hope that it is clear why no additions will or should be made.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So if your journal is run well, you should be able to get some direction out of your editor by asking short direct questions about whatever issues you have (suggest how you would like to solve them as well). If you have severe problems like what you describe, I think you need to re-evaluate where to publish in the future. As with all of us include some self-evaluation as well to see if you can improve from any of the problems you have encountered. I certainly have learned and hopefully improved my writing and publishing skills from publishing experiences.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 12051,
"author": "E.P.",
"author_id": 820,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/820",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Read the editorial practices and author guidelines of your chosen journal carefully. The details will depend on the field, but I suspect most journals do <strong>not</strong> require authors to implement all changes suggested by referees. However, you <em>are</em> required to address all the points raised by the referees. (For example, Physical Review Letters does this; see their <a href=\"http://prl.aps.org/info/polprocl.html#edproc\" rel=\"nofollow\">editorial practices</a> and <a href=\"http://prl.aps.org/authors/tips-authors-physical-review-physical-review-letters\" rel=\"nofollow\">author guidelines</a>.)</p>\n\n<p>Referees are human and are not immune from making errors. If you believe a criticism of your paper is incorrect or a proposed change is superfluous or erroneous, you should state this (politely!) in your response. You alone are responsible for the quality and integrity of your publications, and you should not implement changes you disagree with. If you present a solid argument for why the changes should be rejected, a reasonable editor can and should let your version stand.</p>\n\n<p>(Regarding multiple proposed corrections on material a referee has already seen, I feel that a polite request to the editor, after the first occurrence, that they expedite the review process by preventing such multiple corrections, is well within your rights.)</p>\n\n<p>Most importantly, <strong>know the rules of the game</strong>. Read your chosen journal's editorial practices and all the author guidance at least once during the preparation and submission process of your paper, ideally <em>before</em> you submit, and certainly before you reply to a referee report. If a journal states that you must incorporate all referee proposed changes, and you are uncomfortable with this, choose another journal!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 15907,
"author": "badroit",
"author_id": 7746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Though they make valid points, I feel that the existing answers (esp. by @Peter Jansson and @Anonymous Mathematician and the comment by @JeffE) put too much weight in the role of editors. I think this might be misleading for some folks, and (coming along quite a bit later) I want to try balance those answers out with another perspective informed by own experiences.</p>\n\n<p>Not only <strong>can</strong> you negotiate with reviewers, but any time you submit a revision with a response letter, <strong>you must</strong> negotiate with them.</p>\n\n<p>In my experience, editors are largely hands-off. Typically they won't read the paper in detail, but instead they try to provide a meta-review: a consensus verdict from the reviews given to them and a summary of the main points to address. The editors make the final decision about rejection/acceptance based on the information they have.</p>\n\n<p>But crucially, when you submit a revision and an accompanying response letter, it is the <strong>reviewers</strong> that will look again at the paper and the treatment of their comments and decide how to proceed with their next review (and it is those reviews that are, in turn, considered by the editor). When you submit a response letter, you are implicitly <strong>negotiating with the reviewers</strong>: you are telling them which comments you addressed and how; more importantly you are telling them which comments you only partially addressed or didn't address at all and why; and you are effectively negotiating with them as to why your paper should now be considered ready for acceptance.</p>\n\n<p>To be clear (and this is mentioned in other answers) it is not a good idea to only address the comments given by the editor. Your response letter should be aimed primarily at the reviewers. If the reviewers are happy, the editor is typically happy, not the other way around. </p>\n\n<p>And yep, sure, reviewers will frequently give you comments you disagree with, but you must respond to everything and I highly recommend at least compromising by partially addressing every comment. Sometimes it is even sufficient to treat the spirit of the comment, not the literal content. For example, a reviewer might push you to do additional work that you feel is very clearly out-of-scope; but then you should ask yourself why the reviewer brings this up? Maybe it wasn't made clear in the paper that it was out-of-scope? In the response letter you can state that you did not present the additional work, but instead that you better clarified why it is considered out of scope in the introduction. This way you acknowledge that there was a flaw in the paper and that the reviewer has a point, but as an author, you chose a different solution to fix it.</p>\n\n<p>(From the other side of the fence, I know that as a reviewer, I get p*ssed off when the comments I volunteered are not even responded to or are dismissed without good reason. Yes probably some of the comments I give are not useful to the authors but I want to at least see that they considered the suggestions.)</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>In summary, though the editors co-ordinate the revisions and the verdicts, it is the reviewers that provide the feedback and, in my experience, it is the reviewers you should aim to negotiate with towards getting your paper ready for acceptance.</p>\n\n<p>Sometimes you may have genuine disagreement with a reviewer or will encounter the infamous <a href=\"http://www.sigmod.org/publications/sigmod-record/0812/p100.open.cormode.pdf\">adversarial reviewer</a>. Making your case to the editor is then the best course of action. (If reviews are going around in circles for three years, as in this case for example, then it is the responsibility of the editor to step in. In fact, in the terminology of the adversarial reviewer, this is known as the \"<a href=\"http://www.sigmod.org/publications/sigmod-record/0812/p100.open.cormode.pdf\">Iterated Goldilocks Method</a>\".)</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/13 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8574",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
|
8,578 | <p>I have a bit of a meta-question about academics.</p>
<p>I am a graduate student and teaching assistant. I often find myself flipping, organizing, and searching through stacks of hundreds and hundreds of sheets of paper, whether I'm grading, reading, or doing research.</p>
<p>I seem to have an issue where my hands get dry quickly, and I find myself licking the tips of my fingers to get better friction. Sometimes I have to do this quite often, and I am wondering if there is a better way. I tried using hand moisturizer, but that wears off.</p>
<p>Are there special gloves, lotions, or anything that can help with flipping through huge stacks of paper?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8580,
"author": "walkmanyi",
"author_id": 1265,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1265",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Some 20 years ago before all the electronics changed our ways of dealing with stuff, post and bank employees who had to deal with piles of paper (or banknotes) throughout day used a device which was essentially a piece of a wet sponge in a small bowl. They had this on the desk and whenever were about to touch paper, they would simply brush their fingers through it. Something like that could help you... To construct it, I would use a plastic travel-soap container and a small sponge for dishwashing.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Later edit:</strong> Indeed, <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wet%20fingers%20bank%20post%20sponge&um=1&tbm=isch\">this</a> is what I had in mind.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8588,
"author": "Mr.Mindor",
"author_id": 3934,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3934",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>An alternative to walkmanyi's wetting solution would be to employ <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?q=rubber%20finger%20tips&aq=1&oq=rubber%20fi&aqs=chrome.3.0j57j5j0.14822&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8\">rubber finger tips</a>.</p>\n\n<p><strong>On the plus side:</strong><br>\nThey protect from drying out of the natural oil from your finger tips, and protect against paper cuts.<br>\n<strong>On the negative side:</strong><br>\nWell you are wearing little caps on the tips of your fingers and you lose some tactile feedback. I imagine it would take some getting used to. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/13 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8578",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3871/"
]
|
8,579 | <p>I am currently taking a brief course in Technical/Academic Writing. At one point, in passing, the lecturer (who's a researcher in linguistics himself) mentioned that one should not confuse a conference abstract with an article abstract, with the exact phrasing "... that's a whole different story." </p>
<p>Unfortunately, at that moment in time I did not reflect on what those differences might be, but now I am writing a conference abstract I realize that I have never really paid much attention to the fact that I am not writing to a journal. Besides the fact that a conference abstract is preamble to a primarily spoken form presentation (poster/oral) instead of a written one, I don't really see why it would be "a whole different story". </p>
<p>Assuming that there are no differences in requirements and limitations, what are the fundamental differences, between a conference abstract and an article abstract, that one should be aware of?</p>
<p>PS: if it matters, the field I'm mostly concerned about is medical research</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8582,
"author": "Artem Kaznatcheev",
"author_id": 66,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think your professor was talking about <strong>extended abstracts</strong> (see <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1351/66\">this question</a> for more discussion). For many conferences, especially those that don't publish their proceedings, people submit an extended abstract instead of a paper. Thus, in that case the 'abstract' is basically a short paper that summarizes results you are working on or planning to publish soon. It is much more detailed that an abstract for a paper, but less detailed than a whole paper would be.</p>\n\n<p>If your conference publishes its proceedings though (as many in computer science, do) then you should treat your conference submission like a journal one and write the abstract accordingly.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8583,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>To me an article abstract summarizes the entire article including the overarching questions through methods, results to the major conclusions. </p>\n\n<p>A conference abstract will of course also summarize whatever is presented at the conference. The differences lie in several aspects of variable weight:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Conferences are often focused on a specific topic so one can be less stringent with the background</li>\n<li>Conference presentations may involve work in progress and as such the final conclusions maybe quite hazy.</li>\n<li>The conference abstract may be written before most of the work has actually been done (this is quite common with some conferences in my field) and becomes an \"advertisement\" for what might come.</li>\n<li>The conference contribution may in some cases involve a paper but can also be a poster or an oral presentation. depending on which abstracts may contain varying levels of finalized conclusions. </li>\n</ul>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/13 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8579",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674/"
]
|
8,586 | <p>To explain, let me pick a particular statement: "the electrostatic force is mediated by the exchange of photons".</p>
<p>When a physicist (or a lecturer) says this, they mean one thing: the process described in detail by QED. When a student (or an amateur) hears this, they think of two electrons, and they imagine photons flying between them. You can imagine what follows: questions like <a href="https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/197/how-are-forces-mediated">"how do they know where to fly"</a>, or <a href="https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/19015/what-frequency-photons-are-involved-in-mediating-physical-force">"what is the frequency of these photons"</a>, or "where does the energy to create those photons come from" etc.</p>
<p>When I was growing up, I had no access to anyone who really understood physics. All I had were books filled to the brim with phrases like the above. It is nearly impossible <em>not</em> to misunderstand something when such loose statements are used, as popular literature tends to omit the extremely important "but"s.</p>
<p>For example, in the statement above, the "but"s omitted are "but we don't actually mean photons, in fact we don't mean any particle at all; what we mean is a mathematical tool we use to calculate how the interaction works, which is reminiscent of actual photons in so many ways that we can often treat the calculations as if they involved actual photons".</p>
<p>What is the most effective way to educate students about such phenomena, where our language we use to describe them risks obscuring the reality, and/or misleading the students? Is there evidence in the pedagogic literature on this?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8587,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, this is a real issue and yes, we are obligated as a community to address it because we ourselves are the source of so many of the misconceptions and errors we so often complain about. The higher the level, the greater the accountability should be, but frequently isn't.</p>\n\n<p>There are nearly innumerable examples of faulty language all throughout the physics literature and physics textbook at all levels. I will list some here. Before doing so, I also want to point out that science, ALL science, is based on progressively sophisticated models. Each new level of sophistication brings deeper understanding, and the process never ends. It's okay to use simplistic models and accompanying simplistic language as long as we warn the listener that in simplifying things, we're introducing errors that will be addressed in the more sophisticated models. We frequently neglect this warning.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Vectors are quantities that have magnitude and direction.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It is not the case that every quantity that has a magnitude and direction is a vector (e.g. finite rotations). There are also different kinds of vectors, and unfortunately this is rarely mentioned in introductory courses.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Vector components are scalars.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Well, not always. Components can be vectors as well. In fact, what we call scalar components are really pseudoscalars because of their behavior under coordinate inversion.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Energy is the capacity to do work.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is a model of meaningless circularity if ever there were one.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"The potential energy of the ball...\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>A single entity cannot have potential energy assigned to it. Potential energy is a property of a system.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Energy or momentum flows...\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Neither is a concrete physical substance so they can't flow. What we really should say is that we treat them mathematically as though they flow.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Charging a capacitor...\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Charge is a fundamental property of matter, and yet we routinely use it as both a noun and a verb, which is a huge potential source of confusion. When we use it as a verb, we really mean and should say \"accumulating\" because that's the physical process we're trying to describe. \"Charging a capacitor\" simply means \"accumulating charge on the capacitor\". Actually, upon deeper thought, it amounts to a \"redistribution of charge creating the appearance of accumulation of charge on the capacitor.\" Sometimes more words enhance the meaning.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Electricity is...\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I can think of the following words used by students to complete this thought: charge, current, potential difference, electric force, power. Electricity is really a meaningless word used as a substitute for lack of understanding of the concepts behind all those other words. If you mean power, then use the word power. If you mean current, then use the word current.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Newton's third law says two objects exert equal and opposite forces on each other.\" </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This directly contradicts the definition of force as a vector because two vectors cannot be equal if they have different directions. The term \"equal and opposite\" is inherently self-contradictory.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Dot products and cross products are two ways of multiplying vectors.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>These are very different from students' conceptions of multiplication. Dot products require both multiplication and addition (and sometimes subtraction). Cross products also require more than trivial multiplication. We shouldn't use the simplistic \"multiplying\" UNLESS we warn students that we're redefining what \"multiplying\" means.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Moving clocks run slow. Moving rods contract.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>These are very misleading. Time dilation and length contraction are nothing more than consequences of measurement from different frames. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Time...\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<ul>\n<li>This problem took too much time. (time as a quantifiable concept)</li>\n<li>Distance is the product of speed and time. (time as a duration)</li>\n<li>What time is it? (time as a clock reading)</li>\n<li>Six times three is eighteen. (times as repeated addition)</li>\n<li>Please time the oscillations of this pendulum. (time as a verb)</li>\n<li>That was a very timely remark. (time as an adverb)</li>\n<li>Here is a time-dependent function. (time as an adjective)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>These are a few from introductory and intermediate physics. Perhaps we should create a community wiki of more examples from advanced physics.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8596,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've been thinking of this exact topic from a pedagogic standpoint for years. I taught high school physics where I had classes that ranged from 9th grade Conceptual Physics, to APB (non-calculus) physics, to APC (calculus-based) physics, to a 12th grade second physics class for students who wanted more physics but didn't want the rigor of the AP classes. I'm about to begin teaching a college-level Physical Science class where I'm faced with the same problem:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>How do I teach the students "physics" (quotation marks in bold) without (a) saying something misleading, and (b) so they get a clear understanding that won't hinder them in future classes.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I believe the answer to that question relies most importantly on the level the students are at (teach to their level so they understand), and also with the explicit caveat that <em>the teacher must tell the students that there are subtleties that will become apparent in future classes.</em> Indeed, some of those subtleties are more than that -- saying that</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Energy is the capacity to do work</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>may be circular and meaningless (as JoeH replied), but to a first approximation and definition it works for the time being, and can be improved upon in later classes. When I give that definition to my students, I always caveat it by saying, "Guess what? This definition isn't perfect, and in future classes you'll learn a more refined definition that involves other concepts that aren't within the scope of this class." (I say that a lot in introductory classes!) To the students that want more information immediately, I point them in the direction of other resources, or move the conversation to office hours.</p>\n<p>The hardest part about proceeding with this method is to make sure that you don't lead the students into an incorrect conceptual understanding that is hard to break in future classes. Joe's example of "the potential energy of the ball" being incorrect without the idea of a system is a good one -- there are many times when simplifying too much leads to a fundamental misunderstanding, and as teachers we have to avoid that as much as possible. Learning what does and doesn't lead to misunderstanding takes time, but being able to formulate precise assessments (whether test-based, or clicker-based, or on homework, etc.) goes a long way towards determining whether or not a student has a proper understanding that doesn't involve misconceptions. If those misconceptions arise during the assessment, it is the teacher's duty to go back and clarify, or re-teach if necessary.</p>\n<p>JoeH listed a number of physics concepts that take a concentrated effort to teach properly, but I think all disciplines have those problems:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Chemistry: <a href=\"http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1224\" rel=\"noreferrer\">electrons do not orbit in "shells," despite what millions of students learn every year in elementary school.</a></p>\n<p>Computer Science: <a href=\"http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/%7Ewwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=riddles_cs;action=display;num=1264652087\" rel=\"noreferrer\">in some cases, bubblesort does beat quicksort.</a></p>\n<p>Mathematics: <a href=\"http://nrich.maths.org/1434\" rel=\"noreferrer\">the internal angles of a triangle do not always add up to 180º.</a> <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?q=hex%205%20times%20hex%205&oq=hex%205%20times%20hex%205&aqs=chrome.0.57j0l3j62l2.3611&sugexp=chrome,mod=17&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&safe=off&sclient=psy-ab&q=0x5%20*%200x5&oq=0x5%20*%200x5&gs_l=serp.3...3323.5222.0.5666.9.8.0.0.0.0.886.3535.2-2j3j1j1j1.8.0.les;..0.0...1c.1.5.psy-ab.vJBN_m1-F2g&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43287494,d.Yms&fp=205d418cd8aed20b&biw=1401&bih=968\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Five times five does not always equal twenty-five.</a></p>\n<p>English: <a href=\"http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/top-ten-grammar-myths.aspx\" rel=\"noreferrer\">passive voice is not always wrong.</a></p>\n<p>History: <a href=\"http://www.plentyquotes.com/authors/Philip-Howard/Philip-Howard.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">a historian does not always have to be unbiased</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>(apologies for examples that aren't perfectly clear -- I'd be happy to amend my answer with better examples!)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 15267,
"author": "Emil",
"author_id": 10412,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10412",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A very good question.\nI usually deal with this like:\n\"Vectors usually have magnitude and direction. Their components are usually scalars. There are more difficult cases, do you really want to deal with them now? [People sigh or say \"noooo\"] So, here is an example... Now we can continue.\".</p>\n\n<p>Of course, strict definitions give some comfort, but may also result in misunderstanding. It's good to confess that every detail is very difficult and even You, The Teacher, can not answer everything.</p>\n\n<p>By default, you must know very well what you talk about. Then you can give some simple example, then a difficult one and ask them if they want to analyse it now. They usually say \"nooo\" and you proceed.</p>\n\n<p>There are usually enthusiasts and passive people in a single classroom. It's a good practise to let enthusiasts give one or two questions above the course during the break, so that everyone gets what he's interested in. An interaction with your audience gives better feeling of what they actually need explained.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/13 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8586",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6367/"
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|
8,593 | <p>A PhD student has started his research about two year ago by research scholarship from university. His supervisor won a huge grant on a topic very close to his research project couple of months earlier. He and his supervisor submitted a 6 page paper to a journal for publication. Editor's decision is that the paper should be published as a communication rather original research. This means that they have to <strong>reduce the manuscript to 4 pages or pay about 500$ for extra pages</strong>. The adviser asked the student to shrink the paper to the shortest possible version.</p>
<p>I have the following questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Can they pay the publications fees from the grant budget?</li>
<li><strong>Can student ask the adviser to pay for the publication from the grant?</strong> What is the best polite approach for such request?</li>
<li>Should supervisor expect to put the grant number in the acknowledgement while he does not pay for the publication fees.</li>
</ol>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8594,
"author": "blackace",
"author_id": 4467,
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"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p>You already have the answer from your advisor. He is the one who knows the circumstances and can make the call if he want to. </p></li>\n<li><p>You can ask, but be careful how you do it. Remember, if he wanted to do it, he would have done it already instead of asking you to cut the paper.</p></li>\n<li><p>Yes, if its close enough, and he feels that grant has been supporting his activities... </p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8679,
"author": "spbail",
