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19,708 | <p>I want to send an email to a professor to inform him that I want to accept the offer of PhD admission and Research assistantship. But I do not know how to start email. Is the following good? if not, would you please recommend better phrase.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dear Professor,</p>
<p>I hope you are keeping well ....</p>
</blockquote>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19721,
"author": "penelope",
"author_id": 4249,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4249",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Congratulations on finding a PhD position :) When sending an acceptance e-mail to a professor, I would say the \"general\" rules of communicating with professors via e-mail apply.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Be polite, and extend thanks when appropriate, but don't overdo the social pleasantries.</p>\n\n<p><sub><sup>The polite part basically holds for any e-mail and live correspondence.</sup></sub></p>\n\n<p>I would say that \"I hope you are keeping well\" would be a bit unnecessary.</p></li>\n<li><p>Be short and to the point. Respect the professors time.</p>\n\n<p>Professors receive many e-mails a day, and are usually very busy. Saying what you want to say clearly not only shows respect for their time, but also makes it more likely that everything written will be carefully read.</p></li>\n<li><p>Do at least a basic <strong>spellcheck</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Especially in the beginning of a communication. It doesn't cost much time and effort, but could leave a bad impression.</p></li>\n<li><p>Do not attach big files unless explicitly asked for.</p>\n\n<p>Anything larger than a few MB should not be sent unless asked for (e.g. sending all your credentials / application papers when first contacting somebody is bad), and especially not to somebody who you are not collaborating with at the moment.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Beyond this, there is not much else. I already feel like it's hard to call any of these <em>rules</em>, they're just guides based on common sense. Just say what you need to say. I put and extended the comment by <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11192/user11192\">@user11259</a> here as an example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Hello Dr./Prof. Brain,</p>\n \n <p>I gratefully accept your offer of admission and research assistantship, and I look forward to working with you.</p>\n \n <p>(Please let me know about the next steps in the admission process I need to take.)</p>\n \n <p>Sincerely, </p>\n \n <p>user11259</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19731,
"author": "Father Ted",
"author_id": 14459,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14459",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Almost everyone who interviews attempts to present themselves, their accomplishments, and their personal objectives politely and submissively to the interviewer. </p>\n\n<p>Dear Professor,\nI hope you are keeping well ....</p>\n\n<p>Hello Dr./Prof. Brain,\nI gratefully accept your offer of admission and research assistantship, and I look forward to working with you.</p>\n\n<p>When you write \"I hope you are keeping well\" or \"I gratefully accept,\" you are subordinating yourself to your \"superior.\" </p>\n\n<p>This attitude is not \"academic,\" it is playing power politics or submitting to colonialism.</p>\n\n<p>The first thing you must do is read everything you can get your hands on your professor has published. Then select any aspect of the professor's writing that jumps up at you. Find something Professor Brain has written, and ask her one or more questions about her assertions. SHE MUST RESPOND--SHE CANNOT HELP BUT RESPOND BECAUSE YOU ARE ACTIVATING THE KEYS TO HER PSYCHE. </p>\n\n<p>When Professor Brain responds, find a term or concept she mentions; and ask Professor Brain to elaborate. </p>\n\n<p>After you have had a continuing conversation with Professor Brain for several e-mail messages back and forth, you can discuss any procedural issues you like. But at that point in the discussion, you will have established where you stand, who you are, and how much you care. Do it properly, and YOU WILL BECOME THE SUPERIOR.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19755,
"author": "Maarten Buis",
"author_id": 14471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14471",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is very culture and person specific. My acceptance email was (translated from Dutch):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Harry:</p>\n \n <p>Sure. When?</p>\n \n <p>-- Maarten</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I do <strong>not</strong> reccommend that as a general style, but it was the right response in my specific case, as in the Netherlands (academic) titles are less important than in other countries and I knew that Harry (my advisor) was even more extreme in his insistence on informal and brief/terse communication. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/23 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19708",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11259/"
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|
19,709 | <p>A recent job posting at a British university has specified available openings at multiple levels: lecturer, senior lecturer, reader, and professor. However, it's not clear how to map these titles to American equivalents. For instance, where would someone who has finished up several years of an assistant professorship and is interested in moving into such a position be classified? Would it be as a senior lecturer or reader?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19719,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My impression is that: Lecturer and Senior Lecturer are roughly equivalent to an untenured, but tenure track Assistant Professorship in the US because both Lecturer and Senior Lecturer positions are full time, open ended positions. Reader is equivalent to a tenured Associate Professor and Professor is equivalent to full Professor. </p>\n\n<p>They aren't exactly equivalent however. Most places in the UK don't actually have what americans would think of as tenure, I think. </p>\n\n<p>The people that would be called \"instructors\" or \"lecturers\" in the US are non-tenure-track, contingent labor hired for one term or one year at a time and often not even full-time, although this varies. I don't know what the name of such a position would be in a UK university, or whether such positions are as common in the UK as they have sadly become in the States.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19757,
"author": "David Basanta",
"author_id": 7913,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7913",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I got my PhD in the UK and have been working in the US for the last 5 years. My understanding is that an Assistant Proffessor is basically a lecturer and a Full Professor corresponds to a Professor in the UK. Things get somewhat trickier in the middle though. A US Associate Professor could be translated as either Senior Lecturer or Reader but I would go for the latter.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19763,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Usually, lecturer is the lowest open-ended position (although there are exceptions), and professor is the highest one, everything in between can be quite specific. For instance, Swansea University is considering <a href=\"http://www.swansea.ac.uk/personnel/informationforstaff/academiccareerpathways/\">four different grades from 2013</a>: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Lecturer (replacing Lecturer Grade 8 and Tutor)</li>\n<li>Senior Lecturer (replacing Lecturer Grade 9, Senior Professional Tutor and Research Fellow)</li>\n<li>Associate Professor (replacing Senior Lecturer and Reader) </li>\n<li>Professor (that one at least is unchanged!). </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Each title comes with a set of expected criteria. In addition, a concept I've seen several times in the UK is the notion of <strong>academic pathway</strong>, which can characterise further the criteria for the positions. For instance, at Newcastle University, where I'm currently working, we have <a href=\"http://www.ncl.ac.uk/hr/assets/documents/academic_career_pathways_rjcb_290513.pdf\">three main academic pathways, with the corresponding positions</a>. In order to illustrate the different expectations based on the pathways, I included the expectations w.r.t. <a href=\"http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ukpsf\">the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF)</a>. I also include the <a href=\"http://www.ncl.ac.uk/hr/assets/documents/collated_with_starting_salaries_august_2013.pdf\">grade</a> (positions above G are usually open-ended, although there are exceptions). </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Teaching & Scholarship Pathway (the \"standard\" pathway): </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Grade E: Teaching Assistant (encouraged to become recognised at UKPSF Descriptor 1)</li>\n<li>Grade F: Teaching Fellow (be recognised at or be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 2)</li>\n<li>Grade G: Lecturer (likely to be working commensurate with the achievement of Descriptor 3 and are encouraged to work towards it) </li>\n<li>Grade H: Senior Lecturer (expected to be recognised at or be working towards UK PSF Descriptor 3)</li>\n<li>Grade H: Reader (be recognised at or be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3 or 4) </li>\n<li>Grade I: Professor (be recognised at or be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3 or 4)</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><p>Teaching & Research Pathway: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Grade F: Lecturer (should be recognised at UKPSF Descriptor 1 and be working towards Descriptor 2) </li>\n<li>Grade G: Lecturer (should be recognised at UKPSF Descriptor 1 and be working towards Descriptor 2) </li>\n<li>Grade H: Senior Lecturer (should be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 2 or 3)</li>\n<li>Grade H: Reader (should be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3)</li>\n<li>Grade I: Professor (should be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3)</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><p>Research & Innovation Pathway (since there is no teaching expected, UKPSF is not relevant):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Grade E: Research Assistant</li>\n<li>Grade F: Research Associate</li>\n<li>Grade G: Senior Research Associate</li>\n<li>Grade H: Principal Research Associate & Reader</li>\n<li>Grade I: Professor. </li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In other words, you should not try to translate the title, but instead understand where do you fit within the academic pathways of the university offering the positions. When it comes to teaching, it can be particularly useful to understand where one fits within the UKPSF, in order to match the corresponding title with the scheme used at the university. For instance, showing that you are working towards obtaining Descriptor 4 could be helpful to get a Reader position instead of a Senior Lecturer. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 43856,
"author": "Michael",
"author_id": 33355,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33355",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The UK Professor rank is quite a bit more selective than the US full Professor rank; it more closely matches a Distinguished or named Professorship. Most American full Professors would be classified as Readers or Principal Lecturers in the UK system. (Reader and Principal Lecturer are generally equivalent; the older UK universities tend to use \"Reader\" while the newer ones tend to use \"Principal Lecturer.\") Look at faculty lists of UK universities and see how few Professors there are.</p>\n\n<p>Many American Associate Professors would be placed at the Senior Lecturer rank, although some would be Lecturers. While the US hierarchy requires promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor after five to seven years, some UK universities have faculty (aka academic staff) who serve in the Lecturer rank for longer than seven years.</p>\n\n<p>American Assistant Professors would be placed at the Lecturer rank.</p>\n\n<p>These equivalencies are generalizations, of course. You may want to look at the distribution of academic ranks among the faculty (and their corresponding scholarly accomplishments) at the universities you're interested in.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 43870,
"author": "Michael",
"author_id": 33367,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33367",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Academic rank data for UK faculty (i.e., “academic staff”) are compiled by the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Table 11a at <a href=\"https://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3081\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3081</a> (bottom of the table) shows that of full-time faculty, 14% are Professors, 27% are Senior Lecturers or Senior Researchers, 52% are Lecturers or Researchers, and 7% are “other grades.”</p>\n\n<p>I assume that Readers and Principal Lecturers are included in the “senior lecturer/researcher” category, since the Reader and Principal ranks are not always used at the newer universities. (Note that these data are for 2007/08. The 2008/09 data seem to combine full-time and part-time faculty, and the more recent data require payment for access.) </p>\n\n<p>Data for US faculty are available in the 2014 Almanac of Higher Education (Chronicle of Higher Education) at <a href=\"http://chronicle.com.www.library.manhattan.edu/article/Full-Time-Instructional/148195/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://chronicle.com.www.library.manhattan.edu/article/Full-Time-Instructional/148195/</a>\nAmong full-time faculty, 24% are Professors, 20% are Associate Professors, 23% are Assistant Professors, 14% are Instructors, 4% are Lecturers, and 14% are \"other ranks.\"</p>\n\n<p>For a general overview, see the sources cited by William J. Moore et al. in “Academic Economists’ Pay and Productivity: A Tale of Two Countries,” which is freely available through Google Scholar. Moore et al. state, “For many years, the rank of professor in UK universities was reserved for a very select group and often there was only one professional chair per department and that person served as head of the department (Brown, 1963). .... To control costs, the UK system has placed limits on the proportion of faculty in the senior ranks (reader/senior lecturer and professor) at each university. Periodically, the University Grants Council and government have raised the senior limit in response to market forces (Bett, 1999). In contrast, most US universities do not place limits on the number of senior positions. As a consequence, the proportion of professors is much higher in the US than in the UK. Currently, less than 25 percent of UK academic economists hold the rank of professor (Blackaby and Frank, 2000).” This isn’t the best source, of course, but it came up right away in Google Scholar and it seems to address the question reasonably well.</p>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/23 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19709",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
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]
|
19,710 | <p>Recently my paper is reviewed (by a professor from independent third party) and accepted by a journal. But, my employer allows me to publish this paper only without its name there.</p>
<p>Publishing house is expecting affiliation for each author, i.e. I can not leave affiliation as blank. </p>
<p>What should I write as the affiliation?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19725,
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"text": "<p>As noted by <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3010/does-one-need-to-be-affiliated-with-a-university-to-publish-papers#comment17608_3010\">@mankoff in a comment</a> on <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3010/does-one-need-to-be-affiliated-with-a-university-to-publish-papers\">Does one need to be affiliated with a university to publish papers?</a>, you can use \"Independent Scholar\": </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Here is a recent paper published by someone affiliated as \"Independent Scholar\": <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00171.1\" rel=\"noreferrer\">dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00171.1</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 27804,
"author": "Wrzlprmft",
"author_id": 7734,
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"pm_score": 3,
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"text": "<p>For completeness’ sake, I mention that another option would be to give your private address as an affiliation.\n<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-247X(89)90081-4\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Here</a> is an example for this. <a href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/1205.5520.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Here</a> is another one (affiliations are at the end of the paper)¹. <a href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.01596\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">This one</a> only lists the city and country part of the address².</p>\n<hr />\n<sup>\n<p>¹ Credits to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20036/jessica-b\">Jessica B</a> for pointing this one out.<br />\n² Credits to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/101067/cheersmate\">Cheersmate</a> for pointing this one out.</p>\n</sup>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/23 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19710",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
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]
|
19,716 | <p>My situation is as follows: I spent my undergraduate time at one university and recently entered grad school at another university (both of them in Germany, my field is theoretical computer science).</p>
<p>For my Bachelor's thesis, I worked (for about two months or so) on a topic that had not been considered at the time.</p>
<p>My former supervisor, although he proposed the topic, is not (at least not for the last 30 years) actively doing research in that specific area, which resulted in me ending up quite on my own. However, I could get some new results. They were, of course, not groundbreaking, but sufficient for the undergraduate level and the amount of time spent working on the thesis.</p>
<p>So we submitted the results to a (medium-to-low-ranked) conference in the subfield.
The reviews were quite mixed. Two were rather superficial: One positively and recommending acceptance, one negatively and recommending rejection (actually, the latter one was quite rude).</p>
<p>The third one, however, although recommending for rejection, was quite encouraging. The reviewer liked the idea of the paper, while the results we obtained did not suffice for publication at conference level but (his words) were rather suited for venues for work in progress, e.g. workshops in the area.</p>
<p>I actually agree with the third reviewer, for it would have been quite a surprise for me if a second-year undergraduate would have been able to produce publishable work on his own just like that, so I am not that disappointed.</p>
<p>My problem is that I do not plan on pursuing that specific subarea of research in the future and neither does my former supervisor. However, given that I ultimately aim for an academic career, I think it might be worth some efforts to get something published. Additionally, at my new university, nobody really cares about the area of the thesis, so chances to get some expert here to work with in order to improve the results are rather bad. This means that if I want something to happen, I would have to invest a vast amount of time and thoughts into a topic I don't want to pursue in the future, instead of entering new areas of research as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>So: Should I improve the results and finally get them published or should I invest the time for acquiring knowledge in a different area (and start publishing later) and abandon the work that has been done (giving away a possible publication) (w.r.t. the impact of the outcome on my academic career)? </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19718,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
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"text": "<p>There is no clear answer to this question because it depends on several factors. First, it has to be said that it is a shame if good research is not published. If you get encouraging comments and know what to do to meet certain criteria you can probably assess how much work will be involved and then if you are willing to put in that effort. having something published is never wrong, even if it is not in the field you want to pursue. If you are not interested or do not want to spend the time then it will be harder to generate the necessary improvements.</p>\n\n<p>So, if you want to pursue a career in research, having something tangible published is always a plus. It is a question if you want to take a chance to \"waste\" your time; if you think it is worth it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19720,
"author": "Fomite",
"author_id": 118,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>However, given that I ultimately aim for an academic career, I think it might be worth some efforts to get something published.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This alone makes me thing that it may be worth the effort - attempting to enter an academic career becomes <em>vastly</em> easier with some publications under your belt. Don't be discouraged by negative reviews - more than one of my papers has gotten reviews back that are essentially \"This paper is bad, and the authors should feel bad\" that end up seeing publication.</p>\n\n<p>I would continue to pursue your paper for at least another round or two of submissions, but given it's not strictly speaking what you're interested in, if it becomes a burden either in your classwork or in publishing something you <em>are</em> interested in doing (I had a paper become just such a problem) return it to the shelf.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19724,
"author": "badroit",
"author_id": 7746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>So we submitted the results to a (medium-to-low-ranked) conference in the subfield. The reviews were quite mixed. Two were rather superficial: One positively and recommending acceptance, one negatively and recommending rejection (actually, the latter one was quite rude).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think having a positive review suggests it might be worth factoring in the comments and trying another submission elsewhere, assuming you're confident that the paper is technically sound.</p>\n\n<p>Just to build on the other answers, I can see three options (with decreasing awards):</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Work hard on the paper (if possible) and submit it to <strong>a conference with a similar level of competition</strong> (or perhaps even greater).</p></li>\n<li><p>Work a little on the paper and submit it to <strong>a good/relevant workshop</strong> or as <strong>a short paper to a conference</strong>.</p></li>\n<li><p>Submit the paper \"as is\" to <strong>the <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/\">arXiV</a> e-print server</strong> (which won't be peer-reviewed, but it will be publicised and the ideas will be marked as yours).</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>At your stage of career, taking any of these options would help open doors for you later on. Higher options open more doors. </p>\n\n<p>Which strategy is best really depends on the depth of contribution in the paper (ideally you could discuss this in person with a more senior academic in roughly the same area). Note also that the options are not mutually exclusive.</p>\n\n<p>The most generic advice would be to take option 3 now and submit the preprint (since it doesn't preclude submitting to a workshop/conference), work as hard as you can and try submit to another conference; if the reviews are similar, submit to a workshop or as a short paper. This strategy might involve more work but tries to maximise your profit.</p>\n\n<p>A fourth option (which may or may not be feasible) is to take option 3 and then try find somebody else to collaborate with: someone to advise/guide you and share some of the workload in extending the paper towards an improved conference submission.</p>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/23 | [
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|
19,726 | <p>I received a rejection letter from a relatively high-impact journal based on the feedback from three reviewers. After I reviewed their comments, I feared that their comments were biased and am not sure if I should appeal. The comments from all three reviewers are all negative, but one is more bias than the other.</p>
<p>The first reviewer said that I need to carry out a lot more experiments that will involve a lot of cost, which is not practical. However, in the comment, they only suggested one additional experiment that needed to be done. The second reviewer complained about the quality of the figures, but I think they are fixable. The third reviewer complained about the novelty of the paper but I think they did not carefully read and understand the paper.</p>
<p>Is it still possible to write an appeal if all three reviewers were negative about the paper since their reason to support rejection wasn't strong?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19728,
"author": "Fomite",
"author_id": 118,
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"text": "<p>You seem to be conflating \"Bias\" and \"Negativity\". Bias would imply that your paper was being reviewed unfairly, either because of its content, or its authors - if they were known or divined by the reviewer.</p>\n\n<p>It's entirely possible, and fairly standard, to get negative reviews you disagree with. When it comes down to it, your paper was rejected, and the only time I've ever seen appeals to the editor work is for things that are flagrantly egregious and wrong, rather than just \"This is weak and I disagree with it\". And even then, it's usually a long shot \"What's the worst that could happen, they say no again?\" play.</p>\n\n<p>I suspect your time would be much better spent addressing the comments of the reviewers within the paper and revising it, rather than appealing to the editors.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19730,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>@Fomite's answer is spot on. I would like to expand further on the differences between a <strong>biased</strong> review, a <strong>lazy</strong> review, a <strong>significantly erroneous</strong> review, and a <strong>negative</strong> review, and which do/don't warrant an appeal.</p>\n<p>The examples given in this post come from a contest held by the always-excellent <a href=\"http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2014/01/fake-review-contest-vote.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">FemaleScienceProfessor</a>. Quite a few are real reviews, or based on real reviews.</p>\n<h3>Biased Review</h3>\n<p><em>Does</em> warrant an appeal, if it's the reason your paper was rejected. Often editors are smart enough to identify a biased review on their own, and will simply discount its advice.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2014/01/fake-review-contest-entries-13-16.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Example #1</a> (here, the reviewer clearly lets his personal goals get in the way of a fair review):</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I am afraid I cannot support the publication of this paper. The authors present an idea that I myself have had for some time and just haven’t gotten around to writing it up yet. I think that when I write my paper, it will be better than this one. These authors would be well advised to wait until my paper is published, and then they can cite it.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2013/12/fake-review-contest-entires-5-8.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Example #2</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Since the author is a woman, I had lowered my expectations accordingly, but the author did not even meet those. Even though I have never done experiments in my life and have never used any of these techniques, the experimental results presented were completely misinterpreted in my distinguished opinion.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<h3>Lazy Review</h3>\n<p>Does <em>not</em> warrant an appeal. If all of your reviewers give you a lazy review, you need to do a better job exciting the reader (thereby motivating the reviewer to carefully read the whole paper in detail because it's such compelling reading.) (<em>Very</em> rarely, this can be an indication of a bad journal/conference and you should find a better place to submit your work).</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2014/01/fake-review-contest-entries-19-22.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Example #1</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The topic of this paper is not of critical importance to furthering knowledge.</p>\n<p>Sent from my iPhone</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2013/12/fake-review-contest-entries-1-4.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Example #2</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Paper Title: Linear and Nonlinear Methods to solve XXX</p>\n<p>Review: "Why is the approach limited to linear methods, and the author does not propose nonlinear methods?"</p>\n</blockquote>\n<h3>Significantly Erroneous Review</h3>\n<p>(per JeffE's suggestion)</p>\n<p>This is a distinct case from the Lazy Review. It does <em>not</em> include the case where the reviewer "erroneously" concludes that your work is not interesting or useful, just because you disagree with this conclusion. It does <em>not</em> include the case where the reviewer says "I am concerned about X" and you believe you've adequately addressed X.</p>\n<p>It <em>does</em> include cases where a review is affected by a significant factual, logical, or mathematical error. This <em>is</em> grounds for appeal.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2013/12/fake-review-contest-entires-5-8.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Example</a> (the reviewer is mistaken as to the meaning of "<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_%28disambiguation%29\" rel=\"noreferrer\">graph</a>" here):</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Paper title: Graph analysis of System ABC shows differences in A-B connections during Condition X vs. Y</p>\n<p>Review: This paper uses a novel method to study ABC system dynamics. However, I don't know anything about graph analysis so I'm going to interpret the paper through the lens of a different analysis method I do know something about. Thus the only constructive feedback I can give is that this paper is a poorly written explanation of a structural equation model of XYZ - the conclusions drawn make little sense given the data, i.e. they frequently refer to "graphs" but all I see are these pictures of circles and arrows.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>(A minor error is highly unlikely to be the reason for a rejection. Therefore, for a minor error, an appeal is not likely to be successful - an appeal will be useful only if the point of appeal was the reason for the rejection. In the case of a minor error, I would advise to use the reviewer's mistake as an opportunity: to clarify in the text points that might lead people to mistakenly discount your results, or even to decide to ignore the criticism because it's not a common enough misconception to be worth addressing in the paper.)</p>\n<h3>Negative Review</h3>\n<p>A review that does not fit into the above categories, but still criticizes your paper, is just a negative review. It is <em>not</em> grounds for an appeal. It should be taken as constructive criticism, and you can use it to make your paper better.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19739,
"author": "Alexandros",
"author_id": 10042,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10042",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Short version. <strong>Do not do it</strong>. </p>\n\n<p>Long version: You have to understand there is something wrong with the paper. One negative review might be unlucky / unjust. But three negative reviews? That means that the paper needs some serious fixing before re-submitting again. </p>\n\n<p>The other possible problem with your paper might be that you are aiming too high. Maybe your paper is actually good but not good enough for a high impact journal. That would also explain why the third reviewer just \"brushed off\" your paper without really reading it. Your paper simply might not be interesting enough for such a journal. This is a phase that many researchers have in the beginning of their research. Living in our research \"bubble\", we believe our research and results are amazing, when simply they are not. It takes some research maturity to actually understand the real \"size\" of our results.</p>\n\n<p>Also based on your previous questions on this forum and your problems with your advisor it is obvious that you lack guidance. You are simply not objective enough to judge the merits of your research and you need someone \"wiser\" to judge your work hard but in a fair way. But please humble down. Do not start a war with the world. Your advisor was \"bad\" and you had to fight back. Now the reviewers are bad? This is really not happening. Just improve your work, your presentation of the work and if your work is good enough it will be published accordingly. If it is not published, it is nobody's fault but yours. You should at least start considering the possibility that you might actually be wrong and the reviewers are right. After all, they are more experienced than you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19742,
"author": "Nobody",
"author_id": 546,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>The second reviewer complains about the quality of the figures, but I think they are fixable. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You fix the figures and then re-submit. Not a problem.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The third reviewer complains about the novelty of the paper but I think s/he did not carefully read and understand the paper.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You write to explain why you think your paper is novel. You might still have a chance.</p>\n\n<p>Now,</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The first reviewer say that I need to carry out a lot more experiments that will involve a lot of cost, which is not practical. However, in the comment, s/he only suggests one additional experiment that need to be done. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In my opinion, this is a <strong>strong reason for rejection</strong>. I think the reviewer has doubts about the results you have in the paper. You truly need to do more experiments to convince the reviewer and <strong>other readers</strong> the results in your paper are correct.</p>\n\n<p>My suggestion is to <strong>do more experiments before you consider the appeal</strong>. Not only you want to convince the reviewer but also yourself that your paper is good. You don't want to publish a bad paper, do you?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19852,
"author": "Nick",
"author_id": 14577,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14577",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I suspect that the reviewers are responding to an unconvincing paper. A paper that does not convince them. While you have not reported evidence of their bias (or explained the reason that you suspect that they are biased), I find myself somewhat biased by the quality of the English used in your posts.\nIf the language in your paper, matches that in the posts, then it is unlikely to convey a convincing presentation of your research - however good the research might be. If you think this is a contributing factor to the rejection (or is responsible for the bias), then the best approach may be to enlist the assitance of a Technical Author or Technical Translator, to help you turn your paper into a convincing one for an English Language publication.\nAlternatively you might find it easier to publish your research in a different langauge journal.\nPlease understand that I'm observing, not criticising. Your English is much better than my own efforts in any language other than English.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19853,
"author": "Shadur",
"author_id": 4550,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4550",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One thing I haven't seen commented on in the other answers or comments is that if you appeal claiming that their review was biased, you're poisoning the well -- you'll have accused three known and (presumably) respected reviewers of unprofessional conduct. If they didn't dislike you before this, they'll certainly have cause now.</p>\n\n<p>From what you're saying, this seems to be your first submission and you yourself admit that at least some of the objections they have to your paper are fixable. Try fixing those and resubmitting. <strong>Don't start throwing around accusations of bias until you have a clear pattern, or you'll quickly develop an unwelcome reputation of your own.</strong></p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/23 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19726",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10694/"
]
|
19,727 | <p>With apologies for the attention-grabbing title: of course I am not actually asking you to tell me when I, specifically, should schedule my defense. But I have heard very plausible-sounding rumors that the time of day at which a PhD candidate holds their thesis defense can have an impact on the difficulty and even the candidate's chance of passing. For example, scheduling a defense just before lunch may mean the committee will ask fewer and less involved questions, because they will be anxious to finish so they can go eat. Similarly defending in the mid afternoon may lead to less complex questions because everyone is tired - or alternatively it could cause a <em>more</em> difficult defense because the committee members are in no hurry to get back to work. And so on; the rumors abound.</p>
<p>What I would like to know: is there is any research backing up the idea that there are better or worse times of day for a candidate to schedule their thesis defense? Any anecdotal experience from people who have sat on multiple PhD committees?</p>
<p>Of course I'm not claiming this should be a major influence on when one schedules their defense, but people do talk about it, so (as a scientist!) I can't help but wonder if there's any truth behind the idea.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19745,
"author": "mako",
"author_id": 5962,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5962",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, I have never heard of any research backing up the idea that defenses will be more less successful based on the time of day the defense is held.</p>\n\n<p>Second, the best time to defend is <em>whenever your committee can actually make it</em>. When I defended, my goal was to get get at least three of our four committee members in same physical room (one non-chair member could attend via video). Within a six-week window, I felt lucky to find <em>any</em> two hour-window to schedule the defense.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, <em>you are overthinking things</em>. Pour your energy and concern into the content and remember that if your committee is encouraging you to defend, it's because they think you are ready. Surprises are unlikely.</p>\n\n<p>Of course if you are in the enviable position of having to choose a time of day, I personally like defenses at the end of the work day so that you can head out with others — e.g., students, family members, maybe even committee members — for a celebratory post-defense drink or meal.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 117459,
"author": "SecretAgentMan",
"author_id": 94518,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94518",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Whatever time of day all your committee members can all get together</strong>. (Forgive the short answer but that's really it from my perspective)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 117514,
"author": "Richard Erickson",
"author_id": 33210,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33210",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/117459/33210\">This answer</a> is the one I would accept. But, I know of one notable exception.</p>\n\n<p>A friend in my PhD grad program choose his defense time for late morning (around 10 am) on a Tuesday. That way, his public defense would get done around 11 am and his closed door defense with only his committee would take less than a hour because his major advisor and several committee members always went to a local restaurant for their \"Taco Tuesday\" special around 11:45 am. </p>\n\n<p>This worked for him, but my major advisor made me pick a different time when I tried to repeat the trick. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 117515,
"author": "E. Rei",
"author_id": 88875,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/88875",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I had mine at 1 pm. It finished at 3:30, which gave me one and a half hours to make all the necessary corrections and then get to the pub.</p>\n\n<p>In retrospect, 1 pm was a good time. I'm not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. 1 pm allowed me to roll out of bed at 10 am, have a good full English breakfast and have an hour just to flick through the thesis and post <a href=\"https://xkcd.com/1403/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://xkcd.com/1403/</a> on social media channels. If you're a morning person that's always super alert at the time of 9 am, then try to schedule it as early as possible in the morning.</p>\n\n<p>Really, you know what time of day you personally feel most alert and responsive. Given the flexible working nature of a lot of PhD students, you've probably settled into a working routine that works well for you by now. My recommendation would be to plan it around that.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/23 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19727",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/236/"
]
|
19,734 | <p>Some universities have a <em>School of Something</em> and some a <em>Department of Something.</em> Are they identical and just two common terms for the same thing, or they are different in the university structure?</p>
<p>My impression is that a <em>School</em> is generally larger than a <em>Department.</em> Probably, <em>school</em> is an academic unit between <em>department</em> and <em>faculty.</em> Maybe, a faculty has a few schools, and each school hosts some departments.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19740,
"author": "user14382",
"author_id": 14382,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14382",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In many universities School is used for units that confer a professional accreditation (e.g. School of Law). In contrast, Departments are units that refer to specific areas of knowledge that do not end up as a professional qualification (e.f. Department of Philosophy). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19748,
"author": "mako",
"author_id": 5962,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5962",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The term <em>school</em> and <em>department</em> are going to mean different things at different institutions. Generally speaking, the term <em>school</em> refers to a larger unit within a university than <em>department</em> and many schools will contain multiple departments. For example, <em>Harvard University</em> contains a <em>School of Public Health</em> (and other schools) which contains a <em>Department of Epidemiology</em> (and other departments).</p>\n\n<p>That said, names are often not even used uniformly or consistently <em>within universities</em>. For example, at the same organizational level as the <em>School of Public Health</em> at Harvard is the <em>Faculty of Arts and Sciences</em> which runs both <em>Harvard College</em> and the <em>Graduate School of Arts and Sciences</em>. My current university uses the concept of an academic \"unit\". Many units are \"schools\" (e.g., the <em>School of Public Health</em> or the <em>Information School</em>) but others are not (e.g., the <em>College of Arts of Sciences</em>). There is also an organization within the university called the <em>Graduate School</em> which cuts across and oversees work in different units and schools.</p>\n\n<p>Sometimes, smaller \"schools\" will not contain separate departments. Sometimes, a large department in a large school might be larger than entire schools elsewhere in the university! Sometimes, the terms might be used interchangeably. In many other cases, they won't. In some cases, one or both terms might not even be used at all!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19758,
"author": "gman",
"author_id": 12454,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12454",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In line with Benjamin Mako Hill's answer there may be no uniformity between different institutions. In general the following hierarchical structure is applied to universities in Ireland.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>University Name</li>\n<li>College Name</li>\n<li>School Name</li>\n<li>Department Name</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So in my case in my <a href=\"http://www.nuigalway.ie/colleges-and-schools/\" rel=\"nofollow\">university</a> as a History Student it would be the Department of History in the School of Humanities at the College of Arts, Social Science at my university.</p>\n\n<p>In this scenario the School is made up of a number of Departments of specialised study and the college is made up of the schools that would fall under its remit. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 84507,
"author": "Rakesh Kumar",
"author_id": 68857,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/68857",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>School is a specialized one, which caters to only the studies beyond UG i.e Graduate and Doctoral one. Schools generally do not have UG studies</p>\n\n<p>Deptt caters to dominatingly UG studies as well ....</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19734",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
]
|
19,737 | <p>Take the course code PHYS 3054 or PHYS 354. The physics department doesn't offer 54 courses at the 300 or 3000 level.</p>
<p>I imagine some universities subscribe to a set of common best practices for course numbering. So I suspect that there might be an answer that applies to the numbering systems of a number of institutions. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19738,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I suspect it really depends on the university. But in my university, it represents the subfield in the department within which the course is offered.</p>\n\n<p>For example (I'm in electrical engineering), EE X1X might be courses on power systems engineering, EE X2X on communication networks, EE X3X on signal processing, EE X4X on electronics...</p>\n\n<p>But in my department at least, there are enough misnumbered courses (for \"historical reasons\") to confound anyone who doesn't know it and is looking for a pattern.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19741,
"author": "Henry",
"author_id": 8,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>ff524 mentions two of the major factors---subfield identification and historical reasons. Even without a rigorous system of subfield identification, there's typically a lot of spacing in course numbers so that unrelated courses don't typically have adjacent numbers (and indeed, there's plenty of space between unrelated courses).</p>\n\n<p>This goes along with numbering sequences sequentially---520 and 521 might form a two course sequence, in which case you don't use 522 or 523 because someone might get confused and think they're part of the sequence. And then later, when you retire 520 and 521 and combine them into a single one semester course, you might call it 522, to remind people it's similar, but you don't use the same number so people can easily tell which course someone took. This leaves a lot of historical detritus (you want to wait a long time before ever using 520 for something new), which leads to lots of widely spaced numbers.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19737",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9263/"
]
|
19,747 | <p>I am a PhD student at an engineering department in Europe. At my department, and at most others in my university, research papers are the main benchmark of a scientist’s productivity. It seems like this is also true in other institutions.</p>
<p>For instance, last year the faculty considered the number of journal papers for each department a key performance indicator, and when a PhD student is at the end of his/her studies, he/she is often judged by colleagues based on how many papers they have published. </p>
<p>There is no threshold of a number of papers required in order to obtain a PhD or a senior position, and conference papers are also relevant and encouraged, but counting journal papers is the key point. In the end, a PhD thesis is just the sum of published papers during the PhD studies, and itself is not that relevant.</p>
<p>Naturally, I feel pressured to publish and to have lots of papers to support my upcoming degree. It seems to make sense - if you have a result, why wouldn't you publish it in a journal? Why wait for the thesis, when it's not really published and nobody will read it? And after all, submitting research to journals and conferences is also beneficial for getting a review of the research from someone who is outside one's department.</p>
<p>However, recently I realized that a friend of mine, also an engineer in a related field, received a PhD from another university with 0 journal papers, and just 1 conference paper where she was a second author. Her university is well regarded, and on almost all world rankings in the top 100. She was accepted for a post-doc position at another top university. I have seen a few other similar cases, and other people just not caring about papers.</p>
<p>I cannot judge the work presented in her thesis, but I found this shocking, and it made me reconsider. How can one be well regarded with hardly any publications? Why would anyone choose not to publish (not counting the thesis as the bare minimum)?</p>
<p><strong><em>Hence my questions:</em></strong> How relevant are (journal) papers in terms of valuation of a fresh PhD, and for their future career?</p>
<p><strong>EDIT</strong></p>
<p>I would like to thank everyone for their reply, especially @Superbest for the edit (sorry, I am not a native English speaker), I didn't expect that my question would generate such a discussion.