"author_id": 6388,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6388",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p>Generally yes (depends on whether the grant is tied to any specific spending though, e.g. staff costs, equipment, etc.) - but if the advisor suggests to cut down the paper, it is probably best to follow that suggestion. An alternative would be to provide the longer version of the paper as an official technical report by the university, which should not clash with publication restrictions of the journal. I have seen a number of publications that have a technical report with the same title. (This is in computer science.)</p></li>\n<li><p>See above - but this also depends on the relationship with the advisor. If they're generally friendly, suggesting it sounds reasonable (\"would this be an option...?\").</p></li>\n<li><p>Yes.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 142469,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The other answers give proper solutions to the questions the OP asks. Here is a suggestion to avoid the problem altogether.</p>\n\n<p>Publish the full paper on arXiv, or as a technical report from your own university. Then publish an abbreviated version in the journal, and make crossreferences.</p>\n\n<p>Before you do this, carefully doublecheck the journal's policies on arXiv publications.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/14 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8593",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5644/"
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|
8,597 | <p>A <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8593/shrink-the-paper-or-pay-for-extra-page-charges#comment15088_8593">comment</a> in <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/8593/1033">this question</a> says: <em>but spending some money to publish in a high rank journal can open more funding opportunities in future, doesn't it?</em>. In another post, JeffE writes <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/8420/1033">in this answer</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Personally, when I read a CV, I only spend a second or two on the self-declared research interests and jump straight to the publication list.</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If a candidate (either for hiring or for a grant) has good science but the publications are not in the most prestigious journals, but in slightly less known journals (but still journals that are not obscure), does that significantly hurt their chances? Or is it really the content that matters and is the venue of publication less important?</p>
<p>Note that my question is <em>specifically</em> about the <em>venue of publication</em>. These related questions do not answer my question:</p>
<ul>
<li><em><a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1743/1033">What can I do as a graduate student to maximize my chances of obtaining a professorship?</a></em></li>
<li><em><a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2080/1033">How important is number of publications and prestige of the publication outlets for getting a tenure-track job?</a></em></li>
<li><em><a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/933/1033">How important are citations when applying for jobs or promotions?</a></em></li>
</ul>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8598,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
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"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>There is probably not a single truth here but I would make the following statements:</p>\n\n<p><em>Having a good publication record is the basis for basically everything in academia</em>. The question is then what is good? As a fresh PhD student citations will be near zero (I am guessing in most fields). Having publications in citation index listed journals is therefore a definite plus. Having several as first author is a must (see <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2467/4394\">What does first authorship really mean?</a> for a discussion) I would also argue that having papers not part of the PhD (even if not first authored author) is a plus since it indicates activity.</p>\n\n<p>As a new post-graduate you need to improve the publication record as best you can. You need to show that you do your own new work but also be part of collaborations in some mix. Building a publication record takes time and will partly be up to your own efforts and in some way also by chance (you never know what opportunities lie ahead). </p>\n\n<p>To get employed, you can basically only compete with a good publication list. Everyone knows this takes time and I am guessing all fields have their own \"standards\" as to what is a reasonable publication rate. In my field where papers are based on field investigations, 2-4 papers per year is considered acceptable, the longer-term average should be towards 3-5. The rate is thus an aspect that should not be over-looked. </p>\n\n<p>Typically you will have a dip post-PhD because it takes time to build or get into a new environment and to start writing new papers. Having something on the back burner for that period may thus be useful to bridge the gap.</p>\n\n<p>As a final note, the citations will be more and more important after a few years. In my field it usually takes a few years to start getting citations because the results will inspire someone to apply for money, go into the field for new investigations, and then write papers. In a lab or theoretical environment such response times may be lower so check with seniors in your field what applies. A good question to ask is perhaps if there are ways to promote ones work to increase citation records, I do not have the answer to that question.</p>\n\n<p>Bottom line: publish in as good journals as possible. Good quality counts but a reasonable publication rate is also necessary. Citations will come with time.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8607,
"author": "StasK",
"author_id": 739,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/739",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For what it is worth, this question is discipline specific. In natural sciences, you have to go through 5-8 years of post-docs, and the question of how to get a professor position is such a distant future that you shouldn't even bother at this point, and have to concentrate on getting into a productive post-doc position (rather than the one that will simply suck up all of your energy on 60+ hour work weeks, without giving much in return). In some fields, like economics or statistics, you get a tenure track position right after the Ph.D. In some other fields, like some branches of sociology or anthropology, there is no \"research\", but there is \"scholarship\" instead, and the first question you are asked is not \"How many Nature papers do you have?\" but \"What is your book about?\".</p>\n\n<p>Having said that, my impression (I am a statistician, also worked with psychologists and economists) is that generally the perceived order of importance is:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>The prestige of the top journals that you published in as the first or the solo author</li>\n<li>Whether you have papers in top journals in the field, no matter what order author you are</li>\n<li>The share of top journals in overall record: if you have 20 publications with only 1 being in a top journal, that's arguably a worse record than 10 publications with 3 top journals (although it depends on a particular university; in some academic incentive systems, you are better off publishing 5-6 crappy papers a year without every attempting top journals)</li>\n<li>Citations will hardly come into play until you are about 5+ years into the game post Ph.D. (going for tenure in economics or statistics; going for tenure track positions in physics or biology, although I can only speculate about these fields). For some departments, citations may never come into play if you have publications in top journals, which are assumed to generate citations semi-automatically.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>As a grad student, you are still learning the rules of the game. Treat academia as such; don't assume that good research will prevail -- it might, but it could be too late for you. You have to be aggressive in pursuing top publications, invited presentations, etc., and a lot of people just don't have it. You have to recognize whether your personality suits academia, and try to seek other venues if it does not. (I don't know if there are psychoanalysts specializing in placing people into academia, but that would be a golden niche for somebody :) ). In many disciplines, there is as much or even more good quality research being done in industry than in the university setting.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8614,
"author": "Rex Kerr",
"author_id": 669,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/669",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Despite the importance of hiring, many departments do not devote all that much energy to it (at least, not until the field is narrowed down to a handful of top candidates being invited to give job talks). For these departments, it can make a big difference if they know that you at least passed the (often considerably greater) scrutiny afforded by publication in a top journal.</p>\n\n<p>Not having publications in top journals will not necessarily sink your chances, but it will <em>limit</em> your chances to those places that don't make it a de facto requirement. Check out the publication records of recently hired faculty members at institutions you're interested in to get a hint of what your CV ought to look like.</p>\n\n<p>(Note: getting a good postdoctoral fellowship is typically much less publication-dependent, at least in those areas of the biological sciences with which I am familiar.)</p>\n"
}
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| 2013/03/14 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8597",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033/"
]
|
8,599 | <p>I have an adviser who wants to know every minor details of my work and spend countless amount of time arguing with me over insignificant things. Basically, she tries to control everything I do, from number of hours I spend on homework, what books/papers I read, what font/color I use in my presentations, to whom I talk to with regards to research. Is this considered normal? If not, is this a good reason to change the adviser?</p>
<p>Edit: Sorry for the lack of details.
<strong>Status</strong> I'm an MS/PHD student in my second year of MS. Probably 3 more years of PHD.</p>
<p><strong>Communication</strong> I've tried to communicate my concerns; but she usually has the "my way or the highway" attitude". If I insist on something, she ends up sarcastically saying, "if I don't like it, I should consider finding another research adviser". Unfortunately, I'm not the only one in this situation; she seems to be having the same problems with her other students as well. I once mentioned to her that I might leave her group, but she told me "she's the one who's admitted me and no one else would work with me." Indeed, she's a very big name in her field, and it seems to me almost impossible to leave her influence if I choose to continue the same line of research/department/school. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8601,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Advisors come in many flavors, from those who are very hands-off, to those who micromanage. If you are really spending countless hours arguing over details that are seemingly unimportant (although what books/papers you read is most certainly not unimportant!), then you need to have a serious conversation with her about it. </p>\n\n<p>That kind of conversation is difficult as the advisee -- if she is paying for your degree, then you work for her, and she has a lot of leeway to determine what she thinks is important. You have to tactfully lay out for her why you think she is micromanaging you too much, and see what she says.</p>\n\n<p>At the end of the day, if you don't agree with how you are being advised, you have a number of possible avenues:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Talk to another faculty member (probably the department chair).</li>\n<li>Talk to the faculty ombudsman, if there is one.</li>\n<li>Do nothing, and carry on. PhD programs don't last forever (though they often seem like it), and if you can still produce good work while working for the advisor, it can still work out in the end.</li>\n<li>Try to find another advisor (or, possibly, another school)</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Changing advisors is not a trivial thing, although many people do it early on in their graduate career. That also involves tact, as professors generally don't like other professors poaching their students without a mutual discussion about it.</p>\n\n<p>Bottom line: before you make any long-term decisions, have a discussion with your advisor about your perceptions, but be tactful and have a plan on what you are going to say before the meeting.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8602,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is this considered normal? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>No. The professor is supposed to <em>guide</em> the student in an academic way not inspecting every tiny thing <em>irrelevant</em> to the student research. However, <strong>some professors do have their own <em>style</em></strong> and want their students to follow them. If their <em>style</em> is related to academia then no issue here. Sometimes their <em>style</em> is overlap between personal interests and academic interests in this case remember you are required to follow your supervisor style only as long as you are working in her lab. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If not, is this a good reason to change the adviser?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It depends whether you find her helpful through out your research. If she gives you enough time to meet with her and discuss your research in an active manner then I believe this is the most important thing and no need to change. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8610,
"author": "Joe Waldin",
"author_id": 6359,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6359",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The first thing I would do is improve/repair your personal relationship with your adviser. You should be comfortable in discussing your concerns about being micromanaged. </p>\n\n<p>Also, your adviser may be correct in her recommendations. For example... We all can assume the font you use in your presentation is appropriate, but we may have the same opinion as your adviser if we learn you are using 33 different font styles and sizes. </p>\n\n<p>My advice is chill out and communicate your concerns to your adviser. You two need to be in a a functioning professional relationship where you can communicate effectively and talk out issues. If it turns out that that there is absolutely no chemistry between you two, then move on.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8616,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have frequently had to micromanage my students' presentations and writeups. That's part of Ph.D training. The tricky thing for an advisor is telling the difference between style choices that are bad, and style choices that are just different. </p>\n\n<p>I also will suggest which papers to read, and will often rule out other things that my students want to read. Of course I can't force them one way or another, but if I feel that my students are consistently making inexplicable choices about what to read or not, I might come down a bit more forcefully, or at least try to talk to them to understand their choices. </p>\n\n<p>Bottom line, as others have said, what you have here is a failure to communicate :). Talk to your advisor and try to understand why she's asking you to do things a certain way. If you're concerned about how to approach the topic, you can lead off by saying that you're quite happy to listen to her recommendations, but you'd like to know the reasons so that you can understand the context she's bringing to the discussion, and so you can learn for the future. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8634,
"author": "penelope",
"author_id": 4249,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4249",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You mentioning \"homework\" makes me think that you are possibly in BSc or MSc programme, but not PhD yet (although, you sound like you're heading there). So, I'll try to concentrate my answer on advice useful to somebody just starting off as a (potential) researcher. Sorry on long text, but since the answer is based on experience it wouldn't have any value without an explanation.</p>\n\n<p>I, personally, would have loved if my supervisor from my first standalone bigger project was micromanaging me. Moreover, I explicitly told the guy \"I'm very new at this, and would appreciate instructions and directions on how to approach such a big project efficiently\". He left me more-or-less alone, I was a beginner, and didn't handle the situation very well: but one important lesson was that that specific type of adviser was not a good match for me.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, the professor that was my primary adviser during my BSc and MSc was a very smart, eloquent and confused scientist. When I first told him I am considering continuing with academia after MSc, very often I would get a feeling <strong>he was paying way too much attention to \"useless\" details, such as</strong>: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>asking me to understand the literature to impossible details</li>\n<li>making me justify using (sub)methods, (sub)approaches and other sub-parts of approaches <em>he</em> made me study, which were chosen by the authors of the papers <em>he</em> suggested for reading</li>\n<li>correcting and re-writing my written works as one non-native English speaker to another, where I was sure my grammar was fine</li>\n<li>making a loud point of small spelling mistakes in <em>Drafts V.001</em></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>What helped was, as most people here suggested: <em>talking to him</em>. He got to explain to me that <strong>I have to be able to argument my choices</strong>, not by saying (cf. John Doe: \"Important work on the topic\"), but by properly explaining the idea behind the approach, and then properly explaining why it is applicable to my situation. He explained that, he, as an expert, <strong>does not know answers to all questions, solutions to all problems</strong>, but is in a <strong>good position to give an educated guess</strong>. A bigger picture here is that if you learn how to express yourself clearly and with arguments, the scientific community can understand you, and build on your work. Bottom line, they can help developing your idea. In the end, in academia today, it is not enough to have a good idea, <strong>you have to explain your idea to everyone</strong>, and it's surprisingly hard to do even after you feel like you understand everything.</p>\n\n<p>So, from that point of view, what <strong>he was doing was actually</strong>:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>teaching me critical thinking, and how to properly read scientific work</li>\n<li>teaching me that just because something is published, does not make it correct</li>\n<li>teaching me that just because something grammatically correct, does not mean it is clear, simple and understandable: and understandable is always your goal</li>\n<li>teaching me that everyone looks down on lazy-asses who don't spell-check their work. It's not nice, but that's how it is :/</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In return, since he got my critical thinking working, he would do the same for me: <strong>explain and argument his choices and recommendations</strong>, tell me why something might not seem important now but will be good in my field later, hinting me on his methods to read scientific literature, explain before recommending literature what he is expecting me to learn from it, etc.</p>\n\n<p>The bottom line is, from the <em>professors side</em>, I think <strong>it is very hard to develop a good \"scientific style\" in somebody, unless you're imposing your own</strong>. It's different with somebody with experience and a (semi-)established style, it's different (and possibly more difficult) when starting with somebody new to it all.</p>\n\n<p>And, from <em>student side</em>: If you're still advancing, doing good work, and learning, it's not bad. If you're just in the beginning and will soon change supervisor anyway (e.g. from MSc to PhD), it's even better: you get expirience working with different kind of people, and it will be easier for you to find an adviser with a style compatible with yours.</p>\n\n<p>In the end, it all comes down to <strong>communication</strong>: if you are on good terms with your adviser, just the explanations on why she's recommending what she is carry invaluable information that assimilate for years. If it's not just mindless task-giving, it teaches you things in very fast and simple (although sometimes annoying) manner</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 9096,
"author": "bobobobo",
"author_id": 2745,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2745",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I guess you need to understand that as her student, <em>you represent her</em>.</p>\n\n<p>You said she was a big name. Do you trust her? My advice is to just follow her advice. After you speak your point about something, <em>don't argue with her</em>! Just take her advice and apply it as best you can.</p>\n\n<p>If it's that unbearable, consider looking for a different supervisor for your PhD.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 9163,
"author": "Lev Reyzin",
"author_id": 10,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't think it's normal, but I also think it's the wrong question to be asking. The right questions are: are you enjoying research? are you being productive? or are you miserable because of your advisor?</p>\n\n<p>In the end, the success of an advisor-student relationship is a function of both the advisor's style, the student's needs, and both their personalities. Some people don't mind being micromanaged, others (like me) would, in your shoes, run. Only you can know what it is that you want and need.</p>\n\n<p>My advice is to first do what it takes so that you're enjoying research, not only because it's terrible to be miserable for years, but also because you won't be as productive while unhappy.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/14 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8599",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6355/"
]
|
8,603 | <ol>
<li>Is it possible to publish under a <em>nom de plume</em> (pen name, pseudonym)?</li>
<li>... and still take credit for the work?</li>
</ol>
<p>I may have a chance to publish with the professor I am working with soon and if I am on the list of authors I would like to use a <em>nom de plume</em>, but I would also like to use the publication to apply to graduate schools next time. Is it possible to have my cake and eat it in the case?</p>
<p>EDIT: Sorry for missing this out; The reason for wanting to publish under a <em>nom de plume</em> is that I would merely want my career to be tracked under a different name. Not to hide identity; I am perfectly fine with what EnergyNumbers was suggesting.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8604,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>No. You cannot simultaneously be anonymous and still receive credit for your work. </p>\n\n<p>Theoretically, your pseudonym could get the credit, but you can't invite a pseudonym to be a collaborator, or to give a lecture, or to apply for a grant, so I'm not sure how useful that would end up being.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8609,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>I would like to use a <em>nom de plume</em>, but I would also like to use the publication to apply to graduate schools next time.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In principle, you could do this. You would need some way of demonstrating that you really were an author (nobody will believe you if you claim \"Andrew Wiles\" was just a pseudonym you used for your proof of Fermat's Last Theorem), but a letter of recommendation from your supervisor would suffice.</p>\n\n<p>In practice, why would you want to? You would need to explain in your application why you had used a pseudonym, and I can't think of any explanation that would sound compelling. Even in the best-case scenario, this issue would be a distraction from the actual substance of your grad school applications, and it would probably hurt your chances of admission. Whatever you say, people are going to suspect it's because you are embarrassed by the paper or by your contribution to it, and that won't look good on an application.</p>\n\n<p>I'm assuming here that your <em>nom de plume</em> is intended to hide or disguise your identity. If not, then it should be fine. Some people use different names professionally and socially, and this is OK as long as you are clear about it. (It may cause some confusion in your career, but it isn't considered an ethical problem.) If this is the case, then you should include a brief note of explanation, for example \"I legally changed my name to Smith-Jones upon getting married in 2012, but I have decided to continue publishing under the name Smith.\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8611,
"author": "410 gone",
"author_id": 96,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Taking it that your asking about a <em>nom de plume</em> (aka \"pen name\") for reasons of conspicuousness, rather than for reasons of anonymity:</p>\n\n<p>Yes, it is possible to publish under something other than your legal name. A <em>nom de plume</em> isn't that unusual in academia, particular for folk with common names who would otherwise be unfindable in literature databases.</p>\n\n<p>You need to make sure that your legal identity is sufficiently tied to your <em>nom de plume</em>, so that there's not going to be any arguing about it.</p>\n\n<p>Some people adopt double-barrelled surnames for their <em>noms de plume</em>: others add a distinctive first or second initial. As long as its sufficiently close to your real name, that should be sufficient.</p>\n\n<p>Note that this will entail your <em>nom de plume</em> effectively <strong>becoming</strong> your name for academic purposes: it's what will be on your email correspondence, your web page, your conference name-badges, and so on. You'll just have to do a bit of tweaking with university administration so that payroll, legal, and travel arrangements are all in your real name, not your pen name.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 30366,
"author": "Mike",
"author_id": 23190,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23190",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As to another reason using a pseudonym is appropriate is when one is living and researching in a country which would frown upon any given thesis or argument of said article. This can be in many fields of research such as anthropology, sociology, political science, journalism, etc., which compels a researcher to work in places such as China and Iran. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 71018,
"author": "Wetlab Walter",
"author_id": 28355,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28355",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If no one minds me revisiting a 3-year-old question, another idea might be to generate a public/private encryption key, and at the bottom of your works have your public key, a random 100-character string, and the 100-character string after encrypting it with your private key.</p>\n\n<p>Typically digital signatures use the document itself rather than a 100-character string, but in the case of journals/papers, you don't have any control over the final file that the readers download. You might hand the journal a word document, and they'll re-work it into a PDF with their formatting/etc, which makes digitally signing it before hand impossible for you to do.</p>\n\n<p>But with the method proposed above, all someone has to do to check you are the author is to ask you to encrypt a new string, which you do with your private key, and then they can reverse it with the original author's public key, proving you are the original author (or at least, you have their private key).</p>\n\n<p>I was tempted to say you could use the paper's title or abstract instead of 100-characters, but titles can be very short, and also the journal might still mangle it (capitalisation, or weird UTF8 variants of what you gave them originally).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 177075,