I'd like to clarify some things:</p>
<ul>
<li>In my field conference papers are less relevant than journal papers, and are used to present research in progress in order to get comments and advices.</li>
<li>The graduate didn't publish a revolutionary paper which is worth like 10 other average papers. We are talking about a zero. I see no reason why would anyone choose NOT to publish at least one paper about a PhD.</li>
<li>Even if the graduate had very good recommendations, why would anyone in academia, which depends on publications, hire someone without any publication record? Why would a professor think that the graduate would suddenly start to be productive?</li>
</ul>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19749,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Published papers (either as journal or conference papers, depending on your field) are an important metric in measuring a candidate's output. However, one important thing to note is that many graduate students publish a substantial fraction of their papers close to the end of their degree programs, so that their publication record may look quite sparse. More importantly, the publications may not be published in time for them to actually graduate, but may be finished up in the period immediately afterward. For instance, I wrote six papers as a graduate student, but only two were published while I was a student—the other four appeared the year after my degree was awarded. This is an entirely normal state of affairs.</p>\n\n<p>Another thing worth noting is that, at least in engineering (and particularly engineering in Europe), a substantial fraction of projects are financed by industrial contracts. In such cases, the primary \"fruits\" of the project represent proprietary information which cannot easily be published. Under such circumstances, publications become quite difficult, and the quality of the work becomes much more significant.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, while publications are important, at the level of a postdoctoral position, they are equally as important as the interview and letters of recommendations from colleagues. Somebody who comes to me highly recommended from people I know well and trust are much more likely to get the position than someone with the same credentials and quality of recommendations from people I don't know as well. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19751,
"author": "David Ketcheson",
"author_id": 81,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p><strong>How much people rely on your publication record to judge you depends on how much they understand your research</strong>. The further they are removed from your area of study, the more they will depend on \"the numbers\". People who work in your subfield will base their opinion on the actual quality of your work and on your reputation in the community. Fortunately, the most important evaluations (i.e., reference letters) usually come from people in your subfield.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Not all publications are created equal</strong>. Let's say I'm hiring a postdoc. Candidate A has 10 publications with almost identical titles all in <a href=\"http://www.davidketcheson.info/2012/10/16/low_quality_journal.html\">low-quality journals</a>. Candidate B has one publication that describes a significant breakthrough and is published in a good journal (I don't mean Nature or Science, just a journal that is widely read by people in the field; e.g. (in my field) <a href=\"https://www.siam.org/journals/sinum.php\">SINUM</a> or <a href=\"https://www.siam.org/journals/sisc.php\">SISC</a>). Who would I hire? Almost certainly candidate B. Indeed, Candidate A's publication record may actually be a negative factor.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Publications matter most in academia.</strong> A mathematician friend of mine took a job at Google after graduation. They didn't really care about his publication record; they hired him because he had created the Cython language, which was purely incidental to his research. If you go the academic route, your publications will be a critical factor in your evaluation for getting a post-doc, a tenure-track job, and tenure. If you go to industry, they may not matter so much.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Publishing norms vary by field.</strong> In mathematics, for instance, people may sit on a result for years while they refine it or try to develop it further. Senior people may just put their papers on the arXiv. In other fields, it seems like new developments <em>must</em> be published within a week, and you're expected to write vast numbers of papers each year.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19754,
"author": "nivag",
"author_id": 14115,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14115",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I generally agree with the other answers so far. I will just add that as a PhD student myself my supervisor put it like this:</p>\n\n<p>Its not strictly necessary to publish many papers as a student but it makes writing and defending your thesis much easier. Your thesis must show some novel work. If you have some peer reviewed papers then this work has clearly already been accepted as novel, which basically ticks that box. Secondly you base your thesis on your papers. </p>\n\n<p>Indeed I know some people whose thesis is basically 3-5 papers stapled together with an introduction and conclusion and maybe a bit of editing to make it flow better.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19747",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13332/"
]
|
19,750 | <p>I let a student associated with me (but who is not really my PhD student) submit a paper to a fairly-local meeting (some people do come from abroad). Because I'd been tasked with supporting the student, I let him put my name on the paper and also helped with the presentation, but I found the content unconvincing. However, he was exploring an area that I knew little about and had little interest in, so I'd hoped he'd get reviews & (if accepted) discussion that would give him more guidance than I have been able to. </p>
<p>In fact, no one seemed as sceptical as I was of the work, and it got into the meeting and was presented both in our department and at the meeting with if anything positive comments. </p>
<p>However, yesterday I got an email from a postdoc who was cited in the paper (the student compared himself to the postdoc's work, the meeting's papers are on a website, Google Scholar alerted the postdoc) and was incensed at <strong>the paper's low quality and inaccuracies</strong>. I think the postdoc is being a bit paranoid, but is broadly right on the technical issues. I have also previously noticed that one of my more-successful colleagues I've been collaborating with recently had a less tolerant attitude towards student publication than I do. </p>
<p>I'm wondering if I should put more effort on quality control. The cost would be possibly stifling a student unnecessarily if I'm wrong, and allowing fewer students to have fewer presentation experiences since I'm already working flat out keeping up with giving feedback on their journal articles & dissertations.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19752,
"author": "Wiliam",
"author_id": 481,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/481",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think we can distinguish two situations here:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>The work is not convincing because it is still <strong>preliminary</strong>. In this situation, even if the results might prove wrong latter, I would see no objection to send the student to present a talk or a poster about it, as long as the preliminary nature of the work is clearly stated. I might give him the opportunity to meet other researchers, find new ideas or even build collaboration based on these first results.</p></li>\n<li><p>The work is not convincing because the <strong>results are flawed</strong>, the protocol is not robust or the techniques might not be adequate. In such situation, as @ff524 said, I would advise not to let the student present the work in public meetings. It will be unproductive both for the student and the advisor (as you experienced).</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19753,
"author": "David Ketcheson",
"author_id": 81,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my opinion, since you aren't the supervisor, it's not your role to stop the student from publishing. If you are an expert in the subject of the publication and you don't think it's strong, you should advise them not to publish and explain why, but that's as far as you should go.</p>\n\n<p>However, you \"let him put [your] name on the paper\" -- a paper which, by your own admission, you don't know much about! Regardless of whether the co-author is a student, and regardless of the quality of the paper, the behavior you're describing is <strong>wrong</strong>. In my field, it's actually <strong><a href=\"http://www.ams.org/about-us/governance/policy-statements/sec-ethics\">forbidden by at least one of our professional societies</a></strong>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>All the authors listed for a paper . . . must have made a significant contribution to its content.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is generally construed as meaning you should have done a significant part of the research <strong>and</strong> a significant part of the writing.</p>\n\n<p>Now, violating this rule for a paper that you don't even have a high opinion of seems not only unethical but foolish.</p>\n\n<p>I realize this is a harsh-sounding answer, but you have posted the question anonymously so I hope you don't mind me being frank.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19775,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My answer is, to what end? What purpose are you serving by allowing such work to be published? The community does not benefit, as the work is subpar and (apparently) flawed. The student does not benefit, as (a) the experience is different from actual publishing with more rigorous review processes and (b) their reputation is tarnished. You receive no benefit for the same reasons.</p>\n\n<p>The only possible benefit I see is that the student gains experience in informal writing and presenting, which they can already gain through group lab meetings without the possible repercussions relating to their reputation. In short, this appears on all fronts to be a pretty bad practice.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19796,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a mathematician, I had the same first reaction to this question as several other answerers and commenters: It's wrong to be a co-author of a paper that is just someone else's work. But I need to temper that reaction with the fact that other fields have rather different standards. In particular, in some (maybe even all?) of the experimental sciences, it is standard practice for the head of the lab to be a co-author of everything that comes out of that lab, whether or not the head actually did any of the research or even understood the research. As far as I can tell, the rationale for this is that the head of the lab gets the grants that make everybody else's work possible. The question here suggests that this sort of thing might be involved here (\"I'd been tasked with supporting the student\"), so co-authorship might not be quite as crazy or as unethical as it looks to a mathematician. Even in the experimental sciences, though, the head of the lab is (as far as I know) expected to make sure the work is good (and is held responsible if it is not).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19805,
"author": "user14470",
"author_id": 14470,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14470",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Sorry to break the \"don't answer your own question\" norm here, but I want to float an answer. First, I <em>did</em> contribute to the paper (suggested direction of research) and the system presented <em>does</em> work. My issue was whether this new system was a real academic contribution, which I left up to the academic process to determine.</p>\n\n<p>Overnight, the postdoc who initially complained a) admitted that the idea was great if not entirely well executed and b) told me he's found a new prestigious collaboration writing a better paper. In my mind, this is how academia is supposed to work. So my proposed answer is \"yes\". I leave it to you folks to vote up or down.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19750",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14470/"
]
|
19,756 | <p>This question may be too wide or in some perspective perceived as unclear but covers a key issue (for me) in academia, namely, <em>academic writing</em>.</p>
<p>Students start their academic career with varying skills in writing. Often, and this the case in my department, there is no thought through progression to go from beginner through novice and proficient to expert level (the latter perhaps in graduate school) or some such scale. </p>
<p>My question is therefore how to get students to progress in appropriate steps through an education. In other words what is a reasonable progression of writing skills through an education. I am looking for suggestions of appropriate expectations for, say, an annual or semester wise increase in difficulty or complexity of exercises with the aim of learning academic writing skills through an education including graduate school.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19768,
"author": "gman",
"author_id": 12454,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12454",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a grad-student I really appreciate this question. As a Humanities student most of our writing is text. I found even at under-graduate level a substantial amount of time could be taken up going over the same writing issues (usually after assignment hand-backs) over a number of course modules. It amazed me that there was not a module to at least give the basics in academic writing. </p>\n\n<p>I have noticed though in Ireland(my home country) that there is a number of Academic Writing Centres starting to set up in Universities. At the moment they are voluntarily drop in centres where you can get advice on your writing.</p>\n\n<p>In the case of the <a href=\"http://www.library.nuigalway.ie/awc/\" rel=\"nofollow\">university</a> I attend </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The AWC offers free one-on-one tutorials on essay writing for NUIG students. Last year, AWC tutors helped over 500 students to overcome recurrent problems with grammar, punctuation, spelling, and essay structure.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>They also run group workshops at certain times of the year for different levels within the University, so some are aimed at under-graduate and some at post-graduate. Normally at these workshops you bring some of your writing and as a group you give each other advice on improving our writing style.</p>\n\n<p>Finally they run an online course which works in the following way.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Online students are assigned weekly writing tasks and editing tasks. Editing tasks consist of specific questions which assist students in providing constructive feedback rather than criticism. Guided editing tasks help students to re-evaluate and improve their own writing. Students then rate the usefulness of the critique they received. In this way, points are awarded for effort rather than existing ability or experience. The entire process is strictly anonymous. The AWC takes on a supportive role for the duration of the course. Students receive weekly readings and emails. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>A number of other universities also have a academic writing centre in place. See <a href=\"https://www.ucd.ie/library/supporting_you/support_learning/librarylink/writing/\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a> and <a href=\"http://ctl.nuim.ie/student-learning/academic-advisory-0\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a></p>\n\n<p>While this is by no means a perfect model because it requires the student to want to participate it is a step in the right direction for improving a persons writing skills.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19772,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my lab, we were required to produce three-to-four page white papers, including figures, every time we presented at a lab meeting (approx. every 6 weeks).</p>\n\n<p>This had two significant effects. Firstly, it forced the student to write down their progress, which was invariably ridiculously useful when the student actually started writing their thesis. Staple together a few of these sections and the methods, and often a good part of the background, was written for you.</p>\n\n<p>Secondly, it gave everyone a chance to practice their professional writing in a casual lab setting. No one felt threatened and everyone improved. We would even review the articles being written by the lab professor, as there were always improvements we could suggest to him as well.</p>\n\n<p>I strongly recommend this practice.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19773,
"author": "Raydot",
"author_id": 13535,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13535",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p>HAVE them write. A lot of times students don't write because they simply aren't asked to. (Keep in mind the corollary to this is you're going to have to do some reading!)</p></li>\n<li><p>Have them research! Many times students don't make the leap on their own between reading, writing, and then (hopefully) thinking that's incredibly obvious to those of us who have devoted our lives to teaching. I've seen a lot of lightbulbs go on when I've been able to help a student make the connection between research, writing, and work output.</p></li>\n<li><p>As gman started to say above, if your school has an academic writing center go there and ask lots and lots of questions. Usually people who work in these departments have thought far more deeply about your question than you might ever be able to. They might even be able to give you exercises or assign a tutor to monitor your class. At the very least, make sure the students know the writing center is there and that you expect them to use it!</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19804,
"author": "user14382",
"author_id": 14382,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14382",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>We start by getting all students evaluated by our Teaching & Learning Centre. TLC staff will recommend an action plan for students that are struggling with their writing skills. Additionally, in most courses we ask students to write essays and summaries of any lab work, which is returned with specific comments on the quality of writing. After all this, most students will <em>somewhat</em> improve their writing; however, many will never be great at it. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19808,
"author": "Artem Kaznatcheev",
"author_id": 66,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To build on eykanal's answer, if you run a lab then have a <strong>lab blog</strong> and encourage or require your students to contribute to it. It is a <a href=\"http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/literally-psyched/2013/04/12/why-grad-schools-should-require-students-to-blog/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">great way to <strong>structure writing</strong> and <strong>improves research</strong></a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/4754/66\">learn how to <strong>communiate</strong> research</a>, <a href=\"https://math.stackexchange.com/a/678854/13668\">encourage <strong>active learning</strong></a>, and even <strong><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/738/66\">improve technical writing</a></strong>. The public nature of a blog, puts a bit of pressure on the student, and you (or a senior student) should help them edit their first couple of posts, but afterwards give them freedom to roam. This is especially useful during thesis writing, since a student can package partial progress into posts. Finally, by requiring students to blog, you let them <strong>build a <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/616/66\">web presence</a></strong> and let them make connections in the field that don't depend exclusively on your klout or their papers (which usually are few and concentrated toward the end of the PhD for many students).</p>\n\n<p>As a graduate student, I chose to <a href=\"http://egtheory.wordpress.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">blog</a> on my own and it has been an incredibly rewarding experience. It has allowed me (along with other parts of my online activity like G+ and SE Q&As) to develop papers faster, feel part of a bigger community, and make <a href=\"http://cancerconnector.blogspot.ca/2013/07/a-visitor-resulting-hackathon-and-nice.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">new contacts that lead to new independent collaborations</a>. I can't recommend it enough.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19756",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394/"
]
|
19,761 | <p>I am considering doing a PhD however I was surprised to find out that there are no set standards for a PhD in research. </p>
<p>For example, one study could test 500 patients, while another, tests only 10, yet both students are awarded their PhDs. Then there are retrospective studies, which are easier than starting a new study. Finally, there are some PhDs that are purely research and then there are some that are based on essay writing.</p>
<p>However, at the end of the day, the degree is the same, Doctorate of Philosophy, it does not mention anything special for those endless sleepless nights of analysing data and being able to pull off amazing statistics, as compared to a student of any other field. </p>
<p>So my question is, why bother going the tough route when it makes no difference at the end of the day, unless there are careers out there <em>outside of academia</em>, that specifically asks you, what type of PhD do you have?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19766,
"author": "badroit",
"author_id": 7746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Why are there no standards for awarding PhD degrees?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There are certainly standards for awarding PhD degrees. I think you mean to ask why are there no grades? It's a subtle distinction perhaps but an essential one.</p>\n\n<p>If somone holds a PhD, what does that tell you? It tells you that the university awarding that PhD feels that that person is capable of pursuing independent research in the area of the thesis. Different universities may have different ideas on how to measure that, but typically a PhD will have to have published at least one peer-reviewed contribution (often more, sometimes many more).</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>However, at the end of the day, the degree is the same, Doctorate of Philosophy, it does not mention anything special for those endless sleepless nights of analysing data and being able to pull off amazing statistics, as compared to a student of any other field.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Your degree does not mention anything special (e.g., a grade). If you work harder than your peers, you may end up with the same degree on paper, but your head will contain lots of special information useful for lots of jobs, and your publication record will show lots of papers with lots of citations useful for lots of jobs </p>\n\n<p>In other words, <strong>your grade is your demonstrable research output</strong>. </p>\n\n<p>How else would you propose to grade or differentiate or categorise different PhDs? How could those grades be compared across different supervisors, different examination boards, different universities or different areas?</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>So my question is, why bother going the tough route when it makes no difference at the end of the day, unless there are careers out there outside of academia, that specifically asks you, what type of PhD do you have?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>A PhD is a requirement of many jobs in academia, and some research positions in industry. Typically PhDs are competing with other PhDs for positions, hence holding a PhD in-and-of-itself, is just the entry point. After that, candidates will be judged on what they did during their PhD and afterwards. If you spent \"<em>endless sleepless nights of analysing data and</em> [pulled] <em>off amazing statistics</em>\", you'll have lots to talk to the hiring committee about.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19767,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Whenever someone acts impressed by a PhD, I tell them tongue-in-cheek that a PhD is nothing more than a testament to that persons patience... they were willing to remain a graduate student long enough to earn the degree.</p>\n\n<p>More accurately, though, a PhD is simply an indicator that someone is able to <em>think</em>. You're completely right; research topics will vary tremendously from field to field, and one person's degree and/or experience in grad school is likely completely different from the next's. However, both of them demonstrated their ability to reason through a problem, their willingness to put their nose to the grindstone and get the research done, and their ability to communicate their results to a third party (their thesis committee).</p>\n\n<p>Regarding fields asking about your PhD, I joke with people that (the following is all true) my undergrad is in psyschology, my undergrad specialization pre-med, my graduate lab electrical engineering, my research topic neuroscience, my actual PhD degree biomedical engineering, my postdoc in biology, the stuff I actually enjoy statistics, and with all that my two industry jobs have been in banking and health insurance operations. How you sell yourself is a function of your salesmanship more than your actual credentials.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19780,
"author": "Fomite",
"author_id": 118,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Focusing on just a small part of this question, my answer is this: Because 'academia' is a wide and diverse place, with many different skill sets, questions and challenges.</p>\n\n<p>You're also focusing too much on the \"letters\" in a PhD. You don't get a PhD - you get a PhD <em>in something</em>. You'd no more expect a PhD in Epidemiology and a PhD in Theoretical Physics to have done the same work than you would expect a BA in Math and a BA in German to have done the same coursework.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For example, one study could test 500 patients, while another, tests only 10, yet both students are awarded their PhDs. Then there are retrospective studies, which are easier than starting a new study. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Consider the following studies:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>A study of the biomarkers associated with an extremely rare neurodegenerative illness that effects mostly children, doing full genome sequencing on the small number of prevalent cases of the disease (10), extensive personal histories and environmental sampling, etc. to identify potential drug targets.</li>\n<li>A study of the risk factors, survival times, etc. for ventilator-associated pneumonias in a large group of community and academic hospitals, pulling all incident cases within the hospital for the past year (500), sorting through the medical records for each, and applying some cutting edge statistical techniques to deal with some of the messiness of the data - interval censoring, competing risks, and non-independence of patients.</li>\n<li>A study of exactly 227 animals to understand the pharmacokinetics of a new tetravalent vaccine, specifically looking for markers of immune response and nephrotoxicity.</li>\n<li>The development of a complex, agent-based model of the human gut, applied to both inflammatory disease, and the post-antibiotic exposure proliferation of certain bacterial species that impact the lining of the intestinal wall.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Which of these doesn't deserve a PhD based on their sample size, or whether or not they were a retrospective or prospective study (also, a largish 'Citatation Needed' around retrospective studies being easier - they're <em>faster</em> but not necessarily easier)? And these are just examples I can think of off the top of my head that fit in the somewhat wide field of \"Biomedicine\". Heaven forbid we throw in Mathematics or Physics or Religious Studies. One of them doesn't even have patients, and is entirely separate from the \"Prospective/Retrospective\" distinction.</p>\n\n<p>\"Why are there no standards for awarding PhD degrees?\" (which is, incidentally, not true. There may be no <em>universal</em> standards, but universities often have them on the school or departmental level) has the same answer as \"Why don't we publish everything in the same journal?\"</p>\n\n<p>Because academia is wide and diverse, and only describes a certain aspect of the pursuit of knowledge, not a specific set of methods, study populations, or even study questions.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19792,
"author": "Superbest",
"author_id": 244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/244",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Why bother going the tough route when it makes no difference at the end of the day?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It does make a difference. It's very unlikely that there will be a job where they ask you if you have a PhD, and when you say yes, tick that checkbox, move on and never mention it again.</p>\n\n<p>A PhD is the single biggest unit of research experience for most young researchers (for older ones, usually their recent publications are much more relevant than their PhD). Therefore, if you apply to any job (academic or industry) where the PhD is a relevant qualification, you will be expected to discuss your thesis work at length. The employer will then judge the quality of your work, and based on that they will decide whether they will hire you over all the other PhDs. Of course, some employers are incompetent, and are influenced by the \"brand\" (whether you got your PhD from a famous place/advisor), but that's another matter.</p>\n\n<p>So, no, if you slack off and get an \"easy\" PhD, it will not impress anyone who matters.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I was surprised to find out that there are no set standards for a PhD in research. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is because such standards are unnecessary. Advisors are senior scientists who know well that if they let a student they supervise graduate with a garbage PhD, it will hurt their reputation when one day someone says \"<em>Wow, what a horrible thesis! Who supervised this?</em>\". So advisors will naturally try to make theses as good as possible.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>unless there are careers out there outside of academia, that specifically asks you, what type of PhD do you have</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Indeed, there are many careers where they would ask all sorts of details about your PhD (as I've also remarked above), both in the industry and academia, assuming it's relevant - Wall Street, for instance, has a habit of sometimes hiring people based on the fact that they have a PhD (in a quantitative field) alone without caring much about what the thesis is about.</p>\n\n<p>Consider that usually, hiring a PhD is pretty expensive - even postdocs make about $50k annual, and in the industry it goes to $60k-120k. Why would anyone pay that much money for a PhD holder, and not even bother to ask the details of their PhD?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19814,
"author": "Sensebe",
"author_id": 10403,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10403",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Enjoy your studies! don't worry about paper certificates or PhD. The endless sleepless nights will be amazing, because you have spent them without sleeping, as you were more involved in it (research) than in your relaxed sleep. </p>\n\n<p>If you are more concentrated towards what those certificates mean, that implies you are studying for marks not for joy that you get by studying. I hope you will not be the one who studies for marks, but indeed who studies to enjoy, to know the world better. What more do you want? Go ahead, enjoy your studies.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19761",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14478/"
]
|
19,762 | <p>When I'm teaching an advanced graduate class where the source material is drawn primarily from current research papers, there isn't a canonical text per se, and a typical lecture, while loosely structured, also involves discussion that might help clarify the papers. </p>
<p>In such a setting, asking students to scribe lectures serves a useful purpose. Students hopefully remember the material better after writing it down, and are forced to be more precise. And classroom discussion can be captured for posterity. </p>
<p>But I don't think I've found a way to implement this effectively. My current mechanics include:</p>
<ul>
<li>students are assigned as scribes between a week in advance, and on the day of the lecture</li>
<li>I provide a latex style file, and also an example or two of prior scribe notes. </li>
<li>students are expected to produce a first draft within a few days of the lecture (lectures are once a week), and the hope is that a good version of the notes is on the website a week after the lecture. </li>
<li>these are "seminar" classes: they are 1-credit, and the only work the student needs to do to earn a grade is one or more scribes and (sometimes) one lecture. </li>
</ul>
<p>What happens is that the initial draft is usually abysmal, and it either takes me a really long time to wrestle the document into shape with the student, or I give up and do it myself, which also takes a lot of time. </p>
<p>Are there useful practices that can improve this workflow ? Is my timeline unrealistic ? </p>
<blockquote>
<p>p.s To avoid confusion, when I say <strong>scribe</strong> (which is common
parlance in my area) I don't mean a literal recording of minutes but a
synthesis of material that if well done becomes something resembling
lecture notes.</p>
</blockquote>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19765,
"author": "Marc Claesen",
"author_id": 7173,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7173",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>students are expected to produce a first draft within a few days of the lecture (lectures are once a week), and the hope is that a good version of the notes is on the website a week after the lecture.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The timing seems a bit strict. If the students have a lot of projects going on they may not (want to/be able to) make time for this. Maybe this is one of the reasons you are getting abysmal first drafts.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19776,
"author": "mkennedy",
"author_id": 5711,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5711",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Pay a student who's not taking the class, and preferably has already taken it, to capture the lecture and discussion. That person will be able to focus objectively on what's happening.</p>\n\n<p>Alternatively videotape or do an audio recording that the scribe can use. </p>\n\n<p>Ask everyone in the class to provide their notes to the scribe. </p>\n\n<p>The scribe will be focused on trying to capture questions, answers, comments, etc. which means he or she may find it difficult to acquire a deep understanding of the material. The scribe also may find it difficult to participate in class because they're too busy writing down/typing everyone else's questions and comments. </p>\n\n<p>I've performed as a 'scribe' as a graduate student--I was a TA and sat in the class to help deepen my understanding of the material and to know what the students were being taught. I was then able to expand on (and correct some equations) the material during lab sessions. I had to pay close attention, but having previously studied the material made it a lot easier. </p>\n\n<p>I've also taken minutes for a subcommittee that I'm on occasionally. I find it tremendously difficult to switch focus between trying to capture everything important and actually participating through providing information or asking questions. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19782,
"author": "Adrienne",
"author_id": 13729,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13729",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My experience with transcription:\nOur university uses a lecture capture system (<a href=\"http://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-camtasia-relay-website.html\">Camtasia Relay</a>) that creates a video file with the instructor's screen plus the audio of the instructor's lecturing. We recently hired students to take the software's \"best guess\" captioning for a single course and create good closed captions. \nTo our amazement, every 50 minutes of lecture took roughly <strong>EIGHT HOURS</strong> to transcribe.</p>\n\n<p>So my main answer is yes, your timeline is likely too tight.</p>\n\n<p>You may want to look into some sort of lecture capture system.</p>\n\n<p>My socratic teacher self also thinks that students creating their own summary of the discussion is likely more helpful to deep learning than receiving a transcript. \nOr have students create a wiki or google doc for each seminar with the main figures (codes? equations?) provided for them to discuss. A different student could be in charge of each day's wiki setup and upload the appropriate discussion points and edit the final product and report to you on class participation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19788,
"author": "Not Quite An Outsider",
"author_id": 10390,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10390",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You might find a \"delta-scribing\" process more effective. To prepare, provide (enough copies of) a rough outline of the material to be covered in that lecture, ideally in the order to be covered, with a blank box next to each bullet point, and space somewhere (perhaps on a different sheet of paper).</p>\n\n<p>Now the goal of the transcription team is to record the actual order of points presented. The order presented is recorded in the blank box, usually by a number. The space is used to record as much of the additional words needed for the lecture, including particularly cogent phrases describing the material, as well as subpoints of discussion. This may save just enough work on the part of the team that all the additional (\"delta\") salient points brought up in lecture can be covered.</p>\n\n<p>If the lecture is actually more of a free-flowing discussion with many people introducing new points, it might be good to have each two-person team operate so that one transcribes the points the other person presents. Perhaps a brief discussion as how to best transcribe the point might be in order, so that there is a \"secretarial consensus\" of sorts.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19789,
"author": "James T",
"author_id": 13203,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13203",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have taught a similarly structured graduate course, and seen a similar wide variation in quality of the notes. I did assign scribes at the beginning of the class, and allowed them to swap as long as everyone ended up scribing at some point. I feel like this helped in matching students to topics they were particularly keen on.</p>\n\n<p>For the future, I've considered having all the notes be in a wiki. There would still be a \"main\" scribe for each topic, but everybody (including me) could contribute to any page. They would be assessed on their overall contribution, which is trackable from the wiki history. The assessment structure is pretty much pass/fail anyway, so I'm not sure it makes much of a difference, but I like the idea of rewarding students for helping each other. Also, it means it's OK for each wiki page to start out as <em>very</em> rough notes, potentially from many hands: it can be progressively rewritten. This avoids the problem where the original scribe gets stuck at an early stage - if they missed something, or misunderstood something, then they can get help on it, but still be able to make a meaningful contribution to the end product.</p>\n\n<p>This may not be suitable for you if you have a lot of mathematics or diagrams (depending on choice of wiki software), or if you would prefer things to be in LaTeX for other reasons.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19791,
"author": "Joshua Dance",
"author_id": 14498,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14498",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a student, I would send out a Google Doc to each member of my class. We would all collaboratively take notes together. This was, of course, chaotic and messy but it worked very well. The anxiety about 'missing something while writing down something else' was alleviated with more eyes and ears on the subject. When the lecture already had or could have followed a written structure, (say a review sheet or an agenda for the day) we would base the document off this, which worked even better as people would focus on one topic or bullet point and make sure that was finished and fleshed out as the rest of the class raced on. </p>\n\n<p>However, this does mean giving your students an additional task. Sometimes, as has been noted, active note taking and learning don't go well together. However, student lead, collaborative note taking is another option, if maybe not the best one. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19793,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You have the following goals:</p>\n<p>(I) Every student will transcribe at least one lecture.</p>\n<p>(II) The transcribed lecture notes will be of a sufficient quality to be useful to the other students, and ideally to be posted somewhere for others to access.</p>\n<p>(III) You don't want to spend an unreasonable time writing or correcting the notes yourself.</p>\n<p>In my opinion these are three worthy goals and any one of them is attainable, but as a set they are probably incompatible with each other. So you may want to choose (not necessarily once and for all, but depending on the course) which of these worthy goals is the worthiest and prepare to sacrifice one or both of the others. In more detail:</p>\n<p>If you prioritize (I), then the emphasis is placed on creating a learning experience for the students. If you do this you will find that the variation in the quality of the note-taking will be amazing. I have seen this in students' written notes over the years. Yesterday a student left his notebook in my office. I flipped through it today to try to figure out who it was. It is one step above chicken scratch: for instance, he is writing on lined paper but his mathematical expressions and equations only stay within the lines about half the time: he can have a "written slope" which is only slightly larger than -1. (This helped me identify the student, who does not have his name written down anywhere. I noticed his characteristic negative slope when he was writing on the board in my office yesterday.) On the other hand, in my graduate course I have glanced at several students' handwritten notes at the end of the lecture and marvelled at how much better they look than my own handwritten pre-lecture notes and what is on the blackboard at the end of the leecture. At one point years ago I gave in a borderline undergrad/graduate level class what I thought was one of my best lectures of all time and at the end realized that I hadn't prepared any lecture notes and sadly reflected on the fact that it would be lost forever. Then I remembered that I had one student in the course who took great lecture notes, and I asked her for her lecture notes for this purpose. I think that what she gave me was an improvement on my delivered lecture, and using her notes I got my favorite part of what amounts to a textbook on number theory: <a href=\"http://alpha.math.uga.edu/%7Epete/4400FULL.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">you can see the lecture notes here</a>. (Yes, I touched it up a bit afterwards, but not by that much.) You can also see that I thanked this student at the end of my notes.</p>\n<p>All of the students mentioned above are "A students". I personally do feel that the gender difference between the students is playing a role here. This is not a scientific observation and I certainly mean no offense to anyone, but in my experience the difference in note-taking care between male and female students is, on average, dramatic.</p>\n<p>Anyway, if you prioritize (I) and (III) you're going to get such uneven samples as to make it a pretty jarring experience for anyone to try to follow the entire course by reading the notes. Having the notes be texed adds other levels and brings other skills into play. Some people will naturally go back and spend time prettying up their tex files; others won't. (I started out as the latter and very slowly over the course of thousands of pages of notes am heading towards the former. But for someone who has thousands of pages of texed mathematics on his webpage, my texing skills are distressingly middling.)</p>\n<p>Thus if you prioritize (II), then I think you need to seek out the students who will do the best job. This works against (I), and you need to look for extra compensation. I agree with the other answers that providing good latexed notes is something that may be worth paying for.</p>\n<p>If you <em>really</em> prioritize (II) then at a certain point you will decide to type the lecture notes yourself. This is what I do in most classes I teach. At this point I have a bit of a reputation as a guy who has lots of typed lecture notes. When I begin a graduate course now, I often tell students explicitly that I will not be typing lecture notes as the course progresses, because that is <em>very</em> time-consuming. But then, at some point in the semester I usually break down and reveal to the students where my heretofore secret lecture notes can be found. I actually just did that yesterday in my graduate class this semester....with less than one week of class left.</p>\n<p>Typing your own notes totally destroys (III): to get something that looks good you have to work significantly harder during the semester than you otherwise would need to do in order to deliver exactly the same lecture <em>and</em> you need to put more time into it after the semester is over. On the other hand, I have found this practice to be extremely valuable to both my learning and my career: I have gotten a lot of wonderful professional interactions out of it. Thus I would say that the real drawback is that it defeats (I).</p>\n<p>To summarize a very long answer: I think you need to decide whether the point of this is the process or the end result. You either provide a learning experience for all the students or you provide decent-to-high quality lecture notes, or you provide both but don't get it done until after the end of the course. I don't see how to do everything at once.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19810,
"author": "Raphael",
"author_id": 1419,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1419",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You say it is an advanced course, so you may have met some of the students before in beginners courses, projects, etc.</p>\n\n<p>Pick one or two competent and reliable students and pay them to write lecture notes¹. Repeat in subsequent iterations with the purpose of incremental refinement.</p>\n\n<p>You can sell the idea to them by noting that</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>they'd get paid for work they'd have to do in some form, anyway,</li>\n<li>they'd learn more because they'd have to do it a bit more precisely than for\ntheir own jot paper and would get feedback from other students (and you),</li>\n<li>they'd have external motivation to do said work (counter-procrastination) and</li>\n<li>they'd have the chance to make a good impression with you.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<hr>\n\n<ol>\n<li>I think lecture notes should be different from transcripts, but ymmv.</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19813,
"author": "David E Speyer",
"author_id": 1244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1244",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I originally wrote this answer back in 2014. I'm updating it for 2018, since I now have a bunch more experience.</p>\n\n<p>I have had students scribe for me in graduate classes many times. You can read their work on the course webpages: (<a href=\"http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~speyer/631/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">1</a>, <a href=\"http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~speyer/665/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">2</a>, <a href=\"http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~speyer/632/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">3</a>, <a href=\"http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~speyer/631_2014/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">4</a>, <a href=\"http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~speyer/665_2012/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">5</a>, <a href=\"http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~speyer/632Old/632.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">6</a>). I have also twice taught honors classes where I assigned students to prove a lot of results in class and assigned them to write up notes on the day's work. You can read the more recent version here (<a href=\"http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~speyer/395/IBL.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">1</a>, <a href=\"http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~speyer/396/IBL/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">2</a>); I also did this a previous time but no longer have a digital copy of those notes. Some advice:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Keep the assignment manageable. For a graduate student, I think writing up one 50 minute lecture is a reasonable task. If I were doing longer lectures, I'd probably break the responsibility in half. For undergrads, a group of 2 or 3 working together to cover 50-80 minutes of classwork is reasonable. </p></li>\n<li><p>To make the assignment more manageable and the notes more uniform for my grad students, I made a big LaTeX template with all the macros I thought they might want. </p></li>\n<li><p>For my undergrads, at first I required them to use LaTeX, working together on <a href=\"https://www.overleaf.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Overleaf</a>, but I found I was spending a lot of time answering LaTeX questions, so I switched to telling them they could use any medium they wanted. You should probably decide whether it is worth spending your time teaching undergrads to use LaTeX. A downside of letting them use any medium is that there wasn't a good way for me to edit those notes.</p></li>\n<li><p>Impose a tight deadline. My deadline now is to have the notes done 24 hours after the class, before people forget what happened.</p></li>\n<li><p>To make the tight deadline fair, let students choose what date they want to work on several weeks in advance. Ideally, warn about dates which will be unusually diagram heavy.</p></li>\n<li><p>I scribe the first lecture myself, to illustrate to the students what I was looking for. I post the TeX source of the notes along with the PDF, so that students could copy techniques from each other.</p></li>\n<li><p>For my grad classes, I edit the notes, both to remove typos and to add additional comments on material which I had not covered well. This was probably 30 or 60 minutes of work per lecture, but when the turn-around cycle was tight, I felt that the time doubled as helpful preparation for the next lecture by reminding me what I said rather than what I meant to say. It would be better if I edited the undergrad notes as well, although I currently am not because so many of them are handwritten or in Word.</p></li>\n<li><p>I frequently say things in lecture like \"I don't know the precise answer to your question, but it is something like ... and I'll put the details in the course notes\", and I in other ways encourage people to treat the notes as a reference.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Some things I haven't figured out a good way to do yet</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Incorporate this into the course grade. For grad students, I just don't; I instead praise good work informally, in public and private. For undergrads, I had a small portion of the grade which was my feeling about how well they did on class participation and note taking, but I will freely admit it was very subjective.</p></li>\n<li><p>Teach students to use LaTeX better, or to write better. It is pretty easy to fix their work, but I never feel that I have time or energy to tell them how to improve it next time.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 31782,
"author": "Tyzoid",
"author_id": 24353,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24353",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At the University I am a student at (Undergraduate in Liberal Arts), we have mandated discussion sections for courses over a certain number of students. In one of these discussion sections, we have two people each week (who signed themselves up ahead of time) give a short presentation/summary of all of the readings for the week and a recap of the lectures.</p>\n\n<p>I think that (depending on the format of your class) having your students themselves present to the class their findings might motivate them to do a better job at taking notes.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19762",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346/"
]
|
19,774 | <p>I was wondering where I can find any information on the postdoctoral fellowships/calls to work in Europe which are similar to Marie Curie? I'm doing my
basic internet search on this, but don't seem to succeed that much. I'm especially talking about the fellowships that are offered in the areas of pure or applied sciences or engineering areas.</p>
<p>Any information, site or blog that you know of, I'd greatly appreciate if you could please pass it onto me.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot!</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19778,
"author": "Federico Poloni",
"author_id": 958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Listing what I know, but it won't be a complete answer for sure.</p>\n\n<p>Germany has several opportunities for foreigners, including <a href=\"https://www.daad.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">DAAD</a> and <a href=\"http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/start.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Humboldt fellowships</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Italy has launched this year for the first time a call with name <a href=\"http://sir.miur.it/\" rel=\"nofollow\">SIR</a>; it is now closed, but maybe it will be renewed.</p>\n\n<p>All of them are generalist calls, not aimed at a particular field.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19781,
"author": "Bitwise",
"author_id": 6862,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6862",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>For life sciences:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.hfsp.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">HFSP</a> Long Term Fellowships and Cross Disciplinary Fellowships. CDF is aimed at people from other disciplines that want to enter biology.</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.embo.org/funding-awards/fellowships/long-term-fellowships\" rel=\"nofollow\">EMBO</a> Long Term Fellowships.</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://lsrf.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">LSRF</a> fellowships.</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19833,
"author": "Cape Code",
"author_id": 10643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some of the open academic positions, including postdoc positions, in Switzerland are listed on the <a href=\"http://www.eth-gethired.ch/search/sector/0/academic/1\" rel=\"nofollow\">ETH-get-hired</a> website. Although somewhat more popular in German-speaking Switzerland and for Science/Engineering it is fairly general in scope.</p>\n\n<p>I should note that these are typically fully funded job offers, not grants.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 26529,
"author": "Greg",
"author_id": 14755,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14755",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are literally zillions of scholarships.</p>\n\n<p>Contact the representative of EU and the embassies of countries you are interested in. They always have an S&T department which generally have advertisement of such scholarships, websites, or even newsletters on this very topic. </p>\n\n<p>Assuming that you are in the US, you can contact the MIT European Career Fair (<a href=\"https://www.euro-career.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.euro-career.com/</a>) they have several connections to national frameworks like DAAD or Humbold. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 58867,
"author": "silvado",
"author_id": 3890,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The European commission hosts a database called EURAXESS on research fellowships that are being offered within the European Union, at all levels (European funding, international funding, national funding). You can easily narrow down searches by these levels and career stage. The link is:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/index\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/index</a></p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19774",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6259/"
]
|
19,794 | <p>From my experience in biology (by experience I mean reading other papers), it seems that there is an unspoken rule that itemized lists do not belong in the body text of a paper.</p>
<p>I have almost never seen a paper have a bullet point list or a numbered list which is formatted as a separate entity in the body text (although I have seen them in eg. the sidebar, or figures which essentially are a numbered list). The closest I've seen is an "in-line" numbered list:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our paper raises three points: (1) yada yada, (2) blah blah and (3) bip bap boop. Point (2) is particularly important, because yakkity yakkity...</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Are bullet point or numbered lists, formatted similar to how StackOverflow formats them for example, discouraged in scientific publication? If so is there a reason why?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19795,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is <strong>extremely</strong> common in my areas of computer science (TCS and machine learning) to see a paper itemize a list of contributions as a bulleted or numbered list. I use it regularly as a technique to highlight and emphasize contributions and key ideas in a way that stands out. </p>\n\n<p>So while any such answer is area specific, I'd say that in the areas of CS that I'm familiar with it is definitely not discouraged. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19802,
"author": "Wiliam",
"author_id": 481,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/481",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I agree that itemized list are not very common in the biology literature. However, I do not think it is a requirement of the publisher (I check in PLoS Biology, Cell and Plant Physiology), but more a choice of the authors. I personally tend to include itemized list when it is necessary and I never had any comment from the publishers.</p>\n\n<p>One possible reason to choose inline list over an itemized one is that is take less space. Since some journal have a pay-per-page policy, it might be an incentive. The same goes for grant application in which the number of pages is usually limited.</p>\n\n<p>An other reason, but I am speculating here, is that itemized list might be seen as an <em>ugly</em> (the term is not mine, but from a reviewer of one of my paper) or cheap writing style. I personally disagree with this view, since the importance is the <em>message</em>, not the <em>writing style</em>, but I think it is out there anyway.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19856,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are no rules for or against lists, and as has been indicated by other answers, their use may vary between disciplines. That said, there are some points you need to consider. Lists can be useful if used correctly and detrimental if used too often. Lists disrupt the reading or flow of the text. One should thus consider if a list is useful or really necessary before making one. Does it help the reader to understand the text? Lists have a tendency to express issues in brief statements. This can be good but can also mean the text loses important logical steps. Having too many lists may actually make things confusing, because you lose track of them all.</p>\n\n<p>So, use lists as a tool in your writing toolbox but be aware of overusing them in a text.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19794",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/244/"
]
|
19,799 | <p>Specifically, why do some universities have a defined "graduate school" and associated "graduate faculty," with separate appointment process, and some do not, even when they offer many graduate programs? What is the organizational and administrative thinking behind this?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20059,
"author": "dorien",
"author_id": 14757,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14757",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am not sure about the US, but in Belgium, Universities are only allowed to give a \"real\" PhD when they have a doctoral school (equivalent to grad school) attached to them. In some cases this institute can be more silent (background function), and the university is the public face of the PhD, but it HAS TO exist and it has to be recognised. Concerning faculty appointed solely to the doctoral school... well, in my university, the normal faculty where the profs are working has a internal contract with the doctoral school and appoints normal staff to it for a given number of hours. </p>\n\n<p>So in short. It should exist. But it might not be publicly advertised. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20069,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In US universities, a 'graduate school' is usually an administrative entity that manages all aspects of graduate life. <a href=\"http://gradschool.utah.edu/\">At the University of Utah</a>, for example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The Graduate School fosters excellence by providing administrative\n structure and leadership to maintain and enhance graduate education at\n the University of Utah.</p>\n \n <p>Our programs offer financial assistance, rigorous academic\n opportunities, and professional development to students, staff, and\n faculty.</p>\n \n <p>We are guided by the principles of quality, diversity, and integrity\n as we help students to prepare themselves for successful, relevant\n careers.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The link posted in the comments suggests that faculty are required to be associated with the grad school in order to function as advisors etc. I think this is also an administrative action, designed to demarcate faculty that can advise students from all the other people who are designated as faculty (for example, adjuncts, research faculty, teaching faculty, and so on). </p>\n\n<p>So there's no <strong>academic</strong> function associated with the graduate school. </p>\n\n<p>You can think of the graduate school as the university-wide entity that manages the individual chairs of graduate studies at departments. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 22019,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At many U.S. schools, faculty must \"apply\" to be \"graduate faculty\" in order to do various things related to graduate education: teach graduate courses, sit on thesis committees, serve as thesis advisors, etc. The university's official catalog for each year will have a list of these faculty members. The faculty don't receive anything special (like extra salary) for this.</p>\n\n<p>There is typically a very straightforward \"application\" consisting of a cover form and a vita that has to be submitted every few years. From the perspective of faculty, this is just a small bureaucratic thing to take care of every few years. It is essentially invisible to students. </p>\n\n<p>Someone in the graduate college reviews each \"application\" to make sure that the faculty member meets the necessary criteria. But the goal is typically just to document that the graduate faculty are qualified - which already we know they are when they are hired. So the faculty who \"apply\" are rarely in doubt about the outcome. Faculty who are removed from graduate faculty status typically have stopped being active in research (e.g. on their way to retirement). </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19799",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/396/"
]
|
19,803 | <p>I currently am working on a MS in pure maths, but am interested in options for pursuing a PhD in a more applied field. Specifically I am interested in going on to graduate work in something like statistics. How hard would it be for me to go straight from an MS in pure math with only a very few courses in statistics to a PhD program in statistics?</p>
<p>I have some experience in probability with my research (random walks on finite groups). But outside of that, I am pretty inexperienced with applied math.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19806,
"author": "Dirk",
"author_id": 529,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/529",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I think the main hurdle will not be the knowledge about statistics you'll bring. (As a trained mathematician you should be able to pick up new math quick enough.) The main hurdle could be to embrace a new kind of doing science and research.</p>\n\n<p>In more applied math people sometimes think differently about problems than in pure math. Roughly speaking, one is much more open to adapt assumptions and requirements for some problems such that they become more simple theoretically, more suited computationally or otherwise more convenient. Since one usually works with things that are related to the real world and hence, somehow uncertain and noisy, it is often not useful to stick to every assumption but use some freedom in modeling. I heard the saying \"All models are wrong.\" Well, true but this should not make you hesitate to work with models.</p>\n\n<p>I've seen people changing from pure math to applied math who never could adopt to these principles (but also cases where there were no problems). If you think that you won't have problems with issues like I described, then things will turn out fine, I think.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19807,
"author": "user14382",
"author_id": 14382,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14382",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Perhaps another big difference is that being able to interact with other disciplines is very important to be good at statistics. If you are open minded and curious about learning other topics (e.g. genetics, computation, etc), together with a solid mathematical background you can be a very good asset in statistics.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19831,
"author": "StasK",
"author_id": 739,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/739",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Math graduates is what most of the body of grad students in statistics is made up of (I've been both a stat student and a stat faculty, so have seen a fair number of these folks). In terms of getting into a program based on your credentials, you wouldn't have any issues (unless, of course, your US-style GPA is like 2.2, in which case you would have some explaining to do in any application to any program, no matter what the discipline is). If anything, you'd be better prepared to tackle the theoretical courses. For instance, the Central Limit Theorem should be proven using characteristic functions rather than moment generating functions, since the latter are not defined for all the distributions to which CLT applies; as a good math major, you probably have had a course in complex analysis. What's more, it might be easier for you to get to a top program, as lower ranked ones may consider you to be overqualified. On the other hand, as other answers strongly suggest, you need to have a more practical mindset than what is typically found among pure mathematicians to get through the applied courses. (The most difficult ones for me were the courses on psychological aspects of response in survey data collection: there was about 5 papers ~ 100 pages worth of reading every week, and the concepts were entirely foreign to me.)</p>\n\n<p>Check out <a href=\"http://stats.stackexchange.com\">CrossValidated</a> site in the SE system to see what this could be about. (Note that it is heavily biased towards computational/machine learning side of statistics.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19840,
"author": "Neal Fultz",
"author_id": 14412,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14412",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Modern statistics is pretty computational, which you might not have been exposed to in pure math. I switched from CS to stats and had to play catch up on theory; you might be the opposite, and need to learn how to code.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19803",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14518/"
]
|
19,816 | <p>There's something I am not able to understand. I'm a CS master student in Germany. Now I'm doing my master thesis. Before starting my thesis I had an image about PhD students which turned out to be wrong. Always thought that PhD student work much much harder than us and have too much stress. Or that they wake up at 5 am and keep working all day and night! But then when I started working on my thesis, my supervisor was so nice that he gave me a place in his office. Since then I always see the PhD student coming to their offices at 9 or 10 am and leave at 5 pm. I also see them waste a lot of time by hanging around or going for smoking every 45 minutes or so. They even spend almost one complete hour having lunch and then having coffee and desert!!!</p>
<p>Is this the normal life for PhDs or is there something wrong here?!!</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19818,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>There's no single \"correct\" answer in the life of a graduate student—the culture varies from university to university, department to department, and even group to group. It's also a function of the PhD student as well.</p>\n\n<p>One thing to note is that, as a CS student, you're working in a field where it is <em>very</em> easy for students to do their work in environments outside of the laboratory. (Compare that to, say, experimental biology or chemistry, and the freedom in work environment is pretty stark.) Consequently, you don't really have a good feel for how many hours the students are working in aggregate—they may be spending a lot of time working from home, or in the evenings or on weekends.</p>\n\n<p>At the other end of the scale, I have known advisors who expected their students to put in <strong>a minimum</strong> of 70 to 80 hours per week in the laboratory. (Of course, since this is lab work, there's no way to do much of it \"from home\"—other than reading and writing.) And in my own experience, there are weeks where I barely worked 40 hours, and others where I put in close to 90 (usually right before conferences and when I was racing to finish my thesis).</p>\n\n<p>In the long run, there are very few absolutes when it comes to the career of a graduate student, and you really do need to find your own \"path.\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20259,
"author": "Flyto",
"author_id": 8394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to what others have said,</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Do not assume that \"hours looking productive in the office\" == \"hours working\".</p></li>\n<li><p>Do not assume that \"hours working\" is proportional to \"amount achieved\".</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20265,
"author": "Jhz832",
"author_id": 14804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14804",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First of all, master and PhD are two different kinds of life. For PhD time is usually flexible and they would like to work this way because progress in their work to some extent relies on inspiration. So it's understandable that they need enough sleep hours. Unlike master students, who just attend courses and learn things written in the textbook, PhD students have to invent things that has been written no where. For master students, hardworking (hours in your opinion) is enough. However, for PhD students, inspiration, insight are the key. </p>\n\n<p>Second, it's also a matter of personal habit difference and labs management difference. Some people would like to sleep from 1am to 8am, some like 11pm to 6am. It's different from people to people. And some professor pushes more, while some pushes less. </p>\n\n<p>Third, many PhD has to work at home in the night and doesn't have the summer/winter vacation. But as master students, you don't have any study tasks during the same period. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19816",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10497/"
]
|
19,817 | <p>I wonder how many manuscripts are submitted daily to the top scientific journals, such as Nature or Science. Each of those journals has multiple editors, specialising in narrower fields. The question that follows is how many submittions does one editor handle daily?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19821,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>According to <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/get_published/index.html\"><em>Nature</em>'s website</a>, they received 10,952 submissions last year, which works out to an average of almost exactly 30 papers per calendar day. Given that there are <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nature/about/editors/index.html\">26 subject area editors</a> according to their editorial masthead, it would appear that the average editor gets about 8 papers per week, or one or two per day. </p>\n\n<p>However, their caseload is probably much bigger, since they also have to deal with all of their other \"open\" papers as well—so an editor might have something like 60-100 active papers to deal with at any one time (ballpark estimate, assuming a two- to three-month life cycle—although I suspect it's actually much longer than that if multiple rounds of reviews are required).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 96186,
"author": "Herman Toothrot",
"author_id": 4050,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4050",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have met a subject editor from Nature, she told me that every day she reads between 8-12 papers and that she needs to make a quick decision whether to send it to review or not. So the workload might also change by subject. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19817",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14544/"
]
|
19,819 | <p>I am writing a paper aimed at a physics journal which extends an old paper (not by me), which introduced a mathematical formalism for a physical problem in a rather handwaving way and without addressing most of its mathematical background.
In addition to exentding this formalism, my paper elaborates on this mathematical background and relatedly introduces the formalism in a ”more rigorous” way.
I consider the latter one of my paper’s key features for the following reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>One might consider the formalism and the methods derived from it not to be properly substantiated in the old paper.</li>
<li>Though the mathematical background has no other application so far, it is interesting for its own sake and perhaps from a philosophical point of view.</li>
<li>My approach to the formalism might be more accessible to some people and make them give a better understanding of what they are doing when applying the formalism and related methods.</li>
</ul>
<p>As these points are rather opinion-based, I do not intend to elaborate on them in the paper – at most I might shortly mention the didactical aspects in the conclusion.
(I mainly mentioned them here to give you some idea what I am talking about.)
However, I do want to briefly mention in the abstract or the introduction that I “rigorified” the formalism, where <em>briefly</em> can be anything between one word and two sentences.
For example, my abstract could look like:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[Old paper] introduced [old concept], which is useful for [application].
We extend this concept to [new concept] and also <em>rigorify its mathematical background.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>My problem is that <em>rigorify its mathematical background</em> is far from what I actually want to say.
I am therefore looking for <strong>a way to say this without seeming arrogant or condescending on the old paper and in particular without implying that the old paper “did not do its mathematics properly”.</strong></p>
<p>I intentionally do not give my best solutions for now, as I do not want to induce any bias on them, in case I may underestimate them.</p>
<p><sup>I am also torn between <em>Academia</em> and <em><a href="https://english.stackexchange.com/">English Language & Usage</a></em> for posting this question.</sup></p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19820,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>How about something like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>WeakMath et al [foo] introduced a formalism for the problem we study. Their framework conveys valuable intuition* about [the problem] but is not precise enough for further development of the mathematical structures introduced. In this work, we elaborate on their ideas, placing them in a formal mathematical [something] that allows us to [do awesome things]</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>* if it does</p>\n\n<p>You get the general idea: give them credit for intuiting the right ideas which will lessen the blow when you drop the hammer on them :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19828,
"author": "Not Quite An Outsider",
"author_id": 10390,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10390",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You are taking a problem from another paper and providing additional perspective which will allow future research to solve or add to solving the problem. This does not make the original paper any less worthy.</p>\n\n<p>To get into the mindset for writing in a non-dismissive fashion, you might adopt the following scenario: \"Their paper is the greatest thing since sliced bread! My model and formalization will allow others to handle this and similar problems with a more formal perspective. How can it possibly be any more win-win?\" . This may exaggerate the current situation, but it is not a lie when framed properly. With such an attitude, you can write glowingly about the inspiration provided by their paper, and the anticipated benefits your perspective and formalization will give. I don't see any need to \"drop a hammer\" on anyone.\nPutting myself in such a mindset, and making things general, I come up with:</p>\n\n<p>\"We take inspiration from Their paper [1], and provide additional mathematical perspective.\nOur model of the problem reflects the intuition in Their paper, and has among its benefits a framework which we feel can be carried to other situations. In particular, we believe it furthers formal and rigorous treatment of the problem.\"</p>\n\n<p>Take reasonable precautions: whatever you write, have your mentor or colleagues review it. If someone in your department who is politically adept approves, you can try sending an advance copy to the authors of the inspiring article, to see what suggestions they may provide. DO NOT send them a copy without such outside wisdom and approval.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19830,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It sounds to me like you are viewing the older paper through the lens of the type of paper you would have written in the first place and are finding it wanting. It also sounds like you are viewing your own work as \"fixing the flaws\" of the older paper, almost as if you want to replace the older paper in your mind with your paper and pretend it had been written that way all along. More quantitatively you have your eye on the mark that the older paper should have hit, you are filling in the gap between the actual old paper and your eyeballed mark, and since you are measuring from the eyeballed mark you are giving the difference a minus sign. This framing seems to be behind most of your problems. Try recasting the entire thing more positively in your own mind.</p>\n\n<p>1) Someone else published an inspirational paper way back when. This paper introduced some formalism and concentrated on its application to a physical problem.</p>\n\n<p>2) Your paper gives much deeper attention to the mathematical aspects of the formalism, while also extending the formalism. Since 1) showed that the formalism is interesting and useful, your work has evident value. </p>\n\n<p>There are no \"minus signs\" in the above description: 1) + 2) = your eyeball mark. </p>\n\n<p>Unless there are actual mathematical errors in the older paper, you don't need to say that you are fixing or \"rigorifying\" (not really a word, by the way) the older paper. By the way, I don't know whether you've heard my rant about this use of the word \"rigor\" in mathematics and its applications. As an adult mathematician I have become increasingly skeptical of mathematical \"rigor\": the other paper either made mistakes (which you will need to correct), made claims which were unjustified or insufficiently justified (in which case you make clear that what you are contributing is the justification and not the claims themselves) or they weren't doing mathematics at all (which is fine: that's what you're adding). Adding rigor must mean one of the things above, right? It is not some generic ingredient that you can sprinkle more or less liberally over a piece of \"unrigorous mathematics\" and make it rigorous. </p>\n\n<p>In summary: unless there are some clear mistakes, you don't need to bill your work as fixing their mathematics. You can bill it either as adding the math or adding more math. Both of these are good things added to other good things: no problem.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19934,
"author": "Joe McMahon",
"author_id": 14661,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14661",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>In this paper, we re-examine the results of [OriginalReference], extending its ideas to [X and Y and Z], providing a new approach via [method] to the original which may better illuminate [aspect W].</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Essentially, \"okay, the original work was pretty cool but we can do more with it, so we're going to run with that to get to this new stuff, specifically by doing this thing here because it makes a point or points more accessible and obvious\".</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19819",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7734/"
]
|
19,822 | <p>I'm a CS master student working on my thesis. I'm 25 years old and still until now when I wake up in the morning to start studying I wake up stressed and my stomach hurts. I also feel a very bad headache. When I had courses I used to wake up in this situation everyday because I had to. Now I started my thesis and I don't have a deadline for it. So now when I try to wake up very early in the morning (7am) I end up surrendering to stay in bed because I don't want to have that ugly feeling in the morning. I noticed that now I wake up at 9 or 10 am. This is making me waste a lot of time. I'm not working as hard as I used to be.</p>
<p>My questions are: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>does everyone has this feeling in the morning? and how to overcome this feeling?</p></li>
<li><p>how do you motivate yourself to work?</p></li>
</ul>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19823,
"author": "Matt",
"author_id": 14548,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14548",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This (lack of motivation) is common in graduate school. Without delving into the way you personally like to work (whether you are intrinsically or extrinsically motivated, whether your advisor is involved or uninvolved, whether you are motivated by reward or punishment, etc.), it's difficult to give specific advice.</p>\n\n<p>These are some general motivational strategies:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Get up and start something small. Doesn't matter what it is. As long as you are working on your project (even formatting your thesis), you are okay. This is not to say you should be working on it all the time, just that even the small things are helpful. Small tasks get you into the groove and ready to tackle larger problems.</li>\n<li>Leave things unfinished from the day before. If you reach the end of the day and are in the middle of a task, leave it, don't stay up to finish it. This way you have to get up in the morning to keep doing what you were doing, rather than waking up and saying \"I don't know where to start.\"</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Finally, if you think you may be depressed (if you are constantly saying \"I have no reason to get out of bed\"), please talk to someone or see a doctor. It gets better.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19843,
"author": "Female Programmer",
"author_id": 14567,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14567",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You may need to pace yourself with your studies. Which may include taking breaks. Have you given your body and mind enough rest to recuperate from the previous day?</p>\n\n<p>Motivation comes from self-will and is a mental state. When you wake up in the morning, what do you plan to accomplish? It's a good idea to break down what your goals are. If you have a paper to write, what are the first steps that should be taken? Complete those steps first then move onto the next ones. </p>\n\n<p>Here is some material on motivation:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1601632444\">http://www.amazon.com/100-Ways-Motivate-Yourself-Third/dp/1601632444/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398475489&sr=1-2&keywords=Motivate</a></p>\n\n<p>As a CS student close to your age it's quiet understandable. Try talking to those who are in support of you as well too. A word of encouragement never hurts. :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19854,
"author": "VH-NZZ",
"author_id": 14410,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14410",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Now I started my thesis and <em>I don't have a deadline for it</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This stands out in the description of your problem. I perform best when on a deadline. As counter intuitive as it sounds, it has been shown true as much for coursework assignments/papers as for research. When I did my MSc thesis, the university regulation allowed a maximum of 24 weeks. That's key, it said <em>weeks</em>, not ~ 6 months. And late submissions would not be accepted. That seemed strange given the research aspect of the task but the key learning was the iterative process of <strong>getting to the point and refining later</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>I then experienced open-ended research during my doctoral studies at another university and found that the apparent upside of not being under time pressure was actually very, very counterproductive. Not only was that a trap for perfectionists who'd find themselves stuck in <em>eternal beta</em>, it would also give the illusion that you have time to think about other considerations. Many of which would be destructive thoughts like <em>Do I really like what I'm doing?</em>, <em>Where's all this headed?</em>, <em>This is junk, and will never work!</em></p>\n\n<p><strong>My take is</strong>: Look beyond your thesis and set some nonnegotiable milestones/deadlines. And stick to them like your a religious fanatic. Your <em>post-thesis</em> self will be most grateful to you for it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19878,
"author": "Moriarty",
"author_id": 8562,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8562",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Postgraduate study is a long term commitment, and part of the key to success is a healthy and sustainable attitude. Spending 90% of your waking hours either studying, trying to study, or feeling guilty for not studying is neither fun nor productive.</p>\n\n<p>When you're mentally tired, you need a break to keep on working. So take a well deserved break. <em>But don't feel guilty about it</em>. If you feel like you're procrastinating, that just compounds itself into a cycle of guilt and low productivity.</p>\n\n<p>Also, give yourself at least one day a week where you <em>do not</em> work. Catch up with friends, do your housework, and only study if you genuinely want to. And don't feel guilty about this either!</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19822",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10497/"
]
|
19,826 | <p>A while back I reached the stage where my ideas for research topics/papers exceeded my capacity to personally work on them. As a PostDoc, I tried to head-hunt students or more junior researchers in my area (or at conferences, etc.) to talk with them about the ideas and see if they would be interested in collaborating or co-authoring a paper. This worked well for a while.</p>
<p>But now (more recently) I find that I again have a back-log of promising topics that have exceeded my capacity to even advise/delegate. I have no students to work on them. The ideas are mixed in quality, concreteness, promise, etc. and I'm saving some of the ones I am most interested in for myself or for students. But I know that there are others I will have to neglect (and I often choose the "safer" topics since being in tenure-track, I have a constant hunger for publications).</p>
<p>Now I have a text file on my hard-drive with a list of sketches of ideas so that I remember them. But a lot of the details are left unexpressed in my head; most of the ideas in the text file would be pretty meaningless in their current form without some explanation, further development, context and/or motivation from me. At the same time, I have sufficient experience to know that there are interesting paper/thesis topics in there that I could help develop and/or advise if I had the time/money.</p>
<p>For some of the topics, I have been saying "<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/274079-sure-baby-ma-ana-it-was-always-ma-ana-for-the-next" rel="noreferrer">some day</a>" for too long.</p>
<p>In any case, I cannot imagine I am alone in this. I am sure that various researchers see many potentially promising research topics fall "by the wayside" due to more urgent, day-to-day matters. I sometimes wonder if other professors similarly have lists of research topics that just rot away in a text file somewhere. It would seem like such a waste if this were the case: think about the union of all these text files sitting on local hard-drives! It would seem to be a major flaw in the academic research system if this were prevalent: that the sharing of raw (or perhaps lightly pasteurised) ideas is not properly incentivised by "the system".</p>
<hr>
<p>The question ...</p>
<p><strong>Assuming I have a surplus of (good) ideas for research topics in my area – that I cannot work on myself and cannot delegate or even find time to actively advise – what should I do with them?</strong></p>
<p>To avoid a loss of generality, a good answer should assume that I'm not nice: <strong>what personal incentive would I have for sharing my ideas in this manner?</strong> I don't want to give away my ideas for free. These ideas require development and expression before they can be shared (which is difficult to do "up front"). If I am not incentivised to develop the ideas into a shareable form, the reality is that I will use my precious time to do something else I <em>am</em> incentivised to do.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19829,
"author": "Not Quite An Outsider",
"author_id": 10390,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10390",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>An incentive you should recognize is time: worrying about these problems takes time away from what you do want to prioritize.</p>\n\n<p>I recommend the following experiment, and will assume for sake of discussion that the ideas lie within mathematics. Take one or two of the ideas that you consider expendable, and spend 30 minutes writing a MathOverflow post about them. Post that on MathOverflow, and then sit back and wait. If you do it with proper attribution, people may solve them and give you credit for your contribution, or otherwise make progress that you might deem satisfactory. Or they might be ignored for a while. The basic idea has been put out there, and you can decide to reprioritize it and then later post what progress you have made as a partial answer.</p>\n\n<p>The point of the experiment is to see how you feel about letting something go. If it works well for you, you can repeat it with other things. If it doesn't, you can stop at the second or third expendable idea this way. I have the hope that sharing some of your low priority expendable ideas will bring more satisfaction than waiting for the right time to reveal it to someone. As my background is mathematics, I suggested the MathOverflow forum. You will have to find or create an appropriate forum to share these ideas.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19841,
"author": "Mangara",
"author_id": 8185,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8185",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I believe the most 'formal' way to share these would be to write a survey of the area that your open problems relate to, highlighting each problem. This adds a publication, and anyone who solves one of the problems is likely to cite it. Moreover, if the survey is sufficiently in-depth, it can generate a large number of citations as an introduction to the area.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19850,
"author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX",
"author_id": 725,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I also have a long list of problems that I think </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>need to be solved and </li>\n<li>where I at least have an idea in which direction a solution may be found</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I tend to ask around at conferences or whenever I meet someone who may know something very much. Though we don't have \"unsolved issues\" sessions per se, it is not weird that a presentation points out an identified problem without solution.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>What personal incentive would I have for sharing my ideas in this manner?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>I also came to the conclusion that I'll probably never run out of problems or ideas to think about. </p></li>\n<li><p>My research ideas are usually not ideas out of the blue, but problems where I could need a (better) solution. </p></li>\n<li><p>So one incentive is: <strong>I need the solution.</strong></p></li>\n<li><p>A second incentive is: I've made the experience that while I can describe the problem in my field's jargon, this may not lead to search terms that find a solution which is already known in some other field. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Sharing the problem may save me from reinventing the wheel.</strong></p></li>\n<li><p>My personal experience typically is along the lines \"yeah, you're pointing out a valid problem. Though I have no idea how to solve it or whether someone else has a solution\". (Ongoing situation for some <em>years</em>, until I had thought long enough to arrive at a solution myself). It then was my solution that enabled me to find similar approaches in different fields - so not that successful at reusing already invented wheels. SX sites may be better than conferences in that aspect. </p>\n\n<p>From that experience it looks as if I'm hunting for a rare chance that someone will step in who's interested in solving the problem.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19851,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The long term solution is: 1) <em>obtain funding</em>, 2) <em>build a research group</em>, and 3) <em>delegate</em>. Goto 1. (Somewhere along the line, <em>get tenure</em> to ensure that this loop will continue indefinitely.)</p>\n\n<p>These task will require coherence across your research ideas. </p>\n\n<p>Firstly to have a convincing enough thrust for funding agencies to invest in you. </p>\n\n<p>You to have a narrow enough focus for your research group to work cooperatively (or at least, to be able to read and comment on each other's work). </p>\n\n<p>Finally, you'll need ideas to come in big enough chunks for PhD students to write dissertations on.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 123311,
"author": "JernejT",
"author_id": 100461,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/100461",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am finishing my PhD in molecular and cell biology and have recently made <a href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zRiakve_hMB4k_n3KzrI4ibhdudRNRCJtahaUVhPi1M/edit\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">all my spare research topics public</a> at the top of my website. It's a Gdoc that anyone can comment on and I am updating it periodically. As you are saying, the thoughts and ideas are \"mixed in quality, concreteness, promise\", but just the fact that I extended them to a public domain makes me excited as there is-albeit small-chance someone will read them and push them forward in some way. My personal view is that by letting my thoughts fly like this, I created (a possibility for) a feedback loop that will eventually anyway lead me to refining and possibly drastically improving their original form.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 123314,
"author": "guest",
"author_id": 103191,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/103191",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I had the same problem. My advise is to at least write them down. Excel spreadsheet is a good format as you can have a few columns for categories ad use the \"filters\" to sort them. At least this way, they are not running around head as much. Also can put a prioritization in there and/or even a box for \"done\".</p>\n\n<p>I advise NOT sharing your ideas much. (Sounds radical but listen to me.) If you have some 1-2 true colleagues who really help you and you want to help them, fine. But in general this will not be the case. In fact often people won't take action on your ideas, or if they do, they won't give you coauthor or even acknowledgement. At least until you get tenure, you need to push your own sled and pump out your publications. Also, maybe knowing that the ideas are relying on you to execute them will help to get them done at all.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck. (Yes, this is an old post, but it's an enduring issue.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 141821,
"author": "Sylvain Ribault",
"author_id": 90168,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/90168",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One platform where you can share research ideas, whatever the discipline, is Wikiversity: <a href=\"https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Category:Research\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Category:Research</a></p>\n\n<p>Whatever platform or website you use, you may have to advertise your ideas to colleagues, or they won't notice.</p>\n\n<p>As for getting credit and being incentivized, this is not possible in the present system. But I am sure that you already do some free work for the community, if only peer reviewing. You may consider that an idea is worth sharing when sharing it seems a better use of your time than doing peer reviewing. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19826",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746/"
]
|
19,836 | <p>I know that typically, unpublished references (i.e. references not published in some journal, especially online resources) are highly discouraged. I'm working on a paper regarding Bluetooth LE implementations, and most of the materials relevant to my paper are either online (i.e. on mailing lists discussing implementation of Bluetooth LE on Linux, or manufacturers documenting limitations of their Bluetooth LE chips) or in the Bluetooth 4.0 standard itself.</p>
<p>Is it appropriate to use these online references? They're pretty much my only source of information, as my paper is mostly on real-world implementations of Bluetooth LE.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19837,
"author": "badroit",
"author_id": 7746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is it appropriate to refer to these online references? They're pretty much my only source of information, as my paper is mostly on real-world implementations of Bluetooth LE.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Referencing web-pages whose content can change (and that are not explicitly versioned) is far from ideal. What you are citing the web-page for may disappear today, tomorrow, the next day: you don't know. Furthermore, you may not know who authored the content, or how reliable the claims made in the content are.</p>\n\n<p>However, particularly in applied areas of Computer Science, it can often be necessary to reference online material.</p>\n\n<p>My personal rules for this are as follows:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If the web-page refers to a versioned standard of some sort (e.g., a W3C or ISO standard), with a clear author and/or editor list, use a bibliographic citation. (You can always use Google Scholar to check for precedent of the page in question having been previously cited; <a href=\"http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=bluetooth%204.0\" rel=\"nofollow\">Bluetooth 4.0 has been cited 20 times</a>)</li>\n<li>For other web-pages (whose authorship is not clear or that may not be versioned), reference it with a footnote and the date you accessed it.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I have seen papers use the bibliography for URLs without explicit authors, but for me, it's poor style (as well as being incompatible with a lot of citation systems).</p>\n\n<p>The second option should be used sparingly in my opinion.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19838,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>If your paper is on \"real-world implementations of Bluetooth LE\" then mailing lists on implementations of Bluetooth LE and manufacturers' documentation of Bluetooth LE products are your <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_source\" rel=\"nofollow\">primary sources</a>. This is akin to e.g., a historian using Napoleon's informal personal correspondence as a source for information on <em>his</em> world.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, you should consider where these sources come from in <em>how</em> you use them. If you read on a mailing list or forum, </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Bluetooth LE is the worst thing ever. Mine never works!</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>you would not use it as a factual source to conclude that Bluetooth LE is terrible. You certainly <em>could</em> use it as a source to indicate that some users have experienced frustration with early implementations of Bluetooth LE. (I cite bug tickets often in my own papers.)</p>\n\n<p><strong>Bad use of informal source:</strong></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Bluetooth LE is not a good technology [1].</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>[1] \"Let's all complain about Bluetooth LE here,\" Bluetooth User Forum, posted April 1 2104, http:/bluetoothforum/lets-complain, retrieved April 25 2014.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Good use of informal source as a primary source:</strong></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Bluetooth LE users have expressed frustration with the technology [1].</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>[1] \"Let's all complain about Bluetooth LE here,\" Bluetooth User Forum, posted April 1 2104, http:/bluetoothforum/lets-complain, retrieved April 25 2014.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/25 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19836",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14558/"
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|
19,844 | <p>Within my college, teachers generally allow any student who earned a D or lower on an exam, to retake the exam. While I do not need to follow this policy in my courses, many students expect their instructors to offer retakes.</p>
<p>I would like to offer retakes, but see two problems:</p>
<ul>
<li>Setting a fixed cut off at a "D" seems unfair to students. If a student earns a single percentage point more than this, they cannot retake it, but the student who retakes it stands a chance to earn a full A.</li>
<li>Allowing all students to retake would create too much extra work for me. Some students who earned a 95% would still try to retake it to get 100%.</li>
</ul>
<p>If there a fair method of allowing exam retakes that discourages every student from taking them?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19847,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think the easiest way to handle this is to allow anyone to take the exam again. However, the caveat is that the retake <strong>replaces</strong> the previous grade, whether or not it's a better grade. A student who got a very high grade (such as 95%) on the first exam is unlikely to retake an exam to gain five points, when there's every chance the grade could go down by taking the exam a second time.</p>\n\n<p>What one other professor did in a similar situation was to make us choose between keeping the grade on the exam or taking the repeat exam <strong>before</strong> we saw the grade on the first exam. That is, you could either get your exam back and take that grade, or leave it sight unseen and take the second exam. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19880,
"author": "Zach H",
"author_id": 8857,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8857",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One common strategy is to let students split the difference: if they got a 60% on the first exam and an 80% on the second then the final grade would be 70. This can be combined with aeismail's advice, if you are so inclined. </p>\n\n<p>Another option is to cap improvement: the scores that can be obtained on the second exam are bounded. This could be a maximum improvement (e.g. 10%), half the distance to 100%, or a course-wide threshold (say 80%). All of these options discourage people who already did well from taking the exam again, in some cases prohibiting them from doing so.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 173796,
"author": "einpoklum",
"author_id": 7319,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7319",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Exam retakes are inherently unfair, and doubly so when the criteria for allowing them account for the amount of effort on your part.</p>\n<p>There are different causes for the inherent unfairness, including at least:</p>\n<ol>\n<li><p>Exams are inherently unfair for various reasons - not the least of which being that some people do poorly on timed exams but are better able to exhibit command of the subject matter in other settings.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>People who are taking more courses or have to work to finance their studies have a lot less free time to prepare for an additional exam, so they are less likely to take it even with all other things being equal.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>It is not obviously the case that command of a subject matter (in general, or the subject matter of a course) is quantifiable. Hell, it's not obviously the case that the command of a subject matter is properly comparable among individuals.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Retakes are an exception to the default uniform grading policy. Making exceptions is already problematic for those who relied on the uniform policy being applied.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<hr />\n<p>... so if you're already making the exception that is retakes, and regardless of what retake policy you choose, be open-minded about making exceptions or changes so that your students feel they're not getting screwed.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 173823,
"author": "nick012000",
"author_id": 81424,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81424",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<h3>Follow your university's policy.</h3>\n<p>If your university has a policy on how to handle exams retakes, I would say that you should follow that policy. It will ensure fairness and consistency across the university, ensuring that students won't be especially advantaged or disadvantaged as a result of who is teaching a specific class. Additionally, by following the policy, you'll avoid disrupting whatever scheduling your university has developed by assuming that X% of students will wind up retaking the exam, by giving them significantly more or less exam-retaking students.</p>\n<p>If you disagree with your university's exam retaking policy, I think the correct course of action would be to lobby the university administration to change it - or to work towards joining whatever committee is responsible for deciding it, so that you can express your opinions I'm that context.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 173825,
"author": "kaya3",
"author_id": 138892,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/138892",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my former institution, the policy on retakes was that if you retake the assessment(s) for a module then your mark on that module is capped at the minimum pass mark. So if you need 40% to pass, then even if you get a perfect score on the retake exam, your final mark will be 40%.</p>\n<p>This means there is no detriment to students who passed with, say, 42% and who think they could do better if they took the exam again. They are not allowed to retake, but they could not get a higher mark from retaking anyway because their retake mark would be at most 40%.</p>\n<p>That said, this is a policy which should exist at the institution-level. You should find out what your institution's policy on retakes is, and follow that policy.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19844",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/"
]
|
19,846 | <p>Do students at liberal arts universities have 'harder' courses than students at research universities? </p>
<p>Computer Science curricula at large research universities have 5 to 6 courses per semester. The Liberal Arts model dictates roughly 4 courses per semester. If the load on the student is considered to be equivalent, there must be something special to the teaching in the Liberal Arts model.</p>
<p>How is it that a 4 course Liberal Arts semester is as intensive as a 6 course research university semester?</p>
<p>UPDATE: Many of the comments below say the course load I mention above is inaccurate. I have obtained the figures as follows.</p>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://www.lacs.edu" rel="nofollow">Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium (LACS)</a> has released 3 LACS curricula in response to ACM/IEEE CS curriculum recommendations. The first <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=5666.5667" rel="nofollow">in 1986</a> in response to <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=359080.359083" rel="nofollow">the 1978 recommendation</a>, next <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=240483.240502" rel="nofollow">in 1996</a> in response to <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=103701.103710" rel="nofollow">the 1991 recommendation</a> and the most recent <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1240200.1240202" rel="nofollow">in 2007</a> in response to <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=359080.359083" rel="nofollow">the 2001 recommendation</a>. The 4 year course breakdown in all the LACS recommendations is roughly the same:
<ul>
<li>4 courses per semester</li>
<li>30-35% CS courses, 10% math, 5% science, and the rest, i.e. 50% or more courses on arts, humanities and social sciences.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>A typical graduation requirement at a research university is at least 120 credits, which comes to 5 3-credit courses per semester. Many require more than 120 so 6 course semesters are not uncommon.</li>
</ul>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19848,
"author": "Neo",
"author_id": 6898,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6898",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Teaching at a Liberal Arts school (in the United States), there is a lot more \"teaching\" expected. Largely, you do not have TAs for your classes, meaning you not only do all the lecturing, but also the grading and lab work associated with the course. Furthermore, Teachers at Liberal Arts Schools are expected to take a serious interest in the undergraduate body since there usually are no graduate students (hence few TAs). </p>\n\n<p>I am not sure if they are equivalent, and certainly my advisor my research university only teaches 4 classes a year as well. I'd say his teaching load is far less than my professors at the Small Liberal Arts school I attended for undergraduate. That being said, he also has 4 graduate students he advises, which I think end up being a lot more work. </p>\n\n<p>So from a class prospective, teachers at Liberal Arts schools tend to spend more time teaching. But from an advisement perspective, research universities tend to be more intensive. It probably evens out, though I have no first hand experience.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19866,
"author": "user12565",
"author_id": 14596,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14596",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As with other commenters, I think the premise here is flawed.</p>\n\n<p>I teach at a <a href=\"http://www.umw.edu\">public liberal arts college</a> which is typical of many. (Certainly our curriculum and requirements are in line with other schools in the <a href=\"http://www.coplac.org/\">COPLAC</a> Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges.)</p>\n\n<p>Our students are required to complete 120 credits to graduate, which over four years averages to 15 credits a semester, or five 3-credit courses. I don't believe there is any serious difference in student course load when compared to large research universities (but maybe someone will prove me wrong).</p>\n\n<p>The main distinction about teaching at a liberal arts college is that the overall curriculum is broader, and students do not focus on specialization as much as integration of diverse subject areas. Instead of taking 70 or 80 credits of (say) computer science, our students take only 40-45, with the other two-thirds of their degree consisting of courses in other areas. In this way, students build a broad, integrated perspective which incorporates their major into a study of the world at large. The focus at liberal arts colleges is to help students become better critical thinkers, decision makers, and problem solvers, rather than becoming subject matter experts in a narrow discipline.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19893,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>You are making several unfounded assumptions:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>That courses are always 3 credits, so that \"4 courses per semester\" means 12 credits. I have taken courses that were worth 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 credits. Many of the science courses I've taken, including math and computer science courses, have been worth 4 credits. Basic sciences that involve a lecture, lab, and recitation have sometimes been 5 credits.</li>\n<li>That most liberal arts colleges follow the LACS recommendations to the letter. </li>\n<li>That the LACS recommendations somehow suggest that less than 120 credits are required for graduation. <a href=\"http://nemo.sandiego.edu/koo/publications/tale12.pdf\">Here</a> is an example of a liberal arts college following the LACS recommendations for CS and requiring 120 credits. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I did half of my undergraduate degree at a liberal arts college and then transferred to a large research university for the other half. There was virtually no difference in my courseload between the two - I took exactly one credit more in my two years in the research university. I just pulled up my transcripts, and this is what I took each semester:</p>\n\n<p>Part 0</p>\n\n<p>I transferred in 30 credits in humanities, etc. from college courses taken while in high school.</p>\n\n<p>Part 1 - Liberal Arts College</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>16 credits, 4 classes (4, 3, 4, 5)</li>\n<li>13 credits, 3 classes (4, 4, 5)</li>\n<li>(Summer) 3 credits, 1 class (3)</li>\n<li>19 credits, 5 classes (3, 4, 5, 4, 3)</li>\n<li>12 credits, 4 classes (3, 3, 4, 2)</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Part 2 - Research University</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>16 credits, 4 classes (4, 4, 4, 4)</li>\n<li>19 credits, 5 classes (4, 3, 4, 4, 4)</li>\n<li>16 credits, 6 classes (3, 4, 1, 3, 3, 2)</li>\n<li>13 credits, 4 classes (4, 3, 3, 3)</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>(My undergraduate degree was in Electrical Engineering, with a minor in Computer Science.)</p>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19846",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
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|
19,855 | <p>I have been fairly active in the open-source software community with a few projects that have gotten some attention. However, my reputation in the academic/publications world is a little bit low and I'd like to improve that.</p>
<p>I've seen papers written for all kinds of things ranging from simple summaries of a given project, up to discovering new ideas.</p>
<p>I'd like to write a paper about a specific open-source software project that I've built but I'm puzzled whether it would be appropriate to write a paper about it. After all, not many important software projects were published in the form of a publication.</p>
<p><strong>Edit:</strong> as a concrete example, this is one project I've built: <a href="http://lmatteis.github.io/void-graph/">http://lmatteis.github.io/void-graph/</a> - it can visualize RDF structures as a dynamic graph which can be saved in SVG and used in presentations or slides. Would you find this appropriate as the subject of a publication?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19857,
"author": "krammer",
"author_id": 2823,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2823",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I had faced this exact situations a few years ago. I had developed an open source project, which went pretty popular and started being used by many corporations across the globe. Since, I was looking for strengthening my presence in academia, I planned to write a paper on it and sent to a decent journal. The result was rejection with a plethora of useful comments and suggestions. It took me almost an year to publish that paper in a reputable conference. </p>\n\n<p>So, the lessons learnt were (and possibly applicable to you as well)</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The expectations of research tracks is not only that your thing just works, but you need to justify how and why it works</li>\n<li>There should be results (mostly analytical), to demonstrate that your technique works and hence can be used by other people referring/reading it.</li>\n<li>You need to answer why your work is important and what it contributes to the field</li>\n<li>Moreover, most conferences have or accept papers from industrial or application tracks, where you can describe your work in an implementation centric way (possibly giving you some leverage from nuances of research papers as mentioned above)</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19858,
"author": "h22",
"author_id": 10920,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10920",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Depending on the area, some journals and conferences accept \"application notes\", a specific kind of paper that puts much more weight on that significant open source software has been written. Researchers that use such software must normally cite this publication so may also be high impact journals and articles. Search for the journal with this profile. You still must show in the introduction why your work is important and better than some known, older alternatives.</p>\n\n<p>The alternative \"classic\" approach is to look if some scientifically new results and conclusions have been obtained, or maybe some new algorithm have been proposed and evaluated, with less care if the newly written code is popular or even usable in practice.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19860,
"author": "Alexandros",
"author_id": 10042,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10042",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, you should. But on the other hand, do not necessarily assume it will be accepted easily. Some advices:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Your best bet is a demo track in a CS conference (as Peter suggested). For CS demo apps maximum number of pages is usually four, so use them wisely.</li>\n<li>Check all major CS conferences (VLDB, SIGMOD, EDBT and those focusing on Linked Data - RDF). Check their demo track. Read the papers from years past. How is your tool compared to these efforts? </li>\n<li>You must understand that academic criteria is different than industry criteria for what is good or not. The easier way to reject a paper (even a demo paper) is the \"infamous\" question: \"What is the scientific contribution of the paper?\" To be published and accepted, you must prove that your work has multiple scientific test-cases and usages. It is not about what is the most excellent work of CS engineering. Otherwise, excellent apps like Photoshop, Worpdpress would get best paper awards. </li>\n<li>Another main question you need to answer on your paper is: Why is your tool better than every one's else (you must provide such a comparison => you must be familiar with what similar tools are available). There are multiple RDF tools or graph tools that may handle thousands / million of nodes. Can your tool support such sizes? (I have worked with SVG many - many years ago and at that time, SVG was not scalable for those sizes. So, also keep that in mind). </li>\n<li>You must describe your tool completely: Tool Architecture (frameworks used, server architecture), what it can do (screenshots, mini-tutorial), where the tool may be downloaded / demoed, what calculations may be done with your tool etc...</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Of course this is not an exhaustive list. They are just hints to show you what you should aim for. Note, there are many CS researchers who would like to work with proficient open-source engineers (like yourself) on various ideas, so if you want to expand yourself into academic publishing, you will find your way. Good luck!!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19896,
"author": "Fomite",
"author_id": 118,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes - for example, in my field, there is one fairly good journal that allows a type of short journal article on new \"tools\", and I've read more than one PLOS paper on an open-source application. As others have mentioned, there still needs to be some research content - likely a worked motivating example comparing your package to other means of analyzing the same information, preferably an example whose scientific importance is pretty clear to begin with.</p>\n\n<p>But you should absolutely consider it - it's easier to give you credit for using your software if it's linked to a paper.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19941,
"author": "badroit",