"author": "Deipatrous",
"author_id": 119911,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/119911",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, but you make things very difficult for yourself if you do not stick to that nom de plume for the remainder of your career. And to get credit, your CV and perhaps some other stuff like your email byline, would have to state something along the lines of, professionally known as Prullaria Fantasticus. Which might strike some people as odd and thus could work against you.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/14 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8603",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6357/"
]
|
8,606 | <p>My advisor introduced a model 15 years ago, published a lot of papers (including PNAS). Now, he makes me incorporate this model into well-established model from the neighboring field of research. I think he just tries to stay in the known waters (cite his own papers, etc). Of course, he is well aware (but not proficient) that everything we try now to research was already published in this neighboring field.</p>
<p>What should I do?</p>
<ol>
<li>Continue to reinvent the wheel with minor modifications (people from the neighboring field will probably laugh)</li>
<li>Try to switch the project (although it will be hard)</li>
<li>Freelance in the "spare" time ;)</li>
</ol>
<p>Edited after Piotr's remark. Hope that nailed it down a bit.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8608,
"author": "Paul Hiemstra",
"author_id": 4091,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4091",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are already very far along in your PhD (which I assume you are doing) I would finish the PhD. If you are still at the beginning, and feeling like this is not where you want to go, and it does not teach you the skills you need, I would consider trying to switch.</p>\n\n<p>But first and foremost, try and talk to your supervisor about your frustration. Of course, keep it civil and professional. You might be able to give your current research a twist that makes it more appeal to you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8612,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The issue seems to be that your advisor isn't willing to acknowledge that the problems he's attempting to work on have been solved. I would recommend bringing the relevant papers to him and discussing with him how his proposed projects differ from what already exists in the literature. This way, either (1) he'll clarify how his projects are different from the literature, or (2) you may be able to demonstrate to him that the problem is indeed solved.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8613,
"author": "Ben Norris",
"author_id": 924,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/924",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If this is early in your PhD studies, your adviser could be giving you this task knowing that it is solved to test your capabilities. Generally, when you are new to research methodology, you will want to try to repeat previous work to make sure that you know that you are doing it correctly. A test where the correct answer is unknown is a poor test. Your adviser could be taking this approach with you while not explaining his purpose in doing so.</p>\n\n<p>If this is the case, none of your three alternatives are really appropriate, although the first is the best. If you are being evaluated on how you solve a known problem, then you need to solve it very well. Then you will be given better and more exciting work.</p>\n\n<p>If your adviser genuinely thinks this is a worthwhile novel problem to pursue, then see the other answers.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8707,
"author": "Anon",
"author_id": 6211,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6211",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some of the answers presuppose that your advisor knows what he is doing and that perhaps <em>you</em> need to change your attitude. Perhaps they are mistaken. No good advisor would waste his or your time by \"testing\" you on well-covered ground. There are some stubborn people around who may have a distinguished publication record and who may lead the peripatetic life of the in-demand speaker, but have an acute Achillies heel when it comes to having underlings implement the superannuated visions they cannot implement themselves. The important point is that this is academically low-value work for them, but your time is not valuable. This situation is more likely to arise if your advisor is not paying your salary; it's less likely if you are on soft money. I don't know what advice to give you, except to say that I have been in this position, have rolled with the punches, and in the end there were no publications. And this was a case where the advisor announced to his team that others (better funded and staffed groups) were implementing the kind of thing he wanted (with some minor differences). No matter--he still wanted his team implement his \"vision.\" It was professionally damaging for all parties involved. I decided it was pointless for me to work supporting professors and their students on low academic value, poorly remunerated work if I was not getting published, and made plans to leave. I hope that others in similar situations do likewise.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/14 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8606",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6346/"
]
|
8,617 | <p>I am not sure whether this question is suitable for academia, if not it would be great to know the site where I should ask this. I am a finishing Ph.D. student in Mathematics at a decent school in the US, and my postdoctoral job applications so far have gone in vein, although I do have published paper in recognized journal. Also, I had to switch my advisor and subject in the middle of my Ph.D., so I think I would have been better off with more experience in the field I am working on or a related field. That would mean even if I get a postdoc, I would feel a little bit inferior to other postdocs or might seek a little more help from my mentor.</p>
<p>I noticed the postings by some European Universities for postdocs where they mention that they are looking for postdocs and Ph.D. students both. Although I will be applying for postdocs in these universities, I was thinking of having your opinion on the following, somewhat irregular backup plan:</p>
<p>Say University U in Europe has a postdoc position P for salary x for 2 years, and Ph.D. position D for salary y for 4 years, where x>y. If I can get P, great, but if not, can I also talk to and try to come to an agreement with the university (e-mail them with explanation etc.) for a visiting position where I will be learning some more stuffs and will be researching as well, but may be with less salary than P but the same (or little more) salary as/than D? In other words, I feel like I need to gain more knowledge in my area, so if I don't get P, I will be happy with almost the same salary y as D, but will try to bend the rule from 4 years to just 1 year? So it will be like a visiting position with less salary, of less time period, but I will like to be treated like a Ph.D. student (that means less independent research, more learning compared to a postdoc). Will that be a ridiculous thing to try? So, I will be somewhat like an advanced Ph.D. student but not expert like a postdoc and so I am willing to negotiate with the salary, I won't need another Ph.D. since I will have had one(if they give another, fantastic!) Do you know whether it might work or create complications enough so that the hiring committee will be offended? Should I try to send an e-mail explaining this situation and see whether they will negotiate with me on this?</p>
<p>Thank you very much in advance! </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8631,
"author": "silvado",
"author_id": 3890,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In several European countries, for example Germany, Switzerland, or Austria, it will be possible to fill positions in part-time. Whether you then actually work only part-time or not is a different question. In these countries, there is in most cases not a big difference between PhD students and post-docs regarding organizational details of employment, or even salary on a full-time position.</p>\n\n<p>So the way I see your plan possibly working is as follows: A professor has funding to employ someone full-time for 2 years. You could then try to argue that in addition to working on the particular project, you also need time to educate yourself further and get only a half-time position, but stretch that to 4 years. You may want to communicate that it still means that you are working or studying full-time on project-related topics. If the funding is flexible regarding the year when it is spent (which is sometimes, but not always, the case), then I'd guess you have good chances that people are willing to make that deal.</p>\n\n<p>This plan is probably best discussed with the professor offering the position, informally before you apply for the position, or when you go for an interview.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8667,
"author": "Sylvain Peyronnet",
"author_id": 43,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For France, this will likely not work : for administrative reasons we cannot pay a postdoc with a PhD salary (or a \"little bit more than PhD salary\"), in fact we must follow some strict salary guidelines.\nHowever, there exists a position in between PhD and Postdoc, this position is called \"research engineer\". This is not officially a postdoc position, but it could be unofficially a postdoc position, with a lower salary.</p>\n\n<p>But, because there is always a but, I advice you not to tell a person that you are ready to work for less money than the salary offered by this person. This is not likely that you will obtain any position if you follow this strategy. \nWhen I have money for a postdoc, either I don't really \"need\" (=for a specific project) a postdoc and then I will hire someone who is independent (and it is unlikely that this kind of person is ready to work for a lower salary because independence comes mostly from experience); or I really need a postdoc, and in this case there is no way that I will accept someone I refused previously, even for a lower price.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/15 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8617",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6259/"
]
|
8,618 | <p>I have been doing research into graduate programs and have noticed that some departments have a representation of their own PhD graduates as professors while others have an absence.</p>
<p>For example, a department I have looked at in a top university in Canada had a faculty completely composed of PhD graduates from top American schools, but none from its own.</p>
<p>I can see this as a signal of either two things -</p>
<ol>
<li>That the department may not want to be seen favouring its own candidates.</li>
<li>That the department may not have as much faith in its own graduates as that from other schools.</li>
</ol>
<p>I understand that this may differ from field to field.</p>
<p>But in general, <strong>what is the majority view-point on a department that has no representation of its own graduates on its faculty?</strong></p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8619,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Partly, it depends on the size of the department. In a small or even medium-sized department, it means nothing. I wouldn't read anything into it until the department reaches a size where it has five or more graduates of a single school on the faculty (if they have no more than a few from any given place, then random fluctuations could easily push the number to zero). If they have hired five or ten from another school but none of their own, then it's clear they have a preference for that school. It's sensible to set up some barriers to hiring your own graduates, so a modest preference for other schools is actually a good sign. If it gets extreme, it's may be because they think the other school's students are genuinely stronger.</p>\n\n<p>However, I wouldn't worry about this too much. Even if you run across an unambiguous case, it's hard to know what to make of it. Sometimes a department has an incredibly strong research group in a certain area but hires none of their own graduates because they simply don't need any more professors in this area. In that case the lack of hiring is no reflection on the graduates from this group.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8620,
"author": "Huck Bennett",
"author_id": 993,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/993",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It's common in computer science for a university to have few if any of its own graduates as faculty, and should not be taken as a bad sign by itself. This low representation is for two main reasons:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><strong>The best five or ten universities in the United States produce a disproportionately large number of strong academic candidates.</strong> In practice universities that have research departments <em>at all</em> (let alone the exceptionally strong ones) tend to be filled with professors with Ph.D.s from the elite few.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Going somewhere else leads to cross-fertilization of academic thought.</strong> Presumably after 5+ years of graduate school one has spent a lot of time learning from the expertise available in their department. Going somewhere else allows a professor to transfer her knowledge to a different group of researchers, and to get fresh insight from them in return.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8625,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>No, will be my short answer.</p>\n\n<p>This is a matter of \"culture\". In my Alma Mater in the US, the department did not hire its graduates as faculty. It was perfectly normal. Where I now work, in Europe, the opposite was the norm; it was unusual to recruit faculty from elsewhere. This has, however, changed and I think we have a healthy mix now. To a large extent this has to do with mobility, in the one case mobility is the norm, in the other it is not. You stay where you were born to some extent.</p>\n\n<p>So the No means that in some fields and countries it is perfectly natural not to recruit from your \"own ranks\".</p>\n\n<p>A follow up question to this might be what the benefits of internal vs. external recruitment might be. I am sure this differs substantially.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 9113,
"author": "Amatya",
"author_id": 6674,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6674",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It almost never happens in Finance and Economics, well, except at Harvard, MIT and U of Chicago. This is mostly because there are more people graduating than there are tenure track jobs and people usually wind up upto 50-75 ranks below where they graduate. The top 10 schools graduate enough students to fill the positions in the top 50 schools and so on. Sometimes you hear of some stellar people who move up because they have done great work and are very visible but the general traffic is downwards. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/15 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8618",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
|
8,621 | <p>Let's suppose you write a paper and you post it on arXiv. If a paper is sent to a journal for peer-review, should you always include this information in the paper comments (including the name of the journal where the paper was sent)?</p>
<p>If the paper is accepted, is it necessary to include in the comments that the paper has been accepted for publication in... (and include the name of the journal)? Or it is better to wait until the paper is published and then include in the comments "Published in... [name of the journal]."?</p>
<p>I understand that it may take some for a paper to be published once accepted.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8623,
"author": "Tom Church",
"author_id": 563,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/563",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I believe you should never include \"Submitted to Journal of Blah\"; it conveys no information and it's tacky. (And just because Terry Tao <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.6372\" rel=\"nofollow\">does it</a> doesn't make it okay.)</p>\n\n<p>I won't post a new version of a paper just because it has been accepted. However, if I do upload a newer version, I'll include in the comments \"Final version, to appear in Journal of Blah\" (here is <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.2360\" rel=\"nofollow\">an example</a> from one of my papers).</p>\n\n<p>Once the paper is published, with page numbers and everything (which can often be years -- my paper above was accepted in April 2010, published January 2013), there is a <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/help/jref\" rel=\"nofollow\">form</a> you can use to add the journal reference and DOI to the arXiv page. Conveniently, this does <em>not</em> generate a new version, so there's no reason not to (you can see this on my paper above -- the reference and DOI were added last week, but no new version of the paper was generated).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8624,
"author": "David Ketcheson",
"author_id": 81,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My practice is to replace the initial preprint with the postprint as soon as it is accepted. After it is published (electronically), I go back and add the DOI and such. The reason for this is that the paper is often significantly improved during the refereeing process, and I'd rather have people reading the improved (postprint) than the original preprint.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/15 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8621",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6364/"
]
|
8,627 | <p>I'm aware of many mailing-list and RSS feeds advertising about calls for papers/participation, available positions, events, etc, but I find it much harder to know about funding opportunities, such as calls for proposal, grant applications, etc. I'm based in the UK, and there are many funding agencies, including of course EPSRC and the EU, but also many smaller ones, and I'm pretty sure I'm missing interesting opportunities. </p>
<p>So my question: are there some website/systems where I can register my interest, and get to know about existing or soon to come opportunities? </p>
<p>In case it matters, I'm in Computer Science. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8628,
"author": "posdef",
"author_id": 5674,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The biggest problem with such repositories is that someone has to maintain them. All the small funding agencies/foundations are usually obscure and will be hard to find on such a webpage. </p>\n\n<p>Anyways, are you familiar with <a href=\"http://www.researchprofessional.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Research Professional</a>? I use it from time to time, set up alerts for funding possibilities in my fields, so I get mails when someone new comes up. Might be worth a try...</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 141672,
"author": "luchonacho",
"author_id": 69863,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69863",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>These come from my <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/131538/is-there-a-free-database-of-grants-available-online\">related question</a> (which asks for <strong>free repositories</strong>, so not sure how much a duplicate it is, but I make the point in case someone wants to flag it as one):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://www.researchprofessional.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.researchprofessional.com/</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://www.grantforward.com/index\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.grantforward.com/index</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://www.grantselect.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.grantselect.com/</a></p></li>\n</ul>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/15 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8627",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
|
8,629 | <p>I am a physics undergrad, who is also interested in pure mathematics. I am not very sure what I want to pursue for my PhD. Though I have specific interests in each of the two, and also inter-linked interests, in general I am very confused. My question is it legally and practically allowed for you to chose a guide from another department different than that which you are affiliated to? If not, can someone from another department become a co-guide? In particular, I am looking for laws and practices in the US and Europe (may differ from country to country).</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8632,
"author": "Chris Gregg",
"author_id": 4461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have seen co-advisors a number of times. At least three of my computer science colleagues were co-advised by biologists who were working on projects that needed complex and novel data manipulation and/or novel algorithm design (see, for instance, <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.2342v1.pdf\">LUMPY: A probabilistic framework for structural variant discovery</a>). There aren't any specific <em>laws</em> regarding this (at least in the U.S.), but specific university departments may have guidelines or rules regarding the practice--you would have to check with the schools you are applying to for individual policies.</p>\n\n<p>If your interests bridge two departments, you should probably figure out which department you'd most likely fit into, and contact professors in that field to ask for their opinion on being co-advised. It may turn out that you need higher level mathematics to inform your physics research but that you won't be <em>creating</em> new math (for example), in which case you probably wouldn't need separate advisors.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8635,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<h2>Yes.</h2>\n\n<p>At least in the US, it is quite common for PhD students enrolled in department X to be advised by faculty in department Y, either alone or with a co-advisor in department X. Off the top of my head, I can think of PhD students in my (computer science) department who are advised or co-advised by faculty in electrical engineering, mathematics, and industrial engineering. Similarly, faculty in my department who advise PhD students in mathematics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and biology.</p>\n\n<p>That said, if you enroll in the PhD program in department X, you will have to satisfy the degree requirements (courses, comprehensive/qualifying exams, etc.) for department X, even if your advisor and your eventual research interests are in department Y.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/15 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8629",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
|
8,638 | <p>I heard of this rule/recommendation (or may be its opposite) - <code>Always let the figures come after they are described in the text.</code></p>
<p>What is the correct rule? What's the logic? Is it always followed? </p>
<p>What if (in a single column format) there are two smaller figures side-by-side and second figure's description comes later in the text?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8642,
"author": "Zenon",
"author_id": 257,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/257",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've had it as a requirement by an editor at a journal (after mention in text). I guess the rational is that figures are catchy, if you see one, you will probably want to know why it is there and parse the text to find the reference in the text. Doing so, you might omit reading part of the paper.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8647,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The following applies:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Figures should appear at the first possible place after they are referenced in the text and thus also in the order they are referenceed in the text. (the physical placement of the figure follows typographical rules). </li>\n<li>A figure may be placed before its reference if they are on the same page. Figures are normally place at the top of pages.</li>\n<li>Figures must be ordered according to the order in which they are first referenced.</li>\n<li>The same system also applies for tables. It is however, not necessary for figures and tables to be placed in the order they appear relative to each other, they are two independent series of inclusions and placement depends on typographiccal rules.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The logic is that the order figures are needed in the text also determines their location. Having such a rule makes the location predictable. Thse rules are followed by all journals typeset by professionals.</p>\n\n<p>The case of the figures is dealt with as follows. If a figure has two panes, they would count as one figures but be labelled (a) and (b). thus one can reference figure Xa in one place and figure Xb in another. Combining panes into larger figures is a way to save space but most importantly to group plots that relate to each other in one place. ths is one way in which the order of figures according to the list above can be circumvented. </p>\n\n<p>The important aspect is that figures should make sense and provide the reader with as much information as possible. Placement is done according to a logical and predicatable rule so that we all know what to expect.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/15 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8638",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2643/"
]
|
8,639 | <p>I just saw an ad in mathjobs.org about an opening in a Catholic university, see <a href="http://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/4682">here</a>. I am not christian. So I was wondering to be eligible for employment in a university or college affiliated with a specific religion, should the applicant have the same religion, or other people from other religions (or even non-religious people) are eligible to apply as well?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8645,
"author": "mkennedy",
"author_id": 5711,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5711",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This will depend on the institution. This one in particular states that they do not discriminate on the basis of religion.</p>\n\n<p>From <a href=\"http://www.seattleu.edu/policies/nondiscrimination/\">http://www.seattleu.edu/policies/nondiscrimination/</a></p>\n\n<p>Seattle University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, political ideology or status as a Vietnam-era or special disabled veteran in the administration of any of its education policies, admission policies, scholarship and loan programs, athletics, and other school-administered policies and programs, or in its employment related policies and practices. </p>\n\n<p>There are some exceptions for religious organizations but it may depend on the state laws and/or the particular job. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8651,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In my experience, the answer is usually <strong>no</strong> but occasionally <strong>yes</strong>.</p>\n<p><strong>Note: This answer is specific to the United States.</strong></p>\n<p>Most employers in the US are forbidden by law from discriminating on the basis of religion; they have to give equal consideration to candidates of any religion or no religion, and generally they will avoid asking about religion at all. This includes non-denominational academic employers.</p>\n<p>However, religiously affiliated employers (such as churches, religious charities etc), are <strong>exempt</strong> from this rule, and may use religion as a criterion for employment if they so choose. This includes religiously affiliated academic institutions. Each such institution will have its own policy on whether they consider religion and what the criteria are. These policies will usually be mentioned in job postings.</p>\n<p>In my experience, most intentionally choose to not consider religion as a factor, usually giving the justification of creating an inclusive community. These may be institutions that were founded by a church and may still receive funding from them, but operate mainly as a secular institution, accepting students and faculty without regard to religion. Job postings will often indicate this with phrases like "equal opportunity employer". They may have a "mission statement" with religious wording, and a tradition of religious activities on campus (such as regular church services), but nobody is obligated to participate.</p>\n<p>There are others which choose to be more overtly religious. They may accept students and faculty only if their religious beliefs align with those of the institution. These are more likely to have formal religious activities on campus, and sometimes strict moral conduct codes. Their job postings often ask explicitly about the applicant's spiritual beliefs.</p>\n<p>The institution's name is <strong>not</strong> always a good indicator of where they fall in this spectrum.</p>\n<p>As one example, <a href=\"http://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Nebraska Wesleyan University</a> describes itself as:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>an academic community dedicated to intellectual and personal growth within the context of a liberal arts education and in an environment of Christian concern.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>However, they also say:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Nebraska Wesleyan University provides equal educational opportunities to all qualified persons in all areas of university operation, including education and decisions regarding faculty appointment, promotion or tenure, without regard to race, religion, age, sex, creed, color, disability, marital status, national or ethnic origin or sexual orientation.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>At the other extreme, <a href=\"http://www.dordt.edu/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Dordt College</a> included this wording in a recent <a href=\"https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/4467\" rel=\"noreferrer\">job posting</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science department at Dordt College has a history of preparing students for graduate school, industry and K-12 education. This preparation is infused with an unashamedly Reformed Christian worldview, in order to prepare students to be global citizens in God’s service. [...]</p>\n<p>We look forward to receiving applications from candidates who wish to join us in [...] teaching mathematics from a Christian perspective in the context of educating the whole person.</p>\n<p>Qualified persons committed to a Reformed, Biblical perspective and educational philosophy are encouraged to send a letter of interest and curriculum vitae/resume [...]</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Generally, institutions that will only consider applicants of a certain religion will make this clear at the outset. However, even if not, you will have to decide if the religious environment (or lack thereof) on a particular institution's campus will be comfortable for you. This is an appropriate topic to ask about during an interview.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8653,
"author": "amanda witt",
"author_id": 5847,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5847",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The same applies in Australia - schools/universities often state that employees do not publicly mock or degrade the religion on campus, even if they don't agree with some aspects of it. </p>\n\n<p>This may be mentioned in the employment ad itself, but occasionally a place will be granted a 'lift' from the discrimation act, to employ someone of a specific religion. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8655,
"author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX",
"author_id": 725,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You may want to look up what the catholic church says about its universities in order to form an opinion whether you agree with their views before applying: <a href=\"http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_15081990_ex-corde-ecclesiae_en.html\">Apostolic Constitution of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II on Catholic Universities</a><br>\nWith a work contract with catholic church you agree with their ethical standards. Depending on close your personal ethics is to theirs, this may be anywhere from advantageous (it may be easier to deny conducting certain research because of ethical objections) to a huge source of conflicts (the typical topics, see below). </p>\n\n<p>AFAIK, the requirements they put on applicants will depend on the faculty and on the job, in particular for catholic theology restrictions may apply that do not apply for other faculties (IMHO quite naturally). </p>\n\n<p>In <strong>Germany</strong>, churches (i.e. institutions that have an official status of being religious community) are allowed to ask much more duty of loyality from their employees than normal employers. In practice most conflicts about that arise from catholic etics, e.g. employees of the catholic church may loose their job if they try to remarry after a separation (because they cannot be considered leading an exemplary life according to catholic ethics). Also, they may be homosexual, but you may not practice homosexuality (catholic church). \nAnd you may not leave the respective church (if you are member to to begin with).<br>\nThis tends to me more pronounced for employees in the \"core church businees\" (theological staff, parishes), that educate (kindergardeners, school teachers) or have a publicly visible position.<br>\nAnother practical consequence is that the employees of churches are often paid lower wages compared to \"normal\" employers as working there is also considered service (in the christian religious sense). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28637,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes. You can get a job there even if you're of different faith or are not religious. See page 14 of <a href=\"http://history.siam.org/pdfs2/Gonnet_final.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://history.siam.org/pdfs2/Gonnet_final.pdf</a>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 120315,
"author": "Sam Toad",
"author_id": 100870,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/100870",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Take Brigham Young University(BYU) for example, </p>\n\n<p>As an educational institution affiliated with the LDS Church, BYU prefers to hire qualified members of the Church in good standing, as authorized under Title 41 CFR § 60-1.5 (a)(6). Interviewing or hiring a non-LDS applicant requires Vice President approval.</p>\n\n<p>But if you are hired, you are expected as an employee to observe high standards in modesty, taste, judgment, and appropriateness of dress and grooming. Observance of such is a specific condition of employment. </p>\n\n<p>An employee being hired for an assignment or an actual fulltime job, you will review a Standard of Conduct Commitment form, accepting as a condition of employment the observance of:</p>\n\n<p>Church Educational System Honor Code on and off campus, 24 hours a day.\nSpecific Employee Dress and Grooming Standards on and off campus, 24 hours a day.\nAbiding by the rules and standards of the Church.\nThe candidate will sign this Standard of Conduct Commitment form, accepting as a condition of employment the observance of the Church Educational System Honor Code and Dress and Grooming Standards at all times, on and off campus.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/15 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8639",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
|
8,640 | <p>I'm reviewing a paper whose work is quite related to some of my early PhD work, that was about 2 years ago. I have a paper published in a Journal that proved that method A had good solutions for the problem X.</p>
<p>Now I'm asked to review a paper that does a variation on method A, although they never cite my paper at all, is not exactly the same, but I think there should be a reference, if not because it is my paper, but because by the time I did the survey no one else had used that method.</p>
<p>Now, that said, is it a breach of interest to ask the authors to cite my work, or at least read it?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8641,
"author": "Irwin",
"author_id": 5944,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5944",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't believe so.</p>\n\n<p>Conflict of Interest usually deal with people that you are at the same institution with, or have collaborated with in the past, or have some kind of financial investment in, and if there's a conflict of interest, you generally decline to review that article. The journal or conference you're reviewing for likely has reviewer guidelines for what constitutes conflict of interest.</p>\n\n<p>There is a risk that you can \"out\" yourself as an anonymous reviewer, but if you're able to suggest a few papers from various authors, that risk decreases. :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8643,
"author": "Matt",
"author_id": 4530,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4530",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, of course there is a conflict of interest in this situation. Reasonable people may differ in their opinions on how the conflict of interest should be addressed in this circumstance, but I think it's obvious that a conflict exists. You are in a position of power over the authors of the paper in your role as a reviewer. If the authors were to cite your paper, that would be of some benefit to you. Therefore, asking them to do it inherently involves some element of conflict of interest.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8644,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>If I were you, I would ask myself the following question: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>is it better <strong>for the paper</strong> to be aware of my work?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I believe this is the main question you need to ask. If you see your work is relevant to the problem and can <strong>enhance</strong> the paper content, then you <strong>have</strong> to point to it. If you see your work as a <strong>complement</strong> of the paper just <strong>reference</strong> it in the review. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8646,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't agree that this is a conflict of interest. The reviewer can point out related work, and recommend that the author cite it. if the work is in fact irrelevant, the author can point this out, and the editor can adjudicate. Referees are supposed to be experts on the material. </p>\n\n<p>This scenario has happened to me a few times. I've recommended that the author cite the relevant papers (including my own as needed). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8650,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Asking whether something is or is not a conflict of interest is generally a misleading question, since it suggests a sharp cut-off rather than a continuum. It's very rare to be so completely detached as to have no problematic incentives (for example, many other authors are friends or rivals). Instead, the question is how troublesome the incentives are and how to handle them.</p>\n\n<p>Recommending that the author cite your own papers certainly has the potential for abuse. However, people generally don't worry about it very much, since the worst-case scenario of a few borderline unnecessary citations is not so terrible (if the referee asks for many citations or they are really not relevant, then the editor should notice and intervene).</p>\n\n<p>What's tricky about it is that some papers must be cited to give appropriate credit. If you discovered X, but the author mistakenly credits it to a later paper based on your work, then you have an obligation to tell the author about your earlier paper. The difficulty is in distinguishing what must be cited from what you wish would be cited. I don't think there is any standard rule for how to make this distinction.</p>\n\n<p>What I do in practice is to make explicit recommendations to cite my work only when I can give a clear factual reason. I.e., if the author says something historically incorrect or gives the wrong attribution, then I correct it. However, I'm reluctant to ask the author to include a citation if everything in the paper would be correct without it. For example, sentences like \"Previous applications of Smith theory include X, Y, and Z\" are still correct even if I wish W were also included.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, the next best thing is to say something like \"The author may find the following related papers interesting: ...\" There's an implicit suggestion that citations could be appropriate, but it's less pushy than saying it explicitly, and the author can decide whether to include citations.</p>\n\n<p>This doesn't really solve the conflict of interest issue. After all, the implicit suggestion is pretty transparent, and the author may still feel some pressure. However, it seems to me like a reasonable compromise.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8654,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Asking the author to cite your previous work is not a conflict of interest, but it may indicate a lack of impartiality on your part. In other words, there is always conflict of interest whenever you act as an expert reviewer and editors implicitly assume some small conflicts exist, they also believe you can be impartial despite the conflict. If you are concerned that by asking the authors to cite your previous work that you are not being impartial, there are 3 things you can do</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>You can reveal you identity and say \"for what is it worth, you may want to cite MY work\".</li>\n<li>You can write the review in such a way that the recommended citations can be easily deleted. You can then inform the editor that you have recommended some citations to your work and you are concerned about your impartiality and ask the editor to use his/her judgment about removing the recommended citations.</li>\n<li>You can leave them in and say nothing. If the editor thinks you are being unfair or too self prompting, they won't ask you to review again.</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8656,
"author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX",
"author_id": 725,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Sure it is a conflict of interest. However, this particular type of conflict of interest IMHO cannot be avoided and is quite probable due to how the review process works:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Reviewers are chosen according to their expertise.</li>\n<li>Therefore, chances are that they have been publishing relevant papers (how else would the editor know of them?).</li>\n<li>Manuscripts are not perfect, otherwise we'd not need the review process. One important point of the peer review process is that someone who's an expert in the field can actually check that the references are adequate (this is often explicitly asked for). People who have been publishing in the field usually know best whether references are adequate. </li>\n<li>In consequence, you want exactly these people for the review, even though it creates a conflict of interest. It is a trade-off between the chance to get a better review from someone who is an honest player in that field compared to a \"stranger\", and the risk that the reviewer exercises undue power over the authors to advance his citation count.</li>\n<li>So you'll face this quite regularly once you have been making meaningful contributions to your field.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>However, usually it is possible to ask that references on this-and-that topic should be given instead of asking to cite your paper. </p>\n\n<p>You may want to look at this related discussion: <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7696/how-to-avoid-identifying-myself-in-a-review\">How to avoid identifying myself in a review?</a><br>\nwhich discusses a similar situation (though the perceived conflict is slightly different).</p>\n\n<p>Side note: the very fact that you ask here is probably a very good indicator that you are <em>not</em> abusing your power as reviewer. Those who do most probably neither ask nor answer here. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8657,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I do not think this is a yes and no question. Furthermore I note that it seems the journal editor is not seen as part of the loop. So from my editor point of view I would make the following points:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Asking authors to cite one's paper is generally risking to be considered distasteful (by the editor and by the authors). Most of the cases I have encountered is not about improving the paper, but to promote ones own research. Hence, a perspective on the reasons is important.</li>\n<li>If your research is not referenced it could be a sign that more relevant literature is missing. In such a case you are better off briefly researching if that is the case and point that out to the authors and to the editor. Your paper along with others can serve as one of perhaps several examples.</li>\n<li>Do not forget the editor. Point out that your paper is not referenced but please provide a detailed account for why it should be. Appropriate cases could include: it is a first, it is the latest building on earlier work, it contains key information not found elsewhere. If the paper is one of many possible to be cited, your case is probably not strong enough.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So as I see it, \"conflict of interest\" applies if you ask about adding references for the wrong reason. If you do ask something to be added, make the point very clear why your paper (hopefully along with others) is invaluable and how it would improve the paper. Make your argument primarily with the editor. An editor should evaluate reviewers reports and provide feedback on what should be done to the authors. If you do not have a very strong scientific reason to do it, don't.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8659,
"author": "Rex Kerr",
"author_id": 669,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/669",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The tl;dr version:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Of course it's a conflict of interest--you stand to benefit.</li>\n<li>You should do it anyway if the work is highly relevant since good citations are important.</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8684,
"author": "David M W Powers",
"author_id": 6390,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6390",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If the work is in your area of interest/expertise, there is always a potential for conflict of interest. If the work is a competing approach that you don't agree with, there is conflict; if the work is a similar approach to your own, there is conflict; if this is a journal or conference you submit to with limited spots available, there is conflict; if it is an application for funds you also are eligible for, rather than a paper, there is conflict; if it is a paper that might be used as evidence in such a grant application, there is conflict.</p>\n\n<p>If you or an editor suppress <em>relevant</em> references from your report (whether your own, others you know, or the work of people you have never met) you are compromising the value of the paper if accepted, and impacting the citation chain, and committing a form of indirect plagiarism - people who find this paper will find it more difficult to find the others, and will tend to give attribution to the authors of this paper rather than the original inventors of the ideas (yourself or others). If you are an expert in the area, as your selection as a referee suggests you should be, then you should have a familiarity with the literature and part of your job is to assess the comprehensiveness of the literature review. It may be ideas have been reinvented, it may be an early paper was read or referenced and the idea planted but the citation forgotten or lost, it may be overt plagiarism that the author knows of the work and the similarity, but wants the glory alone.</p>\n\n<p>If you include requests to cite <em>irrelevant</em> references (whether your own or others or others previously published in the same journal), that is again a nepotism-like form of misconduct. Conversely, I have seen reviewers/editors reports that discount relevant work because it wasn't published in a venue of sufficiently high reputation, this is a form of plagiarism and chauvinism.</p>\n\n<p>Work should stand alone on its merits irrespective of who wrote it or where it was published. You as a reviewer have a responsibility to judge the work, and whether it has dealt properly with the literature, to add missed citations, and potentially to remove miscitations (often self-citations by the authors that are of no relevance).</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/15 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8640",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2806/"
]
|
8,648 | <p>I just started teaching three courses at small medical training college: anatomy and physiology, medical terminology, and microbiology. Most of the students have a weak background in the sciences, and come from varying professional/educational backgrounds. </p>
<p>I currently end up preparing 4-5 hours for each hour that I end up lecturing. But find it difficult to keep the students engaged for the duration of the lecture. Any advice on improving teaching/ lecturing methods? </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8652,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Teaching 'unprepared' students is always a challenge and prep takes a lot of time (four to five hours of prep for one hour of lecturing sounds about right...and maybe a bit low). So, overall, your numbers seem to be inline with norms.</p>\n\n<p>If you want to make your teaching more effective, you should read some books about teaching (there are many). You should read <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5236/how-to-improve-myself-as-a-lecturer\">this question</a> for some ideas on improving yourself as a lecturer.</p>\n\n<p>Generally, 'active learning' - where the student is the focus of the learning process (as opposed to the lecturer being the center) - focuses on engaging students, putting the load on their shoulders. Group work is particularly useful. I've seen studies (not handy) that say that in every learning situation, group learning (e.g., group discussion) always improves the learning effectiveness.</p>\n\n<p>You should do more prep and you should do less in class (they should do the work in class) and they should do work outside of class. All of this needs your careful planning but some students will think they you are not doing anything...but they will end up learning more in the end.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 61168,
"author": "Captain Emacs",
"author_id": 45857,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45857",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My strategy is to focus on very few topics during one class (1 or, at most, 2, depending on time) and cover them in-depth. Generally, I try to link the topics over the whole course together as much as I can. </p>\n\n<p>This is a lot of work and weaker students sometimes think they see repeats (which they don't), but the knowledge tends to sink in better this way.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/15 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8648",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1612/"
]
|
8,649 | <p>I did my masters in Computer Science last year and it was a taught masters so I didn't do any type of 'Research'. The problem that I encounter now is that I'm going to start my PhD in the next few days and I don't have any idea about how to do it (I don't know how to write a literature review, for example.)</p>
<p>So, Is it possible to do it or will be very difficult in my case? And do you know any books that can help in building the foundation for me to be able to do the research?</p>
<p>Cheers!</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8665,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>So, Is it possible to do it or will be very difficult in my case?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Unless the faculty in your new department are negligent sociopaths, they would not have admitted you to their PhD program without a firm belief that you could succeed.</p>\n\n<p>Your lack of research experience could make your PhD more difficult than for other incoming students, but mostly because it will take you <em>more time</em> to settle into a research pattern. If you want to speed up the transition, <strong>get involved with research as soon as possible.</strong> Do <em>not</em> fill your weekly schedule with standard homework- and project-heavy classes. Sign up for independent study/research credit. You're unlikely to produce publishable research in your first semester, but that's okay; your primary goal is to develop research <em>habits</em>, not research <em>results</em>.</p>\n\n<p>In fact, I'd suggest getting in touch with faculty in your new department <strong>now</strong> to arrange for independent study time in the fall and to ask for reading suggestions. If you know who your new advisor/supervisor will be, ask them first.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8666,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Even some of the most clever students are completely lost when it comes to starting out with research.</p>\n\n<p>There are plenty of good books out there that provide general guidance on how to get a PhD and conduct research. These are of course no substitute for first hand experience, but they will provide you with a framework within which to conduct your research. As disciplines differ, it is probably a good idea to find one that is written by someone in a discipline close to yours.</p>\n\n<p>Here is one general one that Amazon (and its reviewers) recommends: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>How to get a PhD: a handbook for students and their supervisors</em> by \n Estelle M. Phillips and Derek S. Pugh.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There seems also to be such a book devoted to Computer Science:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>The Art of Getting Computer Science PhD</em> by Emded Ahmed.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Amazon has no reviews, so who knows what it is like. From what is available on Amazon and Google books, it looks like rubbish. (The title isn't even grammatically correct.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8674,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me say what I believe in here. Doing research is a skill you gradually acquire over years of reading, experimenting and criticizing others work. <strong><em>There is no magic here</em></strong>. If you are dedicated to learn, you will be able to do research. The main keyword here is <em>critical thinking</em> </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/16 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8649",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6377/"
]
|
8,658 | <p>Master studies start per semester, and in some places PhD studies do, too.