"author_id": 7746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n<p>I'd like to write a paper about a specific open-source software project that I've built but I'm puzzled whether it would be appropriate to write a paper about it. After all, not many important software projects were published in the form of a publication.</p>\n<p>Edit: as a concrete example, this is one project I've built: <a href=\"http://lmatteis.github.io/void-graph/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://lmatteis.github.io/void-graph/</a> - it can visualize RDF structures as a dynamic graph which can be saved in SVG and used in presentations or slides. Would you find this appropriate as the subject of a publication?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I can help with specific suggestions for suitable venues in your area (that accept system papers) in order of decreasing impact for improving your research rep:</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/tools_and_systems\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Semantic Web Journal accepts Tools and Systems papers</a>. You need to be able to demonstrate real-world impact of the tool/system. Effectively, this track is for paving the cow-paths: publishing about tools/systems that are already well-known in the community but don't have sufficient scientific contribution for a research track (and incentivising the developement of tools/systems that are useful for the community). First step is to get your tool/system to be well-known.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>WWW Demo Track: Write a short 2-page paper on your idea, pack it with as much academically-restrained ehthusiasm and technical detail as you can and hopefully you'll get to present it at the WWW conference. These 2-page papers will be published in the supplementary proceedings and will be indexed in DBLP. The criteria for demo papers as WWW is (in my opinion) often fickle ... a lot of demo papers are borderline/rejected full papers. Otherwise reviewers follow their own whims.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>ISWC|ESWC Demo/Poster/Challenge tracks: Probably you want to aim for a demo track. Submit a four or five page (LNCS) paper to ISWC or ESWC describing your demo. Main emphasis for reviewing is on the novelty of the system itself, technical soundness, and how nice a conversation-piece it will make at the poster/demo session. Demo papers are sometimes (not always) published as a CEUR proceedings, which will sometimes end up in DBLP.</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p>The first option is essentially free (money wise) for you.</p>\n<p>The latter two options will incur the cost of attending the conference to present a demo. If you are an independent researcher, that might not be an option: it might be a high cost for little reputation gain. But it depends on your long term goals.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>Another option is to find your inner scientific contribution and go for a research track submission.</p>\n<p>The most important aspect is that an expert in the area will <em>learn</em> something about the area that they didn't already know and couldn't find out about elsewhere (without doing the research themselves). As a reviewer in a research track, after reading a paper I will always ask myself: did I learn something? What did I learn? What is its nature (theoretical, experimental, analytical, synthesis, etc.)? Where else could I have learned that?</p>\n<p>As an author, I apply the same principle in reverse: what is the reader going to learn from this paper and how can I highlight it and frame it in the proper "research-speak"? (This may appear cynical, and perhaps it is a little, but being able to identify, highlight and sell your core contributions is a delicate art that does lead to better papers ... as well as higher success in peer review.)</p>\n<p>Ultimately, with experience on your side, it sometimes doesn't require much effort to find an angle from which something can be turned into a scientific contribution.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>Also, take encouragement from the fact that many of the most highly cited papers/references in the Semantic Area refer to software projects or systems of various types (Google Scholar citations): Jena (856), Sesame (1346), Protege (1060), DBpedia (1344), OWL API (265), and so forth.</p>\n<p>Being system papers, all of these papers were (arguably) arguable in terms of scientific contribution.</p>\n<p>Likewise, many authors in the area have made their names through works that are inherently practical while being based in industry (e.g., HP Labs, Talis, Bell Labs). Looking through the author list of some of the papers above will throw up some such names.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19964,
"author": "Frames Catherine White",
"author_id": 8513,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8513",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a user of open source software, I would appreciate the authors of said software producing a paper about it. </p>\n\n<p>Then when I use the software I can cite the paper.\nSure I can cite the software itself, or its manual, or a book about it.</p>\n\n<p>But citing a academic paper looks better, and assuming there is free/easy access to the paper, anyone who doesn't know what the software is, or doesn't feel it is suitable for academical use.</p>\n\n<p>I'm writing a project proposal presently, I cited papers for SciPy, IPython, and several others. \nHowever I had nothing good to cite for Subversion. \nI may end up citing the software itself, as I did for Python.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19855",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12847/"
]
|
19,863 | <p>I will get an information science under graduate degree this July in an Italian university. I want to apply for a computer science degree at an American university. Here in Italy the high school lasts five years instead of four, and the undergraduate degree (<em>laurea triennale</em>) lasts three years instead of four. </p>
<p>So my concerns are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Is there a way to get a list of all American universities that accept an Italian <em>laurea triennale</em> as an undergraduate degreee?</li>
<li>Since I will graduate in July and in most universities the next semester begins in September, I think that I should start applying from now. So the question is: do they allow students to apply even before they got the graduate degree and TOEFL?</li>
</ol>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19864,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It is standard practice in the US for students to apply for graduate programs before they have received a degree, and the TOEFL exam is normally taken as part of the admissions process.</p>\n\n<p>However, you should also be aware of the fact that you have largely missed the admissions \"window\" for this coming fall: at most American graduate schools, you need to apply during the <strong>previous</strong> fall. So, for instance, to apply for admission in September 2014, you should have applied during the period (roughly) September 2013 to January 2014.</p>\n\n<p>It is unlikely you will be able to secure admission to any American graduate school starting this September. At best you will be able to apply for admission in the fall of 2015. The only exception will be schools with \"rolling admissions,\" which accept applications at any time.</p>\n\n<p>As for the acceptance of the \"triennale\" degree, you will need to ask the individual schools you're interested in; I'm not aware of any such master list (because the number of recipients of such degrees who enroll in any particular program probably isn't big enough to support such a list).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19869,
"author": "Patricia Shanahan",
"author_id": 10220,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10220",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I was admitted to a graduate program at UCSD based, in part, on a 3-year bachelor's degree from London University. There did not seem to be any issue at all with the duration or number of course units. I don't know whether it would have been different if that had been my only qualification - I also had a master's degree and very substantial work experience.</p>\n\n<p>Many of my fellow students had bachelor's degrees earned outside the US, and the admissions process seemed to be designed to handle that smoothly.</p>\n\n<p>I do think you have left applying far too late for starting in Fall 2014. You probably need to reset to Fall 2015, plan what to do for the next year, and collect the critical dates for applying to each university you would like to attend.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19879,
"author": "Donbeo",
"author_id": 14608,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14608",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The italian laurea triennale should be the equivalent of an US bachelor degree. I think that professor from your Italian university can help you to understand better the situation.</p>\n\n<p>You should not encounter any problems. As long you respect the deadline</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19863",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14586/"
]
|
19,867 | <p><em>(This question is set up under the EECS context, but any generic answer is much welcomed)</em></p>
<p>It is said that publications during one's undergraduate time will be an advantage in his/her PhD application. Usually, an undergraduate only starts publishing papers in his/her junior (3rd) year, and the application deadline usually comes at the end of his/her junior year. Hence, it is very likely that although the paper has been accepted by or even already presented in a certain conference, yet it has not been included into IEEE Xplore.</p>
<p>If the student has not uploaded the paper to some preprint database, such as arXiv or ResearchGate, then the admission committee will have no access to the paper. Of course, they may still be able to find some information about the paper, e.g., a tittle and an abstract appearing in the conference schedule, but after all they cannot go deeper into the paper content.</p>
<h1>Questions</h1>
<ul>
<li>Does the admission committee even bother to go through the paper to assess the work quality? (Sometimes, you can have a rough quality assessment by looking at which journal/conference the paper is accepted by)</li>
<li>If the answer is positive, is it a good idea for the applicant to upload the papers to arXiv and provide the committee with the links so that the committee can read the papers as they wish?</li>
</ul>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19870,
"author": "Fomite",
"author_id": 118,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While it's a single N experience from my graduate school application process:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Does the admission committee even bother to go through the paper to\n assess the work quality? (Sometimes, you can have a rough quality\n assessment by looking at which journal/conference the paper is\n accepted by)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes. <em>Several</em> interviews I had mentioned content within the paper, at at least one of them had a good 10 or 15 minute discussion about the research that didn't start with the phrase \"So, tell me what your paper was about...\"</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If the answer is positive, is it a good idea for the applicant to\n upload the papers to arXiv and provide the committee with the links so\n that the committee can read the papers as they wish?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes. If your field is arXiv friendly, put it there. If your field isn't particularly arXiv friendly (like mine) and your paper is in press, consider providing the PDF as a supplement to your admissions packet.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19899,
"author": "BrenBarn",
"author_id": 9041,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9041",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Committee members will absolutely want to see it. The best way to ensure that they can easily do so is to submit a copy of the paper with the application (either on hard copy if the application is hard copy, or more commonly electronically). My own experience has been that most schools <em>require</em> submission of a writing sample as part of the application (although I'm not in engineering). Even if you've already published something, it's not enough to just give the reference; they want you to provide the actual paper.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19867",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8079/"
]
|
19,881 | <p>I keep coming across general wisdom of the type, "A teacher has to be a clown". This attitude is gaining traction, e.g. as in <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_emdin_teach_teachers_how_to_create_magic">this TED talk</a>.</p>
<p>This leaves me quite baffled. Thinking back to my own teachers, the ones I admire most and feel I learnt the most from were all serious and single-mindedly focused. Maybe it is for that reason that I have become a similar teacher, though not by a conscious decision on my part. My students find me a tough teacher but I receive emails several semesters later thanking me.</p>
<p>I have discussed this with colleagues around me and while they agree with me, they argue that the current iPhone generation has so many resources available to them, working hard to grab their attention should also be the teacher's task. Afterall, the argument goes, they may just receive better instruction online through a world leader in the subject.</p>
<p>I am just wondering what others feel about this.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19882,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Teachers and professors don't need to be clowns. However, they do need to <strong>engage</strong> their students.</p>\n\n<p>The old mode of a teacher standing at the front of the lecture hall talking \"at\" students for an hour or ninety minutes at a time is a cultural relic, rather than necessarily the best way to educate students, as learning in a lecture is usually at best passive. </p>\n\n<p>There are many ways to get around this problem—including engaging in class discussions, demonstrations, group learning, and, yes, sometimes humor can be used to make the point. But just as teaching should not be a stale recitation of facts, neither is it open mic night at your local comedy club. Learning is serious business, but it doesn't have to be boring, either.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19887,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Give me reasons to listen to your lesson, and I will be entertained. There is a reason for what I signed up for the class, anyway. Also note that, if I want a clown, I can go in the evening to a performance; way easier than getting up 7 am to go to a lesson.</p>\n\n<p>As Moriarty said, you need passionate, engaging educators. You raise an interesting point with the online courses: why would I follow a local lesson, when I could be listening to a top-class eminence? Again, you need to give me a reason: interactivity, quick doubt solving, a syllabus tailored to what I specifically need in my field... or plainly better explanations (world geniuses can still be improved).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19891,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think it's really easy to underestimate a student's ability to sense passion and dedication and respond to it. While cheap gimmicks might work, passion always shows if it exists, and students respect that. </p>\n\n<p>Passion is a form of authenticity that can't be easily faked. Similarly, a natural comic can teach well with jokes, but someone who's forcing humor to be \"entertaining\" and comes off as inauthentic. </p>\n\n<p>So while I don't know where you got this idea that \"a teacher should be a clown\", it is nevertheless true that a teacher should show that they care about their subject, their students and teaching, and this can be done in many ways. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19895,
"author": "Nick Stauner",
"author_id": 10518,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10518",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's largely a question of balance. In a single-teacher, tens/hundreds-of-students classroom, \"one size fits all\" is a necessary evil<sup>*</sup> to some extent. Practicing versatility of style and introducing variety (e.g., by having some serious, <a href=\"http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nose_to_the_grindstone\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">nose-to-the-grindstone</a> days mixed with some days of light edutainment – and telling students which it's going to be at the start of class) can help ensure that your \"size\" fits most students at some point. If you don't mix things up haphazardly, you can at least create the impression that you're a balanced educator and not stuck in any one style. Sometimes all it takes to get students on-board with your education plan is to cater to their expectations just enough to get through to them once. Afterward, they may follow you out of their comfort zones more willingly, even if it doesn't come as naturally as they'd like.</p>\n\n<p>There's an <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">opportunity cost</a> every time you serve one kind of student preferences that others don't share. The \"evil\" of a one-size-fits-all educational system is that by failing to present curricula in modes that suit several major learning styles, some nontrivial subpopulation is always served poorly. In certain manners, one can try to suit several styles all at once (e.g., by mixing audiovisual presentation with individual and group exercises), but this makes it difficult to focus attention on any one element, and costs time both in preparation and in class. You can't <em>literally</em> attend to all elements at once – <a href=\"https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/3708/4086\">multitasking is somewhat misconceived</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Humor and entertainment value in education are similar issues. As is the case with humor and entertainment outside of an academic context, you can't please every audience without considerable talent, and you can't please every audience <em>member</em> no matter how funny you are. Within an academic context, you face an even greater challenge as a comedian: contextual expectation violation. Some students may expect clowning, but probably just as many won't, and will consider you unprofessional if you cater too much to those who do.</p>\n\n<p>Thus it's a question of balance and how you want to strike it in your classes. As I see it, it's a question of whether to try to (dis)please the same people throughout the academic term, or whether to give every student a more equal mixture of (dis)service.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Do you want to choose a particular (set of) style(s) and stick to it (or them)?\n\n<ul>\n<li>This is somewhat necessary, because no one can cover the full range of teaching styles in any one class. It is also wise to play to your strengths and not force unnatural styles.</li>\n<li>A somewhat necessary consequence is that certain students will not approve of your chosen approach, and their educational outcomes may suffer. However, those whose preferences you do serve will approve of you and thrive more for every additional moment in which your approach matches their preferences.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Do you want to try to mix up your delivery and serve every preference some of the time?\n\n<ul>\n<li>Some amount of variety is inevitable, as you're human and bring a slightly different energy to every day's class. Certain topics may deserve different styles of presentation, and coverage of most will benefit from taking multiple perspectives. Arguably the fair approach is to try to give equal time to all students' preferred modalities.</li>\n<li>This can be a strain, both for you and the students who recognize that you could teach the class their way more often than you do. Most people will have some weaknesses, and class time might not be the best time to work on those as a teacher. Part of the necessary evil of a one-teacher-per-class system is that students have less choice over whether a teacher suits their preferences. You can only do so much about it by playing the part of several different teachers over the course of the course. </li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Either way, someone will be pleased and someone else will be displeased with any given element of your class. Clowning around is no more universally acceptable than any other style.</p>\n\n<p><sub><sup>*</sup>A fairer way of describing the one-size-fits-all approach would be as a conventional compromise with efficiency concerns regarding budgetary and labor limitations. It might not be necessary to teach individual students in a several-students-per-teacher environment – home-schooling and one-on-one tutoring are counterexamples – but as a society with scarce resources for serving boundless educational demand, this status quo is at least necessary <em>de facto</em>. Maybe this is for lack of a better idea, but I haven't got one myself, and most would be difficult to implement at best.</sub></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19901,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Reiterating a part of other good answers: the \"real\" version of the question is about \"added value\". Is there any reason to come to class as opposed to just reading the book/notes, or looking at things on-line? If the instructor does not, or cannot, add value beyond reading the book... etc... why in the world would a student want to show up? This is not at all about the misguided over-specific \"will it be on the final?\" information, but about the <em>content</em>. </p>\n\n<p>I have had the good fortune to attend lectures from some very good mathematicians, and/but a certain number gave amazingly bad talks. Painstakingly copied onto a blackboard their notes... often without saying a word. Even with wonderful notes, there was no evident reason for a group of people to show up at a particular time, sit quietly in a cramped space, and copy (presumably fallibly) into their own notes what could have been photocopied...</p>\n\n<p>Yes, such scenarios are a slightly extreme failure, but do highlight the issue of \"adding value\". The model of your copying notes (which may have been copied from some other source) onto the board, to be copied by students, ... is just silly, all the more so in modern times.</p>\n\n<p>But to \"be a clown\"? Depends. By itself, probably this is dumb. To be <em>witty</em> about the narrative, to be <em>facile</em>, to be <em>aware</em>, surely helps keep the class alive, and these affect-oriented things are not replicated in text. Next: how to be better than videos? First, make it clear, by function, that you are reading the facial expressions and body language of the students, whether or not they overtly ask questions. Make it clear that you are _paying_attention_to_them_. Videos don't do that (quite yet...)</p>\n\n<p>Just joking around can have a nice ice-breaking effect, but is just killing time unless highly integrated into the programme.</p>\n\n<p>I think a good general criterion is \"added value\"... some of which could be \"entertainment\", but then there's the question of movement toward your goals for the course.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19906,
"author": "Ivan Igniter",
"author_id": 14629,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14629",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For me a teacher shouldn't need to be a entertainers. A better teacher should understand and know how to make his topic more interesting and friendly to it's listener. To make a lesson to be more interesting is to show the relevance and its application. To make a lesson to be lively is to use some visual aids to be easily understood and to help picture the purpose of the topic in that way listeners are not bored and help there imagination guided.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19913,
"author": "Di Ana",
"author_id": 14644,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14644",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Teachers are teachers and clowns are clowns, should not be confused. Even so, humour, multimedia, vivid talks, are important elements to facilitate communication. Everybody loves to be taken seriously and students are not exceptions. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19917,
"author": "Roman",
"author_id": 11694,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11694",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think it depends on the topic. Teachers should first and foremost be a great teacher. That person has to be ready, present material in an understandable manner, answer questions, all that fun stuff. \nSome more dry topics require extra showmanship on teacher's behalf. That is the only time when you have to go out of your way to \"entertain\" students. Other times, communicate with students like you always would. </p>\n\n<p>I find that professors that talk to students like equals get more of my attention.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19881",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14572/"
]
|
19,885 | <p>I graduated from college 5 years ago, and I was very fortunate to graduate with no debt. For the 3 years after graduating I worked hard, had solid employment, and saved very carefully. This afforded me the opportunity to use a portion of those savings to buy a used car that people comment on while I am driving down the street which I have owned for 2 years. It looks a lot nicer than the cost because I bought it after a large portion of the value depreciated. I love the car, it is very reliable, and I very much want to keep it. </p>
<p>I know I am supposed to be a "poor graduate student", and my offer included funding plus a stipend, so I consider myself very fortunate.</p>
<p>I was very adamantly told by someone that owning such a car would make me look bad, and that if funding became tight I would get the short end of the stick because my car was too nice. He said the exact same thing happened to a fellow graduate student when he was in a PhD program at the same school 30 years ago.</p>
<p>If it really would reflect poorly on me to have a certain car I'm willing to take a step down, but I wanted to hear from others. Is this perception accurate?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19888,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>[This answer is based on my experiences in the U.S., specifically in math grad school but I think many fields would be similar.]</p>\n\n<p>Your fellow graduate students will initially take your car as evidence that you're rich. They'll probably wonder whether you'll be a snob, but personal interaction should allay those fears. Once they get to know you, there will still be comments and jokes about your car for the entire time you're in grad school, but I don't think it will be a real problem. In the program I was in, most grad students didn't have cars, and the ones who did gained a little popularity if they took their fellow students on road trips (or even trips to get groceries or see movies), so your reputation may even benefit from having a fancy car.</p>\n\n<p>Faculty don't necessarily know whether a student even has a car, let alone what sort of car, but this sounds like a car that will lead to rumors going around the department. You may get similar reactions from faculty as from students, but they are less likely to care about social interaction with you (for example, whether you're a snob). Your apparent wealth could theoretically play a role behind the scenes in allocation of funding, but I don't think this is likely, and it would be inappropriate for it to be a factor in most decisions. The most plausible scenario might be if money were tight and you requested extended funding beyond the years you were promised. If the department head is deciding which requests to approve, there's not enough money to approve everyone, and your car leads to a reputation of being rich, then the car could work against you. However, I don't think this is likely enough to be worth worrying about, and you can always address any rumors about your wealth with your advisor early on in grad school if you think they might be a problem.</p>\n\n<p>The main disadvantage I see is that your fancy car might be your most salient, defining characteristic, forcing you to work a little harder to establish yourself in people's minds for your research rather than your car. Once again, I don't think this is a big deal, but it might make you feel a little uncomfortable knowing that half the department thinks of you primarily as a person with a car. (On the other hand, this is far from the worst thing you could end up being known for.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19894,
"author": "Neal Fultz",
"author_id": 14412,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14412",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It depends; TA stipends seem to be roughly the same across the country, but $1700/month goes a lot further in Manhattan, KS than it does in Manhattan. </p>\n\n<p>It also depends on the car. Here in LA, it takes a lot more than a BMW or Mercedes to draw attention.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19903,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My honest feeling is that this is a trick question: it's not anybody else's business what kind of car you drive. If you didn't already have the car then there would be the question of whether buying an unusually nice car is a wise allocation of your (perhaps scarce) financial resources. Since you already have the car: great, you like it; keep it.</p>\n\n<p>Will some people judge you differently because you drive a nice car? Sure; people will judge you differently depending upon how much hair you have and how you style it, depending upon how often you go to the gym, depending upon your regional accent....You are who you are.</p>\n\n<p>The idea that driving a nice car could make you less competitive for academic funding seems almost offensive to me. Most graduate academic funding is not \"need-based\". If it is, then presumably you need to submit more comprehensive financial information than just the car you drive, and presumably you're not willing to give away or hide substantial amounts of income in order to qualify for more need-based funding.</p>\n\n<p>In summary: <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Do_You_Care_What_Other_People_Think%3F\">What do you care what other people think?</a> The fact that something bad allegedly happened to someone else 30 years ago is not nearly a good enough reason for you to stop doing something that gives you pleasure and that in no way interferes with your professional life. (FYI: most academic programs have changed significantly in the last 30 years. Stories from 30 years ago are still interesting; it is much less clear whether they are still relevant.) Live your life for yourself and the others that you care about; do not optimize for the perceptions of others. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19904,
"author": "user2258552",
"author_id": 12655,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12655",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Don't change your life just so you can conform to the expectations of people who know nothing about you and will judge you for such superficial and idiotic things. It really shouldn't even matter whether you worked hard and bought a used car that looks nice, or just won the lottery and bought a brand-new Ferrari. It's your life and it has absolutely nothing to do with how good of a graduate student you will be.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19905,
"author": "T K",
"author_id": 12656,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12656",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My graduate experience on a social level seemed to have a lot to do with appearances and judgments thereof. It took a lot of time to bust some barriers that people unfairly made about my certain identities. That being said, no one that interacted with me for any amount of time judged me unfairly for long. That being said, driving a nice car is nowhere near the type of difficulty that other people may have due to their gender identity, sexual identity, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, I had an issue close to yours where I wanted to be a TA trainer in my department. A year after I was passed over for this opportunity, I came to find out that the reason was because I had an external stipend and they wanted to \"spread the funding\" around instead of give the opportunity to me.</p>\n\n<p>This is a bit troubling and there was some pushback on the deciding committee, but in the end they did not give me that opportunity because I \"did not need the extra money.\" I believe this had to do with my current funding package instead of how much money it looked like I had, but this is something to consider.</p>\n\n<p>A year later, the university itself had no problem giving me the university-wide equivalent job analogous to the department one which was a better experience and paid better, so in the end it worked out for the best.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19885",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14613/"
]
|
19,889 | <p>I am facing a dilemma regarding whether or not to apply for Spring for PhD programs at some universities in US. What are the pros and cons of applying for PhD or MS programs in Spring?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19890,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Most PhD programs, and many master's programs, in the US only offer one admissions cycle per year, with programs starting in the fall. This is in part because of the PhD program encompassing classwork as well as research.</p>\n\n<p>The main issue that speaks against spring admissions is that in most programs, the coursework begins in the fall semester, and any \"sequences\" (where course Y depends on course X) will often begin in the fall semester. Thus, starting in the spring semester may mean that your coursework phase will need to extend longer, so there's no real advantage between starting in the spring and waiting until the following fall.</p>\n\n<p>Where there might be an advantage is if you are able to use some of the time for finding a research group (if that is necessary for a research thesis for the master's degree); in some cases, you could even get a head start on the thesis work, which could allow you to finish somewhat faster.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19900,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I started grad school in the spring of 1998, immediately after I finished my undergrad the previous fall. I happened to be continuing at the same university with an advisor that I had worked with some during undergrad. Aeismail is probably right, but it can be done. I spent the time starting to do a little research and taking a few interesting classes that were outside the standard new-graduate student sequence. You probably won't shorten your time in grad school with a spring start, but you might enjoy it more with a warm-up semester. If you can make $50k+ by waiting til the fall, that might be worth it. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/27 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19889",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14615/"
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|
19,907 | <p>I observe media uses health studies or research and come up with conclusions to influence the consumers today with headlines suitable for few corporations</p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-study-says-caffeine-can-help-strengthen-memory-function/2014/01/13/bff02b5a-7c7c-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html">New study says caffeine can help strengthen memory function</a></p>
<p><a href="http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?id=9015796">Research shows beer can be good for you</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p>Is it true that some research today are manipulated to suit corporate agenda particularly private funded?</p></li>
<li><p>Is there a way to identify commercial research?</p></li>
</ul>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19909,
"author": "user-2147482637",
"author_id": 12718,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12718",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>There is always a possibility that an Industry funded project (meaning a company is funding it vs. the government) is influenced. However, in academia, the idea is that peer reviewed work looks at the methodology and results to decide if it makes sense. There are also different types of 'research'.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>In the media 'A new study...' does not necessarily mean academic publication (in the case of your link, it was). Anything is possible, and if an upcoming researcher who needs funding tries to find meaning that benefits a company to get more funding later, than yes, it is possible for research to be 'manipulated'. In the case that it was a company producing the research themselves, such as a coffee company posting its own research, most likely it is biased. An example is the bing challenge, which says that research shows people choose bing over google, but that was Microsoft's research.</p></li>\n<li><p>A company can fund academic research that leads to a publication. In this situation, there is an acknowledgement of who funded the research. There are often conflict of interest statements that are included in the publication.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19911,
"author": "posdef",
"author_id": 5674,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Industry funded research is a common phenomenon, and honestly I don't see much problem with it, as long as it's clearly stated that the project is designed, funded and/or carried out by a profit-driven company, held privately or publicly. </p>\n\n<p>Many journals I follow, mostly within medical and biomedical research) specifically ask for the <em>funding information</em>, as well as declaration of any <em>conflict of interest</em>. While the use of these sections are not limited to corporate funding cases, it is also a good place to denote involvement. </p>\n\n<p>I believe the important part of your question is how corporate funded research is framed/presented towards general public. That is more of a discussion on media ethics and protocol than academia, I would say. Practically all respectable journals have peer-review (often blind), obvious cases of undeclared conflict of interest are relatively easy to pick up. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19921,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The existing answers address the fact that industries do sponsor research. However, you should note that the wording of a given headline is entirely chosen by either the marketing department in a company, or by some journalist aiming to maximize click-through to his article. It's very common for a fairly mundane paper to generate sensationalist headlines, through no fault of the researcher.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19922,
"author": "Cape Code",
"author_id": 10643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The first thing to point out here is that you are referring to media directed at the general public, not scientific publications. \"Science\" article in newspapers and magazines are rarely objective and most of the time fail to convey the actual conclusion of the paper they cite. </p>\n\n<p>This can be harmful to the public's perception of research results in many ways and I get upset by it quite often. Scientists themselves almost never write to the newspaper to correct false conclusions made from their work, not even when their own words are misinterpreted, taken out of context, or simply made up.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is it true that some research today are manipulated to suit corporate\n agenda particularly private funded?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7400/1167\" rel=\"nofollow\">It has been shown</a> that, even with rigorous methodology, researchers will have a tendency to make companies that pays them happy. Note that <strong>this is not restricted to privately-funded research.</strong> Government agencies that fund research obviously <strong>also have agendas</strong> and are generally far more powerful than the average commercial company (the US Department of Defense comes to mind). There is also a 'scientifically correct' among public funding agencies and scientist throughout history have struggled when their findings conflicted with popular political opinions.</p>\n\n<p>In general, what diminishes this effect is when a lot of people from various places and with competing or opposite interests are researching on the same topic. One can expect the biases to level themselves out.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is there a way to identify commercial research?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes. First, read actual scientific literature and not lay articles in men's health or gossip magazines. Second, <em>reputable journals</em> always ask authors to state every source of funding, and possible conflicts of interest. Third, switch your brain on when you read and use your judgment. If one lone article by Smith J. et al. states that products manufactured by Smith J. LLC are the next big thing, use extra scrutiny.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19974,
"author": "jwenting",
"author_id": 11647,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11647",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are many \"studies\" funded by interest groups with agendas where the \"researchers\" know what the outcome is supposed to be based on that agenda.<br/>\nMost such however are not funded by private industry (at least directly) but by political pressure groups, government agencies, and yes, sometimes industry groups (like a group set up to promote the drinking of beer might fund a \"study\" to show that beer is healthy).<br/>\n<br/>\nThis has been going on for centuries, possibly thousands of years, it's nothing new. <br/>\n<br/>\n\"Peer review\" can help undermine such things, but sadly that too is all too easily corrupted. Just fund a \"scientific journal\" and have the review staff filled with more \"scientists\" who know where their paycheck is coming from and what they're supposed to agree with if they want funding for their own next \"study\".<br/>\n<br/>\nScience is expensive, people need to eat, and as long as there's people with an agenda to push and enough money to push it through shady (pseudo)scientific \"studies\" there's going to be \"scientists\" eager to take that money.<br/>\n<br/></p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/28 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19907",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
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|
19,912 | <p>I'm currently writing an objection to a decision to reject my Master application.</p>
<p>The decision is made by Admission office, not by Admission Board or Committee. All members of the Admission office are not members of the academic staff, so there is no at least one professor from the programme who participated in making this decision to reject my application. I checked this because in the email I received, there are the names of the members. </p>
<p>As they use the word "reject" it might lead someone to think that my application was not complete, but this was not true. According to this decision, my application was carefully examined and, in addition, I was not informed that there is some document missing as it is stated in the FAQ on there website, i.e. they will inform me in the case of missing document or delay caused by more time they need to check my educational background.</p>
<p>In the email that I received there is no a reason why my application is rejected. Now I have to state clearly the grounds on which I object there decision.</p>
<p>I applied with not only BSc that meets the requirements but also with two year Master degree in the same field, successfully finished without redoubling the year, high marks. Before applying I informed the admission office for this and I did not have any remarks for my previous educational beckground as I saw that all requirements are referring to previous Bsc. I was even waved out from GRE/GMAT requirements.</p>
<p>I need the help especially from those who have expericence in the European (EU) Education Law or Dutch Higer Education and Research Act (WHW) to clearly state the Articles that are violated concerning:</p>
<ol>
<li>The composition of the Admission office (I know that it is a practice everywhere in the world to have at least one professor, but I need an official document, I cannot only refer to the ethics)</li>
<li>The right of a student to have at least some information to know why the application was rejected as it has to state clearly the grounds of his objection</li>
<li>Is there any convention or document that clearly defines what is non-selected and rejected document (this document must be official)</li>
<li>Regarding the level of my previous education which fully satisfies the requirement, is there any ground for discrimination based on the fact that maybe I'm overqualified or overeducated, taking into considereation also the fact they told me previously that I can apply?</li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you for your understanding</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19940,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my (central European) university, candidates for admission to a master's program who are coming from an outside university go through either an \"admissions committee\" (<em>Zulassungsausschuss</em>) or an \"examination committee\" (<em>Prüfungsausschuss</em>). Although the decisions are in fact made by those committees, the decisions are usually reported through assistants to those committees, who would constitute the \"admissions office.\" It would represent a huge time commitment for the chair of the committee to individually respond to the different applications, and therefore that work is passed on to the intermediaries.</p>\n\n<p>Thus, I wouldn't read too much into the fact the letter came from the \"admissions office\" instead of the \"admissions committee.\"</p>\n\n<p>However, if you were in fact rejected on the basis of having an \"incomplete\" application, even though you were explicitly told that you would be notified of missing documents, that would give you the right to request a review, since they didn't follow their explicit policies.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19943,
"author": "Mangara",
"author_id": 8185,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8185",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As the bachelor-master subdivision in the Netherlands is fairly recent, most master's programs are so-called \"Connecting Master's\". These are designed for students graduating from one specific bachelor's program at that same university. All students who graduated from that bachelor's program (and sometimes hand-picked similar programs at other Dutch universities) are accepted into the Masters automatically. If by a <em>\"BSc that meets the requirements\"</em>, you mean that you completed one of these bachelor's program that should qualify you for automatic admission, you should be able to build a much stronger case than worrying about who was on the committe.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, students who did not graduate from one of these selected bachelor's programs have to apply to the university for a certificate of admission <em>(bewijs van toelating)</em>. The application procedure is left up to the individual universities to define and implement. The conditions for acceptance will depend on the specific program you applied for. This means that (assuming you fall into this category) you should base your appeal on the university policies for the application procedure, and the program's requirements.</p>\n\n<p>The admission requirements should be detailed in the <em>\"onderwijs- en examenregeling\"</em> of the program you're applying for, and should match the education goals of the preceding bachelor's program.</p>\n\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0005682/Hoofdstuk7/Titel2/Paragraaf2/Artikel730a/geldigheidsdatum_28-04-2014\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wet op het hoger onderwijs en wetenschappelijk onderzoek, Artikel 7.30a</a>.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/28 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19912",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
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|
19,914 | <p>From talking to colleagues in a variety of fields and different institutions, there seems to be a huge variability in the ways committees handle their responsibilities of reviewing dissertation chapters. I would like to know two things: </p>
<ol>
<li>What do you consider the best practices for advisors, other committee members, and candidates in order to move the dissertation writing along efficiently? </li>
<li>Does the <em>Journal Review</em> policy (specified below) seem reasonable to you? </li>
</ol>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Journal Review Method</strong></p>
<p>In this model, the dissertation advisor treats his or her role as the
chair of the candidate's committee as if he or she were the editor of
a journal and the dissertation chapters articles submitted for review.