What about post-docs or other positions that do not heavily rely on teaching?
Does the time of year make any difference for openings?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8660,
"author": "Rex Kerr",
"author_id": 669,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/669",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Because many labs have limited space and/or funding for people, postdoctoral hiring is influenced by Ph.D. program cycles at most institutions. Thus you tend to see the most openings in the summer/fall (in the northern hemisphere), but the trend is not as strong as for Ph.D. programs.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8661,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is based on my experience in mathematics in the United States (other cases may differ):</p>\n\n<p>In principle, a postdoctoral position could start at any time if grant funding is available. In practice, it is generally tied to the academic calendar the same way other positions are, and any deviations from that schedule would be unusual. If you are doing an advertised search for a candidate, then there are enormous advantages to timing it with the usual job market cycle (at other times of year very few applicants will be available), so off-season hiring typically takes place only when a perfect match is made through personal connections. The other issue is that most Ph.D. students get their degrees at the end of the spring semester, and most faculty positions start in the fall semester, so academic-year-based postdocs are convenient for most applicants.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8662,
"author": "Zach",
"author_id": 1135,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1135",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes. They will operate on whatever system (quarter, semester) the university operates on. So pre-docs and post-docs (at least in my field) are awarded and start at the beginning of a semester.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8663,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At our institute, post-docs can be funded almost any time of the year, but it depends generally on when funding agencies hand out their funding. There are three or four periods in the year where that occurs (January, March, September, come to mind), but generally positions remain open until they are filled by a good candidate. In any case, the timing of these hiring periods are independent of the academic semesters.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/16 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8658",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033/"
]
|
8,668 | <p>Here I am talking about teaching positions in Mathematics. In the US, we know of many positions in the US (also in Canada?) that is teaching position or teaching-oriented position. For example</p>
<p>1) Some universities need 'regular postdocs' like other places, but they have more teaching load (3+2 courses or 3+3 courses for a year)</p>
<p>2)some are called 'teaching postdocs'.</p>
<p>3) Positions in liberal arts or community colleges etc.</p>
<p>Is there any such equivalent position in Europe? I have never been to Europe so far, but I hear there is no concept of 'colleges', they only have universities or institutes. I know there are some places in the UK where they advertise positions for teaching purposes. But for Europe minus UK, say Germany, Austria, Scandinevia etc. is there any such position for teaching at a higher level than high school (could be undergraduate courses, beginning masters courses etc.). Where can I find out about these positions? Mathjobs and euro-math-jobs don't seem to advertise them.</p>
<p>If you know any source for it, could you please provide me with the link(s)? And do you have any idea whether these positions are permanent or temporary and how much normally do they pay?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8672,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm not 100% sure I understand your question but I'll try to answer it anyway.</p>\n\n<p>There are plenty of tertiary teaching positions in Europe. There are universities and trade schools in every country and all of these need teachers (permanent and temporary) to teach their students (undergraduate and graduate). How much they pay depends on the country.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8673,
"author": "Paul Hiemstra",
"author_id": 4091,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4091",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From my experience in the Netherlands, there are no teaching (oriented) positions on the university level (assistent prof level and up). There used to be an option to primarily be a teacher at university, without the requirement of a PhD even, but nowadays such a position always includes a mix of researching, teaching, and grant proposal writing.</p>\n\n<p>At tradeschools (we call those HBO) there are (almost) full-time teaching positions, but these are not on a university level, and require you to speak fluent Dutch. This makes these kind of jobs hard to get for foreigners.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 115602,
"author": "Dan Fox",
"author_id": 4189,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4189",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In Spain all jobs of a given category have, in principle, the same responsibilities with respect to teaching and there is no concept of a \"teaching position\". Obtaining (even applying for) a job requires demonstrating experience in both teaching and research, and in principle there is not much variability in the profile (certainly far less variability than is possible in the US). In practice people tend to like living in big cities and certain universities are stronger than others in research; at the weaker universities the job may in fact be basically a teaching position, and hiring tribunals can adjust the criteria to favor teaching record within certain limits, but the administratative and bureaucratic requirements to get the job still always take into account research. </p>\n\n<p>More bluntly - to even apply for a university position of a particular category one must first obtain a specific \"acreditation\" for that job category, and the requirements for these acreditations always specify having published a certain (field specific) minimum number of papers. This makes it structurally impossible to have what in the US would be called a \"teaching position\". </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 115608,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The usual disclaimer that Europe is a big place and that it's impossible to give a general answer.</p>\n\n<p>In France, there exist teaching-only positions in universities. They are known by the abbreviations \"PRAG\" and \"PRCE\", meaning respectively \"<strong>Pr</strong>ofesseur <strong>ag</strong>régé\" and \"<strong>Pr</strong>ofesseur <strong>ce</strong>rtifié\". I've written <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/103751/9646\">an answer about them for another question</a>, but the question was closed.</p>\n\n<p>Here's a summary. To get this kind of position, you must first obtain a national examination. For PRAG you need to obtain the \"agrégation\", which is a national competition (people are ranked and a better rank helps getting a better position). For PRCE you need to obtain the \"certification\", a national exam.</p>\n\n<p>But make no mistake. These two exams are usually for people looking to teach in middle and high schools. PRAG and PRCE positions are few and far between, and there is a lot of competition for them. Once you get your agrégation or certification, then you will need to teach in middle/high school first before having any kind of chance of getting the PRAG/PRCE position. You will have to wait for an opening, and compete with a lot of people. If you refuse to teach in school, you will lose your status and need to pass the exams again. Also, speaking French is mandatory. I would say you need to want to teach in France more than anything to even consider getting such a position.</p>\n\n<p>The upshot is that these are permanent positions. The pay is okay I guess. <a href=\"http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid101179/la-remuneration-des-enseignants.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">The ministry has some info.</a> For a certified professor, you start at 1795€ gross salary the first year, and after 30 years you can rise to 3777€. For an \"agrégé\", you start at 2076€, and after 30 years you rise to 4555€.</p>\n\n<p>(The first kind of position is not to be confused with professors who have obtained the \"agrégation du supérieur\", in law, political sciences, economy, or management. These professors have a position equivalent to other \"usual\" university professors and statutorily dedicate half their time to teaching and half to research. Yes, the terminology is confusing.)</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>A completely different alternative is to become \"maître de conférences associé\" (adjunct lecturer) or \"professeur associé\" (adjunct professor). This is a part-time position for people who have some professional experience (7 years for lecturer, 9 years for professor), or alternatively a high enough degree (PhD at least). You would keep your main job and teach in the university part-time. It's also possible to be recruited on such a position full-time. In all cases it's temporary, three years maximum.</p>\n\n<p>I am not certain what the recruitment procedure is like, in particular I don't know if universities advertise for openings or if you have to apply on your own. It seems to me that everything is fully at the discretion of the university/department. <a href=\"http://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/cid60227/devenir-enseignants-chercheurs-associes-et-invites-p.a.s.t.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">The ministry has some information.</a></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Perhaps a point worth stressing is that these are mostly <em>exceptions</em>. I haven't met many PRAG/PRCE or heard of many openings. For adjunct teachers, the \"exceptional\" nature is even clearer (it's a temporary position for industry people who want to teach). The \"norm\" are the half-teaching/half-research positions and the research-only positions (which are somewhat rarer).</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/16 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8668",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6259/"
]
|
8,675 | <p>Some conferences do maintain a percentage for the number of accepted papers to the total number of submissions.<br>
Does this mean some good papers will be <em>inevitably rejected</em> just to maintain the acceptance rate? How conference chairs deal with the acceptance rate? or it is not related at all to the acceptance/rejection process. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8676,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<h2>Yes.</h2>\n\n<p>But it would be more accurate to say that conferences have a fixed budget of papers that they can accept, due to scheduling constraints.</p>\n\n<p>At most computer science conferences, every accepted paper is presented in a 20-minute talk; for a three-day conference with no parallel sessions, this practice imposes an upper bound of about 50 accepted papers. Of course larger conferences have parallel sessions, but program committees generally do not have complete freedom to add another parallel track, partly because of <em>space</em> constraints at the conference venue (which is planned long before the submission deadline), and partly because major changes to the conference organization usually require input from the community.</p>\n\n<p>So inevitably, if a conference attracts a large number of strong submissions, it must reject some of them. This is generally considered better than the alternative, which is that the conference must necessarily accept some bad papers.</p>\n\n<p><em>This answer is specific to computer science.</em></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8705,
"author": "Espanta",
"author_id": 6393,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6393",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In very large number of conferences, acceptance rate is not really important since authors are paying high for getting their works published. In general, acceptance rate is used as a metric to claim/show reputation and popularity to encourage authors for more submission. I came a cross situations where authors write to the program committee to inquire if the paper is in the scope or not and they are encouraged to submit. Once submitted, they get quick rejection. By doing so, the conference is getting lower acceptance rate which is likely collecting more credits for future. The more submission, the better visibility, the less acceptance rate and higher competition for the next year. I personally believe the acceptance rate is more like a business trick to tempt researchers to submit. Because, if the conference organizers are bound to certain number of publication, they can simply - in plain language- announce the number of papers acceptable for publication rather than saying, we have only 10% acceptance rate. By putting rate, authors are encouraged to submit. If the limit exceeds, the organizer rejects the likely good works and the authors of rejected paper have an excuse that the acceptance rate was very low and nothing wrong with my paper!!! So try harder for next year and this circle goes infinite. Who wins? orgaznier ;)</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/17 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8675",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532/"
]
|
8,686 | <p>I am an engineering student, however, my graduate research is more inter-disciplinary (computational science). Which is good for me in some ways, because one of my better skills is programming, since I've been doing it avidly as a hobby for a very long time. Because of this, it would be much easier for me to create a widely used computational science software tool rather than a highly-cited journal article.</p>
<p>With the specific aim of getting a post-doc at a top-ranked university, how does creating a useful piece of software (like an original, optimized quantum monte carlo implementation for example) compare to a widely-cited journal article? In other words, if done well, both would be highly-cited, but do frequent citations of software carry the same weight as top-tier research articles?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8687,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There's a thresholding effect for software. If you create a piece of software that has a huge number of downloads and has visible impact, that will count for something. However, with papers, you wouldn't need to have the same level of impact to have the same effect on interviewers. </p>\n\n<p>The problem really is that academics don't know how to evaluate the impact of software development, and would need help doing so. I imagine that if your potential post-doc advisor has used your software, you won't need to do much explaining. But if not, and your research credentials are otherwise weaker, it might be difficult to justify. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8692,
"author": "Anon",
"author_id": 6211,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6211",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Attitudes are slowly but surely changing--here is an indication. As of January, the NSF required that the <em>Publications</em> section of NSF biosketches be changed to <em>Products</em>. It is remarkable how important names are to bureaucrats; in this case, the change reflects the awareness that the publications category excluded much of the work of scientific programmers, inventors and the producers of data sets (data sets are routinely referred to as products in the geo and social sciences). The previous biosketch format tended to make the inclusion of software and data sets (not to mention other contributions) under Publications often seem forced. The practice of citing technical reports and papers on software instead of directly citing it ought to be questioned. Given the ever increasing importance of software and data set production for many kinds of scientific research, it is a welcome development not to have to diminish significant and specialized contributions by citing published reports on products that could be cited directly (in contrast to certain inventions) or by hiding them under Synergistic Activities. In time, administrators will get the message that software production ought to count more than it does.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8697,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><em>The following applies to the neuroscience and the biological sciences.</em></p>\n\n<p>In almost all cases, the article will win. This is typically due to the attitude that writing software isn't research; it's implementation. In some cases, you will have to overcome technical challenges when implementing the software, but for the most part you'll simply be coding up techniques that were developed and iterated upon by a different research group.</p>\n\n<p>Note that there do exist labs that both developing analytical techniques and then have a team as part of the group who translates that into software development. The <a href=\"http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/\">Wellcome Trust Center in UCL</a> comes to mind here; they have developed a number of techniques used for detecting brain activity, as well as brain mapping, and they maintain a <a href=\"http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/\">software suite</a> that allows researchers to use their techniques. There are a number of similar groups in different fields (e.g., medical image analysis <a href=\"http://www.itk.org/itkindex.html\">(project)</a><a href=\"http://www.itk.org/ITK/project/parti.html\">(group)</a>, MEG analysis <a href=\"http://www.martinos.org/mne/\">(project)</a><a href=\"http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/meg/index.php\">(group)</a>). These labs have typically demonstrated over time their strength in developing research software, and are able to obtain grants to specifically support development of their software.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/18 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8686",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5958/"
]
|
8,690 | <p>I recently received a rejection letter from one of my top colleges for graduate studies. In addition to the standard rejection letter(for Program 1), I got another note from the chair of another program(Program 2) at the same university, suggesting that I opt for that program.</p>
<p>The difference between the two programs is that Program 1(which I was rejected from) usually gives out funding while Program 2(while being identical in all other ways) strictly says no funding. Is this usual in US colleges? I always thought that if you're going to get an admit without funding, you will at-least get an admit letter or is there any other reasoning behind this?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8716,
"author": "aug2uag",
"author_id": 5815,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5815",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>There is no golden rule that I've heard of that since you're not funded that you would be automatically accepted. There are not-for-profit and for-profit institutions, and each may receive public and/or private funding to do x, y, and z. </p>\n\n<p>Sounds to me you were going for a program where you'd receive a stipend, and are being coerced to apply to the program that you would have to pay out-of-pocket (not really clear from the way you wrote it above). In any case, there are some things to consider:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>How competitive is the program?</li>\n<li>What about your transcripts or personal profile can you improve?</li>\n<li>How about applying to more than one school?</li>\n<li>If you received an offer, should you take it and see if you can receive a stipend in the near future?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>You haven't provided much information, yet it will be hard to tell you what to do because there's an absence of the representation of what it is you want to do, and how much you want it. If it's something you've already spent your entire adult life to work on and have the acceptance letter, maybe it's worth considering taking the opportunity. Conversely, if you're right out of school and would benefit from some work experience and improvements to your transcript then it may be worthwhile to take a step back and try again soon.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8718,
"author": "Espanta",
"author_id": 6393,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6393",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The golden rule in getting fund is to demonstrate and ensure that you and your background knowledge and works are good enough to successfully undertake the project or work. Bear in mind that there are always better or worse competitors around. In funded positions, usually there is a tight competition, no matter if it is in US, Asia or Europe. Moreover, the person responsible for final funding decision is always looking at a person he/she knows well (in terms of achievements and commitments) because he is responsible to the funding agency in case of failure. If there is no applicant familiar with, he/she may look after others. Whereas in non-funding positions, the competition is not high and if the applicant has minimum requirements, he will be given the seat. Don't blame anyone except the competition, luck, and your achievement. Try to increase your networking with influential people and raise your visibility by taking part in public talks, organize a workshop (if you have certain knowledge or proficiency), publish a conference paper and so on. I was listening to a radio station few days ago about recruitment, they revealed the result of a survey conducted among 300 worldwide recruiters. The recruiter (work or study) are always giving better chance to volunteers, I suggest to do that as well. By doing so, you will be given very high chance of getting position with good stipend next time. You should be a glorious competitor to shine among others. If not, no luck. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/18 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8690",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3983/"
]
|
8,693 | <p>Is there a way we can get money for our research paper? Do research journals pay us for a research paper? Or can we sell the research paper?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8694,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have never heard of a field where journals pay the authors for articles. In the humanities original research is often published as books and publishers will often pay, or at least provide a commission, for books.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8695,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p><em>can we earn money through a research publication?</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Certainly <strong>Yes</strong>. </p>\n\n<p>Good publications make you a stronger candidate when apply to grants. It also help you in securing a job; if you do not have one. Also, collaborating with industry could be another way for earning money. <strong>Selling</strong> publication is something I never heard in my field (computer science). I do not even think it is possible in other fields. </p>\n\n<p>If you are looking only for money then doing research is one of the bad choices you have. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8698,
"author": "JRN",
"author_id": 64,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>According to this Scholarly Open Access <a href=\"http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/12/28/oa-journal-pays-authors-for-their-work-2500/\" rel=\"nofollow\">blog entry</a>, the <em>Journal of CENTRUM Cathedra: The Business and Economics Research Journal</em> pays US$2500 for each paper published and also pays US$500 for each peer review. It also seems that the <em>Journal of Information Ethics</em> used to pay US$50 per article published.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8700,
"author": "antmw1361",
"author_id": 5644,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5644",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Also, <strong>Patents.</strong></p>\n\n<p>If you register your idea as a patent, then everybody who wants to use your idea has to pay to you. However, universities (companies) usually claim the intellectual property of the patents, which means the inventor does not get that much incentive out of a patent. It is an exception if you work independent or self employed. Also, you can negotiate with university to have keep the intellectual property of your invention or discoveries.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8701,
"author": "silvado",
"author_id": 3890,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In Germany, the <a href=\"http://www.vgwort.de\" rel=\"noreferrer\">\"VG Wort\"</a> collects copyright fees put on copy machines, electronic library copies, etc., and redistributes these fees to authors.</p>\n\n<p>Authors of research papers published in print can give note about their publications to the VG Wort and will then participate in the distribution of these fees. The calculation of what each author gets depends on the length of the articles and the number of authors, and in my experience one should expect a one-time payment of about 20 to 40 Euro per journal article.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8704,
"author": "Espanta",
"author_id": 6393,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6393",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Certainly Yes. There are two ways of earning money from publication:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Indirect as @seteropere explains by improving your visibility and getting higher chance of being recruited in higher quality institute with higher payment.</p></li>\n<li><p>Direct: In many academic or even industrial institutes, researchers are being paid and are bound to perform research and publish paper in certain journals or conferences (mostly journal). If they fail, either they will be fired or will be punished. In order to avoid such experience, many are hiddenly searching for an opportunity to buy a paper in high price. Moreover, there are some universities that pay incentive to publish in journals (like US$ 2000) for each paper published. For instance, I know several people at such universities that need to improve their world ranking via publication and hence pay good money to publish in high-quality journals. But, selling or buying paper is considered unethical because we believe research is something we cannot buy. If we can buy research, it will not be research and will be a project.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 99162,
"author": "QueenCarmella08",
"author_id": 82833,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82833",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes. Through thesis or reasearch. For example the nasa discovers a new planet. Then after that some publishing companies will buy that article regarding that and it will spread throughout the world. Sorry for the bad english</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 99170,
"author": "AJK",
"author_id": 9892,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9892",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Certain types of papers can be supported by journals. These can include invited review articles, where the journal specifically seeks out the author to publish something on their field of expertise. The payments are usually minimal relative to the work required - on the order of US$300-500 - and are sometimes referred to as an \"honorarium.\" </p>\n\n<p>The key element here is that this money is paid because the journal specifically wants a paper from that author - presumably because they expect the work to be prestigious or highly cited.</p>\n\n<p>This is by no means universal, but it has happened to me.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/18 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8693",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6273/"
]
|
8,702 | <p>I am a graduate student studying Education. I am currently working on my thesis, am about half-done with this and I expect to finish in one year. For the research, I am visiting classrooms at various public schools.</p>
<p>Recently, one such public school asked that, in exchange for letting me visit, I share my advice about teaching. Since they welcomed me their classroom, I did not see much of a problem with this and did not think that would present any problems. I prepared an outline for a 90-minute discussion covering some areas, drawing somewhat on my findings related to my research. After sending this off to them before the lecture, I found they are quite disappointed and want far more from me, essentially they want the very core of my thesis.</p>
<ul>
<li>Is it acceptable practice for graduate students to be guarding of their work? Is this common enough that I can cite it as a reason for wanting to avoid sharing the details?</li>
</ul>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8703,
"author": "walkmanyi",
"author_id": 1265,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1265",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is it acceptable practice for graduate students to be guarding of their work?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Without saying <strong>acceptable to whom</strong> it should be, you won't get any good answer. Is that acceptable to you? Is it acceptable to your adviser? Is such a behaviour acceptable in the context of your \"contract\" with the subject of your research, namely the school you speak about?</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is this common enough that I can cite it as a reason for wanting to avoid sharing the details?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This would be perhaps a bit field-specific, but as far as I can say, this is not a common practice, nor I would accept it if somebody would use it as an argument. \nIn my opinion, this stance is very much against the purpose of publicly-funded research.</p>\n\n<p>First of all, realize, doing research has a highly ideal objective: generate, advance and maintain knowledge of humankind. If this does not appeal to you, then ask yourself who pays for your research. If it is general public, i.e., taxpayers of the country you reside in, then they deserve to see your results upon request. If it is so, that includes the officials of the school in question. There is your answer.</p>\n\n<p>Secondly, what is the benefit of you keeping the results private? Are you worried about being scooped? On that, see <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=scoop\">elsewhere on this site</a> and build an opinion for yourself whether that is a real threat.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, as a graduate student, you should be rather happy that somebody is interested in your research. Most of your peers do not get that kind of attention at all.</p>\n\n<p><strong>To sum up:</strong> Unless you are paid from a resource which contractually forbids you to disclose your research results, there is no \"objective\" reason to refuse sharing your results. It will of course remain your freedom not to share them, but in that case you must stand up to your decision and attribute the refusal to your own personal decision without hiding yourself behind some \"common practice\". Take responsibility for your decisions!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8776,
"author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX",
"author_id": 725,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The one valid point I can see here(*) for not sharing the state of the thesis:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For the research, I am visiting classrooms at various public schools.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>You should not share the preliminary details of your thesis if this could affect the outcome of your study.</strong><br>\nAs I understood the question, the school (or some teachers or students) may be the <em>subjects you study</em>, so they should be as little influenced by you as possible (that is, don't tell them that they are in the placebo group).</p>\n\n<p>(*) things would be different e.g. if you were in an engineering field and working towards a patent</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8789,
"author": "penelope",
"author_id": 4249,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4249",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I'm actually a bit surprised by the harsh comments here. I do come from Computer Science, so the situation might be a bit different.</p>\n\n<p>But still, I know more than one student with advisers that <em>explicitly prohibited presenting ongoing <strong>unpublished</strong> work</em>. Sometimes it is a bit more relaxed (e.g. it is okay to present it to the people in your team or lab), but in general, <strong>it is not uncommon <em>in my area</em></strong>. The explanation I got once is that if a senior researcher with a lot of resources recognized an idea as potentially good and gives it to multiple junior students to work on, he can develop the idea faster than the \"original idea holders\" (i.e. 1 PhD student + his/her adviser).</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, I personally believe that the <strong>whole point of research is to expand and share knowledge</strong>, so I frown upon being too protective of one's work. Also, putting a date on your presentation, and making it available online, diminishes the chances of stealing.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, I think offering a 90-minute presentation, with discussion, based at least partially on your work, is a very nice offer. The only reason I can think of why they would not be pleased is that they expected a talk on some specific topic.</p>\n\n<p>Some suggestions about what you could do as an alternative:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>prepare an in-depth exhaustive talk about <em>just one problem/theory</em> from your thesis, preferably something already published in an article</li>\n<li>prepare a talk about <em>motivation</em> for your theories, problems that dictated the research direction and reserve some time for a <em>discussion session</em>, where you do offer your own theories as solutions, but other attendees are expected to participate as well.</li>\n<li><p>offer to come back after finishing your thesis, and presenting everything in-depth (possibly over several sessions) when all the work is finished, published and peer reviewed (see both my points below)</p>\n\n<p>This should give you enough flexibility to avoid talking about any sensitive areas.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Also, some \"guarding\" explanations that seem quite reasonable to me:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>a PhD thesis is a 3+ year long effort, often a compilation of many works and ideas by the author. Even though it is centered around one subject, it probably deals with several issues, approaches, angles...</p>\n\n<p>All in all, it is <em>a lot of material</em>. Explaining everything is something what is expected at a PhD defense: and even then, in that 1+ hour talk, some students can't cover all their work. </p>\n\n<p>Thus, explaining that presenting everything simply requires <strong>too much time</strong>, and offering the school to <strong>choose a issue you deal with that is of particular interest</strong>, does not seem bad or disrespectful or overly protective.</p></li>\n<li><p>if you are against disclosing details of your ongoing work, you should be able to come up with some legitimate reasons. If the work is ongoing <em>and unpublished</em>, you can argue that you do not want to present <strong>ideas that did not go through peer-review process</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Peer-review is the process that (should) ensure excellence and relevance of published research. Judging the relevance and correctness of your own work is something <em>not left to the author</em>, and it <em>should be fine if you do not want to present something in detail that is not yet accepted by academic community</em>.</p>\n\n<p>But, even in this case, and after such an explanation, offering to include some of this work <strong>as a smaller part</strong> of your presentation (e.g. ideas for future work, or discussion), with a <strong>beforehand explanation</strong> that those are just <strong>discussable, underdeveloped ideas</strong> and should be treated as such.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Bottom line is, <em>it is <strong>not</strong> acceptable to guard your research just because others do it</em>. But, if you look at <strong>why</strong> others do it and understand their reasons, you can decide whether that reasoning applies to you and your work.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/18 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8702",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/"
]
|
8,709 | <p>I have heard that it is 'bad' to continue to publish with your adviser after you get your PhD. Or is this something that is debated in the academic community?</p>
<p>In my situation, after my PhD, I can get a job in industry, but I am allowed time (half a day a week) to continue my research at my local university. This allows me to continue researching something that I am interested in, rather than researching something that someone else is interested in.</p>
<p>I can understand that every publication should not be between myself and my adviser. And I can understand that I should show that I am an independent researcher. But does that mean I should stop publishing with my (ex-)adviser?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8710,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>By continuing to publish with your advisor, you are not showing that you are an independent researcher. People will always question whether it is possibly your advisor that is doing the work, coming up with the ideas, guiding the research plan, and simply by looking at your publication record, there is no evidence that this is not the case.</p>\n\n<p>If on the other hand, you publish papers alone or with different coauthors, and you have a clear research plan, independent of your advisors, then you will start to demonstrate your independence.</p>\n\n<p>But it is okay to continue publishing with your advisor – I still do – as long as your record says <strong>I am independent</strong>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8711,
"author": "F'x",
"author_id": 2700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There's nothing “wrong” with continuing to publish with your (ex-)adviser. You have correctly identified the issue to avoid: <strong>after getting your PhD, the next step in your career is to establish yourself as an independent researcher.</strong> Thus, of course: <em>depending on the context,</em> publishing with your adviser might send the wrong signal!</p>\n\n<p>So, you should continue to publish with her, but you should make sure that it's not 100% of your research (and publications). Another point that makes a big difference is if you can, maybe now or maybe after some time, take the lead in that collaboration.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/18 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8709",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5630/"
]
|
8,713 | <p>I am a new assistant professor in my department. While all faculty members have been welcoming so far to me, I find there are two or three distinct groups or <em>coteries</em> within the department. The coteries are distinct and comprise set of people who wouldn't mingle with people from another coterie. It is a bit awkward for me because there are even senior professors in different sets, and I want to be affable with everyone in my department. </p>
<p>How do I handle this sense of discomfort? Should I talk with the Chair? But the sectoring is pretty well-known and prevalent for a long time and there is little the Chair can do about it (or so I think!)</p>
<p>How do academic departments handle this situation of clash of egos usually? I am sure mine is not the only place where this clash is seen. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8714,
"author": "Pedro",
"author_id": 495,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/495",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The best advice anyone can give you, in my opinion, is: <strong>Don't get involved</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>You're entering a new environment and it's in your best interests to just get along with everybody, as you already suggest you are trying.</p>\n\n<p>If the issue pops up in any discussions, just avoid it. The last thing you want to do is get caught-up in a territorial dispute of which you probably don't want to know the origins, and that serves no purpose to anybody, least of all to you.</p>\n\n<p>I would only advise discussing things with the Chair if these divisions start negatively affecting your work, and only discuss it in terms of how it affects your work. As you've pointed out yourself, chances are he/she can't do anything about it, or worse, he/she may be involved.</p>\n\n<p>Things like this can happen even in the best departments, and the best thing that can happen in such a case is that new staff bridge whatever divide may be there by ignoring it completely.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8795,
"author": "H. D.",
"author_id": 6216,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6216",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>With respect to coteries there is no difference between a university department and any workplace, corporate board, political party, sporting team, primary school playground, etc...</p>\n\n<p>Coteries are just a fact of life everywhere one goes... </p>\n\n<p>At some point in time you will start collaborating with people in your department on research in which you have a shared interest. Hence, by default you will eventually drift into one of the coteries, otherwise you'll be a loner in the department...</p>\n\n<p>So, you'll have to eventually choose one of them, and to be a successful academic the correct choice should be based on shared research interests.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/18 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8713",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6397/"
]
|
8,717 | <p>I require photocopies of "Archival Manuscript/Mixed Formats" from the Library of Congress. They have a collection from one author which has otherwise unpublished technical documents that are very relevant to my area of expertise. Judging by the indicies, there are at least 20 boxes (out of 106) that are relevant. None of these are digitized and most are very technical documents with information not seen by people in my field.</p>
<p>I'm not sure the best way to attack this problem because travelling there is far from where I live now (6 hrs by plane) and the librarian I spoke on the phone with didn't think that our library could request it. LoC seems very restrictive about working with their material, that is they won't let me personally go the stacks and browse the boxes, and they say they only allow 5 books to be reviewed at a time.</p>
<p>Are there any tips or alternative ways to get the materials? Our research team is rather large for an academic team, so would it be worthwhile to ask a Congressperson to request it on our behalf? Just looking for input.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8714,
"author": "Pedro",
"author_id": 495,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/495",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The best advice anyone can give you, in my opinion, is: <strong>Don't get involved</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>You're entering a new environment and it's in your best interests to just get along with everybody, as you already suggest you are trying.</p>\n\n<p>If the issue pops up in any discussions, just avoid it. The last thing you want to do is get caught-up in a territorial dispute of which you probably don't want to know the origins, and that serves no purpose to anybody, least of all to you.</p>\n\n<p>I would only advise discussing things with the Chair if these divisions start negatively affecting your work, and only discuss it in terms of how it affects your work. As you've pointed out yourself, chances are he/she can't do anything about it, or worse, he/she may be involved.</p>\n\n<p>Things like this can happen even in the best departments, and the best thing that can happen in such a case is that new staff bridge whatever divide may be there by ignoring it completely.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8795,
"author": "H. D.",
"author_id": 6216,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6216",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>With respect to coteries there is no difference between a university department and any workplace, corporate board, political party, sporting team, primary school playground, etc...</p>\n\n<p>Coteries are just a fact of life everywhere one goes... </p>\n\n<p>At some point in time you will start collaborating with people in your department on research in which you have a shared interest. Hence, by default you will eventually drift into one of the coteries, otherwise you'll be a loner in the department...</p>\n\n<p>So, you'll have to eventually choose one of them, and to be a successful academic the correct choice should be based on shared research interests.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/19 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8717",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6398/"
]
|
8,720 | <p>I'm working on my Computer Science thesis. I have a two solution proposals until this moment, and I've been wondering about the following:</p>
<p>Sometimes <strong>you know</strong> that if you implement it correctly, it <strong>will</strong> work (eg. when building a website or a desktop app for some trivial purpose, etc), but some other times you try to solve your problem with some specific solution proposal. A few examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>I will do some preprocessing, I'll represent the documents that way and use this metric, and then I'll apply this clustering algorithm. Theoretically, it <strong>should</strong> work.</li>
<li>I will use <em>this</em> computer vision technique for breaking the captchas, and then... In theory, it <strong>should</strong> work.</li>
</ul>
<p>but when you implement it, you don't get the expected results (eg. bad text classification in the corpus you're using, low-rate successfuly captchas solved, etc.)</p>
<p>In those cases, <strong>is it a valid work?</strong> I mean, is it good to publish your work, saying that <strong>your solution proposal doesn't seem to be good when solving some specific problem</strong>?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8725,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm not sure what you mean by \"theoretically it should work\". The examples you refer to are cases where you're positing some kind of model for the data. That the experiments failed suggests that the implied model is wrong. The question then is: what is a good model, and what went wrong with the model you tried. </p>\n\n<p>It's that kind of investigation that will set you on the path to a paper. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8726,
"author": "walkmanyi",
"author_id": 1265,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1265",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>In those cases, is it a valid work? I mean, is it good to publish your work, saying that your solution proposal doesn't seem to be good when solving some specific problem?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>At least two advice:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Don't worry</li>\n<li>Don't succumb to the urge to publish immediately</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>There is always a venue to report about your work, however little significance it bears. Workshops collocated with conferences are places where you can honestly report your work, including dead ends. </p>\n\n<p>I recognize a more important thing going on here. You embarked on a research, from what you wrote, it seems you are convinced that the problem is sound and worth pursuing, but so far performed an experiment in the field only to find out you reinvented a wheel, or the thing is not good enough. One way of seeing what happened is that it is a kind of a failure. That's what you seem to suggest. Another optics applicable on your situation is that you embarked on something worthwhile, but since it is not an easy problem, the first approach did not yield a result. There are two observation to make here:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>your problem is probably a good one. Easy problems, or non-problems yield a result usually very quickly (any approach is good enough);</li>\n<li>you are on the right track to discover something. Eventually. Realize that the path from nowhere to the bleeding edge of human knowledge (state of the art) is never an easy one. You started and did not arrive to the edge yet. Expect few more experiments of \"reinventing a wheel\" flavour. After a while you'll get to the boundary and since you walked the path the hard way, you will have all your weapons sharp and enough insight to push the boundary. That's the positive message about your situation.</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8727,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Not every solution method is a valid approach for solving every problem. When you believe you have a tool that is universal, then you start running into the \"hammer complex\": when all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail, even if it's actually a screw. </p>\n\n<p>What I mean by this is that this is a reasonable finding. Acknowledging the benefits and disadvantages of your strategy is an important part of open science. It makes it easier for others to follow on, adapt, and adopt your work. If you declare a problem \"solved,\" it makes it much more difficult for others (including yourself) to continue to work in the same \"problem space.\" </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8728,
"author": "Lobo",
"author_id": 6394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Getting unexpected results is not problematic</strong>, it happens more times than you think. Note that with these test results you have achieved something, even if different from what you expected, but it is something that may be relevant to your research.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/19 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8720",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6399/"
]
|
8,732 | <p>I have recently started my PhD studies. My advisor, as member of a program committee, has delegated a the review of a conference paper to me. This is my second peer review.</p>
<p>Since I have not done research in the area of this paper, I find it very hard to review. Not only does it require much effort for me to grasp the content. First and foremost, I do not think that being able to understand the content of a paper is sufficient for reviewing it. Ideally, reviewing would mean <em>judging</em> the paper for its scientific merit as a peer, considering content, presentation, relevance and relation to other work in the area. Especially the latter aspects I feel unable to judge.</p>
<p>I consider declining to review, but this seems like a drastic step with conflict potential. Certainly, there is an incentive to formally complete the assignment and write a review of little value to the authors, the venue and the scientific community in general. Would it be acceptable or prudent to decline?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8733,
"author": "gerrit",
"author_id": 1033,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Yes</strong>. It is much better to decline as soon as you realise you're not up to the review, than to write a useless review.</p>\n\n<p>Normally, you first get an abstract based on which you accept or decline. If you accept, the editor may be annoyed if you decline based on seeing the manuscript, but sometimes it's inevitable; only so much can be judged from the abstract. If you do decline, however, you should let the editor know as soon as possible.</p>\n\n<p>I recently read a publicly reviewed paper where both reviews clearly did not really understand the topic, but still handed in a review. To me it was quite clear that the paper needed a statistician, which neither of the reviewers were. One reviewer didn't get much further than pointing out that the introduction was too long, with not a single comment on 10 pages of detailed description of advanced statistical methods. When reading the reviews, I found it a bit embarrassing that the peer review was so clearly insufficient, and the paper virtually got published without proper peer review.</p>\n\n<p>I know someone who accepted his very first paper review, only to discover when he received the manuscript that it had <em>130 pages</em>. He returned it to the editor.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8734,