The student submits a chapter to the advisor who decides whether it is
ready to send for review. If it is, then the advisor sends the chapter
to committee members for review. The committee members make a brief
(2-4 page) report to the advisor that either: accepts the chapter as
is, accepts it pending minor revisions, rejects it pending major
revisions, or rejects the chapter entirely. The advisor then makes the
final determination as to the status of the chapter. It will be the
advisor's responsibility to make sure other committee members submit
their reports in a timely fashion. The defense is held when the
advisor judges all of the chapters to be "accepted".</p>
<p>The primary benefits of this policy are that it creates a clear
organizational structure which allows candidates to receive prompt,
actionable feedback on their work.</p>
</blockquote>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19915,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The policy is straight forward but an open question is what use a complete reject means if the advisor has deemed the chapter as passable. As I see it the advisor has (should have) both the insight into the details of the problem and research as well as general knowledge of academic expectations to deem when a manuscript is in shape for passing on. If a committee member does not think this is right then the question still remains who may be right and who may be wrong? Is the decision by vote in the end since there will likely be three or five persons involved in reading the chapters? In my system it is possible for a student to defend even if the advisor or committee member advise against it. Only fools do but it is possible. It is however, still possible for committee members to disagree but usually when issues arise it is because the student-advisor communication has failed for one or the other reason.</p>\n\n<p>So in my view the \"journal review method\" is a good start but you also need to consider what will happen if there is disagreement and how to possibly weigh the input. Do all committee members have equal weight in all aspects or are they experts in some parts and therefore carry more weight in those chapters than in others. I think the system requires some tweaking in order to accommodate the clear differences that exist between a journal publications and a thesis (<em>sensu</em> monograph) where a thesis typically contains larger quantities of more detailed information than would be possible in a published paper.</p>\n\n<p>As a side point, in my system where paper based theses are the norm, it is hard to \"reject\" a published paper; one can disagree but something that has passed peer review (albeit a poor one) has still passed. The key pint is thus the overall quality of the work and of the emerging scientist behind it. This i snot necessarily covered by the \"journal review method\" alone.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19919,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here's what I think from the point of view of mathematics in the US. </p>\n\n<p>For us the usual system is that the advisor is expected to read the thesis carefully, judging its correctness, significance, and novelty, at a level of depth comparable to or higher than would be expected of a journal review (which in mathematics is already pretty deep). The other committee members are expected only to give a more cursory reading, basically to satisfy themselves that the contents of the thesis appear to be mathematics research at an appropriate level.</p>\n\n<p>As such, I think your system would face the following problems:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Expertise. Mathematics as a field is highly specialized, and most of the members of the committee will not be experts in the same area as the candidate. They will not have the necessary background or expertise to carefully read and evaluate the dissertation at the level you propose. For a journal submission, referees can be chosen from anyone in the world, and even so there may only be a few dozen people whom an editor would consider well qualified for that particular topic. The intersection of that pool with the candidate's university is typically just the advisor.</p></li>\n<li><p>Workload. Even supposing the committee members to have the necessary expertise, what you propose would require a very significant time commitment from them. An average dissertation chapter in mathematics might be 20 or 30 pages of dense computation and logical argument. To read a paper of that length, evaluate its correctness and significance, and produce a 2-4 page referee report, a mathematician might easily spend at least 10-15 hours. Multiply that by 4-6 chapters and that is a lot of work, especially considering that a single person may be on several committees.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
}
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|
19,916 | <p>At the moment I'm a high school student, who is passionate about the High Energy Physics areas, especially Phenomenology, String Theory, QFT and so on. I would like to pursue a B.Sc. degree in Mathematical Physics in the future in my country (central European country with a lot of famous string theorists ;) ). After that I would like to move to the USA to get a PhD in the one of the areas show above, but I heard that getting a post-doc and then a permanent job is quite hard.</p>
<p>Is it true? Would I have better success if I wouldn't limit myself only to the US, but include here, Europe, Asia, and Australia.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19918,
"author": "nivag",
"author_id": 14115,
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"text": "<p>In many respects any career in academia will be quite hard. Positions are very dependent on funding so there is often little choice in location and wages are often quite low compared to similarly skilled people in industry.</p>\n\n<p>However, I wouldn't let these things put you off. If its what you enjoy and you are half decent there will be jobs out there. Also I wouldn't worry too much about post-docs at your stage. After 7-10 years of undergrad and PhD you might conclude you don't really enjoy HEP so much, you enjoy something else more, or even that you just aren't good enough - theory type subjects at high school/undergraduate/research level are all very different (my view is slightly biased here, I did a masters level QFT module and then realised it definitely wasn't for me).</p>\n\n<p>I would focus on doing well at your undergrad studies and preferably getting some research experience, for example via summer placements. Work out want you enjoy. If you find something try and do a PhD in that. Then you can worry about post-docs.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19945,
"author": "David Z",
"author_id": 236,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/236",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Currently, yes, it is quite hard. Assuming you go on to get your PhD in some field of HEP theory, you'll graduate with a very specific skill set that qualifies you for maybe about 10 available postdoc positions in the entire world, of which perhaps 3 or 4 will be in the US. (Obviously these numbers vary by perhaps a factor of 2 year to year and from one specific subfield to another; take them only as rough estimates.) But there are typically hundreds of people applying to each of these positions, so in the absence of other information your chances of getting one are not good. If you do get a postdoc, then your chances of getting a tenure-track faculty job are lower by perhaps another order of magnitude.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, high school is <em>way</em> too early to be planning your future based on the chances of getting a postdoc. In particular, the difficulty of getting a postdoc should not dissuade you from getting a PhD in high energy physics, if you decide that's what you want to do when you finish college. There are plenty of other things you can do with a PhD in physics, especially if you have supplementary skills like computer programming. And by the time you approach the end of graduate school, you'll have a better idea of whether you are more qualified for a postdoc than the average applicant.</p>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/28 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19916",
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|
19,923 | <p>Consider this situation,</p>
<p>I get accepted for a second masters degree at the University of Toronto, and just before that I graduate with a masters degree in a much less established university.</p>
<p>Both degrees are in the same field, <strong>Computer Science</strong>.</p>
<p>Further, UoT knows that I am completing my masters degree.</p>
<p>My plan would be: to use this opportunity to get into the PhD program at the University of Toronto, because this is what I applied for in the first place.</p>
<p>Would you pursue this second masters?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 21443,
"author": "SLx64",
"author_id": 15731,
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"text": "<p>If you can't get into the PhD program without it, I would ask them if it is a requirement or an opportunity to prove one's ability. I think that it is important to get a guarantee, or at least a good chance to get into the PhD program.</p>\n\n<p>It has certain advantages to work there before:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Better contacts</li>\n<li>Already acclimated</li>\n<li>You know the software and equipment</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I would pursue the second master but I think it would make more sense to apply directly to PhD programs. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 21452,
"author": "WetlabStudent",
"author_id": 8101,
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"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Contact the department and ask them directly \"How many students who applied to the PhD program and were only accepted into the masters program end up graduating with a PhD?\" If this number is very low, I'd advise against this. Some professors will discriminate against masters students when looking for students to do research with, and if this is the culture at UoT, you should know about it going in. The worst outcome is you end up paying for a second masters and leave with two masters degrees in computer science, which will look unusual in job interviews. I know of at least one interviewer at a company who said he automatically views two masters degrees in the same subject (or even a highly related subject) as a big red flag. </p>\n\n<p>It might be better to enter a PhD program at a different university or get a job. You can always apply to PhD programs next year. I know of several students with less than stellar academic performance who enter good PhD programs with work experience. As someone who has read a fair amount of personal statements before, those who have been in industry for a few years tend to write better ones. They tend to know what they want and are not going into academia just because it is the \"next step\" without thinking about it.</p>\n\n<p>Computer science has the advantage that often you don't need a university to do your own research. Start doing research in your spare time. If you find a question you are really interested in and have made some progress, contact professors who work in that area at various PhD programs. You have a much better shot of getting into a good PhD program if a professor has notified the admissions committee that they want to work with you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 187875,
"author": "TheGraduate",
"author_id": 155131,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/155131",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Please note that not all Masters programs are created equally, especially if the degrees come from different countries. The University of Toronto would typically ask you to have your degree evaluated for equivalence.</p>\n<p>Degrees in Pakistan for example have historically been exaggerated. A Pakistani bachelor's degree would be the equivalent of a high school leaving exam and it's Masters degrees would be the equivalent of bachelor's degrees. This is because people persuing academic studies in Pakistan had to spend a considerable time studying the Koran and other Islamic books before they could move on to the actual course they were interested in.</p>\n<p>Perhaps the UoT does not recognise your Masters degree as equivalent of its own?</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/28 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19923",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14652/"
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|
19,929 | <p>This is a question branching off of <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19914/best-practices-for-dissertation-committees-to-review-chapters/19919?noredirect=1#comment41452_19919">this one</a>. I would like to judge how common it is for universities to give course reductions for service on dissertation committees.</p>
<p>Two questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Does your university offer such reductions for the advisor, readers, examiners?</li>
<li>How generous is the reduction? (1/3 of a course, 1/4 of a course, etc.)</li>
</ol>
<p>Please include your discipline and location in the reply so we can get a more robust picture.</p>
<p>For instance: USA, Philosophy, 1/2 course for the dissertation advisor, 1/3 course for the readers, 0 for the examiners.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19932,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In mathematics in Minnesota, the advisor gets a half-course reduction, and committee members no reduction.</p>\n\n<p>Thus, some years ago, when I taught a crypto class and a coding class that were popular with some engineering dept grad students, and I found myself being asked to be on about 250 Master's and PhD committees within a few years, it was a task that was not literally directly compensated-for, despite consuming significant time. But I figured it was part of my service duty. I allocated an hour or two prior to the actual presentation to review the document, and the presentation itself would take an hour or two.</p>\n\n<p>(My chief benefit was amusement with some of my \"colleagues\" who apparently thought I was grossly exaggerating, since \"obviously no one would agree to being on so many committees\"...)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19936,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In Sweden, main advisors may get symbolic compensation, in my department 3% time, co-advisors receive 1%. If you serve on an examination committee you do not receive any compensation by either your own department or the department where the defending PhD student resides. At a public defence there is an official examiner, referred to as \"opponent\". this person typically receives about USD 1000 for the task which includes a 1 + hour public discussion of the work.</p>\n\n<p>In short, none of very little compensation is given to anyone involved with the study and defence of a PhD student. For the PhD defence, all costs involved for travel and housing is of course covered.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19949,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Does your university offer such reductions for the advisor, readers, examiners?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>NO.</strong> Advising students and serving on dissertation committees is a normal and expected duty of all faculty members at my university.</p>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/28 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19929",
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|
19,930 | <p>The question is pretty easy and fit in the title.</p>
<p>So: can I use instagram pictures for an academic work?</p>
<p>I think I have to ask people who posted them if they agree but I'm not sure. I don't want any trouble with plagiarism and copyright.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19932,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In mathematics in Minnesota, the advisor gets a half-course reduction, and committee members no reduction.</p>\n\n<p>Thus, some years ago, when I taught a crypto class and a coding class that were popular with some engineering dept grad students, and I found myself being asked to be on about 250 Master's and PhD committees within a few years, it was a task that was not literally directly compensated-for, despite consuming significant time. But I figured it was part of my service duty. I allocated an hour or two prior to the actual presentation to review the document, and the presentation itself would take an hour or two.</p>\n\n<p>(My chief benefit was amusement with some of my \"colleagues\" who apparently thought I was grossly exaggerating, since \"obviously no one would agree to being on so many committees\"...)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19936,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In Sweden, main advisors may get symbolic compensation, in my department 3% time, co-advisors receive 1%. If you serve on an examination committee you do not receive any compensation by either your own department or the department where the defending PhD student resides. At a public defence there is an official examiner, referred to as \"opponent\". this person typically receives about USD 1000 for the task which includes a 1 + hour public discussion of the work.</p>\n\n<p>In short, none of very little compensation is given to anyone involved with the study and defence of a PhD student. For the PhD defence, all costs involved for travel and housing is of course covered.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19949,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Does your university offer such reductions for the advisor, readers, examiners?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>NO.</strong> Advising students and serving on dissertation committees is a normal and expected duty of all faculty members at my university.</p>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/28 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19930",
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|
19,946 | <p>After the recent death of 61 year old Spanish teacher Anne Maguire in Leeds today, what is the best way to deal with violence in schools in the UK as it happens?</p>
<p>Most schools in the UK do not have a lockdown / violence procedure as it is very rare.</p>
<p>However can we deal with this as it happens effectively in the UK?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19948,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In the US, a college student's risks of being robbed, assaulted, or raped on campus are each roughly 3x10<sup>-3</sup> per year. This is higher than we'd like it to be -- well, we'd like the rate to be zero. One's chances of being victimized can probably be reduced by taking commonsense precautions such as calling Campus Safety to ask for an officer to walk along if one has to cross a college campus in the dark. I don't know how much of this violent crime is alcohol-related, but certainly alcohol is involved in many off-campus incidents.</p>\n\n<p>As a teacher, there are some common-sense things you can do if there is a violent incident, such as a shoving match or scuffle. Identify yourself as a teacher to the student who has been violent. If the person is your student, tell him/her to leave class until the next meeting. Call 911 and report the incident to Campus Safety.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Most schools in the UK do not have a lockdown / violence procedure as it is very rare.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The reason we do have lockdown procedures and lockdown drills here in the US is not because school shootings are common in the US. In the US, a college student's annual risk of dying in a school shooting is something like 3x10<sup>-6</sup> per year. Since the risk of being raped is roughly 1000 times higher than the risk of being a victim of a school shooting, this idea of a lockdown drill is clearly disproportionate. It's based on cultural and\nemotional responses, not a realistic assessment of risks. Although\nevents like the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, and the Newtown shooting\nare culturally powerful, they should not be allowed to take over our\nlives or evoke a dysfunctional response.</p>\n\n<p>There is no intellectually rigorous evidence for any particular lockdown procedure, drill, training, etc. For example, my school wanted us to show our students a video advocating a \"run, hide or fight\" strategy, but there is <a href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/14/us/colorado-school-shooting-response/?hpt=hp_c2\" rel=\"nofollow\">no clear evidence</a> to support this strategy.</p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, drills detract from instruction and may violate students' rights by locking them up in a classroom and telling them that they can't leave.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19961,
"author": "user319078",
"author_id": 14675,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14675",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The best solution to violence is, generally speaking, prevention. As have been pointed out, school shootings are rather rare occurrences. I will herein detail a number of steps for an educational institution to work to lower crime rates.</p>\n\n<p><strong>1. Educate your students and teachers.</strong></p>\n\n<p>The inclusion of this point may seem trivial, but there are simple steps individuals can take that will protect them from crime. Most noticeably is the importance of not being alone - a single person is a much easier target for crime than someone in a group. Sticking to brightly lit, well-traveled areas will also decrease the likelihood of being targeted. There are many more tips on a number of websites.</p>\n\n<p><strong>2. Invest in infrastructure.</strong></p>\n\n<p>A clean, open, well-lit space is much less likely to be the site of crime. Janitorial and groundskeeping staff are especially important to this effort. Paving common walking paths will encourage more people to use them, benefiting them of safety in numbers. Trim trees and install outdoor lights. If a casual observer can notice something is wrong, it's less likely for a crime to be committed there.</p>\n\n<p><strong>3. Invest in direct security.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Have security cameras installed so as to cover major public spaces. Make their presence visible, but not obtrusively so. The presence of cameras both act as a deterrent and can help after a crime. Note on visibility: A potential criminal will look for cameras, so simple visibility is all that is necessary; Obtrusive cameras will make users feel their privacy is violated.</p>\n\n<p>Get either local police or a security service to routinely make circuits of campus. \"Complete\" coverage should mean that anyone standing in a public space should see police/security once every 15-30 minutes, even if they just drive slowly by. If an effort is made by officers to be helpful and not oppressive, this can even become an attractive feature to potential students and teachers.</p>\n\n<p><strong>4. Purely reactive measures.</strong></p>\n\n<p>While the steps above are either preventative or act as a deterrent, there are a few more measures that can be taken with a focus to respond to crimes after they happen.</p>\n\n<p>Security call boxes can help a victim alert police or security to a crime and secure emergency services if necessary. Even in the age of cell phones, it is probable that a victim does not have other means to alert security. Dialing on a cell phone might be difficult, or their phone may have been stolen or lost in a scuffle.</p>\n\n<p>Have a therapist on staff and give security training to facilitate an air of reassurance - this is especially important when dealing with victims of rape or sexual assault. There is much more information on this in security circles. Having this training will also make others more comfortable with the idea of going to security with their problems by assuaging their fears of a security investigation disturbing their life.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Ultimately, there must be an effort to both make the campus physically safer and to make the local culture more resistant to crime. These measures are not only focused on making crime harder but also making crime less accepted as \"a reality of the community\". Criminals ultimately pick on the lowest hanging fruit, and we have the possibility to move it out of reach.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19963,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
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"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<h3>Emergency notification systems</h3>\n\n<p>It's important to have systems in place which enable timely (read: not help up in red tape) warnings of immediate and pressing danger.</p>\n\n<p>Following the 2007 incident in which more than 30 people were killed by a student gunman at Virginia Tech, officials at VT were criticized for a perceived failure to warn students in a timely manner:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>When an emergency occurs at Virginia Tech, its emergency plan dictates that a Policy Group consisting of senior administrators (at that time not including the chief of campus police) be convened by the president to oversee the university’s response. On the morning of April 16, the Policy Group, anxious to avoid a panicked reaction, acted slowly to alert the campus to a dangerous situation. In the emergency message it sent out almost two hours after the first shootings at West Ambler Johnston Hall, the group said there had been a shooting but did not state explicitly that two people had been killed and that the killer had not been apprehended.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(<a href=\"http://www.changemag.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/January-February%202008/full-connecting-the-dots.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Source</a>)</p>\n\n<p>In the aftermath of this incident, many universities <a href=\"http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED502232.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">indicated</a> that they were taking steps to improve their emergency notification systems, including:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Implementing a system with the ability to broadcast notifications to students by text message or personal email address</li>\n<li>Creating a written protocol for determining when to issue a broadcast emergency alert</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Of course, these systems are far more likely to be used for non-violent but immediate, pressing dangers such as a fire, earthquake affecting structural integrity, etc. Regardless of the nature of the emergency, it's important to have these systems in place.</p>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/28 | [
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19,951 | <p>Not disregarding that the Ivies are fine colleges in many aspects, how to deal with high-school students fixated on the idea that they need an Ivy league education, or otherwise their education would be second class. Or to deal with equally fixated people who think that academics in the Ivy league is the only golden rule (and the others are second class). Talking about this makes me sound a tad envious, but I like to make people see that many other colleges are fine too (although maybe not that famous).</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19960,
"author": "Mad Jack",
"author_id": 11192,
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"text": "<p>If it means a lot to you, you could start by sharing with skeptics specific examples of academics/researchers/graduates who attended non-Ivy League schools, and how they \"made the world a better place,\" or some such. </p>\n\n<p>If that fails, as an alternative, you could simply let the people who believe that Ivy League schools are the \"be all, end all\" go on believing that. For some people, image is everything, and there is no convincing them otherwise. I don't doubt that there are pros to attending Ivy League schools, but some people perceive the quality of an Ivy League education through an illogical/emotional lens that is very hard to change. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19962,
"author": "David Z",
"author_id": 236,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/236",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's not hard to find Ivy League alumni who will readily admit - even adamantly defend - the statement that there are other colleges in the US which are just as good academically, and that you do not have to go to an Ivy League school to get a first-class education. Of course this is purely anecdotal, not any sort of logical argument, but then again people who feel like the Ivy League is the only way to get a top-quality education in the US are also not drawing their conclusions from logic, so perhaps an emotional appeal is just what they need.</p>\n\n<p>If you're talking to someone who might be open to an evidence-based approach, try asking them to name what they consider to be the top universities in the US. Or better yet, look up a few college rankings and find out which names consistently appear near the top. For example, the <a href=\"http://www.usnews.com/info/blogs/press-room/2013/09/10/us-news-announces-the-2014-best-colleges\">US News and World Report rankings</a> for universities are headed by</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, University of Chicago, Duke, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, Caltech, Dartmouth</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>and for liberal arts colleges, by</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Pomona, Carleton, Wellesley, Claremont McKenna, Davidson, Haverford</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/\">Forbes' top 10</a> are</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Stanford, Pomona, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Swarthmore, West Point, Harvard, Williams, MIT</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Beyond those I'm not sure of other ranking systems' reputation, but the <a href=\"http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php\">Parchment rankings</a> give as their top 10</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Yale, Caltech, Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Brown</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>and the <a href=\"http://www.shanghairanking.com/\">Academic Ranking of World Universities</a> gives</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Columbia, U Chicago, Yale, UCLA</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>and so on (you get the picture). Anyway, whether this person you're talking to comes up with their own idea of the top colleges or uses one or more of these lists, it's rather unlikely that their list will match the list of Ivy League universities: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale. Clearly, while a university's membership in the Ivy League is somewhat <em>correlated</em> with having a high ranking, it is not the only way to get one.</p>\n\n<p>You could also mention that the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League\">Ivy League</a> is actually just an athletic conference, like the Big 10. The member schools generally happen to be academically high-achieving, but membership in the Ivy League is in no way meant to be a certification of strong academics.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 120235,
"author": "randomname",
"author_id": 100797,
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"text": "<p>In terms of getting a job that utilizes connections significantly :</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, (maybe) Wharton; required for employability</li>\n<li>MIT, Brown, Penn and the rest of the Ivies; you need to excel in order to get the job</li>\n<li>Below that : summa cum laude is all but required. </li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The trend is similar for law schools : but LSAT is closely related to which school you go to(for whatever reason) so it doesn't hurt, although it is not taken into too much consideration in the admissions office. </p>\n\n<p>In terms of getting into academia \n(extrapolating from article \"Sorry Cal State, No Princeton Grad School for You\")</p>\n\n<p>A little bit lenient on the rankings but conversely the lower you go on the school ranking the better your grades need to be. Of course on average graduate school bound students get better grades than those who aim for employment post bachelor's. </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Top 5~10 : To get into top 5~10 in your field, you need at least magna cum laude</li>\n<li>Top 30 : To get into top 5~10, you need summa</li>\n<li>Top 50 : To get into top 5~10, you need to be one of the best students in your class</li>\n<li>Top 100 : Very rare(a handful a year, per school)</li>\n<li>Outside top 100 : Once a few years(with an extra master's)</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>This trend is mimicked for MBA programs : leniency in GPA, need better GMAT or GRE. </p>\n\n<p>So while in terms of employability many prestigious fields require that you at least go to a top 20 institution to have any good chance, graduate school focuses a bit more on marks and recommendations. Still, your college name goes a long way.</p>\n\n<p>So it's not that some students are obsessed with rankings per se, it's that companies and schools that matter to the world are obsessed with where their applicants went to college. </p>\n"
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|
19,952 | <p>I'm working on a project with a partner that involves developing a mobile app and corresponding server. I won't bother with the specifics, but both involve a fair amount of work (both require some custom algorithms as well as thousands of lines of code). This project will serve as a final for one of our classes.</p>
<p>Originally, we agreed that I would write the server and he would write the mobile application. I stayed up for a couple nights straight and got together a working server in no time. He told me he was bogged down with papers/family life/etc., but he'd handle the client side.</p>
<p>About two weeks went by and still no progress had been made. I had some free time so I figured out how the app needs to be written (i.e. writing out the pseudocode and sketching wireframes). When another week went by and still no work had been done, I went ahead and wrote a good deal of the client code. My partner is also my friend and I trusted him when he told me he would do his part and he was just totally bogged down.</p>
<p>Now the project is due on Friday and I'm still the only one who's actually done anything. I find out today that he <em>still</em> has yet to write a single line of code because he's so busy (but not so busy that he couldn't go to a baseball game, a concert, and spend all of Friday night getting drunk). </p>
<p>I'm not sure how I want to approach the situation. Even if my partner finished the project on his own, I've still done 80%. I don't think its fair if he gets an A because I killed myself to do the work of two people. At the same time, if I tell the professor how little he's done, the professor will fail him (rightly so) and I will lose a friend.</p>
<p>How can I get the credit I deserve for my work without losing my friend? I feel like I have the Hobson's choice between getting credit for my work and keeping a friend.</p>
<p>EDIT: I did choose a specific answer as my accepted answer, but all of these answers are of really good quality. If you're having a problem similar to mine, I highly suggest reading through all of the answers here. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19954,
"author": "I Like to Code",
"author_id": 8802,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8802",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For convenience, let us refer to your friend as \"John.\"\nAs a friend of John, you should be gracious\nin accepting his personal failings, mistakes and idiosyncrasies.\nAt the same time, that does not preclude that you should deal justly with him.</p>\n\n<p>As I see it, here are your two choices:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If you are lenient with John on this occasion,\nperhaps in the future John may do something similar in his workplace,\nwhere the consequences are more severe.</li>\n<li>On the other hand, if you do what is right\nby telling your professor what has happened,\nthen John may fail the class.\nHowever, he could always take it again, and learn it properly the second time.\nIf John is a man of good character,\nhe would respect you more as a friend than before;\nbut if he is not,\nsuch a friend is not worth having, in my opinion.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>One of the most important things for a young man/woman to learn\nis that \"for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.\"\nIn other words, \"for every action there is a consequence.\"</p>\n\n<p>Finally, the movie <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_Club\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Emperor's Club</a> may be relevant.\nVery briefly, Kevin Kline plays a teacher\nwho decides to change grades to favor a student, but later regrets his decision.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19955,
"author": "Peter Bloem",
"author_id": 6936,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6936",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>When students come to me with problems like these, I very rarely just take the side of the active student against the \"lazy\" one. </p>\n\n<p>If you work in a group, you're both responsible when the dynamic doesn't work. And keeping the group dynamic healthy is something every student should learn. I know how difficult it is, I've been both the lazy student and the active one.</p>\n\n<p>It may feel to you like there's nothing you possibly could've done. But that's never true. You started the project by immediately splitting the work load, and reducing the level of necessary communication to a bare minimum. He took the easy half, because he was busy. When his work started to lag behind, you began to write specifications for him.</p>\n\n<p>All this combined probably sapped his motivation. Every step along the way took the challenge out of his part, while he still had those thousands of lines of code to get through. Meanwhile you felt like you were doing more than your share, but you were getting things done, and things that you designed, problems you solved.</p>\n\n<p>In a healthy project, you communicate and you meet often. You don't divide the workload to minimize communication, you use your shared expertise and you design together. That way, you both stay motivated, because you both feel like it's still <em>your</em> project.</p>\n\n<p>What you're doing now is focusing on everything that <em>he</em> could be doing differently. That may be the fair option (cause you're doing all the work), but it's not a productive option, cause that's not a dimension you control. You should be asking yourself what <em>you</em> could've done differently. It may feel unfair, but it's something you can actually implement, so you'll feel a lot less powerless.</p>\n\n<p>Anyway, that's a lesson for the next project. For this one, I'd say remain detached. It's not your responsibility to make sure John learns something, and you'll get the same grade either way. Talk to him, tell him you're unhappy with the way the project's gone and ask if you could've done anything differently to get him more motivated. Let him know you don't expect to be working with him on future project and you're better off as friends than as collaborators. </p>\n\n<p>Just make sure you don't get angry with him. Anger might've been productive halfway down the project, but you're too late now.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19956,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I had a similar experience in a programming course. My partner started to claim to have some problems doing it, so when I finished my part, he decided I should take part of his task. After a few iterations, he was left with a quite trivial piece of code, plus the documentation (easy, but boring).</p>\n\n<p>Long story short, I ended up doing it all by myself. For orthogonal reasons, the relationship with my friend was quite delicate, so a frontal confrontation would have been messy. Instead, I submitted it without making comments, but every file had the auto-generated header including <code>author:@David</code>. A few days later, the lecturer asked me why was this, and I just explained what happened.</p>\n\n<p>In retrospect, my handling was not so good, as I didn't try hard enough to solve the problem before the deadline was biting. But it is too late now. If he is your friend, and you want to keep it, you should talk to him first, <strong>don't let the problem rot</strong>. Now you have to decide if he has enough time to make it up to you, or if you should inform the grader (together) and reach an agreement (for example, split the grade).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19957,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Do not attempt to talk to the prof about it, as in my comment above. There are too many ways that that could go wrong for all of you, and surely not giving \"satisfaction\", such as it would be, to you.</p>\n\n<p>The goal of not having someone get credit for a thing they didn't earn is dubious for fairly obvious reasons, and even though it's more understandable that you'd not want someone else to \"get credit\" for something <em>you</em> did, in overtime, ... the situation of collaboration with a partner chosen by you tends to put you in a situation of having little ground to stand on. And the rest of your life will provide you with very many more examples of people aiming for, and receiving, more credit than they earn.</p>\n\n<p>Lesson: good friends are not necessarily good collaborators. Indeed, in the future, consider that a botched collaboration might ruin a friendship, thus, do not hastily choose collaborators from among friends. (Pity, I know...)</p>\n\n<p>The possibility that you get <em>less</em> credit than you earned is also just a presagement of many events. Although one should generally avoid such situations, especially if one has bills to pay and such, it is unavoidable... So keep your internally-generated stress level as low as possible, even while recognizing the failings of many people... e.g., one's friends.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19972,
"author": "smci",
"author_id": 12050,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12050",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Not enough information:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>which year are you in, and how much grade does this count for, and how important is the class?</li>\n<li>would failing be a minor issue, or cause major GPA damage, or to lose a summer internship, recommendation for grad school, or what are the $$$ consequences?</li>\n<li>are you honestly telling us you didn't know anything about your friend's work ethic until now? What was his track record on previous projects? Did you ask?</li>\n<li>don't pick a friend as a project partner, unless you personally know them to be reliable. </li>\n<li>different colleges, courses and professors have different mechanisms for handling the team dynamic, giving credit, handling denunciations and members flaking out. Some professors do handle this situation, others don't want the headache of intervening, or they figure this acts as an early first real-world lesson. Usually the TAs (or admin staff) know the deal. You should have found out what the general procedure is - at the start, when you're choosing team-members, not at the 11th hour. (Expect the best, plan for the worst)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Anyway, my reactions:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>sounds like you could have completed this all as an individual project. (Once you realized you could, why on earth didn't you? And don't email or give him the code or wireframes, dammit. Unless you're using SCM, in which case make sure your 'Author:' name appears on all your checkins)</li>\n<li>when you agreed milestones and your friend started not delivering, you should have warned him you would remove his name from the team by (date) if he did not deliver (milestone). And actually meant it. Early on, would have been more credible. Constantly kicking your teammate's ass to do basic work is no fun.</li>\n<li><p>anyway now you're at this late stage. Find out how the professor/course/college handles such situations. But let's assume they don't get involved.</p></li>\n<li><p>this is important: you also learned something about your own judgment, and specifically, when taking teammates, be more skeptical and discerning, ask questions, sit back and observe whether they take responsibility, schedule stuff, manage communication, deliver it. Or just go and get drunk. Be ready to fire a team-member. Have a fallback. Learn what would happen in the extreme case you couldn't find a suitable teammate, or had to submit as an individual project. </p></li>\n<li><p>if you had fired the guy in week two and submitted the entire working thing as an individual project, I really can't see why you wouldn't get an A/A+. You're not obligated to carry him.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I'm not sure how I want to approach the situation. Even if my partner\n finished the project on his own, I've still done 80%. I don't think\n its fair if he gets an A because I killed myself to do the work of two\n people. At the same time, if I tell the professor how little he's\n done, the professor will fail him (rightly so) and I will lose a\n friend.</p>\n \n <p>How can I get the credit I deserve for my work without losing my\n friend? I feel like I have the Hobson's choice between getting credit\n for my work and keeping a friend.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<ul>\n<li>well yes, but you got yourself into this situation, and learned a crucial life lesson. You do have to make that choice. It will depend in part on how significant this grade is. Unless he's a tool, I don't see that he'd stop being your friend, but if he did, he's evidently not that good a friend.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Yes you do have to make that decision now. Decision time. So: decide which is more important to you? Fill in the blanks for us.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>going forward, a more pragmatic expectation of human behavior on teams is that a large fraction of people will be lazy, bad communicators, well-intentioned but not very good, or just suck up your productivity for a variety of reasons etc. So: think ahead, plan accordingly, communicate clearly, document who did what, anticipate dependencies, deal with unacceptable behavior. </li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19973,
"author": "Kogesho",
"author_id": 7773,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7773",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some people are just lazy, there is nothing we can do. Good friends do not always make the best study mates. And in cases like yours, you really can see how a friend can be irresponsible and leecher. My advice to you is, let this be a lesson to you. Do not talk about this to your professor and you get your deserved grade while he gets his undeserved grade.</p>\n\n<p>And this nice lesson will result in the fact that you will always choose the people that you are going to do a project with much more carefully.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19984,
"author": "h22",
"author_id": 10920,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10920",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Different people have different activity curves. Some plan to distribute the load evenly over the time remaining, others prefer to sprint doing everything in the last 24 hours without sleep. </p>\n\n<p>Students with very different activity curves may both study with success, but they are not well suitable for working in a single group. </p>\n\n<p>The \"sprinter\" also gets into nasty situation, staying without the necessary communication and cooperation during these last hot hours, because the \"careful planner\" is not ready (or even not capable of) the enormous burst of activity very close to the deadline. This is likely to happen, have your coffee maker ready then.</p>\n\n<p>Attempts to do part of the partner task almost never work in the intended way. Trust. Wait.</p>\n\n<p>You can try, this time, to adapt to your friend. For a single time, everything is a good experience. If this is something really not for you, simply avoid the shared projects later.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19987,
"author": "Steve Jessop",
"author_id": 11440,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11440",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Aside from anything else you should check your institution's code on plagiarism. If you submit the work jointly when you literally did every single part of it, then <em>you</em> might be guilty of a serious infraction (helping your friend to cheat the assignment) for which you would be held responsible if caught.</p>\n\n<p>Best outcome is probably if you can persuade your friend to do one of:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>contribute significant work to the project right now, even if it's inevitably less than half, so that it is at least a joint project as required.</li>\n<li>take his name off the project and accept the fail. Maybe that means you've done a project solo when it was supposed to be a group assignment, which might mean you fail too so check the rules on that. If collaboration was supposed to be an important part of the assignment, then whoever is to blame you have in point of fact not completed that part (and for that matter arguably you wouldn't have seriously collaborated even if he'd done his end, since the first thing the pair of you did was split the project in two).</li>\n</ul>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I don't think its fair if he gets an A because I killed myself to do\n the work of two people</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>With respect, you created that situation when you went significantly past 50% of the work. It's not fair, but it's how group assignments work. It also wouldn't be fair if you did 50%, he did 20% and you got a bad grade because the project was incomplete. I think (although I'm not sure) that the purpose of group assignments in part is to teach you a lesson along the lines of how important it is to develop the ability to persuade others to get some freaking work done. A lesson that you have hopefully learned and therefore deserve the grade.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20023,
"author": "Aldian",
"author_id": 14738,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14738",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't think this has been said yet but.. if I was a teacher knowing that one of the student did all the job, I would fail both, because we are in university and what is evaluated is not only the capacity to solve the submitted problem, but also the team cohesion and capacity to collaborate efficiently.</p>\n\n<p>Actually, studies about group dynamics show it is not so simple to have every team member do his share, and the more members they are in the group, the higher is the probability that some of them will hardly do a tiny part of the job.</p>\n\n<p>From another point of view, I would suggest you to reconsider the problem, because you are in the perspective \"It is unfair that we get the same grade when I am the only one who actually did something\", and you are too focused on the grade and work acknowledgment... But you did not come to university only to get good grades and being acknowledged, right? Your main goal is to learn. If possible learn things that will be useful in your professional life. Be happy, you just learned a lot about group dynamics, and that friends are not always the best colleagues, and since you did all the work for two people, you probably also learned a lot on what you are currently studying and will probably get a better grade than your friend in final exams because you practiced a lot more than him.</p>\n\n<p>Now getting back to the point, when I was in junior high, I had to make a presentation with 3 colleagues. I did my part, but they just printed some encyclopedia extracts. Then the teacher said that my work was worth a 20 while theirs were worth a 0, and that since it was a supposed to be a teamwork, he would take the average. As a result we all got a 5. This is the reason why I don't think anything good will happen if the teacher figures out that you actually did all the job. </p>\n\n<p>Plus it is always better to keep an ace up one's sleeve, so I'd say nothing, submit the work as is if had been done by both, and wait for the result. If the teacher figures out by himself or you get a low grade, you can still explain things afterward. If you both get a good grade, don't feel like it is unfair, because you got more than the grade you deserved (since you got the job done without actually managing to work as a team), and as for your friend, try to be happy for him, managing to get credit for something he did not do, but keep the whole story in mind, you don't know what life will bring, maybe there will be an occasion for him to repay you later in another domain, taking you to the airport or helping you when moving from your former house to a new one.. etc.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28391,
"author": "TheLegendaryCopyCoder",
"author_id": 21746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21746",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I also dont recommend talking to the prof, but if you do, I suggest being smart about how you tackle the subject by instead working from a constructive angle. </p>\n\n<p>For example, go in asking how to motivate someone to deliver their best work. Or ask how they (professor) handled working with people who cant pull their own weight.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37709,
"author": "Ben Bitdiddle",
"author_id": 24384,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24384",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Honestly, college students are terrible project managers, so most group projects are done by a single person anyway. Usually the strongest student (or the one who cares the most) realizes it's easier to do all the work themselves than to prod the others to do their share.</p>\n\n<p>I would just do all the work yourself, because class projects kind of have to be designed so that it's <em>possible</em> to work individually. At this point you're much more familiar with the codebase than he is, so it will be much easier for you to write the client than him.</p>\n\n<p>If you still feel bad about it, remember that you got much more out of this class than he did. Next time you have to write a nontrivial piece of software, you will be better at it because of the work you did in this class. Not to mention job interviews are coming up, and it's much easier to talk convincingly about a project if you were the one who did most of it.</p>\n\n<p>(By the way, I recently had the opposite problem, where my partner and I were fighting over who got to do all the work, because we were required to work in teams, and both of us wanted the practice. Sometimes I did the homework sets without telling him because otherwise he would have done them first.)</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/28 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19952",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14671/"
]
|
19,966 | <p>I've recently started as a PhD student, but had previous publications in forms of conference papers and various talks, so I consider myself very experienced with my particular field of research. One of my supervisors had once assigned me for a review task for a journal because she did not have time to complete it. This was fine with the editor of the journal, too.</p>
<p>Starting from that date, I began receiving invitations to review manuscripts every few months. Of course, I took that opportunity and completed the reviews – which naturally takes a lot of time.</p>
<p>Now, I cannot really invest the time anymore. I've previously rejected two review invitations with "I do not have the time to complete this review" (or similar), but I keep receiving invitations.</p>
<p>What could I do to politely ask the editor not to consider me for review?</p>
<p>Is there anything I'm about to do that could be considered inappropriate? I understand that reviewing activities are positive contributions to my academic career, but I don't think I can take it <em>now</em>.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19967,
"author": "adipro",
"author_id": 10936,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10936",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You can suggest names of potential reviewers to the journal editor, if you have not done so. He/she might not know who else are specialists in the area; hence you keep being invited. It also helps to be more precise in specifying the period window you won't be available for reviewing, because the editor does not know if you will be available the next time he/she invites you to do a review.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19968,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>As far as I know, there is no <em>official</em> please-do-not-bother-me-ever-again button that removes you from the reviewer list in a journal's submission system. That being said, I assume just writing the editor a polite email should do the trick. Other than that, you can always continue to refuse reviewer invitations, and I am pretty sure editors will relatively quickly stop sending you invites (they hate wasting their time, too).</p>\n\n<p>That being said, I would personally urge you to reconsider your stance on this. Reviews are an important community service that are essential to the functioning of science, and one review every few months really is not an over-the-top amount. For instance, I review at the very least one journal submission every month, plus proceedings papers for conferences and workshops where I am in the Technical Program Committee. That you recently started your PhD studies should actually only be <em>more</em> of a motivation to keep reviewing, as this is actually a pretty good way to stay on top of your field.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19975,
"author": "David Richerby",
"author_id": 10685,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your problem is that you get a review request every few months? As in, three or four a year? Seriously, dude, get over it. Writing a polite \"Sorry, I'm too busy – why don't you ask Dr X and Prof Y?\" a few times a year is hardly a significant drain on your time so just keep doing that.</p>\n\n<p>You say that the issue is that you don't have time to do reviews <em>now</em> (your emphasis). This is a temporary situation so trying to set up a permanent \"don't call me\" isn't a good solution. It's also not a practical solution. If you're only getting a few requests per year, what's the probability that you'll ever, in your whole life, see two requests from the same journal editor or conference programme committee member. (OK, the events aren't independent but you see my point.)</p>\n\n<p>Also, you should try to do some reviews; as has been pointed out in the other answers, reviewing as many papers as you submit is a reasonable rule of thumb. And if a paper comes along for which you're the \"perfect\" reviewer (for example, it extends your own work and makes detailed use of your technical material), you ought to at least try to make the time to review that.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19979,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The answer already given all have very good points; I will just add my editors perspective. The system of peer review relies on everyone doing a share (I refrain from saying \"their share\"). People who agree to make reviews are often remembered by editors as \"nice\" and will receive additional offers. It is difficult to say how many no answers there is to a yes answer in general when it comes to agreeing to review but it sure is not balanced. Therefore, a no is not a great surprise. If the no is accompanied by a nice explanation and suggestions of other potential good reviewers then the no and the request is productive in the view of an editor. Many electronic systems usually have links to agree or decline reviews so it is only a matter of clicking once. With the decline you may receive a request for suggesting additional reviewers but even that can just be ignored.</p>\n\n<p>If you think you are requested too often by a journal for which you do not want to do reviews or as you state, you do not have the time, a short note to the fact to the editor may be sufficient. But, remember that an editor handled quite a few papers and even more review requests so even that request may not be entirely heard. In addition, many automatic systems have data bases over reviewers so that one editor may find your name and use it although another editor was the one asking you earlier on. In ScholarOne Manuscripts, which is used by \"my\" journal, you as a reviewer can yourself assign periods for which you are unavailable. So depending on your situation, you may be able to at least partially fix the problem yourself.</p>\n\n<p>In the end, declining a review is not a dramatic issue and should not take very long. If you are inclined to continue in academia, you will be asked to review again. How often will usually depend on the usefulness of your reviews so the fact that you are being asked repeatedly probably says your reviews were useful or your expertise is in demand. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/29 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19966",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13907/"
]
|
19,970 | <p>I am interested in areas of theoretical physics/mathematics which simply don't exist in my institute. I tried 2 or 3 different groups here which were not in my interest (but I felt I had some transferable skills) and it didn't work out. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19978,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is no age limit for graduate studies. People are free to apply at whatever stage of life they choose, if they feel it's the right move for them.</p>\n\n<p>As an example of this, a very good friend of mine was a social sciences major as an undergraduate, and worked in Washington, D.C., for a number of years before leaving politics and starting a PhD program in medical physics—and he did this in his mid-thirties. I've worked in the same department as other postdocs who made the career choice even later—they were in their early fifties!</p>\n\n<p>So I would not look at your case as hopeless at all. If you find something else that inspires you, go for it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19980,
"author": "VH-NZZ",
"author_id": 14410,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14410",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As your question stands, the only honest answer is <em>it depends</em> but probably <em>yes, it does.</em></p>\n\n<p>Your question is lacking in essential information for a definite answer. Are you currently doing a masters or a phd? What is your background? Do you want to make a career in academia, ie. research oriented, or in the industry? Are you self-motivated? etc...</p>\n\n<p>I would not rule out changing grad schools based on your age alone as there's no age limit to right a wrong. However, use common sense: be <em>pragmatic</em> and take time to analyze your options. Perhaps your advisor would allow you to collaborate with groups from other universities? Or maybe you could even do an exchange program? Is wrapping up what you have and moving on to something you're more interested in an option? If your project has been given a grant, ponder carefully the implications of leaving your current grad school. </p>\n\n<p>If you feel that changing grad schools is your only option, then unless what is hidden behind <em>starting again</em> is that 400 lb gorilla, I see no obvious reason why you should not live a more fulfilling academic life.</p>\n\n<p>Final note: if I were to review your application to a new grad school, I'd like to understand the reasons that brought you to your current grad school if no group was seemingly doing something that you're interested in.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/29 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19970",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6683/"
]
|
19,985 | <p>I want to cite a series of three papers (condensed-matter physics, if it matters) where the first author is a different person in each case, say authors A, B and C, but all the papers come from the same group led by author D. That is, the list of authors in each paper is "A, ..., and D", "B, ..., and D", and "C, ..., and D".</p>
<p>Cited independently, I would refer to these papers as "A et al.", "B et al." and "C et al.". However, I want to cite them as the most correct variant of "a series of papers by D's group".</p>
<p>My question is whether this is acceptable as above or it would undermine the work done by A, B and C, considering boss D was paying them but probably was too busy to work out the details of the paper, and most of the work was presumably done by A, B and C.</p>
<p>Is there a standard styling for these cases I can rely on?</p>
<p>Edit:</p>
<p>I finally just opted by</p>
<pre><code>... as pointed out by the same group of authors on a series of papers [1-3], ...