"author": "Irwin",
"author_id": 5944,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5944",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Since your advisor assigned the paper to you, I suspect that your advisor believed that you were either able to do the review, or capable of getting the information you need to do the review, or simply wanted a second opinion.</p>\n\n<p>It's rather normal for advisors to assign to their students papers they get from being on committees. A conscientious advisor will also review the paper by himself/herself though and double-check the student's work, as well as providing feedback to the student about how to write good reviews.</p>\n\n<p>Thus, in your case, your review may not actually go back to the authors - your advisor would take your review and his/her own review and integrate them (or write a new one). In that case, I would do your best to review the paper and then speak with your advisor about how to improve.</p>\n\n<p>If however you still feel extremely uncomfortable about reviewing the paper, I would speak with your advisor about it. Your advisor may have some advice about where to look or what to consider; alternatively you might get a different paper as well.</p>\n\n<p>(Note: If you were reviewing as a PC member or as a journal reviewer, I would instead agree with gerrit above and decline the review.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8735,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In addition to gerrit's answer (which I completely agree with), if you are in the situation where it would be hard to decline (conferences sometimes have very short deadlines), you might review this paper as a \"non-expert\". </p>\n\n<p>It's indeed quite common (at least in Computer Science) that the review should indicate both the score (i.e., reject/accept) and the confidence of the reviewer. If you indicate a low confidence score, then your decision has a lower weight than those with higher confidence. In that case, you can review the paper from a more global point of view (like any non-specialist reader would see the paper): is the problem well explained, does the solution seem consistent with the problem description, is the language correct, etc. </p>\n\n<p>Ideally, it would be better to decline the review, but if the paper is also reviewed by two or more experts, then your review could bring a good non-expert vision. If the paper is reviewed only by non-experts, then either the paper is off-topic, and it's the author's problem, or the PC chair didn't do the job correctly. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/19 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8732",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/704/"
]
|
8,737 | <p>I am about to become a Ph.D student in mathematics. I am having some doubts about where I should do my Ph.D and I would appreciate some advice, or anything really.</p>
<ol>
<li>I could do research with a very competent professor that is internationally well-known and is also very interested in me succeeding, having helped me with much already. He is also a really kind person. The area he is working in is one of the most fascinating areas in all of mathematics to me. However, it is in a different city from where I live now. As I live now, I have a really good apartment and a girlfriend too who lives here. She would be OK if I moved, although a bit sad. I am afraid of moving to a new city, and more than that, also somewhat scared that if I am not as good as my advisor belives me to be, it will all go terribly wrong.</li>
<li>I could do research where I live. However, the advisors are not as competent as he is, nor as interested in me (so far, I am not their student yet). Further, the areas are not as fascinating (although very fascinating!). I could continue with living my life as of now.</li>
</ol>
<p>So, what should I think about regarding these choices when it comes to making a future career? I am a bit vague here, since I want general advice to think about.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8745,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I can't make a definitive recommendation one way or the other here. What I can tell you is that you need to consider the following:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Don't change jobs to get away from your present situation.</strong> Running and hiding somewhere else is neither productive nor psychologically healthy. (In other words, make sure you are <em>going to</em> another opportunity, not <em>walking away</em> from a situation—although it doesn't sound like that this is an issue here.)</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Is the cost of what you're leaving behind worth what you're gaining?</strong> You seem to like living where you are. Is the opportunity for you to work with the big-name advisor important enough for you to give that up?</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Before beginning a PhD, make sure that it's something you <em>really</em> want to do.</strong> Is the project you will be working on something that fascinates you enough that, even if your work doesn't go well for a long time, you'd still want to go in day after day to get things back on track?</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8754,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You mention your \"future career\", and the answer to your question also depends on how you consider your career <em>after</em> your PhD. If you don't want to stay in Academia, and go for instance working in a bank or in some international organisation, then it's likely that the content of your PhD or the quality of your advisor does not really matter. In that case, if you think you can reasonably enjoy working where you currently live, it might not be worth changing location. </p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, if you want to stay in Academia, then it's very likely that you will keep facing the problem you're facing now. Perhaps you'll be lucky, and the best PhD topic will be in the place you are, and then the best Postodc, and then the best Assistant Prof. position, and then the best Prof. position ... but it's quite likely that you might need to move, at least if you want to get the best position. I know few academics who work in the same place where they've done their graduate studies. I'm not saying it's impossible, but if you want the best opportunities, you might need to consider, at some point in your career, to move across the world. </p>\n\n<p>There is no easy answer, and it's entirely up to you, but if you don't have a clear priority yet between going for what you might think is the best work opportunity for you and your personal/private life, you might not enjoy Academia ... (this is of course a pessimistic view, and plenty of academics have a remarkable career and a great personal life! but I'd rather point out the negative aspects so that you won't be disappointed later). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8758,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's hard for anyone to tell you what to do. Ultimately your decision comes from within your own blend of views, feelings, and priorities. </p>\n\n<p>But there are common patterns of thought that we've all encountered, and it helps to understand how others have dealt with them. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Fear of change.</strong></p>\n\n<p>This is a very natural feeling to have. Whenever you're thinking of moving out of a comfort zone into a new situation, it's easy to focus on the fear of the unknown, because there's nothing else to focus on. In your case, there's fear of the move to a new city, and fear of how this will affect your relationships. </p>\n\n<p>One way of addressing this is to try and find out more about the new situation and how the change will affect you. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>where will you live ?</li>\n<li>what will your work schedule be like ? </li>\n<li>what will your office look like ?</li>\n<li>how will you and your girlfriend manage the distance in the relationship ? </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>and so on. Right now, your ability to make a decision is clouded by uncertainty. Thinking concretely about these questions will help make the new scenario more real, and you'll be in a better position to evaluate whether the move is worth it or not. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Imposter syndrome</strong></p>\n\n<p>The other fear you've expressed is that \"your advisor will discover that you're not as smart as you/they thought\". This feeling is called the I<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome\">mposter Syndrome</a> and is typically associated with academics or those preparing for advanced study. Ironically, your feelings of inadequacy might qualify you already !</p>\n\n<p>But the imposter syndrome is just that: it's a psychological filter that's caused by a focus on negatives and a dismissal of positives. It sounds like your advisor-to-be is very supportive and wants you to succeed. While it's possible that you might find a Ph.D is not for you, it's also entirely possible that you'll do very well for yourself. What will make the difference is not some fate stamped on your head the day you were born, but the work you do, the effort you put in, lots of luck, and many things that are beyond your control. \nHere again, getting more information can help - if you haven't already done this, maybe you can talk with the prospective advisor and map out what the first year or so of your Ph.D might look like.</p>\n\n<p>Ultimately whether or not you choose to move depends on many factors, and there's no wrong answer here. But it's helpful to recognize where some of the thoughts you express might be coming from. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8761,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>So I'm just some random stranger on the internet, but you asked for advice, so here it is. Given only the information in your post, I think you have a difficult choice ahead of you:</p>\n\n<p><strong>Move or propose.</strong></p>\n\n<p>From a strictly professional standpoint, you make a <em>very</em> strong argument for moving. Having a more competent and more supportive advisor, and working in a field that excites you more, will have a <em>tremendous</em> impact on your several-decades-long mathematics career. As Dan C <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/3091/65\">writes</a> <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/2712/65\">elsewhere</a>, if you want to do math for a living, you should enroll in the strongest PhD program you can. (I'm assuming here that you actually <em>want</em> a career in mathematics; otherwise, getting a PhD in mathematics is kind of stupid.)</p>\n\n<p>From a personal standpoint, you make a much weaker case for staying put. It's just another city; you'll be fine. You can always find another apartment. Do not listen to the Impostor Syndrome; <em>everyone</em> is afraid that they're not good enough. Your girlfriend is OK with your moving. There's some possibility that your current relationship won't survive the move, but the fact that you call her your <em>girlfriend</em>, and not your <em>wife</em> or even <em>fiancée</em>, suggests that you don't really think of the relationship as permanent anyway.</p>\n\n<p>Yeah, I know, that's harsh. And maybe I'm totally off-base. Maybe your current relationship really <em>is</em> more important to you than the rest of your professional life. If that's true, tell her so.</p>\n\n<p>Who knows? Maybe you can do both!</p>\n\n<p>But whatever you decide, <strong>don't base your decision on fear</strong>. Instead, ask yourself: What do you really want? What really matters to you? Fear of change and Impostor Syndrome are completely natural, and <em>far</em> more common than most people think, but they're just voices in your head. Letting them control your decisions is not healthy. You have people in your life who believe in you, who support you, who want you to succeed and be happy, and who know you far better than Some Random Stranger on the Internet—<strong>listen to them!</strong></p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/19 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8737",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6405/"
]
|
8,741 | <p>Since reviewers don't check the experimental results by trying to reproduce the experiment, is it possible for someone to submit a paper which basically says "Method X was proposed in paper Y and according to them it improved performance by 15% as compared to baseline. However when we tried it, it didn't work so well (only 2% improvement). Hence we propose its modification which actually achieves 14% improvement as compared to baseline on the same train/test data."?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8743,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes. To improve on others findings is a common situation. The fact that the first paper overstated performance may not necessarily be wrong from th epoint of their experimental setup but they may have missed some component that negatively affected their experiment. I would say that this reflects <code>incremental improveents</code> in the development of ideas in science. As someone once said: \"If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be science\".</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8746,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li>Make sure the <strong>difference</strong> comes from the experimentation <strong>not from the\nadopted technique/method</strong>.</li>\n<li>Make sure you have the <strong>same settings</strong> as the other paper. Sometimes\npeople make assumptions for the sake of simplicity in\nexperimentations. For example, I remember I did experimentation\nassuming acyclic graph exists.</li>\n<li>Do you have some kind of <strong>randomness</strong> (i.e. generating random\ninstances of the problem)? If yes, revise\nits output. Sometimes you examine easy instances while others base\ntheir experimentations on hard instances of the problem.</li>\n<li>In some areas, there are <strong>benchmarks</strong> and robust solvers for particular\nproblems/structures. If your field have benchmarks, try to compare your method against it.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Either way, I am sure you have important parameters to control the experimentation (i.e. number of variables..etc). check their role. </p>\n\n<p>Most importantly, you need to <strong>theoretically</strong> justify why your method will save 14% while other method saves only 2% in practice. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8751,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some fields deal with exact numbers in which case you don't have a contradiction, you have identified an error. When you are dealing with inexact numbers that have \"measurement error\", you need to be careful. As much as I dislike statistics, they can be, and really are, your friend when dealing with measurement error.</p>\n\n<p>You say Paper Y found that Method X was 15% better than baseline. Did they do a statistical comparison to see if Method X was better than baseline, or did they calculate confidence intervals and really say that it was 15%+/-0.000001 better than baseline? Is your 2% difference from baseline statistically reliable? Is your 2% difference from baseline statistically different from 15%? Then we have your statements about the modified methods. Is the 14% statistically reliably different from the 2% improvement you saw?</p>\n\n<p>If there is measurement error then all you can say is that it is extremely unlikely that your implementation of their method is the same. This doesn't really contradict them, and it definitely doesn't say they are wrong.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8775,
"author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX",
"author_id": 725,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>JeffE commented: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>It's obvious that it should happen at least 5% of the time, but my impression is that it happens a <strong>LOT</strong> more often than that.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The 5% aren't all that obvious to me: if I understood correctly, the 5% are the (in)famous p-value.<br>\nThat is, of every 100 false null-hypothesis, 5 are rejected (\"we found something\") by mechanically rejecting H0 when the p-value indicates that the probability of observing such or more extreme results as we got reaches 5%. </p>\n\n<pre>\n | what the paper does |\n | reject H0 not reject H0 | sum\n------------------------+---------------------------+------\ntruth | null hypotesis | 5 95 | 100\n v alternative h. | ? ? | ?\n------------------------+---------------------------+------\nsum | ? ? | \n</pre>\n\n<p>The number of contradicted papers, however, should depend on the number of falsely accepted hypotheses among all <em>accepted</em> hypotheses (whether true or not). The problem is, we'd need to know the number of correctly accepted alternative hypotheses to calculate which percentage should lead to contradictions. </p>\n\n<p>This we don't know, but of course it depends on the number of true alternative hypotheses among all hypotheses, which we may call the \"prevalence of good ideas\".<br>\nIf we stay in analogy to medical terms, the percentage of contradicted papers should be (1 - predictive value of rejected null-hypotheses). And this will be much larger than 5% if lots of \"bad\" ideas are tested.</p>\n\n<p>Literature: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ioannidis, J. P. A.: Why most published research findings are false. PLoS medicine, 2005, 2, e124</a> </li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.amazon.de/Der-Schein-Weisen-Fehlurteile-t%C3%A4glichen/dp/3499614502\" rel=\"nofollow\">Der Schein der Weisen</a> [popular science; in German]</li>\n</ul>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Here are two comments from pharmaceutical companies reporting on the issue for (mostly oncological) drug development:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrd3439-c1\" rel=\"nofollow\">Prinz, F. and Schlange, T. and Asadullah, K. Believe it or not: how much can we rely on published data on potential drug targets? Nat Rev Drug Discov, 2011, 10, 712</a><br>\nOnly for about 1/5th (14/67) of the projects, the reports from literature could be reproduced, of which 1 was reproduced directly, 12 after some kind of adaption.</p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Begley, C. G. and Ellis, L. M. Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research. Nature, 2012, 483, 531-533</a><br>\nConfirmed findings from 6 out of 53 \"landmark\" papers. The authors also report how often the studies got cited: no difference between the studies they could not confirm and the confirmed ones (huge spread, if there's a difference, non-reproduced articles got cited more often).</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8785,
"author": "H. D.",
"author_id": 6216,
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"text": "<p>It is completely commonplace, particularly in finance publications, to fabricate results. </p>\n\n<p>A previous thesis adviser of mine actively encouraged not reporting results which did not support the story he was trying to tell, and to completely change test design and the statistical tests performed when it was possible to get results which did support the story.</p>\n\n<p>It should come as no surprise that papers report results which contradict each other.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/20 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8741",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2643/"
]
|
8,747 | <p>Is it achievable to perform a doctorate while working in a private company (not in college) full time (8 hours per day, 5 days per week)? Or is it too much work or stress?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8748,
"author": "StrongBad",
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"text": "<p>The universities that I am familiar with in the US and UK have regulations about the number of hours that can be worked for full time students. These rules would prevent you from being both a full time PhD student and having a full time job.</p>\n\n<p>For example, the <a href=\"https://psychology.sas.upenn.edu/graduate/manual\">UPenn Psychology policy</a> states:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The Department expects full time effort in return for its support during the five years of the program. Thus, students may not engage in outside employment while on departmental support.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>and the <a href=\"https://odge.mit.edu/gpp/assistance/employment/conflict-of-interest-commitment/\">MIT policy</a> states:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The student interested in working part time off campus, and who is a US citizen or permanent resident, should first speak to his or her research advisor about the nature of the proposed work. The advisor must be assured that the work will not compromise the time that the student is expected to devote to research at MIT, and that the outside work does not compromise or infringe upon patent or intellectual property rights related to the student’s MIT research. The student also must ensure that the outside work does not violate any departmental policy.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There are many universities that take part time PhD students and expect them to be working full time. So yes, one can get a PhD while working full time, but as for the second part of the question</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>It can be too much work, stress, etc.?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Not only can it be, it likely will be. This is equally true for both full time students without family commitments and part time students with other work and family commitments.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8749,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
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"text": "<p><strong>Virtually Impossible</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Doing a PhD is a full-time job that requires vast amounts of commitment in terms of mental effort and time. If the PhD research comes in number two position, then the results will never be very good. Also, not being available in the department to interact with your colleagues and supervisor will severely reduce the benefits you gain from the experience. Even if you finished the PhD, it may not be really worth anything, because you won't have been able to fully commit to doing it well.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, you may have staggering genius and be ridiculously productive and have a fountain of energy, and then it should be doable. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8750,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
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"text": "<p>Each situation is different, and it might be hard to generalise, but roughly speaking, you can see a PhD thesis as requiring about 3-4 years working full time. For some people it might be a bit less, for others a bit more, but that's a good average. In addition, a PhD includes of course \"technical\" work, but also \"academic training\", such as learning how to write a paper/thesis, presenting papers at conferences, supervising students, etc. </p>\n\n<p>Now, two cases are possible: either you already have some technical material from past work (e.g., you've been working 20 years in industry), in which case you have already completed some of the 3-4 years, and you mostly need to focus on how to output your work; or you don't, in which case, you still need to complete all of the work. </p>\n\n<p>I've known some people in the first case, and they managed to do a PhD while working full-time. They would usually come in half a day per week (in agreement with their company), and work at home in the evening. In the second case, it seems unrealistic to do both a full time job and a full time PhD. In some fields, you might be able to do a PhD over 7, 8 or even more years (I've heard about someone in history who wrote his PhD in 7 years, while working full time as a school teacher in the mean time), but it might not be the case everywhere. </p>\n\n<p>In addition to Daniel's answer, and including Sylvain's comment, I'd add that some French universities forbid starting a PhD without having some source of income, either through some funding or through a full-time job. Most funding forbid to have a full time job on the side, and if your full-time job is completely unrelated to your PhD topic, then you might have the green light from the administration, but not from the academic institution in charge of the PhD programs. </p>\n\n<p>EDIT: I somehow forgot to mention that the indicated amount time in my answer concerns <em>good</em> PhD, and by good, I mean a PhD that will allow you to get a job in academia afterwards, which mean not only getting the degree, but also getting good publications, good collaborations, good reference letters, etc. If you only care about the title, then you might find some universities happy to make you pay tuition fees to deliver you a diploma after a few years. If you want to go to academia later, then you need to be a <em>junior researcher</em> for a few years, in order to demonstrate that you might be worth hiring as a <em>confirmed researched</em>, and then later as a <em>senior researcher</em>. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8753,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
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"text": "<p>The big question here is what you mean by \"completing a PhD\". At one extreme, there's completing a minimal PhD: choosing the least demanding school that offers a PhD in your field, finding a flexible advisor, and doing only what is absolutely required to get the degree. This could be worth doing in certain circumstances: to develop greater expertise in a personal interest, or for certain sorts of career benefits. (For example, in the U.S. high school teachers with doctorates often receive extra pay, but they are not expected to do any research or really make use of the degree, so there is no need to write an outstanding dissertation.) Completing a minimal PhD can certainly be done while working full time in an unrelated job, if you are very diligent. That's a big if, though. The danger of working full time is that you won't make progress without constant effort. If you slack off or become distracted from your dissertation, nobody will complain since it's not your real job, and you can easily let months or years go by with very little progress. This is a common pattern, with an enthusiastic start that gradually trails off and never actually leads to a completed dissertation.</p>\n\n<p>At the other extreme, you might aim to become a well-known researcher and have an academic career at a top university or industrial research lab. This requires doing far more than the minimal requirements, which is almost impossible while spending 40 hours per week on something else, since you'll be competing against people who are similarly talented and hard working but have an extra 2000 hours per year. It's possible in principle, if you are really exceptional, but most people will just find it too difficult to catch up. For example, imagine a competitor who spends 60 hours per week for 5 years on a PhD. If you can spend only 20 hours after work, it will take you 15 years to put in the same number of hours. Even if you do this, you won't really be in as good a position, since many of your hours will have been spent 10-15 years ago and won't reflect recent research trends. The only way to catch up is to work harder or more efficiently than your competition, and that's difficult if you are competing against the smartest, most diligent people in your field.</p>\n\n<p>Most paths lie somewhere between these extremes, but generally closer to the second case (since all academic or research jobs are very competitive). I would not recommend holding a full-time job while working on a PhD unless you have very modest goals for what you intend to do with the PhD.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8759,
"author": "Nick",
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"text": "<p>I am doing that right now. I have a full time job and am working on a PhD in Computer Science. It is definitely possible, but has been the hardest experience of my life. I am past the hardest part and am wrapping up my first publication. I've also been at it for 3 years (already had my masters degree), so it's taken me much longer to get to this point than it would be for a full time student.</p>\n\n<p>It has been extremely stressful and you can kiss your life outside of work+school goodbye. You will also need to be very good with time management and be aware that over the course of several years, there will be life events that pull you away from school.</p>\n\n<p>When I was deciding whether or not to do it, I vastly underestimated the amount of time and energy required. I'm very glad I stuck with it so far, but I have to say, if I had an accurate picture of the workload I probably would have opted against it.</p>\n\n<p>You need a huge amount of dedication to the goal in order to pull this off. If you have only a casual interest in the degree, then you will probably fail. I think I remember somewhere that the graduation rate for PhD's is around 50/50. Add a full time job on that and the odds are against you. But it is absolutely possible to overcome that with enough effort.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8762,
"author": "Anon",
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"text": "<p>I have done it and do not recommend it. While I did not require an extension of the time required, working a full-time job will generally prevent you from travelling to conferences and from establishing contacts essential for success. You are more likely to end up in a backwater than a vital research area. You become less identified with your research than with your work, which in my case is involves specializations often considered necessary within academia and which are remunerated well outside of academia, but which have low academic value themselves. It has been a struggle changing this perceived identification--I might as well attempt to retrain Pavlov's dogs. </p>\n\n<p>Consider yourself fortunate to have access to academia.stackexchange.com. My relatives were unaware of the commitments involved and provided well-meaning but uninformed advice (\"you're smart enough\"), not recognizing that scheduling has to be considered independently of ability, effort and experience [see Decio Coviello, Andrea Ichino and Nicola Persico. <a href=\"http://www.nber.org/papers/w16502\">Don't Spread Yourself Too Thin: The Impact of Task Juggling on Workers' Speed of Job Completion</a> NBER Working Paper No. 16502]. Employers often don't recognize or choose not to recognize the independence of these factors either, so I cannot blame my relatives for bad advice. Most of all I blame myself. I am not proud of the outcome. I had published a paper in the beginning in graduate school, but left the field. It was a mistake not to build on early successes, but the distractions of full-time work made it difficult to absorb the right lessons at the right time.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8763,
"author": "dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten",
"author_id": 440,
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"text": "<p>During the first year of my doctoral studies I had no departmental support and kept myself indoors and fed by working about 2.5 part-time jobs.</p>\n\n<p>Put bluntly that situation was not sustainable: it was physically wearing me down notwithstanding that I did <em>nothing</em> but work, study, eat and sleep.</p>\n\n<p>Moreover, later in my studies I needed to devote <em>more</em> time to school than I did that first year. Perhaps there are exceptional individuals that could manage it, but if you are merely smart and productive you should not count on managing.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8764,
"author": "Hawk",
"author_id": 6416,
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"text": "<p>That heavily depends on your PhD mode, if you have to attend classes it would almost impossible, if your PhD just a research then that will be between you and your supervisor unless the university is hiring you as a full-time researcher, I am working on my M.Sc. the first year I had to attend classes and it was impossible to find job, even my part-time job at the time was hard to handle, however, once I've started my research phase recently, I could find a full-time job which I'm starting tomorrow. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8765,
"author": "Sylvain Peyronnet",
"author_id": 43,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43",
"pm_score": 3,
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"text": "<p><strong>That's possible in some fields, impossible in others</strong></p>\n\n<p>I am in TCS, and I know of several high school teachers who obtained a PhD in TCS after a few years. Basically, they were able to work 1 full day on week-end for their research + a few hours during the week. Of course they needed more than 3 years to graduate, but this is possible.</p>\n\n<p>My wife is in history/archeology, and many (more than half of them) PhD students work full-time in library or other places since there are very few fundings. We have friends who graduated after 10 years. In this field it is difficult for those who work full-time in a place unrelated to their studies since access to old sources is needed for doing research. Most of these students took their holidays to go to libraries/museums/field archeology places in foreign countries.</p>\n\n<p>I have relatives in plant biology and in animal biology. It is impossible to complete a PhD in these fields without working full time in a lab. Indeed, most of the time is spent in doing heavy experiments, with living things, which means being available when needed.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8771,
"author": "Andy Novobilski",
"author_id": 6417,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6417",
"pm_score": 4,
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"text": "<p>I was able to complete my PhD while working full time as a consultant. Based on that experience ...</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Have a mentor that's done it, preferably one at the school you're thinking about attending. A lot of the 'for profits' have very interesting models for keeping students on track. For me, it was someone who remains an important mentor in my life. Prior to applying, I spoke with her and she mentioned she earned her PhD while working full time as a consultant and then provided some sound advice and encouragement.</p></li>\n<li><p>Some programs do a better job then others at scheduling graduate level courses so they don't conflict with normal working hours. You might have better luck with a metropolitan university or one that accommodates non-traditional learners.</p></li>\n<li><p>There is a trade off related to there only being 24 hours in a day. The university experience includes many talks and presentations that enrich all scholars, whether or not the scholarship being presented relates to your area of expertise. The more flexibility you can find in your work schedule to take advantage of these unique opportunities the better you'll be for it.</p></li>\n<li><p>Plan 2-3 hours out of class for every hour in class except during final project time. Then, plan lots more. Also, the academic calendar and many industry calendars are tied in subtle manners. The client wanting a project completed before everyone goes on varying summer breaks means extra work during final project time for classes.</p></li>\n<li><p>Have a fairly good idea of what you want to study and/or who you would like to study with sooner rather then later. Find out which professors are able to graduate their students in a timely manner. A lot of time can be spent trying to figure out what you want to write about, and that is time that could be spent either writing or working towards the end goal of graduation with PhD and job still intact.</p></li>\n<li><p>Have a detailed plan/schedule for your day once you transition from classwork to dissertation work. Practice the plan the last semester you're taking classes. Stick to the plan, even when the alarm goes off at 4am and you were up until 2 taking care of something else.</p></li>\n<li><p>Some might be luckier, but for me, for both my master's thesis and my PhD dissertation, I had to scale my work hours way back - 6 months for Masters and 12 months for PhD - to be able to produce work at the level I was demanding of myself. This is something that needs to be planned for re material needs.</p></li>\n<li><p>If you have responsibilities to others (spouse, parents, significant others, kids, some combination of) make sure they're on board as well. I am grateful for the 2 am bottles fed to children as I read through thousands of lines of code because I was up anyway. I'm also forever grateful to my teachers and committee members who understood the work-school-life balance issues and worked with me to be as helpful as was fair.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Finally, know there are a lot of us that viewed earning a PhD as an important milestone in the senior part of our careers. For me, it led to a teaching position in a regional public university that was more rewarding and fun then I had imagined. Hang in there, take it a day at a time, and enjoy what you're learning. Best of luck!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8793,
"author": "user9492",
"author_id": 6436,
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"text": "<p>I'm doing it now. The big issue for me was learning how to balance school work with the rest of my life. That's something that needs some thought prior to beginning your program. </p>\n\n<p>Make sure your significant other is TRULY onboard. School takes a lot of time, and resentment can build, if otherwise.</p>\n\n<p>Know how much you can take. I was taking two courses a semester in order to satisfy a university requirement. It was killing me. I'm only taking one course a semester now, but I'm much happier than I was.</p>\n\n<p>Understand how long your coursework stays valid. Coursework only lasts for several years, so plan accordingly.</p>\n\n<p>Make sure your faculty will give you the attention that a full-time student receives. In some programs, part-timers are second-class citizens. Not good.</p>\n\n<p>Try and graduate prior to the fall semester. Appointments usually begin at the beginning of the fall (winter) term. Don't want to wait too long for a position to show up.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 8853,
"author": "vainolo",
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"text": "<p>Possible: yes - I personally know two persons who did it. The question is if YOU can do it, not if its possible. If you want to finish your PhD, I'm sure you will somehow get the time to finish. But if you are doing your PhD just to get the title, then you will probably not finish it.</p>\n\n<p>Edit: After 7 years, the last 4.5 of them working full a full time job and raising 4 kids, I managed to finish my PhD. So yes, it's possible :-)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 11587,
"author": "Community",
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"text": "<p>Definitely possible, with a bit of planning and scheduling.</p>\n\n<p>I am in the field of atmospheric physics - my research involved a considerable amount of experimental work and field studies, my timetable and deadlines have been and still is (as I am just completing the research) largely based on a <em>full time equivalent</em>. My full time job is, for the most part, unrelated (high school teaching). I know it has worked, because I am finishing my PhD and have been published multiple times before schedule (2.5 years).</p>\n\n<p>What I have found is that I had to have an 'adaptable' schedule, as things changed week by week. My tasks were broken into </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>long term, or semester goals, these were decided at the beginning of each semester.</li>\n<li>weekly goals, the smaller steps that make up the long term goals.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Making <em>contingency plans</em> for the weekly goals is beneficial, for if something goes wrong, there is always a backup.</p>\n\n<p>Make absolutely certain your supervisors/advisors <strong>fully understand</strong> what your duties are in your paid job and what time requirements are needed. Also, what I found worked was making my workplace aware of the study commitments.</p>\n\n<p>What may sound counterintuitive is to give yourself regular study-breaks - once again, be adaptable in this.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 63657,
"author": "gman",
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"text": "<p>Yes it is possible. Just passed my Viva in the last week after submitting at the end of September. I found that in the lead into submitting that I was almost full-time working on the thesis. This may just the way it is or down to my poor time management in the build up. If possible store up your holiday days to use for this final write up period. In the last month I was probably working a day and a half and doing my thesis write up ever other waking hour. </p>\n\n<p>--</p>\n\n<p>I would hope that it is not impossible as currently I am in the third year of my part-time PhD and hope to complete it. </p>\n\n<p>Some background info: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>I work full-time 5 days a week (9 to 5)</li>\n<li>PhD is in History (completely unrelated to my work)</li>\n<li>PhD is self funded</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>A number of factors need to be considered for what I think you'll need to be sucessful in obtaining a PhD.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Time Management. You will need to have a fairly regimented time plan that you can stick to so as to ensure a steady workflow. Just to sum up my weekly time spent on my PhD (and this can always vary depending on other commitments.) About 4 nights a week 6pm to about 10.30pm, Saturday 11am to about 10pm and Sunday about 1pm to 7.30pm.</li>\n<li>Regular meeting with your supervisor. In my own experience about once every 4-5 weeks is enough. A good hour meeting can really refocus your work and every 4-5 weeks means you don't go to long procrastinating or mulling over an idea. Also in this time frame would also have sent a couple of emails. Also I work in a family business so this also gives me the flexibility to be able to arrange meetings with my Supervisor at working hours times.</li>\n<li>Get writing as early as possible. In my first year I had got down about 15,000 words of a draft thesis. Now at the end of the day I may half of that in the final thesis it is a good habit to get into. Set yourself weekly, monthly targets. Sometimes you might get sidetracked, like if you have to prepare a conference paper etc but writing early and often can keep you motivated.</li>\n<li>Be prepared to make sacrifices. For example my last 4 holidays were either solely for research or a mix of holidays and research. (I shouldn't complain too much as I was able to go abroad for these trips.) Also though you are probable going to see less of family etc.</li>\n<li>But also be prepared to take some time off. Don't feel guilty if you go for a night out with friends or take a weekend away from it all. Sometimes you will come back to your PhD work rejuvenated from the time off.</li>\n<li>Don't underestimate the support of your family, friends and colleagues. Most people will want you to succeed and will give you much moral and practical support along the way.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Is it too much work and stress?</p>\n\n<p>It is definably a lot of work, but I would like to think so far it is not to much work. Be aware that your university will possibly have many support structures in place for PhD students. Every year my university run workshops on time management, dealing with stress, how to write a thesis etc. Personally I don't think the stress would be any more than say working 2 jobs but that said I think everyone deals with stress differently.</p>\n"
},
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"text": "<p>It is possible, as this is how I did my PhD - but it really depends on what subject area you do.</p>\n\n<p>I had a fulltime job (and a part time one as well) - so was working for a combined 44 hours a week. I can say, looking back, it is <strong>very hard work, but can be very rewarding</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>I would do my work and set aside 3 nights per week (when I wasn't working the 2nd job) for about 3-6 hours in the evening. Also, by the nature of my PhD, I worked on it over the weekend (usually between 25-40 hours a week).</p>\n\n<p>A few things I found helped\n- A genuine and in-depth love for the subject is extremely important.</p>\n\n<p>Other things that workd for me were:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Making weekly goals</li>\n<li>Making both my workplace and university adviser aware of what I was doing (I was fortunate that both were supportive).</li>\n<li>Giving myself some time off (every 4th weekend, I did something else).</li>\n<li>Communication when things started to get on top of me.</li>\n<li>Maintaining adequate sleeping, eating and exercise patterns.</li>\n<li>Making time for friends and family - even had a regular poker and chess night.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Also, I coincided some of my leave requests with conferences and meetings with the advisor at the lab (not all the leave time though).</p>\n\n<p>An added bonus are <strong>transferable skills</strong> gained from the research that can benefit your job, and vice versa - examples can include: time and resource management, research skills etc</p>\n\n<p>My stress levels weren't particularly high at all - but that, of course, won't be the case with everyone.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 141743,
"author": "mbaytas",
"author_id": 53285,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53285",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is possible. But the actual benefit you get from your PhD program is correlated with time spent.</p>\n\n<p>A PhD is not only a title. In the process of obtaining a PhD, you get opportunities for studying a particular topic in-depth, establishing yourself as a member of a particular community of scholars (e.g. by publishing in certain journals or going to certain conferences), acquiring ancillary know-how relevant for an academic professional, etc.</p>\n\n<p>You might complete a PhD program and earn the title, without gaining these other qualifications. And that may be good for you. But when it comes to, for example, landing an academic job, you may be competing with people who have invested more in their development as academic professionals.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 141744,
"author": "Daveguy",
"author_id": 94626,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94626",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This will depend on your program and the policies associated with it. At least where I go for undergraduate studies, it is not allowed because being a PhD student is a full time job and having two full time jobs concurrently would make your life a living hell.</p>\n\n<p><em>But</em>, there are exceptions. There is this one student who was literally the smartest human being I've seen, who came for undergrad, finishing a double major in only two years, then went straight to being a Computer Engineering PhD student at the same school. He's so madman smart to the point that the department granted him an extension, allowing him to work a full-time job at a local software company <em>in addition</em> to pursuing his PhD because he's so bright even for a PhD student.</p>\n\n<p>Unless you are that type of madman smart, I would take the peanuts style of living for the sake of preserving sanity. But maybe you might be that type of exceptional.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/20 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8747",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6394/"
]
|
8,755 | <p>From Nature's "<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/get_published/">Getting Published with Nature</a>" guidelines:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nature has space to publish only 8% or so of the 200 papers submitted each week, hence its selection criteria are rigorous. Many submissions are declined without being sent for review.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This leads me to the question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Question</strong>: What proportion of the papers submitted to Nature actually get sent for review?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It'd be nice to know if, in general, the "biggest hurdle" in getting a paper published in Nature would be simply getting it to the reviewers.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 8756,
"author": "walkmanyi",
"author_id": 1265,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1265",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><strong>Edited:</strong> <em>I found a better answer to the question, the original indicative answer is left below.</em></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature05535.html\">Here</a>, we have a statement from December 2006 regarding the number of submissions, rate of editor rejections and ultimate acceptance number. While slightly outdated, the acceptance rate of <em>Nature</em> journal does not seem to fluctuate widely between 2006 and 2012 (always around 7-8% of submitted articles), hence I believe the number is significant and valid:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>Nature</em> receives approximately 10,000 papers every year and <strong>our editors reject about 60% of them without review</strong>. ... ... In the end we publish about 7% of our submissions.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>From that we have, that in 2006 about <em>40% of submissions were sent out for peer-review</em>.</p>\n\n<p><hr/>\n<strong>The original indicative answer:</strong><br/>\nNot a precise answer, but can be indicative also for <em>Nature</em> journal itself: <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v11/n9/full/nmat3424.html#/f1\">here</a> is a statistics of a decade 2002-2012 of publishing in Nature Materials in numbers, various stats are presented. Specifically <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v11/n9/fig_tab/nmat3424_F1.html\">this graph</a> shows that the ratio of peer-reviewed vs. submitted manuscripts is floating around 13%. Out of peer-reviewed, about 60% get accepted. This shows that their first filter, the editorial decision whether to review at all, is extremely aggressive and in fact is <em>the</em> filter in the publishing process.</p>\n\n<p>According to a note <a href=\"http://network.nature.com/groups/askthenatureeditor/forum/topics/721?page=1\">here</a>, Nature Neuroscience sends about 30-35% papers for peer-review.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 175592,
"author": "itsmisterbrown",
"author_id": 147031,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/147031",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>These data are a bit more recent and specifically from <em>Nature Microbiology</em>, one of the newer NPG journals.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We sent out slightly over 20% of submitted manuscripts for review and our acceptance rate was 9%. Of those 126 manuscripts accepted, 86% were published after 2 rounds of review or fewer, while 14% needed to be seen by at least 1 referee a third time.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>noting this, it looks like the largest of the hurdles is indeed getting sent out for peer review.</p>\n<p>source: <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2016259\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2016259</a></p>\n"
}
]
| 2013/03/20 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8755",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/879/"
]
|
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