</code></pre>
<p>which I think strengthens the idea that A, B, and C did not reach their conclusions separately but as part of a wider collaboration.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19986,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This really depends on what you are doing. I think it is fine to do</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>D and colleagues have written about X (A et al., XXXX; B et al., XXYY; C et al., XXZZ).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>buy you need to ask yourself what, beyond avoiding the passive voice, it adds over</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>X has been written about (A et al., XXXX; B et al., XXYY; C et al., XXZZ).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>One case where it might be useful is if you are pointing out a potential bias or criticizing a technique.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19994,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Where are you sending the work? It might be such that the citation style is numeric, and then you can write whatever words you like:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>D and colleagues A, B, and C developed the state of the art in this area over the last several years [1-3].</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Etc. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 19995,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>This is most likely a field-culture thing, but I find it very odd that you would treat the three papers as anything but independent pieces of work. If you want to indicate that the three papers are part of a series, you could always say something like </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>a series of papers [1,2,3] presented blah blah</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>On the one hand, you want to give the \"group leader\" prominence, and on the other hand you clearly recognize the potential unfairness. I can imagine some of my students being rightly upset if their dissertation work was referred to as \"work from the lab of Prof. Venkat\". </p>\n\n<p>I realize that many lab-driven disciplines are top-down in this way, but since there's a perfectly reasonable way to cite the work, I'd avoid highlighting the \"lab leader\" any more than merely by their presence on the author list. </p>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/29 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19985",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14695/"
]
|
19,996 | <p>There is a recurring pattern I see in conferences organized by several professional associations. Two different conference fees are offered, X for members and Y for non-members, with Y>X. Often, the annual membership fee for said professional associations is less than Y-X, so becoming member is cheaper than paying the non-member fee. For example, for different reasons today I have stumbled upon the pages of <a href="http://www.ima.org.uk/conferences/conferences_calendar/4th_ima_conference_on_numerical_linear_algebra_and_optimisation.cfm.html">this</a>, <a href="http://www.ehu.es/en/web/fjim2014/registration">this</a> and <a href="http://www.cfenetwork.org/CFE2014/registration.php">this</a> conference.</p>
<p>I can only see two possible reasons for this practice, both ethically dubious:</p>
<ul>
<li>to force people to become members, increasing artificially the dimension of the professional association.</li>
<li>to "move" funds from the conference treasure to the association treasure, leaving them available for a larger number of activities.</li>
</ul>
<p>Often conference fees are paid by research funds, while membership fees are paid personally by the researchers, so this practice also has unpleasant side-effects on their personal finances.</p>
<p>Questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Am I overlooking more plausible justifications for this practice? Do you agree with my analysis?</li>
<li>How ethical do you find this practice?</li>
<li>Should I raise the issue with the professional societies I am a member* of?</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<p>*: You can probably guess the reason why I am a member. :(</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19998,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Typically the organizations that do this are professional societies. And, as you mentioned, they have many more activities than just running the conference, so having membership fees separate from conference attendance fees allow them greater flexibility to manage their accounts. </p>\n\n<p>Some places allow membership fees to be paid out of institute funds (this depends on the country and the situation, of course). However, many countries also make such professional expenses tax-deductible (after a certain threshold). Obviously it doesn't recoup the full cost of the membership, but it's better than nothing.</p>\n\n<p>However, one additional point to consider is that most such conferences require that at least one of the authors of a presentation to be a member of the society. (Sometimes, this requirement falls on the presenter herself.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20019,
"author": "David Ketcheson",
"author_id": 81,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I find this practice 100% ethical. I don't see any argument to the contrary in your question.</p>\n\n<p>Nobody is forcing you to do anything. You don't <strong>have</strong> to attend any conferences. But conferences cost money, so if you attend then you do <strong>have</strong> to pay something. Even then, you don't <strong>have</strong> to become a member. The non-member registration fee is generally not so high as to be prohibitive.</p>\n\n<p>This is no less ethical than your local supermarket distributing coupons. You don't <strong>have</strong> to shop there and you don't <strong>have</strong> to use the coupons even if you do. In fact, in the US many supermarket chains offer memberships that give you discounts -- that's not unethical!</p>\n\n<p>As for your second bullet point, in my professional society I know that conferences actually <strong>lose</strong> money and are subsidized by other sources of society income (mainly journals). I don't know if that is typical.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 22031,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think that the question is written from the perspective that the conference is somehow an independent entity from the sponsoring organization. But that feels somewhat ahistorical to me. To have a concrete example, consider a society I am a member of: the <a href=\"https://aslonline.org/info-about.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Association for Symbolic Logic</a>, founded in 1936. According to their web site, </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The Association for Symbolic Logic is an international organization supporting research and critical studies in logic. Its primary function is to provide an effective forum for the presentation, publication, and critical discussion of scholarly work in this area of inquiry.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Of course there are societies much older, and much younger, but presumably each was founded by a group of individuals who agreed that a common organization would help their goals in some way. </p>\n\n<p>The conferences organized by these societies are \"meetings\" in the genuine (non-academic) sense: they are an arranged time and location for members of the society to gather and confer, like a family reunion. The conferences are arranged by committees from the society, rather than by independent organizers, and the general expectation (and reality) is that the majority of attendees are members of the society. </p>\n\n<p>These conferences are not like a car show where the goal is to draw in a large group of otherwise unknown people. The conferences are usually open to the public (with registration), but the general public is not the main audience - the members are.</p>\n\n<p>This is where the bullet points in the question go astray, in my opinion: they assume that the main goal of the conference is to attract non-members to attend, when in reality the conferences were created to advance the purposes of the society and provide the society members an opportunity to confer and present their work. If an insufficient number of researchers thought that was worth the membership fee, the society <em>and</em> its conferences would disappear. </p>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/29 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19996",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958/"
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|
19,997 | <p>I am an student and in one of my college courses, the professor seems stressed or frazzled. He is always running late and unprepared, which seems odd because the Powerpoint slides are already done and he uses previous tests and quizzes. The tests, homework, and most of the quizzes are computerized and graded automatically. So, He can't be overwhelmed with grading. Which leads me to believe that he is having problems at home.</p>
<p>My question: would it be appropriate to ask him if he is okay, either by email or face-to-face? </p>
<p>I don't want to invade his privacy but I don't like seeing anyone in distress. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 19999,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Professors are human beings, just like everyone else.</p>\n\n<p>If you have a concern about a professor's health or emotional well-being, then there is absolutely <strong>no</strong> reason not to ask in private. I would recommend doing it face-to-face, as anything said should be an off-the-record issue, an I don't think a faculty member who is having issues will want to \"publicize\" that in an email.</p>\n\n<p>However, if you are a student of the professor in question (or a subordinate), the professor may not want to reveal any personal issues, again because she might view such sharing as inappropriate. On the other hand, so long as the professor is not a sociopath, she will appreciate the concern you're showing. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20001,
"author": "Kogesho",
"author_id": 7773,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7773",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>He either has personal issues, or he doesn't focus on teaching.</p>\n\n<p>If he is having personal problems, it is wrong to approach him like a friend and expect him to give details. You are the student and he is the professor, and his personal issues are private and he will share them with someone close if he wants to. As an adult, he probably knows how the process works.</p>\n\n<p>Either way, the only thing that matters is whether he is doing his job properly. If you think he is not doing so, then you should give constructive criticizm, such as when you are in class and you don't understand, you can say that for the last classes you are having difficulties understanding and putting it all together and suggest a method so that you can benefit better from his course. Or, you can send an e-mail about how certain things can be improved without sounding very negative.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20003,
"author": "Ben Webster",
"author_id": 13,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is an incredibly bad idea. While I'm all for developing friendships between faculty and students, this does not seem to be what you're discussing. It's not clear from your question, but you make it sound as though you've never had a conversation with this professor (and if you've had some short ones about the class, that doesn't change my point). <strong>EDIT:</strong> I see from comments that you have had some more conversations with him. I don't think this changes my underlying point.</p>\n\n<p>In general, you should move very slowly in developing a personal relationship of this sort with a professor. I might have been OK with asking such a question of my advisor by my last year of graduate school (but probably not), but I can't imagine doing it with any other professor earlier in my career. Asking someone you barely know a deeply personal question that could easily be read as an implicit indictment of their teaching (which ultimately, it seems it is) will lead nowhere good. I think the best case scenario is that they laugh it off as eccentric, but the worst case is they're hurt or insulted; you don't want that coming into their mind when they're grading or writing a recommendation later.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20006,
"author": "Kate Gregory",
"author_id": 12693,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12693",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some people are just naturally frazzled. They could be having the greatest and most relaxing day ever, and show up to class 4 minutes late, hair all wild and uncombed, wearing odd socks and having forgotten to bring you your marked assignments. They may be remarkably easy to frazzle or they may not even feel frazzled, they may just look it! Asking if everything is ok, especially if you say why you are worried and point out you see a pattern, will probably offend this person.</p>\n\n<p>Or perhaps something really is bothering your prof. I use \"the same slides\" every year (except that I read them over, tweak them, add some, rearrange others etc) and reuse some aspects of the tests and quizzes. You may not know this, but that's not the hardest part of teaching. Nor is marking. And the only profs who teach a single course are adjuncts like me who have a whole 'nother life off campus, or super distinguished researchers who've had their load lowered. So you are not the only dance this prof is dancing, and you may not be the most important one, either. Your belief that the workload for this class is easy doesn't mean that the prof's overall workload is easy, by any means.</p>\n\n<p>But hey, perhaps you're a very perceptive person (I'm not, but I know some) and you've nailed it: this prof is going through hell with something personal. I have had to show up and teach while going through hell (a dying parent, for example) and about the worst thing that could have happened is some kid (everyone under 30 is a kid to me) asking me if I'm ok and if there's anything they can do to help. Some kid who doesn't even know me! I'd be so humiliated that my distress had shown through. I get my support from a variety of people, and I choose who I want support from. I would have trouble even stammering through a sentence like \"I'm sorry if my performance isn't up to your standard this week, I have a lot on my plate that I would rather not discuss.\" </p>\n\n<p>I just can't see this question leading to a good place if it was asked of me, <strong>even if</strong> (and it's a big if) your assumption of a personal problem is in fact accurate. And if it's inaccurate, that's even worse. There's really no upside. </p>\n\n<p>Here's the furthest I think it's ok to go. You're having the usual conversation that you do after class, with questions about your field etc, and the prof either flat out says \"I don't have time to discuss this now, I have to go and deal with something\" or you get that perception. You could carefully say something like \"Sorry, I didn't realize you had less time than usual this week. Hope things let up for you soon.\" Most likely the prof will just grimace, say something noncommittal, and head out. But there is a chance you'll get a reply like \"I hope so, I can't take much more\" or \"no, I'm afraid it's going to be like this for months and then it will get worse\" and those are openings for you to say something pleasantly supportive like \"oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that. How can I help?\" But without that opening, even if it's obvious to you what's happening, maintain the fiction that it isn't. That can actually be a form of help.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20047,
"author": "Jane Born",
"author_id": 14706,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14706",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>After reading the comments and thinking, the conclusion that I have came up with is that everyone is humans and deals with personal or professional issues and that some people are just more compassionate/sympathetic then others. I think that if someone shows genuine concern without being obtrusive to a subordinate or supervisor shouldn't be a problem with the proper approach, timing, and relationship. If a person, does act poorly to a genuine concern then it just shows that the person doesn't know how properly deal with the problems and probably should be a concern to others. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20169,
"author": "techmsi",
"author_id": 7198,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7198",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think we forget that professors also experience a range feelings such as happiness, anxiety, sadness, frustration, etc. The fact that he runs late and is unprepared is not acceptable behavior for a professor. However, I/you can't judge him because we don't know what is happening to him personally or professionally. </p>\n\n<p>Professors are under a great deal from their supervisors, the school, and even the students. There is a possibility his job is in jeopardy & so he may be spending the time searching, rather than preparing. He may be up for a promotion, award or maybe he needs to submit the last chapter of his book that he's struggling to write. Obviously, these are all speculations but my point is it may not be \"problems at home\" that are stressing him out.</p>\n\n<p>If your relationship with this professor is close, then asking if he is ok, face-to-face only, would be acceptable. The key is express your concern and not make him feel like you're judging him. Let him share what he wants to. If you feel you can, you may offer to help him. It will be his decision whether or not he accepts.</p>\n\n<p><strong>From my personal experience:</strong></p>\n\n<p>I had a very good professor my freshman year, who felt comfortable confiding in me about his professional, & when I graduated his personal challenges. During this time, we have built a friendship of 15+ years.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/29 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19997",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
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|
20,005 | <p>What is considered a reasonable rate for faculty turnover in a "healthy" department? How much turnover is too much/little? Presumably the rates might depend on seniority. Does departmental turnover tell you anything about your colleagues?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20011,
"author": "Ellen Spertus",
"author_id": 269,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Reasons for faculty turnover are more important than numbers. For example, in the late 90s, CS professors were leaving their positions to start companies. I also know of professors who left otherwise ideal positions to solve a two-body problem (move near their spouse).</p>\n\n<p>One important component of faculty turnover is tenure denials. If you are a serious candidate, you should ask why your opening exists and the outcome of recent tenure cases.</p>\n\n<p>Another component is faculty taking advantage of early retirement offers. If a school is offering sweet deals for retirement, it may not be at its most financially secure. (On the other hand, if they're doing a tenure-track search, that's a positive sign.)</p>\n\n<p>If you can contact faculty who have left through your social network (e.g., if one of your committee members knew them socially), you might be able to get the dirt on the department. </p>\n\n<p>It also doesn't hurt to look at the student newspaper, now usually available online. At one school at which I interviewed, my host stopped me from picking up a copy. I did so later and read about major problems between the faculty and administration that involved a lawsuit, the AAUP, etc.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20013,
"author": "Chris Leary",
"author_id": 11905,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11905",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>When I was actively in the job market, I noticed a small number of schools that seemed to have multiple openings every year. It made me wonder what was going on at these places, but I had no way of knowing. At my current school, we have several retirements coming over the next two to three years. Multiple hires for several years in a row. Now, I know the reason behind the situation, but will prospective hires? Is this a healthy situation? There are various scenarios that could be playing out. Espertus has given you several good ones. My example is another. Try your best to find out what the cause is, but it is likely to be difficult to get a definitive answer. The best advice is to keep your eyes and ears open (which you seem to be doing) and try to read between the lines in conversations. Use what sources you can to get information that will help you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20064,
"author": "Ri49",
"author_id": 12609,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12609",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Not a complete answer, but a possibly instructive example (at least ground for discussion). The math department at Ecole Normale Supérieure has a somewhat radical approach to this question. Two rules for the teachers and researchers there: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>No one stays longer than ten years</p></li>\n<li><p>No one teaches the same class more than three years in a row. </p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The idea of course is to keep the department members \"fresh\", on the cutting edge of research and to vary the topics that are represented. Such a strict rule is clearly not practical in any but this very specific environment, but I think the idea that there should be a minimal turnover is a sensible one.</p>\n"
}
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| 2014/04/29 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20005",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
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|
20,008 | <p>I'm a graduate student in a biological sciences lab. About 6 months ago I started an after-hours (does such a thing exist?) project with a fellow graduate student in a different lab doing computational physics. We principally work on the weekends and late at night, and I like to think that the time we use would otherwise have been spent playing video games, drinking, etc (not doing lab work), but who really knows?</p>
<p>Our collaboration has been extraordinarily fruitful and we have one paper ~90% written, and a follow up ~50% written. Both are highly theoretical, and have no direct relation to our respective theses work. Also, both our PIs know and are supportive of us pursuing this project, and neither has so much as even hinted at wanting authorship. And neither is an expert (or even an amateur..) in physics.</p>
<p>1) Should we include our PIs? They could potentially contribute to editing and big picture, but are not able to even assess the validity of what we've accomplished. As an "experienced" graduate student I know they shouldn't be authors, but they are also making it possible for us spend our time thinking, and they've supported our endeavor at least in spirit.</p>
<p>2) Suppose our PIs are not included. We're just two graduate students. Is it even possible to get a fair review with neither of us having the requisite degrees? How do we pay for publication ($1000-5000)? I'm interested in the "meta" discussion as much, or more, than the ethical discussion. For example, there is a third faculty member in this area who we've had some discussion of the science with, and who is a computational physicist. Should we include him on the manuscript as a signature of credibility? Should he be last author or a middle author, if so? If there are any physicists perusing, I'd be particularly interested in your thoughts, as my experience in publishing has been solely in the biomedical journals so far.</p>
<p>Thanks for considering my dilemma.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20009,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There have been a number of discussions on this site about authorship, and looking at the <a href=\"/questions/tagged/authorship\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged 'authorship'\" rel=\"tag\">authorship</a> tag will reveal them. </p>\n\n<p>Ultimately, the conclusion of all those discussions has been that conventions on authorship are field-dependent and define \"contribution\" in different ways for different areas. In your case, it sounds like your advisors have both encouraged you to work together and have not requested authorship. Since the usual response to questions like yours would be 'ask your advisor', it sounds like they've answered, by saying that you <strong>don't</strong> need to include them. But I'd check with them anyway.</p>\n\n<p>The remaining part of your question deals with purely tactical considerations: to whit, </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Can augmenting the author list increase chances of the paper being accepted for publication ? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think the consensus on this site, and in general, is that misrepresenting or exaggerating contributions for any reason would be considered <strong>quite unethical</strong> (where again contributions must be evaluated in a field-specific manner). </p>\n\n<p>The work must stand or fall on its own merit, and be reviewed accordingly. It might be rare in your community for graduate students to author papers without PIs, but there's always a first time (and in my community it's quite common). </p>\n\n<p>On the more mundane issue of paying for publication (I assume you're thinking of one of the open access journals that charge such an amount), that's a discussion for you to have with your advisor(s) before submission. They might suggest alternate journals, or even be willing to pay the fees (again, the equivalent would be a PI in my field paying for a student to attend a conference and present a paper not co-authored by the PI: this is also quite common)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20036,
"author": "Bitwise",
"author_id": 6862,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6862",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Although these questions have been discussed before on this site, I think this is a slightly different case.</p>\n\n<p>If you indeed work on this project outside of work hours and do not use university resources in any way, than this project is essentially a \"hobby\". In this case I would make an effort actually NOT to involve your advisors in any way, the same way you would not involve them in a manuscript you prepared about antique toys in your spare time. I think it would be good to keep a clear separation between work and non-work. Even in terms of technicalities like intellectual property this makes a big difference - if this research is associated with work, the university will usually own it, not you.</p>\n\n<p>However, if you need actual relevant advice on the paper from an expert, I would ask an actual relevant expert rather than your advisors. Then, depending on his contribution and on the field, he may be added as an author or acknowledged.</p>\n\n<p>Regarding publication fees, you could first try to look for a journal where the fee is not that high. Also, many journals are able to give a seriously discount or even waive charges for a good reason. You can ask prior to submission and explain the situation.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/29 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20008",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14719/"
]
|
20,010 | <p>When rereading my copies of letters of recommendation I wrote when a student of mine applied to multiple graduate schools, I was appalled to see mistakes I made where the wrong graduate program was mentioned in the letter. For example, in a letter to CMU, I recommended the student to Georgia Tech. </p>
<p>Do mistakes like this hurt a grad student applicant, perhaps by showing they are applying to other programs, or do they only reflect poorly on the letter writer? In this case, the schools were all in the same (top) tier.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20015,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I've occasionally seen letters with incorrect graduate program names, and it's not something I'd worry about. It's never bothered me, and while I've seen other committee members point it out, I've never gotten the impression that they particularly cared. (They've pointed it out in the spirit of \"Oops, someone messed up\" rather than \"Here's a negative factor we should keep in mind.\")</p>\n\n<p>There are two cases in which it could be harmful:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>If you name a substantially lower-ranked program, then the reader might wonder whether this low ranking influenced your recommendation. (Maybe you have several variants of the letter, and send more enthusiastic variants to lower-ranked programs.)</p></li>\n<li><p>If you include any comments about how suitable this specific program is for the applicant, then of course these comments will become worthless if you name the wrong school. However, most letters for applicants to graduate school don't include such comments, and even when they do it's rarely a crucial part of the letter. (It's particularly awkward if you send Harvard a letter talking about what a perfect fit Yale would be and how you have encouraged the applicant to go there if accepted.)</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>You mention the possibility of hurting the applicant by revealing where else they have applied. Theoretically, this could look weird or problematic if they've made eccentric choices about where to apply. (If a top program knows they're also applying to a much lower-ranked program, then the committee might take it as an admission of weakness or an indication that the applicant has a strong personal reason to go elsewhere.) However, I wouldn't worry about it in practice. It's expected that everyone will apply to a range of schools, and I don't recall ever having seen a case I thought would really worry admissions committees.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20050,
"author": "Benoît Kloeckner",
"author_id": 946,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I cannot estimate how much, but I think this could harm the student's case: such mistakes make one think that the letter writer made them in a hurry, not caring too much. This can in principle mitigate the positive effect of the letter.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35199,
"author": "Matthew Leingang",
"author_id": 5701,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5701",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I do occasionally see copy-and-paste errors in recommendation letters and I smile for a minute and move on. Living in a glass house as I do, I would not dare to throw stones.</p>\n\n<p>I know this is tangential, but I take the opposite extreme with cover letters. If a candidate is applying for a job at my university and their letter mentions another university, I take it as a big strike against them. It may not single-handedly sink the application, but mistakes like this often correlate with poorly written applications in general. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/30 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
]
|
20,018 | <p>How can I find information about upcoming special issues related to a special field of study? There are good websites for upcoming conferences but I could not find any place to search for special issues.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20028,
"author": "Wiliam",
"author_id": 481,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/481",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As far as I know, there is no website referencing special issues from different journals. However, I see two potential ways to stay informed :</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Make a list of the good journals in your field, then browse their website for information (might take some time, especially to stay up to date).</p></li>\n<li><p>Use social networks. Many journals have twitter accounts and/or blogs and they are likely to advertise their special issues through these media.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20033,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to the two sources mentioned by William, I can add <em>professional societies</em> or their equivalent. It is usually these that organize meetings that result in special issues. It is rare (may differ between disciplines) that journals themselves, unless they somehow specialize, provide open special issues around a theme. Usually, it is then by invitation, or papers emanating from a workshop or symposia etc.</p>\n\n<p>Hence, looking for especial issues may be a dead end and you should be looking for activities that lead to such issues.</p>\n\n<p>As a final note, the term special issue signals an unregular issue in a scientific journal open for submission of manuscripts. Many conferences issue proceedings but then the prerequisite is usually attendance at the meeting and presentation of the paper there.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 132458,
"author": "Anik Islam Abhi",
"author_id": 62043,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62043",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Recently, I have found one website to get special issue information regarding sci/scie indexed journal. Please go through the following website.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.guide2research.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://www.guide2research.com/</a></li>\n</ul>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/30 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20018",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1070/"
]
|
20,020 | <p>I don't know whether this is the appropriate place to ask my question but since there is no harm in asking, let me ask. My nephew, who is an undergraduate student, has sent a paper to the journal <a href="http://www.nntdm.net/" rel="nofollow"><em>Notes on Number Theory and Discrete Mathematics</em></a> about one month ago. Since it has been 1 month, he has tried to know the status of the paper by mailing the required person twice, but due to some unknown reason the person seems silent.</p>
<p>Does anyone know anything about the journal except the information that has been given to its website? What should my nephew do now?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20031,
"author": "Robert Talbert",
"author_id": 14188,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14188",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p>I have never heard of this journal, but from the website it seems legitimate based on its publication history (extending back to 1995) and its institution of origin. </p></li>\n<li><p>What your nephew should do now is just settle in and wait, and don't bother emailing the editors. As a commenter said, one month is not nearly enough time for a journal to process and review an article. It's usually more like 3-4 months and could possibly go longer than that. And the editors of these journals probably get so many emails from authors requesting status updates that usually those emails are simply ignored -- or if you have a nice editor there'll be an automated reply that says, in so many words, \"Please stop emailing me.\" </p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The frequent emailing could even backfire. Recently I submitted an article to a journal, with a student co-author, and was told they'd get back with me in 9-12 weeks. Six months passed and I had heard nothing. I emailed the editor and asked to make sure she had everything she needed (= polite way of bugging her for an update). The editor said she would check with the reviewer. <em>One day later</em> I received the review -- a three-line rejection letter that indicated clearly that the reviewer had not even read the article. To me, there is a strong likelihood that the article was rejected directly because the reviewer was annoyed at being bugged. This is clear malpractice, but what are you going to do about it? Welcome to our wonderful academic publishing culture. </p>\n\n<p>So, tell your nephew to move on to his next project and let this simmer on the back burner until the end of the summer. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20053,
"author": "dorien",
"author_id": 14757,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14757",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It can easily take 6 months for a review to come back. However, a acknoledgement of receipt should be given. Remember to allow enough time to pass between your emails and don't mail too frequent, it normally takes a few months. It could backfire and make you seem rude if you are too pushy. But 1-2 emails asking if the paper is received seems ok, if you don't get that, perhaps give them a call. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 151333,
"author": "Especially Lime",
"author_id": 68772,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/68772",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The fact that your nephew hasn't heard anything yet is a good thing. There are really only two reasons a mathematics journal would get back to you within a month:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>the paper clearly isn't good enough for the journal (typically a "desk reject" where the editor makes that decision without a full review); or</li>\n<li>it is a "predatory journal" which doesn't actually do proper peer review (and likely will charge you to publish your article).</li>\n</ul>\n<p>So probably this journal is legitimate, and the editor thinks your nephew's paper might be worth publishing, and has sent it out to reviewers. This stage can easily take six months to a year (maybe towards the lower end of that for a journal with "notes" in the name).</p>\n<p>I couldn't find a ranking for this journal, and MathSciNet no longer indexes it. Both of these are bad signs in terms of quality, but it looks like a real journal.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/30 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20020",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14733/"
]
|
20,022 | <p>I have seen several math papers which end with a statement like "After completing the research in this paper, we learned that all the results are already known." I wonder what are the situations in which such a comment is appropriate.</p>
<p>Such statements usually sound lazy to me, as though the author opted not to do a literature search at the outset, and after learning of previous work the author opted not to edit the paper (or withdraw it from submission for publication) beyond adding one sentence. Putting the comment at the end of the paper seems especially questionable, in that the beginning of the paper gives the reader the impression that the results are new. But I realize that mine is an extreme perspective which does not apply to all situations, and I would be interested to hear other perspectives.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20024,
"author": "Willie Wong",
"author_id": 94,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In part, I agree with you: if one finds out the result one has proven is in fact \"trivial\" (for various definitions of trivial), the \"right\" thing to do is to not bother submitting it for publication. (Though leaving it up on arXiv, for example, may be useful.) </p>\n\n<p>But, here are some possible defenses:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>In mathematics it is not always the result that matters: the journey getting you there is a big part of it. This sentiment is very well-expressed by Thurston in his essay <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/abs/math/9404236\">\"On Proof and Progress\"</a>. Just because one has re-proven a well-known result doesn't necessarily mean that the paper is trivial! If the approach is new this can lead to better understanding. But in this case I, at least, would advertise this fact in the introduction beyond a single sentence. </p></li>\n<li><p>As indicated in the comments, most of the time when I saw such a sentence it refers to fairly recent (perhaps even simultaneous) publications. Given that sometimes mathematics research takes time to complete, it is not entirely impossible that the authors genuinely started working on an open problem only to have the result solved in the mean time. And if the problem is somewhat obscure, I think the authors can be forgiven for only doing a detailed literature search <em>before</em> they start their research and not repeatedly doing it once every few months. In this case the language you quoted seems rather appropriate. </p></li>\n<li><p>It could honestly be a case of ignorance! Suppose the same essential problem manifests in two distinct field of mathematics which have their own lingo. Then it is quite possible that even most experts in either field would not have recognized easily that the two results are the same. (The \"two-way\" relation above can also be a \"one-way\" relation, where researchers in field A generally don't know about result B in field C, while for researchers in field C the applicability of result B to problem D seems obvious.) In this case having the duplicate paper published will (a) help raise awareness that the problem has been solved and (b) perhaps even help the two fields become aware of each others' results. </p></li>\n<li><p>Similarly, one may have discovered a simplified proof for a special case of a very powerful general result. While the result may be well-known, having this simplified proof in the special case maybe worthwhile, if only for pedagogy. </p></li>\n<li><p>In the modern day of electronic communications this should happen less, but one should remember that in the history of mathematics there are many results which have been discovered, forgotten, and then rediscovered. And even with the advent of MathSciNet, sometimes very technical results are hard to search for: you have to know exactly the right string of keywords to discover it in the literature. </p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20035,
"author": "Bitwise",
"author_id": 6862,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6862",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In life sciences this is quite common, although the cause may be different. Authors will typically use this sentence if after their paper was reviewed/accepted but before publication, a relevant paper was published. This can happen because many groups often work on similar subjects (\"competing\"). A lot of times it can be something that the reviewer/editor asks the authors to add.</p>\n\n<p>In this scenario I think it is more justified, because the authors really could not have known about the other paper since it was not published yet. Also, revising the whole paper after it has gone through review may be a problem.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/30 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20022",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14724/"
]
|
20,026 | <p>I am a few months into my PhD and my supervisor and co-supervisor are close friends. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, I find that my co-supervisor is not useful – he doesn’t provide any help or input into my project. Additionally, he has given me a hard time on more than one occasion, e.g. making a derogatory comment about the source of my PhD funding, not including me in discussions with his other PhD candidates (although I was physically present), and asking me to buy items for another PhD candidate using my budget. </p>
<p>I would like to stop being supervised by my co-supervisor, but I have not yet built a relationship with another academic that I could ask to take the role. </p>
<p>Do I need a co-supervisor? Can anyone recommend ways I deal with this situation? </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20032,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The direct answer is not a PhD students does not <em>need</em> a co-advisor. The problem here is to think about the role of co-advisors. I am sure the view on this varies so my view is coloured by situations with which I am familiar, which is the US and Sweden. Co-advisors may be involved because they have specific expertise that may be relevant to part of the work, for example specific investigations, lab work ec. Co-advisors may also be there to provide overall scientific expertise and provide feedback on written articles or the final thesis or both. Hence a co-advisor may not be very active when you start your PhD. At the same time by signing up as a co-advisor, I would expect the co-advisor to be open for discussion during your time as a student but it may fall on you to initiate such contacts when you need it. The main advisor is, after all, the one responsible for the direction of your work within your thesis topic.</p>\n\n<p>So while one does not <em>need</em> a co-advisor, there are many instances where such support is necessary or at least very useful.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20034,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Normally, a co-supervisor is not needed. However, there are some circumstances where it can be extremely useful. One such instance (with which I have some experience) is related to supervising students between departments. At some institutes, candidates admitted to department X can work with a primary advisor in department Y (and vice versa) if they have a co-advisor in department X. </p>\n\n<p>Beyond that, though, there aren't many places I know where a co-supervisor is required. If you have concerns with how your co-advisor is treating you, the first thing to do is to speak to both of your advisors. If the behavior continues, then you may also want to consider talking to the faculty member in charge of graduate affairs within your department.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20097,
"author": "h22",
"author_id": 10920,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10920",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A co-supervisor must be useful. It is not fair to take a role of \"useless supervisor\" who can later be added as a co-author with relatively little input to the published works.</p>\n\n<p>This of course depends somewhat on the status of the co-supervisor. Some professors already do not spend much time on experimental research, focusing on lectures or department-level supervision instead. In such case the department may have several intermediate supervisors, each having small own research group. In such case, without co-supervisor, you stay alone and may not even be able to get equipment and reagents you need for work.</p>\n\n<p>However situation when some freshly baked post-doc starts \"teaching\" a good PhD student without use is also common. The goals may be to get into co-authors or even to take over the promising research topic. Sometimes such co-supervisor may be even obviously less competent than his student, so why to piggy-back him?</p>\n\n<p>In case a co-supervisor is not useful, talk to professor and ask to remove co-supervisor out of your head. Simply say you do not think you benefit from additional supervision, explaining that the problems you are supposed to solve with ones help you can solve no worse or maybe even better yourself. Some cases / examples would be good.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 109633,
"author": "FGSn",
"author_id": 92675,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/92675",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Generally, the co-supervisor is somebody to guide you when your primary supervisor is not available. A good co-supervisor can boost your research power as he/she can share alternative viewpoint about research information. This supposes to encourage your research/work to become more rounded and more suitable for larger group of people. </p>\n\n<p>Nevertheless, my suggestion is based on my experience in Australian system that heavily relies on the guidance of the supervisors. To deal with this situation, I suggest you seek for the person with the higher power as he/she can make a change or comments on your co-supervisor. One of the options is the primary supervisor usually holds more power than the co-supervisor. Also, he may know who is more proper than that guy, if they aren't friends. A more safe option is to consult with the head of the postgraduate office who has more power as the person has to take care of everyone in the school. So, he/ she should be able to regulate the inappropriate conduct or move him from your supervision panel. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/30 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20026",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14735/"
]
|
20,027 | <p>I have just started a PhD along with another candidate. We are each looking at different aspects of the same subject. His data provide context for mine, while my data simply add value to his. As I will be asking him for some of his data, he has decided that he wants some of my data. However, he is interested in using a particular part of my data which I think will be the most fruitful part of my PhD. </p>
<p>His data are quicker to prepare than mine, and he will undoubtedly write up his chapters/ publications before I get a chance. I am worried that this will have a negative impact on my ability to publish my papers. </p>
<p>Do I have to give him my most promising data? Is there any way around doing this? I would prefer to rely on older data from Honours students looking at this subject and not ask for his data, if this allows me to keep my own data.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20029,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>What does your supervisor say about this?</p>\n\n<p>I've seen situations where someone not sharing data not only prevented papers being written, but completely obliterated the collaboration. </p>\n\n<p>One possibility is handing the data over, but helping with its analysis and the subsequent writing of the paper (with co-authorship). You could offer the same to the other candidate.</p>\n\n<p>In any case, as you have only just started, I wouldn't worry about the negative impact. There's plenty of time to build.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20039,
"author": "Mad Jack",
"author_id": 11192,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11192",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em>Am I obliged to share my most promising data?</em></p>\n\n<p>From my personal experience, it depends on the way your advisor runs the group. For example, if you are in a group where co-authorship with other students is encouraged, then opening up your data vault to other students (and them doing likewise) can benefit everyone involved. I've seen other groups at my university (and other schools I've attended) run this way and it seems to work well for all parties involved.</p>\n\n<p>However, if your group is not such as that described above, you need to be very clear (to your advisor and collaborators) what you expect to gain out of the collaboration/data sharing. In this case, <em>don't assume</em> that someone will look out for you and give you the credit you feel you deserve. </p>\n\n<p>I encountered a situation early on in my studies where I shared data with a fellow student. Everything they did with my data was kept secret from me, i.e. it was obvious to everyone that this student had no intention to include me in any of their scholarly works (yes, I <em>did</em> deserve co-authorship). It was only due to the fact that they couldn't get anything to work that their chances of getting anything published fell to zero, and I wasn't screwed over. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20048,
"author": "sevensevens",
"author_id": 14754,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14754",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If both of you are working in similar fields, you should likely co-author papers (and share results). Very rarely have I run into profs that didn't encourage (or almost mandate) cross collaboration among their students, and the profs I did run into like this were nearly impossible to work with.</p>\n\n<p>A couple of tips</p>\n\n<p>1) Be sure to make it clear you want co-authored papers - you did some of the work, you deserve some of the credit. Also figure out who will be first author BEFORE you go any further.</p>\n\n<p>2) With the other student, discuss your paper ideas, and see if you can carve out a piece of research that will be mainly yours, and another piece that is mainly his. Make him a co-author if appropriate.</p>\n\n<p>3) Try to work out an understanding without involving your prof first. Go to him/her after you've made a good effort come to a mutual agreement and failed.</p>\n\n<p>3) Remember that your graduate program is a small group of people who all know each other. This situation sounds like it could blow back on you (for not sharing all the data), or the other guy (for not giving credit where its due) in a big way. If you've promised him data, give it to him. If he decides to be a jerk and bogart his research, then don't work with him again. You have other great research projects you can keep for yourself.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20052,
"author": "dorien",
"author_id": 14757,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14757",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Why this urge of researchers to keep things secret... </p>\n\n<p>Why don't you talk to your college about this and see if he is open to having you as a coauthor (you write the section on the data for instance) = double win. Or could you publish your draft as a report from your university that he could cite? Or another option... </p>\n\n<p>It will depend on your supervisor in the end, but you can subtly make him aware of the problem. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/30 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20027",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14735/"
]
|
20,040 | <p>I have seen several questions on this forum that have similar things and some of them have been quite satisfying for my quest. But I want to mention my specific case and want to have some useful suggestions, so I am writing this, which maybe or may not be a redundant question.</p>
<p>In my work as a research associate, I always have this problem which irritates me a lot.</p>
<p>Every time at the start I have to study something, of course related to my area but a somewhat new for me (painful, but this is what anybody has to take it to get the job done), learn it and apply it (I would say the apply part is the sweet/joyful pain).</p>
<p>Suddenly the next demand comes as <strong>"Write down"</strong> and it is where the pain concern ends and I start feeling as if my hands are cut and my mind is blank and <strong>"ME"</strong> can never do it.</p>
<p>Sometimes the demand is <strong>"Write down and make it as long as you can and we will make it short later"</strong>, the torture is, for God sake I do not have even a few words to write!</p>
<p><strong>Problem as I feel it:</strong> </p>
<p>Even after doing everything by myself, I feel that I can not describe it in writing. While if it is about describing it orally I am confident that I am much better than many. </p>
<p>When it comes to writing, I never know what to include and what not, especially when the demand is about <strong>as long as you can</strong>. I have had read tens of writings and have had done the things practically by myself but no idea what makes my mind blank about writing technical things.</p>
<p>I feel myself really good at doing technical things and love it.</p>
<p>Finally, I think I am missing some steps involved in that writing and I never miss the steps of doing things practically making me successful in that.</p>
<p>If these are steps, what are these?</p>
<p>If these are not the steps, what else are these?</p>
<p>Many times I have got my office reputation damaged because of going blank even after many days/weeks given to me for writing. I want to get rid-off this problem and want it never happen again. I would love to be the researcher who satisfies the demand of <strong>as long as you can</strong>?</p>
<p>A foot note: In general I do not feel myself bad at writing, though my answers to most emails and my own emails are mostly brief but satisfy the receivers. One more thing to mention that might be useful to assess/suggest me is that it took me around an hour to complete this question completely.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20042,
"author": "mhwombat",
"author_id": 10529,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10529",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I suspect you are finding this difficult because you are trying to write in an academic style, and are judging yourself as you are writing. <em>I think the secret to easier writing is to spend as little time as possible \"writing\". Instead, spend your time jotting quick emails and editing stuff.</em> Let me explain what I mean.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Get together with someone who knows nothing about your research, and explain it to them. Record yourself, or at least take notes on the main points that you address.</p></li>\n<li><p>Now write your explanation down, but informally, as if you were writing an email to a friend. Better yet, make it a real email -- that will help you keep it informal.</p></li>\n<li><p>Also gather any other emails you've written to your supervisor, or colleagues and friends. (If you're not already doing so, get into the habit of writing those emails regularly, while ideas are fresh in your mind.)</p></li>\n<li><p>Take those emails, and paste them into an empty document. This will be the starting point of your paper.</p></li>\n<li><p>Now rearrange the information as needed, to make it coherent. Everywhere there's a gap, stick in a message like NEED TO EXPLAIN X HERE.</p></li>\n<li><p>At this point, you're beginning to have an idea of the structure of the paper. This would be a good time to write an outline, to see if you've left anything out. This outline goes into the document along with everything else. (You can delete it before submitting the paper.)</p></li>\n<li><p>Now fill in the gaps. But write informally, as if you were writing an email to a friend.</p></li>\n<li><p>Now go through your document, and make the sentences more formal. Don't overdo it, though. You don't want your writing to be stilted; you want it to sound natural.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Congratulations. You have the first draft of your paper, and you barely did any real \"writing\"; it was mostly just writing emails and editing. </p>\n\n<p><em>It's much easier to make informal, but clear, writing more formal, than it is to make formal writing more clear!</em></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20043,
"author": "Alexandros",
"author_id": 10042,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10042",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, \"<em>Write down and make it as long as you can and we will make it short later</em>\" is probably one of the best advices you are going to get in your entire life in terms of technical writing. As you progress, writing large text is always the easy part. Writing a self-contained text with the required theorems, proofs, results to fit within a conference / journal paper page limits is the real hard part.</p>\n\n<p>You say you do not know what to write. <strong>Then you must write everything</strong>. What is your input data? High level description and in detail stats. What is your output data? Again high level description and in detail stats. What do you want to do with your methods? What are your methods actually doing? And how are they doing it? Again top-to-bottom. A high level description first and then move into extensive details.</p>\n\n<p>Also compare with previous methods. What do previous methods do? What are their strength and weaknesses? What are YOUR strength and weaknesses? For what datasets your method performs best etc...</p>\n\n<p>Go into exhaustive detail. E.g., in a CS reports you may say \"we use Java and Hibernate on a Intel i5 workstation running CentOS with 6Gb of DDR3 RAM.\"... Initially do not omit anything. Write anything relevant to fill the pages. As you become more proficient in writing, you will see that you may distinguish what is really important to say and what to skip. Do not overthink. Start writing, even it initially seems not good enough. There is no need to be perfect initially. Once you have some pages written, come back and edit. Repeat the cycle with every couple of pages added. Soon, you will find that filling the pages will not be a problem. Trimming unimportant things from these pages will be the real challenge. Good luck!! </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20044,
"author": "badroit",
"author_id": 7746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Just some thoughts that occur to me while reading your question:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Write down and make it as long as you can and we will make it short later\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>To write well is to make every word count: to not waste a reader's time. Length should never be the goal. Say what <em>you have to say</em> as concisely and clearly as you can. Do not get into the habit of writing \"filler\".</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Even after doing every thing by myself, I feel that I can not describe it in writing. While if it is about describing it orally I am confident that I am much better than many.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Writing well means keeping the reader in mind: what will capture their attention at the start of the paper, what they will need to understand before the next section starts, what are their expectations for what is going to come next. As such, a good starting point for writing is to consider that you are discussing the paper orally with an imaginary reader you meet over coffee. How do you get them interested in the topic you want to discuss? How do you convince them of the novelty of your idea? How do summarise your unique contribution? If you had a pen and paper to sketch some ideas down, what would you sketch?</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If these are steps, what are these?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>First you need an idea of the scope of what you want to write about.</p>\n\n<p>Second you need a frame for the paper, typically the section headings, a rough idea of the goal of each section, how they will fit together, what the reader will learn from each part.</p>\n\n<p>Third you may need a detailed frame for the paper. For example, I have given students headings (as comments in the file) for each paragraph. In the introduction: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>\"What is the setting/area?\" </li>\n<li>\"What is the specific problem?\" </li>\n<li>\"Why is it interesting?\"</li>\n<li>\"What has been done about it before (on a high-level)?</li>\n<li>\"What is our unique perspective for solving the problem?\"</li>\n<li>\"How will that be achieved concretely?\"</li>\n<li>\"What are our contributions / How is the paper structured?\"</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Some paragraphs can later be joined together, as necessary. Having this framework for (at least) an introduction in mind, I find, helps inexperienced writers get over the \"cold start\" problem. (More experienced writers may not need to follow this structure.)</p>\n\n<p>Then you start ... at the start (well skip the abstract ... do that last). Take it piece by piece. If you feel you don't have enough information yet to write a part, skip to a part you can write and come back later. </p>\n\n<p>Write your abstract and conclusion last. Make your conclusion reflect what was promised in the introduction (but now providing concrete details, such as a summary of results).</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Many times I have got my office reputation destroyed because of going blank even after many days/weeks given to me for writing. I want to get rid-off this problem and want it never happen again. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Sitting there frustrated isn't going to help. But even though I would consider myself fairly experienced at writing, I often have the same problem.</p>\n\n<p>Each paper is different so if you're not sure about creating the outline, you have to talk with someone else to help you plan out the paper/report or even just to get your own thoughts straight. </p>\n\n<p>Even if you're not sure what to write, <em>just write something</em>. Most papers will go through several drafts so the first draft doesn't need to be perfect ... each draft just needs to be an improvement. And a first draft can help you get feedback from others to point you in the right direction.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20045,
"author": "mythealias",
"author_id": 847,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/847",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I thought of leaving this as a comment but ran out of space so moved it to answer.</p>\n\n<p>As user11192 says start with smaller chunks. What I have found to work for me (engineering) is to start with the plots or the results that I want to talk about. </p>\n\n<p>First I decide <em>what results I want to present</em> and the conclusion I want the reader to draw from them. Then <em>write a few (2-3) sentences</em> for each of them (usually a presentation file works better for this) stating the observation and conclusion.</p>\n\n<p>Next it try to <em>decide how to arrange the results</em> and how to group them. This is subject to change if I later realize that some other grouping or arrangement works better. Here I am thinking of \"what is the better way to convince the reader of my conclusion\". At this step I also decide on a rough outline for the whole report.</p>\n\n<p>Next I describe the setup. I try put in details to make sure that if I were to do it from scratch I would have all the details required. This will end up being long and needs lot of trimming depending on what kind of report I am writing.</p>\n\n<p>Afterwards I go back to the results and expand on the sentences. Think of it like telling a story you want to guide the reader to your way of thinking. Tell whatever comes to your mind (imagine you are talking to someone if that helps) and decide what to cut out later.</p>\n\n<p>Next to make the report complete I add in some motivation. Here again it helps to start with few key sentences and then join them together.</p>\n\n<p>This forms the rough draft. I sleep on it for a day or two and the come back and edit it so that it makes sense. If I feel overwhelmed or satisfied I send a draft to someone else for a cursory review. I can then use the feedback to improve the draft.</p>\n\n<p>Often times I am lost as to what to talk about. In that case I just make a list of all things that seem relevant to me. Try writing down short incomplete sentences. If you can talk about you can write it (just write down the dialogue that you thought of while talking).</p>\n\n<p>You need to realize writing a report is not one time thing. I usually go through 2-3 reviews (except for online posting ;) before I am satisfied. So get the first draft out (even if it is list of disconnected sentences), afterwards it is easier to make edits because you now have a better idea of what the report should look like. Most of the time it is the lack of idea of what the final product will look like that makes one avoid doing anything.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20065,
"author": "Not Quite An Outsider",
"author_id": 10390,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10390",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Don't want to write? Make a video instead.</p>\n\n<p>There is actually more to it, but I am guessing that your \"blank mind\"\nphenomenon occurs when you are making notes to yourself as well for any\nproject. So as a first step, use a camera phone or tape recorder or\nvideocam to record your notes and impressions.</p>\n\n<p>Let's back up a bit. You are asked to write up stuff at some point,\nand the horrible blankness descends upon you, and this is what you\nwant to avoid. I recommend talking to the asker and find out what is\nwanted. Will a journal of notes suffice? Is this for internal\ndistribution to be polished later, or are you expected to produce\npublishable material? Just how is what you write going to be used?</p>\n\n<p>When that is clear, you will have a better idea of the expectations,\nwhich my gut tells me is part of what causes the anxiety. You might\neven talk to the asker about the process, and if they are willing to\nreview/revise alongside you as you produce.</p>\n\n<p>In any case, you will need to collect material to put into your\nproduct. Let me assume that you like the video idea. Here are \nsome concrete suggestions.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Make a collection of short videos rather than one long video.\nThat way reviewing and transcribing will be less of a hassle, and\nmay help in the organizing process.</p></li>\n<li><p>For each video, start by saying \"This clip is going to be about ...\",\nso that you (sort of) embed the title into the clip. This helps in\norganizing. Use \"Take 2\" or \"part 3\" if that helps you break a\nlong subject up. Don't worry about mistakes, you can always make\na corrective clip.</p></li>\n<li><p>For each video, end by saying \"This clip was actually about ...\"\nso that you can record major discrepancies between content and\nthe embedded title at the beginning. That way you can go to near the\nend for additional and possibly more accurate metadata.</p></li>\n<li><p>For each video, rename the file containing the clip so that it\nreflects the content title, or whatever else you need for your\norganizing system. At this stage, THIS IS THE ONLY WRITING YOU\nNEED TO DO.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Now, you don't have your product, but you have a bunch of material.\nHow do you organize it? Make another video!</p>\n\n<p>You can videotape your process of rearranging the material, making\na priority list from a directory listing, making an outline verbally\nor typographically as you wish. You can also make verbal notes as\nto which stills from the video you deem worthy of inclusion.</p>\n\n<p>I suggest this because you seem more comfortable at telling your\nstory with your voice than writing it with your hands. This idea\ndoes not circumvent the writing part, but relegates it to transcription,\nwhich I hope does not trigger a mental block. (There may even be\nsoftware to aid in transcription, but I do not feel qualified to make\nrecommendations.)</p>\n\n<p>Also, this idea may not work for you, but you might give it a try and\n(wait for it) videotape the process and your conclusions. I wish you\nevery success, even if video is not the answer for you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 43952,
"author": "RJo",
"author_id": 33058,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33058",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You might try a technique that professional book writers and harried corporate executives use: index cards.</p>\n\n<p>Try carrying a set of small index cards to jot ideas as they occur to you. One idea per card, written in a complete sentence, and only on one side of the card.</p>\n\n<p>Leave space at the top of the card to record data that will be (or you think might be) useful to you later. For example, on the left side of my cards I always enter the date and a note about the context in which the idea occurred to me. On the right side of the card, I note the bigger topic(s) that my idea relates to.</p>\n\n<p>At random times (usually when I can't focus on anything else or I'm on a plane) I review and sort (and re-sort) the cards. When I'm reviewing, I'll find cards to throw away, to store in a \"Hell, yes!\" box or in a \"Block Box.\" </p>\n\n<p>\"Block Box\" is my term for an idea that is not immediately relevant but that I am loathe to give up ... so I just need a place to put it for easy retrieval. </p>\n\n<p>I learned about the index card technique when I read \"The Organized Mind\" by Daniel Levitin. In addition to using the cards to empty out my \"monkey mind,\" I use the cards when I'm feeling highly resistant to accomplishing something.</p>\n\n<p>Perhaps it will work for you to unblock your mind.</p>\n\n<p>P.S. Perhaps you've heard the quote \"If had more time then I would have written a shorter letter.\" It's been attributed to Cicero, Blaise Pascal, Benjamin Franklin, Thoreau, Mark Twain, and many others.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/</a></p>\n\n<p>We are all in good company. 8)</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/30 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20040",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14747/"
]
|
20,046 | <p>I realize writing in active vs passive voice is a heated debate in academia, with arguments being made for and against both styles. My adviser prefers passive voice.. But is it acceptable to switch from passive to active voice in the same paragraph? What about different sections? For example, the intro and literature review in passive voice, but switching to active voice for materials and methods section. Is this a big no no? </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20051,
"author": "dorien",
"author_id": 14757,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14757",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You should write your paper in a consistent form. I personally prefer the active voice as well, but if your supervisor prefers passive... well then you will have to make the best of it or argument with him. </p>\n\n<p>Try to be specific within paragraphs or connected sentences. If you have an example that you were doubting about, perhaps you can post it here and we will have a look. </p>\n\n<p>But in general: no. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20067,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>\"I realize...\"</p>\n\n<p>Active.</p>\n\n<p>\"arguments being made...\"</p>\n\n<p>Passive.</p>\n\n<p>My point here is that it's normal to switch. It's probably a good idea to favour one or the other, but I imagine you would have a lot of difficulty using <em>only</em> the active voice or <em>only</em> the passive voice throughout a paper. Don't worry about it too much.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 102814,
"author": "Michael Greinecker",
"author_id": 1588,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1588",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is perfectly normal to use both in the same sentence:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>John stepped in front of the window and was immediately shot.</p>\n<p>The continuum hypothesis implies that the continuum is not a\nmeasurable cardinal as was shown by Stanislav Ulam.</p>\n<p>The lump of lead turned to gold after being prepared by a senior\nalchemist.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The point is that you may want to focus on $X$, but sometimes $X$ is "doing" something and sometimes $X$ is influenced by, say, $Y$. If you want to keep the focus on $X$ and not shift to $Y$, it makes sense to combine the passive and the active voice. This makes the writing actually more coherent, not less.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 138650,
"author": "SGASGT",
"author_id": 115205,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/115205",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I believe it is acceptable to switch from passive to active voice according to the way the thoughts come to our mind. This way we do write exactly what we want to express. Sometimes when we try to use one or the other style we write in a \"mechanical\" way. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 138667,
"author": "Ian Sudbery",
"author_id": 82972,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82972",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You can switch between active and passive, but the switch should not be jarring. A good reference on active vs passive is:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://serialmentor.com/blog/2015/12/19/dont-use-the-passive-voice\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://serialmentor.com/blog/2015/12/19/dont-use-the-passive-voice</a></p>\n\n<p>Which argues that the choice between the active and passive voice is determined in any given sentence by what is in the stress and topic positions of the sentence. The TLDR is:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The simple rule is this: Topic and stress trump active and passive. If the topic is the actor, use active voice. If the topic is being acted upon, use passive voice.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Personally in my science writing, I tend to favor the active voice unless it really is easier to write a sentence in passive, in which case I do. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/30 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20046",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547/"
]
|
20,049 | <p>I teach at a community college in California, where students can drop a course with a grade of "W" up until the 12th week of the semester. Within the last year or so, I seem to be seeing an increase in the number of students who find themselves passing the course at the 12th week, but who decide to drop because they want a better grade and are willing to take the course again later. However, I'm not sure that this increase is real, since my sample size is small. And if it is real, I don't know how widespread the phenomenon is or how to probe for possible causes for the change, since a number of different variables have changed in this time frame (including changes in state law and school policy).</p>
<p>Is there any source of hard data or method for getting data on this? I think there's a pretty big literature on student success and persistence, but the impression I get is that a lot of the literature takes it as a matter of definition that if the student doesn't pass the course with a C, it's because the student didn't "succeed," i.e., the student's academic performance wasn't passing. It seems like it would be difficult to gather statistically robust data to measure the phenomenon of drops due to grade dissatisfaction, since instructors aren't systematically asked to submit or retain the grade records of students who are no longer enrolled at the end of the term.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20115,
"author": "Adrienne",
"author_id": 13729,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13729",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've just done 15 minutes of moderately focused research, and found nothing.\nIt looks like in most exit surveys students claim to have dropped because of family or work conflicts, which may be true but is not the acute reason for the drop for your students.</p>\n\n<p>A Google search for \"drop and retake\" finds dozens of recommendations <a href=\"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/1q28kq/i_have_until_midnight_to_drop_stat/\">like this</a> for pre-med and other highly grade-motivated students. </p>\n\n<p>I'm rather intrigued, actually. If these students could be motivated to stay and get the grade, it would save the state a lot of money. And if they couldn't drop after Week 2, they might work much harder much earlier. </p>\n\n<p>I sense a possible research project...</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 21226,
"author": "BrianH",
"author_id": 6787,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6787",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As far as method goes, it surely could make for an interesting study! In my recent literature review of factors predicting student success I didn't find anything about this phenomenon - but I wasn't looking for it directly, so that doesn't prove there aren't good studies about it!</p>\n\n<p>But as a data point, I've regularly had professors explicitly tell students before a withdraw deadline to review their grade and if you aren't doing well or just unhappy with your performance so far, they strongly suggest you consider withdrawing from the class! I myself did it for a comm class where I unavoidably missed a few early days that guaranteed I couldn't do better than a B+ even with perfect performance, so I retook it later once I had a more stable schedule.</p>\n\n<p>Now as for systematic gaining of data, you are quite right that it is difficult. A number of factors make this hard, even if we assume that the withdraw deadline is half-way through the course:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Is the first-half of material, and performance on it, an accurate reflection of the rest of the material?</li>\n<li>Do later projects/papers/tests disproportionally skew one's final grade for a class, such as having the final project be worth more than the entire first half of the semester?</li>\n<li>Are \"worst-grade drop\" provisions available in the course, as when some professors give five exames but only count your four highest? </li>\n<li>Is the class cumulative or \"increasingly difficult\" in nature, where if you can not master early material you are sure to do even worse on later material? (Math classes are often this way, in my experience)</li>\n<li>Since students are dropping the class, by definition you don't know how they would have done had they stayed in the course!</li>\n<li>Can missed/failed early work be made up for, without major penalty?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Most studies I've seen simply consider those who drop or withdraw as experiment mortality and ignore it completely. On drop and/or withdraw forms at institutions I've attended they also generally don't even ask you why you are dropping, so this data might not yet be retained in any way and would have to be done as part of the experiment.</p>\n\n<p>One could certainly conduct studies where simply drop/add forms are given options to indicate reason for dropping, and then use that data to try to determine if the problem is reported widely enough to merit further research?</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/30 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20049",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
|
20,063 | <p>I'm working on a small application which would hypothetically allow instructors to perform a variety of grade transformation techniques on a given distribution. (I don't intend for the application to actually be used)</p>
<p>What are some of the more commonly used transformation techniques assuming a distribution is ~normally distributed? Online resources on the topic are somewhat sparse.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20066,
"author": "Henry",
"author_id": 8,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It's not perfect, but I often use a piecewise linear transformation. Specifically, I fix some cutoffs (typically the cutoff between a B+ and an A-, between C+ and B-, between D+ and C-, and between F and D) and then scale all the A's linearly with their range, the B's linearly in their range, and so on.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20070,
"author": "Andy W",
"author_id": 3,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One I have not used although I've heard of being used before is to <em>rank</em> the final numerical score, and then use that to assign the final grade. Typically these ranks are then used to bin the results into corresponding letter grades of arbitrary proportions. E.g. the top 5% get and A, (5 - 10%] get a B etc. (I have no idea how (un)common this is.)</p>\n<p>If you wanted the end result to be as close to normal as possible (frequently not possible if you have ties - or pretty much meaningless if you have small class sizes), you could convert the ranks to quantiles and then take the inverse CDF of your specified normal distribution (mean and variance) you desired. I don't know of anyone who goes quite that far in curving grades though.</p>\n<p>This is actually how all civil service exams (exams that state agencies use to hire individuals here in the US) are curved that I know of. After the minimum score cut off, people are ranked into specific bins, and then cohorts of interviews are arranged for the people in the first bin (and if they don't work out they go further down the list).</p>\n<p>I would speculate the most <em>common</em> form of curving is simply bumping grades above a particular cut-off. See the <a href=\"http://freakonomics.com/2011/07/07/another-case-of-teacher-cheating-or-is-it-just-altruism/comment-page-2/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Freakonomics blog</a> for one example.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/YcDO6.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/YcDO6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></a><br />\n<sub>(source: <a href=\"http://www.freakonomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Polish-graph.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">freakonomics.com</a>)</sub></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 78081,
"author": "erfink",
"author_id": 63093,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63093",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><a href=\"https://divisbyzero.com/2008/12/22/how-to-curve-an-exam-and-assign-grades/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://divisbyzero.com/2008/12/22/how-to-curve-an-exam-and-assign-grades/</a> gives a nice rundown on a slew of different methods that a feasible, as well as a nice analysis of the pros/cons of each.</p>\n\n<p><strong>EDIT</strong></p>\n\n<p>The suggested forms of curving include:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Returning graded exams, having students fix their errors, and giving them a percentage of the points they missed back. Has the advantage of forcing students to understand why they were marked down and hopefully learn something, but doubles the amount of grading necessary and gives a larger curve to students who performed poorly.</li>\n<li>Flat scale: $f(x)=x+b$, basically giving everyone $b$ points. Nice and simple, but can be problematic if there's a \"curve-breaker\" that would end up over 100%.</li>\n<li>Rescale percentages so that the highest grade $H$ becomes 100%: $f(x) = 100 *x / H$. Similar pros and cons to the previous, except that higher scores get a larger curve.</li>\n<li>Linear rescaling: $f(x) = ax + b$. Combination of the previous two, particularly in regards to being able to pick two raw scores $x_0$ and $x_1$ and choosing what curved scores they correspond to.</li>\n<li>Drop a question: $f(x) = 100*x / (100-p)$ where a problematic question is worth $p$ points. Must be careful to ensure that it was truly an unfair question, and has the con of disenfranchising students that may have spent unproductive time on it.</li>\n<li>Root functions (and generalized root functions): $f(x) = \\sqrt{100 x}=10 \\sqrt{x}$ or $f(x) = 100^{1-a} x^a$ where $a$ is between 0 and 1. Gives a nice boost to lower scores (Calc I optimization problem), but is hard to explain to students and perhaps needlessly complicated. </li>\n<li>Classic \"Bell Curve\": Mean becomes a C, other letter grades by standard deviations from the Mean. Creates a cutthroat environment of students competing against each other and automatically fails half the students. Really only feasible for large quantities of scores (like standardized tests) and is computationally more complex.</li>\n<li>Extra Credit Problems: assign a separate problem that students can use to earn points back on the exam. Can be problematic in that the stronger students will generally be the ones that actually do the problem correctly, effectively giving the higher scores a larger curve than the lower scores. </li>\n<li>Grading by Gravity: throw the exams down a hallway and assign grades by how far they go (facetious)</li>\n<li>Tenured & just waiting until retirement: Everyone gets an A (or F) (also facetious)</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>From there, the article gives a breakdown of some excel code for converting percentages to letter grades, as well as giving examples of several implementations of curves.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/04/30 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20063",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14764/"
]
|
20,075 | <p>I was dismissed from my Masters program due to bad grades. I also have a mention in my records that say that I might have used last years homework. I did not copy and they had no proof that I copied per se. I couldn't care less about my grades at the time and I deeply regret doing what I did. Is there hope for me in applying to grad schools in the future? </p>
<p>Additionally, I am an international student. Can someone tell me if all this will affect my getting a VISA?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20088,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Unfortunately, your transcripts are likely going to be required at time of application to any other program, and you can assume that you will be asked about your poor grades during the application process. That said, you're not the first person to have made bad decisions in the past, so I would definitely still apply.</p>\n\n<p>One thing I would strongly advise <em>not</em> doing is attempting to hide the fact you have poor grades by simply not sending the transcript, and pretending it didn't happen. Doing so will almost guarantee career-threatening problems later on when someone finds out what you did (and it won't be hard, there will be a gap of a few years you won't be able to explain, and all the officials at the other university still know that you were there).</p>\n\n<p>I have no idea about the visa.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20091,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is there hope for me in applying to grad schools in the future? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes, but you will need a convincing argument for why graduate school will go better next time than it did the first time you tried it. It's easy to say \"I didn't care about grades and didn't work very hard, but I'll work harder this time,\" while actually working harder is much more difficult, so vague excuses may be discounted.</p>\n\n<p>You could get lucky and find a school that is happy to give you another chance (perhaps a less prestigious department, which sees potential in you beyond what's typical for their students). You might also be able to give a more concrete excuse for your past grades (for example, if there were external factors in your life that troubled you last time but won't apply this time). Otherwise, the best way to demonstrate that things have changed is probably to succeed at something else. Finding a job and doing well at it can show that you are now more mature and responsible than when you were a student, and successfully taking a few classes part-time can also look good.</p>\n\n<p>So I'd suggest following a two-part strategy. Try applying again with the best explanations/excuses you can offer, and see whether it works. If it doesn't, then you should start thinking about longer-term methods to demonstrate that you've changed.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20075",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14771/"
]
|
20,082 | <p>I'm going to start preparing for GRE. I have great enthusiasm for reading novels rather than memorizing words. Will words learnt from novels be helpful for GRE vocabulary? Which novels/writers books should be read for GRE vocabulary?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20083,
"author": "BrenBarn",
"author_id": 9041,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9041",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>No doubt you can encounter useful words in novels, but you will encounter them at a much slower rate than with targeted study. If your goal is to learn GRE words quickly, a simple GRE study book would be more efficient. At the least, you should take a practice GRE test and see how you do on the vocab sections. If your vocab needs major improvement, reading novels is probably too slow to be of use for passing the GRE.</p>\n\n<p>In the long term, I think reading novels and other texts is a better (and more fun) way of learning how to actually understand and use a wide range of vocabulary, but for the short-term goal of improving your GRE score it may not deliver as much benefit.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20127,
"author": "sevensevens",
"author_id": 14754,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14754",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In general - no. The GRE is similar to the SAT2 (is that still around). Studying for the GRE isn't fun, but the best way to do it is either to </p>\n\n<p>1) purchase several study programs, books and set aside time each day to study them</p>\n\n<p>OR</p>\n\n<p>2) pay (usually a few grand) for a GRE prep class</p>\n\n<p>Studying for the GRE was one of the low points of my life. Just focus on getting into the school you want</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 21974,
"author": "Superbest",
"author_id": 244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/244",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's worth considering semantics.</p>\n\n<p>If in the sense that if you spend 5 hours every day reading novels, you will do better on the GRE than if you spent those 5 hours staring at a wall, then I suppose that is true.</p>\n\n<p>But compared to actual methods of study, I don't think so. Hour for hour, just getting cracking with a deck of flashcards will improve your score much more. It is obviously hard to spend as much time on flashcards because it is boring - but even if you spend much less time than on reading, I would predict that the benefit to your score will still be higher with flashcards (and you can still read in all the time you aren't practicing with flashcards).</p>\n\n<p>For learning words, the problems with the \"reading novels\" technique are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>There's a question of what novels you actually read - if all you read is Twilight and Harry Potter, I doubt it would help much.</li>\n<li>Most of the words in a novel won't be new, so most of your time is not spent learning or practicing words. It is very inefficient.</li>\n<li>There is no guarantee that the novels you read will focus on common GRE words.</li>\n<li>In my opinion, GRE words tend to be deliberately obscure: Besides a core set of \"basic\" words, ETS includes many words which are hardly ever used and have probably went out of style, for the sake of having words that most people will be unlikely to know (unless they practice specifically for the GRE).</li>\n<li>Unlike flashcards or similar methods, it is difficult to gauge your progress (eg. how many common GRE words you have learned) with novels.</li>\n<li>It is easy to infer the meaning of a word in context (and also easy to end up with an incorrect belief about what a word means). GRE often gives words with absolutely no context, and probably sometimes in misleading context. Recalling the \"official\" definition of an isolated word, and having a feel for how its usually used in prose, are quite different skills - novels will train one, but the exam depends on the other.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>For improving reading comprehension, books are possibly more helpful. Still, there is again a set of caveats:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Books are often long, while GRE tests comprehension of relatively short articles.</li>\n<li>Books usually do not ask you explicit multiple-choice questions, where the incorrect choices are subtly different from the correct ones, and deliberately designed to be confusing.</li>\n<li>It is hard to gauge your progress - for instance, how fast you are able to read a given GRE-level paragraph, what sort of questions are you able to answer correctly often, etc.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>For training reading comprehension, there isn't as clear cut a method as \"flashcards\" (flashcards are very, very effective for memorizing words). However, I would argue that simply doing hundreds of practice questions over and over is a far more productive use of your time, if the primary goal is to have a high GRE score.</p>\n\n<p>If you really wanted to read something, I would say it's better to read a high-brow \"culture\" magazine like the Atlantic or the New York Times. Even with books, it is probably much more effective to read collected essays rather than novels - since all you will ever have to read on the GRE will be essays. Although still, the crucial feedback element is missing - it's hard to tell if you've \"really\" understood an essay (in the way that the GRE wants you to) when there is no set of questions with correct answers.</p>\n\n<p>The last bit you could ask about is the writing prompts. Here, \"just reading\" (although again I would suggest essays versus novels) would probably be more helpful, at least relative to the alternatives - unfortunately, it's hard to train GRE writing skills because one cannot mass produce question banks as with other sections. Moreover, what constitutes a good essay to GRE is arguably very different from more generally accepted criteria. Ultimately, the best option is to somehow obtain a personal essay coach who is familiar with the GRE grading rubric, and write dozens of practice essays for him to grade, rather than reading novels.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 27075,
"author": "Nahkki",
"author_id": 18092,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18092",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you read a lot of adult fiction then you will have a broader base vocabulary of useful words. With that in mind this is more of a 'long game' strategy than a 'I'm taking the GRE in 6 months and need words!!!' strategy. </p>\n\n<p>That being said if you want something a bit less onerous than flash cards and contextless memorization I would suggest looking for novels that specifically use GRE words. When I was studying for the GRE I found several short story collections and novels that focused on telling a story using the top 350 or 500 GRE words. They weren't great stories but learning the words in a context really helped me. </p>\n\n<p>That being said I'm pretty sure you could just guess 'frustrated' or 'stubborn' for every word on the GRE and get rough 75% of them right. /s</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20082",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14777/"
]
|
20,084 | <p>Possible arguments:</p>
<p>Pro</p>
<ul>
<li>For brevity for trivial deductions</li>
</ul>
<p>Contra</p>
<ul>
<li>Looks like the writer could not be bothered to write an extensive explanation</li>
<li>Definition of what is trivial to which reader and what not</li>
</ul>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20085,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't agree with any of these assessments. Often the omitted deductions are rudimentary, but not necessarily trivial. The reason they are omitted is generally due to lack of space, or the fact that the omitted proofs do not add anything to the exposition, not laziness. The final point doesn't even apply.</p>\n\n<p>That said, stating that something \"is left to the reader\" is a little cheeky. You often find the equivalent, \"an astute reader will be able fill in the details\", which may come across as a little pretentious. </p>\n\n<p>For a paper, it is okay to use such a statement, assuming that the author has actually done the proofs. </p>\n\n<p>In a thesis, it is expected that the author does the work, not the reader, so I don't think it is acceptable.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20086,
"author": "posdef",
"author_id": 5674,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I will have to advise against it, and <strong>very strongly so</strong>. </p>\n\n<p>I did applied mathematics in the uni, and some of our teachers were <em>very</em> keen on using phrases like that. Well, I can definitely see the point in leaving exercises to the student, however we did have separate exercise sessions where everything was <em>left as an exercise for the reader.</em> So I have always found it odd (at times frustrating) that the course book, or lectures, by which I was supposed to get the tools to be able to solve the exercises, left some of the necessary bits as an exercise.</p>\n\n<p>There are two major problems with the phrasing, in my humble opinion:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>It might not be as obvious or straight-forward as you (the author) might think. In some cases the <em>exercise</em> is practically calculations that have already been performed in the previous page or so, in that case it's understandable to omit the same calculations/derivations, but a reference to the last place these calculations, would do just as well: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"... the rest of the derivations are analogous to...\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>or </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"... as we have seen in Theorem/Lemma X ... \"</p>\n</blockquote></li>\n<li><p>That particular phrasing has a condescending/patronizing resonance in the eyes of the reader. This has been something practically all of my old classmates commented on. As a matter of fact, we <em>still</em> joke about the phrase <em>\"... is left an exercise to the (ambitious) reader\"</em>. I am not sure what you have to gain from <strong>alienating your audience</strong>.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Lastly, regarding the use of the phrase in articles, I have to admit I don't do any work in maths anymore, but in the fields I work with (computational biology, biomedicine, bioinformatics, ...) I have never seen something like this, and I am pretty sure it would not fly well. </p>\n\n<p>If the \"exercise\" in question is important, you include it in the paper. If you lack the space to include it, you put in supplementary and refer to it. If it is not important you do not mention it. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20092,
"author": "Angew is no longer proud of SO",
"author_id": 13027,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13027",
"pm_score": 8,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I believe it's only appropriate in the type of writing where you are in a position to give the reader excercises. That is, in course books or other learning material. There, I think it's fine, assuming you've already given enough information for them to be able to perform such an excercise.</p>\n\n<p>In papers or theses, you're actually trying to convince the reader that you're right - the reader is in the position of power, not you, as you want something from them (to accept your ideas) and not vice versa. Therefore, I'd never write such a phrase in a paper or thesis.</p>\n\n<p>It's of course a viable requirement to leave out some parts of the work, either because of space constraints or because they're trivial, long but straightforward, would derail the course of the text, or something similar. If possible, such parts can be delegated to an appendix, or left out entirely. But I would accompany this with different phrasing, something like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The formula (7) can be obtained from (6) using straightforward application of [insert appropriate math branch here]</p>\n \n <p>A detailed proof of statement (4) unfortunately exceeds the scope of this paper.</p>\n \n <p>The derivation of (3) from (1) is too long to present here, but it can be worked out using a symbolic computation system such as Mathematica.</p>\n \n <p>Equation (7) follows from a straightforward application of <em>this-or-that theorem</em> to equation (5); we refer the reader to existing literature on the topic for details of this.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20119,
"author": "Myles",
"author_id": 14809,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14809",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Leaving some of the demonstration in a paper to the reader is definitely cheeky at the very least, and I for one find it quite frustrating if, for instance, I'm reading up on something and really not in the mood to have to work through it all at that point. It may seem lazy, but how fresh are you when you've got to the seventh paper of the evening?</p>\n\n<p>I'd definitely suggest referring to other places if space is at a premium - to my mind, that would be the only reason for omitting something that would be important in the paper (as if it's not important, why would you mention it?) Citations would be my first port of call for this, even if it is to an elementary text book (\"... for a more complete treatment of x, see Smith & Jones (2009, pp. 37-41).\"), but if there is genuinely nowhere else and not enough space but it needs to be referred to, URLs are also an option. Ideally, there should be a relatively permanent place that you can keep the text, so that someone going to look for it in several years time would still have access. </p>\n\n<p>At the end of the day, if it is in a work to be published in a book or journal, I'd recommend speaking to the editorial staff, as they may have existing policies for assessing the necessity of extensive material and placing it accordingly. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20136,
"author": "Chris Leary",
"author_id": 11905,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11905",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I guess this is not the popular opinion, but I have to agree with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/20085/56207\">Dave Clarke</a> in that I do not find the phrase in the least offensive. Even in the absence of such a phrase, many papers in mathematics have terse proofs in which a lot of detail is missing, providing ample exercise in filling in the details. I don't think this is a bad thing as it forces the reader to actively engage the material (still the best way to learn it).</p>\n<p>There is a story, doubtless embellished over the years, about G. H. Hardy saying in the middle of a lecture "It is clear that ... ," and then pausing. He went over to a corner of the board, worked for a time, and then continued with "Yes, it is clear ... ."</p>\n<p>Having said this, I would still prefer to see something such as "The proof is a routine computation," or "The proof is straightforward." Nonetheless, we should not be too quick to protest an author's choice of language in these situations.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20208,
"author": "Joe Johnson",
"author_id": 14872,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14872",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The phrase about an exercise for the reader is very passé, and can only \nbe used in textbooks.</p>\n\n<p>The normal phrase in research articles is ''we omit the details''.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20084",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14780/"
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|
20,089 | <p>I have done some work and I thought of publishing it. This is my first attempt to publish. After searching a lot, I found out that SCI indexed journals are good. But I am seeing publishing price at about $1500-$3100 which is absolutely impossible for me. (Just out of question). My work is on improvement in image processing, being specific, matrix encoding algorithms.</p>
<p>I am putting my question here after searching too much, so any hint would help. I am almost about $100-$150 budget. I don't understand how sharing info could be so costly. Is it not done as a service by scientists/Phd students collectively at some reasonable price ? </p>
<p>Its a baffling experience to me, specially this listed price on journal websites. In my country this amount means fortune. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20090,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Many journals do not charge any publication fees at all. For example, subscription journals often fall into this category, and in most fields there are plenty of subscription journals. If all the journals you are finding charge fees, then I'd imagine you aren't searching broadly enough (although maybe publication fees are particularly common in your field).</p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, journals that charge publication fees ought to give fee waivers to authors from developing countries. Their web sites often explain the details, and if they don't you can write to them to ask before submission. They might in principle say no, but it can't hurt to ask.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20100,
"author": "Rintze Zelle",
"author_id": 14798,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14798",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You might want to take a look at PLOS ONE. See their description of their <a href=\"http://www.plosone.org/static/information\" rel=\"nofollow\">Publication Charges</a>. The journal has a good reputation, publishes research in all discliplines, has a reduced or waived fee for authors from low income countries, and a separate fee waiver program.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20089",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14432/"
]
|
20,101 | <p>My case is the following, I have already got a MSc in Computer Science, but my field of specialization was Theoretical Computer Science. Actually I am really interested in the field of Machine Learning, but unfortunately I did not follow any course about that topic in my previous master's degree.</p>
<p>At first sight, I was thinking to follow a PhD that has some relation to Machine Learning; so in that case I should really follow some Machine Learning courses by my own. I have just put this thought for a while, mainly because I have not been so lucky in my last PhD applications.</p>
<p>In any case, I was wondering if I should follow another Master's degree in Machine Learning; and maybe because I have already got my other MSc, the time for completing this new MSc would be only one year instead of the two years that is the common duration of these studies.</p>
<p>Also I was thinking that maybe I could take some single courses, for example some online courses, even though I am not really a fan of MOOC courses.</p>
<p>What it would be the best course of action?</p>
<ul>
<li>Follow another MSc degree?</li>
<li>Follow some online courses in this topic? if that is so, which university offers them that the certification is recognized?</li>
</ul>
<p>Updated info:</p>
<p>About my goals are the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Need of learn machine learning topics for academic purposes: teaching undergraduates and independent research</li>
<li>Some good PhD positions in which I am interested require that knowledge</li>
</ul>
<p>Any advice would be great.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20117,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Given both of those stated goals, I would not pursue additional coursework to learn the material. Your current masters degree is likely good enough for either teaching or getting into a machine learning PhD program, and no degree is necessary for independent research. I would recommend that you use <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19187/should-i-take-every-math-course-in-order-to-do-good-research/19189#19189\">other resources</a> to learn the material.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>EDIT: Given that the question in the above link was deleted, I'm reproducing it here:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>There are many ways to learn new topics. Taking a university-level\n course is only one option. Other alternatives are:</p>\n \n <ul>\n <li>read textbooks</li>\n <li>online video tutorials (Khan academy, youtube)</li>\n <li>online pre-recorded lectures (e.g., iTunes U, but many, many others exist)</li>\n <li>talking to peers</li>\n <li>reading publications (for specialized topics)</li>\n </ul>\n \n <p>Taking a non-required university course is usually not the most\n optimal approach, for a number of reasons:</p>\n \n <ul>\n <li>You will spend a lot of time learning material not relevant to your problem, simply because it's part of the syllabus and the teacher\n found it interesting</li>\n <li>The requirement to pass will require you to spend likely (disproportionately too much) time doing homework, studying for tests,\n etc.</li>\n <li>It is very expensive</li>\n </ul>\n \n <p>This isn't to say that self-study doesn't require homework, or that\n learning topics not directly related to your research is a bad thing.\n I'm simply suggesting that by pursuing more self-directed learning\n opportunities you will be able to make better use of your time.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20118,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Getting the job really comes down to \"what you can do\" (and sometimes \"who you know\"..). Degrees are nice (and necessary), but you're current degree combined with working knowledge of machine learning and a couple of certificates from MOOCs could really go a long way. You would save time and money in my opinion. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20138,
"author": "h22",
"author_id": 10920,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10920",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some universities like ETH in Zurich (Switzerland) offer the \"Master of Advanced Studies\" degree for the undergraduates that have finished a given minimal number of additional courses with success, only one or two of them mandatory (assigned by a mentor). This would give the wanted additional expertise over shorter time.</p>\n\n<p>Taking the whole master degree second time is a huge effort that may not be worth it.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20101",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6144/"
]
|
20,102 | <p>I have received a Call for Presentations for a conference and I have a topic that could be interesting to present.</p>
<p>The Call for Presentations describe the various forms of presentations that one can submit, and then links to a form asking for a title, presenter name(s) and an abstract. This has a deadline around two months before the conference.</p>
<p>Now, to my questions: As I mentioned, I have a topic in mind, but unless my presentation is accepted, I would prefer not spending a lot of time preparing a good presentation of this (technical) subject. Will the decision about whether to accept the presentation be done solely on the grounds of the submitted abstract or will they be in touch before accepting the presentation?</p>
<p>(This is a computer science conference, in case that's germane.)</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20103,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It depends on how close you research topic/presentation is to the conference topic. I've never had an abstract turned down, but I present in sessions with topics relevant to my research. Most conferences wan't people to come and present, in general. Worst case scenario, it get's turned down. You will have a head start on the next abstract submission. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20104,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Usually decisions on accepting a presentation are made solely on the basis of content. This is actually somewhat unfortunate, because there's no way to eliminate researchers who give horrible talks :). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20122,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Typically you will be asked to submit a short abstract (usually 300 words or less), which will be accepted or rejected. If accepted, make your presentation. </p>\n\n<p>On another note, you should get accustomed to doing time consuming activities that may or may not have any real benefit in grad school... </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20483,
"author": "al_b",
"author_id": 5963,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5963",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Make sure it is not one of 1000s SPAM mails from not-known-to-anyone or thinking-only-about-how-to-get-your-money societies or fake conference organizers. Vast majority of conference in Computer Science review full papers, not abstracts, and review of presentations is not common at all.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20102",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14587/"
]
|
20,106 | <p>I'm preparing my application for a master degree scholarship, would it help to put the MOOC's I took in the application, I earned five MOOC certificates and expecting another two in the near future. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20109,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Yes! Why not? It shows that you go beyond what is required of you, and you have a genuine interest in learning. I always list certificates from MOOCs. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20110,
"author": "Robert Talbert",
"author_id": 14188,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14188",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>FWIW, I put the MOOCs I've completed in my tenure portfolio as a professor and it actually went over really well. So yeah, go for it. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 43194,
"author": "knb",
"author_id": 31688,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31688",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Maybe mention a brief comment about what the MOOC means (and means to you and what you liked about that college that offered the MOOC) in your letter of application.</p>\n\n<p>I bet, the older you get, recent MOOC completion statements will be getting more informative to any reader/recipient of your application than grades from a, say, 10 year old college degree. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20106",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11754/"
]
|
20,111 | <p>I was told that universities in USA are generally better that the ones in Italy. I will take the undergraduate degree this July, and I need to decide whether to continue my studies in Italy or to move to the USA.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2014/computer-science-information-systems#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=">This site</a> reports the world ranking for computer science & information systems, and Politecnico di Milano is ranked 48th. </p>
<p>I'll not be able to afford an university with high tuitions like MIT (let's say 15,000 $ per year maximum), also since I may have not the prerequisites to join high selective universities, if I move to the USA I'd choose a university that is ranked below or almost as Politecnico di Milano. So the indecision: it is still worth to move to the USA? Do you think that the rankings are reliable? </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20113,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The linked QS world university rankings are a well respected international ranking. That said, using a university's rank is a really terrible way to chose a grad school. Some of the factors which drive the rankings are important for choosing a grad school, but don't just rely on the rankings.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20124,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>I was told that universities in USA are generally better that the ones in Italy. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This statement, in its given generality, is false. The US, like most places, has very good schools, ok schools, and a reasonable number of pretty bad schools. If you explicitly are looking for very cheap schools, I would not assume that the remaining selection is necessarily any good, just because it is a \"school in the states\".</p>\n\n<p>POLIMI is a pretty good school in CS. To be honest, if I had the choice of going either to POLIMI or to a low-ranked US school, I would almost certainly choose POLIMI.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20126,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are planning to pursue PhD studies in computer science, you should in general <strong>not</strong> have to pay tuition yourself—this is covered by either your advisor or the department as a whole (e.g., if you're a teaching assistant). </p>\n\n<p>So, basically, it comes down to a question of whether or not you're able to gain admission to a school that you think is better than the one you are attending in Italy. Equally importantly, if you're looking to start <em>this</em> fall (2014), you will almost certainly not be able to do it in the United States, as the admissions \"window\" for fall of 2014 has already closed.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20111",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14586/"
]
|
20,128 | <p>A good friend of mine had an interview for a psychology Masters degree. The interviewer asked my friend: <strong>"Tell me about yourself"</strong>.</p>
<ul>
<li>How should one approach such a question?</li>
<li>What do the admission committee expect to hear? </li>
</ul>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20192,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>How should one approach such a question?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>By telling them about yourself.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>What do the admission committee expect to hear?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Something about yourself.</p>\n\n<p>Relax. It's not a trick question. (Or if it is a trick question, you don't want to go there.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20195,
"author": "Jhz832",
"author_id": 14804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14804",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In this occasion, the interviewers want to know your background and your motivation of further study in this particular subject. They want to give the opportunity to the right person. </p>\n\n<p>For example, I was once involved in the admission interview (although I didn't have the final say in the decision making). Based on my observation, those who had strong motivation but average GPA won over those with weak motivation and high GPA.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20205,
"author": "Kogesho",
"author_id": 7773,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7773",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I remember seeing this question on interview preparation articles or most asked question lists, and I must say this question makes no sense. The question seems so simple yet very hard to answer. I don't recommend replying with \"Could you be more specific?\" because it may seem like you are incapable of answering a simple! question. This is more likely to be the first question if you ever face it, sort of to break the ice, and you can simply introduce yourself and mention your professional interests and your purpose, very briefly. After this question, they will move to the specific questions that actually make sense.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20209,
"author": "Nick Stauner",
"author_id": 10518,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10518",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would recommend approaching it as your opportunity to guide the interview in the direction you want it to go. As a professional psychologist, you would often have to introduce yourself and your work to others. What any given committee expects to hear is anyone's guess, but maybe the average committee would at least be happy to see you present a clear, succinct, professional summary of your interests and experiences.</p>\n\n<p>Contrary to some implications that are starting to appear between the lines of responses here, psychologists are not necessarily more conscious of or trained in interviewing than others. Some of us specialize in interviewing, self-report, <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projective_test\" rel=\"noreferrer\">projective assessment methodology</a>, <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis\" rel=\"noreferrer\">psychoanalysis</a>, and other forms of open-ended, qualitative research, but many (maybe most) of us do not. In defense of the extremely general, almost meaningless prompt, \"Tell me about yourself,\" it is useful as a way of forcing the interviewee to initiate conversation on the topics of personal relevance, and may elicit those topics that an interviewee identifies with most strongly in a more direct way than other questions. Even if one were to ask questions based on prominent items from an applicant's CV, one could not be certain that those items weren't placed there after strategic deliberation or in capitulation to hiring committees' expectations. Asking a question like this that might easily be answered by glancing at an applicant's CV may catch an interviewee off-guard, forcing some on-the-spot self-reassessment in the underprepared, or giving hints of a person's true identity and interests without all the dressing and polish people usually apply to their CV entries.</p>\n\n<p>Still, psychologists aren't necessarily more aware of these uses of the question than hirers of different backgrounds, and expecting these tactics to be deliberate may give too much credit to some interviewers who engage in them unwittingly. In some cases, it may just be a way of forcing the interviewee to guide the interview for lack of personal will to do so, or for lack of having had the time or desire to review an applicant's credentials directly beforehand. Either way, consider it a challenge, and come prepared to rise to the occasion on any open-ended question. Can you introduce yourself in a way that's impressive, professional, interesting, and not overwrought or revealing of personal weaknesses? Can you handle ill-formulated questions and vague statements of interest in a constructive manner when put on the spot and given an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise? The answer to these questions had better be \"<strong>yes</strong>\", because you'd certainly have to perform these functions as a psychologist.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 34724,
"author": "Gregg",
"author_id": 26959,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26959",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is your chance to take the ball and run with it. I like to give some background that shows my history as it relates to why I am the right candidate. Glib or short answers will make you less likable, and going off topic or ranting opens you up to other judgement that may not be favorable. I would start from the timeline of whatever moment started the trajectory which ultimately ends up with you being in this interview, giving more weight/time to the things that you are most proud of. For example, I have always been interested in X, ever since my father brought me to see that Y in '92. for the last year, I have been exploring the inner workings of Z, and have contributed my time to some projects that seek to improve upon ... I am hoping to continue my efforts here, and am particularly interested in working on P.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 34730,
"author": "user3426338",
"author_id": 23764,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23764",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<pre><code>*How should one approach such a question?\nWhat do the admission committee expect to hear?*\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>If I were you I would approach this question like you were writing a cover letter for a regular job. Everything you talk about should always relate to why you want/qualified to be apart of this program. And you should talk about what your goals are after you have require this degree. Also,do your research on the culture of the program as well. If possible talk to a student who attended the university. \nI am not an expert but this is my two cents in this matter.</p>\n\n<p>Good Luck</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20128",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14815/"
]
|
20,130 | <p>I work in mathematical physics. Typically, papers in my field are either published either in general math journals (Annals of Math, Transactions of AMS, Proceedings of AMS) or in specialized math physics journals (Communications in Math Physics, Reviews in Mathematical Physics, Annales Henri Poincaré, etc.) Personally, I have had papers published in both types of journals. Yet I don't have a good sense whether a particular preprint should go to a general journal or a specialized journal, so I usually just pick at random. </p>
<p>What are the factors one thinks about when making a decision between submitting to a specialized journal and a general journal of similar quality?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20134,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would pick the journal with the largest audience that you feel is likely to actually read your work. That is probably the generalist journal, but not necessarily. If you have a specialist journal that all of the people in your field read, your work might get more attention that way. But generally, more general journals have larger audiences, therefore, more people who might be interested in your work, and hence also a higher selectivity rate.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20679,
"author": "Benoît Kloeckner",
"author_id": 946,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I tend to think that in most cases, the specialized/broad dichotomy is not very relevant. The most important point is to send it to an interested editor; if the most relevant editor for a paper happens to be at a general journal, you will often be better of sending your paper there.</p>\n\n<p>I would consider two exceptions to this principle. First, top specialized journals are usually less reputed than top generalist journals, so if you get a truly impressive result, you may want to get the best of it by sending it to a top generalized journal. Second, some generalist journals will turn back papers that seems much more specialized than the average math paper (e.g. when the basic objects you study are unheard of by most mathematicians).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20701,
"author": "David M W Powers",
"author_id": 6390,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6390",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't care how important the journal is or who the editors are. The question is do I read it, or do the papers of relevance turn up in it, or do the most relevant/sympathetic authors publish in it, which means there will be relevant/sympathetic reviewers. Publish in the journals where you see the most similar papers to what you are proposing, in approach, scope, length, depth, etc. It is appropriate to publish short papers on new results quickly in the more specialised transactions, and longer papers that draw together work and provide introductions to a broader audience in the more general journals. If the work is interdisciplinary it is appropriate to present it for different audiences by retargeting to a new journal. The more ground breaking the research the more important it is rather to see what journals publish novel research as opposed to bandwagon research. If none of the reviewers understand it, a reputable venue will not publish it (although often they won't admit the problem is theirs).</p>\n\n<p>But in general the story goes like this...</p>\n\n<p>research --> journals that publish that research --> most appropriate journal for your research --> target that specific journal</p>\n\n<p>In other words I think you have it backwards - you choose the venue and then target the paper to it. I develop repositories of knowledge for my own use (somewhere between a collection of notes and thesis-like treatise). Sometimes I publish these as a Tech.Report. but the idea is not to publish on the growing body of work, but to draw on it as it grows to target papers to particular venues (workshops, conferences, transactions and journals).</p>\n\n<p>I regard general journals as the least useful kind of publication, and workshops as the most useful kind of publication, with a funnel type progression to a proper journal paper (which I my field are typically 50-100 page papers whereas the other three typically have 6-12 page papers). In the internet age, the most important thing is to publish in places that provide or allow open access, and most readers will come from a search process rather than by subscription to the journal. Subscription journals are dead - they just don't know it yet, although the publishers are scrambling to get you, your employer or oterh sponsors to continue to pay them in a paid open access model.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20130",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11047/"
]
|
20,133 | <p>I was speaking with several professors in my department about submission to high-profile conferences like CHI in human-computer interaction. Most of the professors were of the opinion that acceptance in most of these high-profile conferences (typical acceptance rate of less than 20%) is heavily influenced by politics: even though you may have comparatively good research, the editors will most likely be more favored toward accepting papers published by Microsoft Research or Google Research or from other high-profile universities where they have close relationship with the faculty and researchers.</p>
<p>The professors advised me against spending time and resources on publishing to these conferences and instead concentrate on second-tier journals (like those published by Springer) for better return on investment for my efforts.</p>
<p>I assume in good faith that most of the editors may not reject papers without reading them, but does anybody concur with the opinion of professors at my department?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20137,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is an often-heard prejudice in CS that many of the top conferences are relatively closed \"boys clubs\". Indeed, if one just looks over accepted papers for multiple years, one typically ends up seeing the same affiliations over and over again, strengthening this impression.</p>\n\n<p>However, this could be due to a number of (good or bad) reasons:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Papers from professors / labs that are well-known in the field may simply be of much higher technical quality, making it quite natural that they also get accepted much more often.</li>\n<li>Professors / labs that are well-known in the field generally know <em>how to write papers for this specific conference</em>. They know what the TPC values, and how to present their results in a way that is appreciated in the field. As these professors are typically in the TPC themselves, they know what kind of papers usually get accepted and which are rejected.</li>\n<li>Professors / labs that are well-known in the field often have a better grasp on the existing state of the art in the field, making it easier for them to identify what is good and novel. In my experience, \"outsiders\" have a tendency to overestimate the novelty of their contributions significantly. Further, well-known labs know what problems are currently en vogue in the community.</li>\n<li>It is of course also perceivable that papers from well-known professors / labs are just not judged as critically. For instance, a reader may very well think that a paper is not applying a given technique correctly, but as the paper comes from the group that <em>invented</em> this technique, he gives them the benefit of doubt and assumes that they will know the technique better than him. He would probably not extend the same favorable thinking to an outsider.</li>\n<li>Finally, for some topics, it is just easier for some labs to do good research than others. A common example are the web search tracks at the WWW conference. These tracks typically require the validation of new algorithms on real data, to which mostly only industry labs from Yahoo! etc. and their close collaborators have access.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Note that none of these reasons is really <em>politics</em>. Indeed, I would argue that all of the reasons above are significantly more likely than a paper getting rejected for the reasons you cited.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I assume in good faith that most of the editors may not reject papers without reading them</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I would say, at a top conference such as CHI, you can rely on your paper at least getting reviewed thoroughly, yes.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>but does anybody concur with opinion of professors at my department?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Well, given all the reasons above, it is indeed quite likely that your paper will be rejected. By definition, if a conference has a <20% acceptance rate, rejection is always a real possibility (clearly, it happens to most submissions). However, I am wondering why it would be better to not even try if you think your work is good enough for CHI. If the paper gets rejected there, you can still re-submit to a lower-tier venue, <em>and</em> you receive a number of hopefully helpful reviews. The only disadvantage I see is that it prolongs the publication process by half a year, but if you see <em>any</em> chance of the paper begin accepted at the top-tier venue, I think this should be worth it. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20149,
"author": "vadim123",
"author_id": 7222,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7222",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I completely agree with almost everything xLeitix wrote, except the conclusion. One thing that was not addressed is <em>why</em> your professors told you not to submit to CHI. It's possible that they're giving their honest opinions, or that they themselves had a bad record submitting there.</p>\n\n<p>But it's also possible that they are telling you that your work is not good enough for CHI, but in a gentle manner. Also, they are familiar with where you are in your career track and may believe that losing time and effort on a failed CHI attempt is not good for you. Both of these require perspective that you cannot have on yourself.</p>\n\n<p>Consequently, I would suggest that you take the advice you were given.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20157,
"author": "Jhz832",
"author_id": 14804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14804",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Politic is everywhere, of course, especially in situations where the resource giving out to people is limited. Bear in mind, taking a look at the program committee before submitting! And please don't stick to one conference! Even some well-known professors get rejection at some conferences, let alone others.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 21724,
"author": "Dan",
"author_id": 15931,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15931",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Having served on the CHI program committee, many other program committees, and having been program chair of a couple of other HCI conferences, I think your professors are overly cynical.</p>\n\n<p>First, as JeffE pointed out, CHI (and many other conferences) use blind or semi-blind reviewing, so at least the reviewers do not know whose paper they are reviewing.</p>\n\n<p>Second, I have never been in a PC meeting where the identities of the authors was a point of discussion. Of course that doesn't mean that the associate chair (AC) for the paper was not influenced by who the authors were, but it would certainly imply that there is no <em>institutionalized</em> bias for or against particular authors or institutions.</p>\n\n<p>I would definitely not worry about your papers being rejected without being reviewed; in fact, when you submit you will get the reviews so you know why your paper was or was not accepted.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 88491,
"author": "O. R. Mapper",
"author_id": 14017,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I agree with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/20137/14017\">xLeitix's answer</a> and would like to elaborate on how some high-profile researchers manage to constantly appear at certain high-profile conferences.</p>\n\n<p>I'd say the method to reliably appear on a given conference are resources and focus:</p>\n\n<p>First, to professor X, conference A is not simply another conference. It is their subfield's \"flagship\" conference, their \"home\" meeting. They will and can put a lot of effort into making sure they get published there. Thus, they do not just submit one paper. They make sure they have at least a short paper about each of their hottest ideas to submit. With ten or more submissions, a few acceptances are likely even at a low acceptance rate.</p>\n\n<p>Related to that, note that the conference topic is probably not just X's personal hobby. More likely, they have an entire research group specialized on the conference's core topic at their disposal. X is probably already involved with half a dozen projects with different members of their group at any time, all of which are thematically suitable for conference A.</p>\n\n<p>Lastly, there is simply a strong overlap between X's topics of expertise and A's topics. Even if X does, somehow, not manage to publish in A, they will actively participate nonetheless (thereby adding to the impression that their name appears all the time with respect to A):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>They may be among A's chairs.</li>\n<li>They might chair one or more sessions at A.</li>\n<li>They might be invited to give a keynote talk at A.</li>\n<li>They might offer a workshop co-located with A. Note that even without anything questionable going on, this could lead to a certain additional bias towards contributions by X's group: While less frequently so for workshops at very large conferences, workshops often rely extensively on word-of-mouth marketing. As a consequence, people in X's direct vicinity are most likely to know about the workshop and its precise focus.</li>\n<li>As a well-known member of the audience whose work is being built upon by other submissions to A, they might be mentioned in some of the talks. This can happen in totally informal remarks: \"Last year, Alice, who is sitting over there, presented technique Y and asked Z, so I have been looking into Z.\"</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>And even if all of these fail, X will still attend A and attract enough attention during coffee breaks to reinforce the memory: X was actively part of A <em>again</em>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 88494,
"author": "Stuart Golodetz",
"author_id": 9320,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9320",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This kind of advice is often given to people, but in my view it's fundamentally misguided.</p>\n\n<p>It's true to some extent that many of the top conferences have a particular way of doing things, and that people in the community associated with a conference will often have more experience with that way of doing things and find it easier to get papers accepted there. However, it's untrue that the communities associated with particular conferences are a closed shop: it's entirely possible to adapt your way of doing things to what you know different conferences expect, and that will improve your acceptance rate at those conferences. Moreover, it's absolutely worth your while to do this, because publishing at the top conferences massively improves your chances of having a successful academic career (not to mention that it puts you in contact with a large number of good researchers in your field).</p>\n\n<p>In that sense, the people who are suggesting that you eschew the top conferences and simply send your work to second-tier venues are doing you a serious disservice, because they're basically ensuring that you're not even on the pitch where you could compete with your peers (indeed, the heavy focus that top groups put on publishing at top conferences tends to mean that they are underwhelmed by people who don't compete). If you're good and you put in sufficient effort, you can definitely play at the right level, whereas counting yourself out of the game before you've even tried to succeed is deeply unwise in my view.</p>\n\n<p><strong>TL;DR The people giving you this advice are leading you astray in my view. It's not wise to spend your time and energy submitting papers to venues that many researchers will view as being less than top-flight, when you could be refining your papers to make sure that they get into the top venues.</strong></p>\n\n<p>More generally, people unfortunately tend to give similar advice about all kinds of things, not just academic conferences. A classic example would be applying to university, or applying for top jobs. The general form of such advice tends to be:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>This venue is biased against you specifically, or against people like you (whatever that means) in general.</li>\n<li>This venue wouldn't suit you if you were accepted -- you'd enjoy it way less than a lower-tier venue.</li>\n<li>This venue isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway -- they just have a high opinion of themselves.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>There are certainly situations in which people might be a bit biased, or in which you wouldn't enjoy some place, or in which the place isn't as good as it thinks it is, but these things are by no means universally true. If people tell you \"don't apply to X because I have specific, verifiable evidence of Y\", then that may be one thing (check the \"verifiable evidence\"), but if they tell you not to apply to top venues in general, then you need to seriously question that.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20133",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7937/"
]
|
20,139 | <p>By this, I do not mean I did not obtain significant research results. My supervisor has told me to finish up a draft of paper for submission, I wrote it, then after few months, he told me to correct some parts and did more experiments on certain area, I followed all his instructions and wrote a second draft to him. And until now, it is already one year after sending my draft to him, and still I have no idea when he will publish it.</p>
<p>Actually, this not only happens to me, it happens to all the members in my research group. The average time my supervisor publishes our results is about 2-3 years after we have finished all the required experiments. The results just become idle. I would like to ask, if this is a common phenomenon (and the possible reasons behind it), if not, what I (and my colleagues) can do about it? You know as a research student, having publication is very important, it is really frustrating. </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20140,
"author": "Marc Claesen",
"author_id": 7173,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7173",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>This seems like a strange situation, since it is very counterproductive for both you <em>and</em> your supervisor. If this is indeed common in your group, I am sure several ideas have been scooped by the time they finally get submitted. Unfortunately, I really don't have any decent idea why your supervisor would act this way.</p>\n\n<p>The most important thing to do is to <strong>talk to your supervisor and don't let him/her dismiss the issue</strong>. This may seem like an aggressive approach, but you can disguise it as a learning experience, e.g. \"<em>Please tell me what is wrong with the current manuscript because I believe it is ready for submission, oh wise one</em>\". Whatever you do, remain polite.</p>\n\n<p>A few approaches you can try (all of which are reasonable, so don't be shy):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Send reminders and send them often. Ask what you can do to improve the manuscript. If your supervisor has no further suggestions to change the manuscript, ask where you can submit it to directly. Don't wait for him/her to wake up. This approach may lead to your supervisor turning it into a ping-pong match, asking you to make trivial but time-consuming extensions again and again. In this case, confront your supervisor and explain your perspective.</li>\n<li>If you can find an appropriate call for papers, ask permission to send the manuscript there. Calls typically have deadlines and are not necessarily a downgrade in terms of venue quality. This includes conferences and journal special issues. Having a hard deadline might help.</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20141,
"author": "Moriarty",
"author_id": 8562,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8562",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Finish writing the paper yourself. Send your supervisor a final draft, inviting him to submit his comments on the paper and suggest some changes.</p>\n\n<p>If your supervisor does not wish to collaborate on the submission, it's possible he will be OK with you finishing and submitting the paper yourself, perhaps as the sole author. Make sure to acknowledge his capacity as your supervisor at the end of the paper, if he is not included as a co-author.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If it's your data, and you wrote the paper, you have every right to\n publish it by yourself as long as you offer your supervisor the chance to collaborate or object.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Best-case scenario? Your own paper gets published, or your supervisor gets jolted back to reality and collaborates with you on finishing the paper together. Worst case scenario? Your paper gets rejected (don't fret, that can happen often!), so you have to head back to your supervisor or Academia.SE for advice on re-submitting it or choosing another journal.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20176,
"author": "Toxaris",
"author_id": 7946,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7946",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In a comment, OP added:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Of course we have talked to our supervisor, he just said 'ok, I will look and see if anything to add', after few weeks we asked again, and he again said 'I will look into it'.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Try to understand why your supervisor behaves likes this. Some hypotheses:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Your supervisor prefers to spent time on some other work.</li>\n<li>Your supervisor has to focus on some other work for external reasons.</li>\n<li>Your supervisor prefers to spent time working with someone else.</li>\n<li>Your supervisor finds the paper boring and avoids working on it.</li>\n<li>Your supervisor is a perfectionist and wants to avoid publishing a non-perfect paper.</li>\n<li>Your supervisor has bad time-management skills and forgets to look at your paper.</li>\n<li>Your supervisor doesn't really want to publish this for some reason.</li>\n<li>... many more possibilities ...</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It is important to understand why your supervisor is behaving like this, in order to react appropriately. For example, if your supervisor has very bad time-management skills and keeps forgetting your paper, it is probably better to ask about this much more often than every few weeks.</p>\n\n<p>Options for understanding your supervisor better include just asking him or her about it, or asking someone who successfully collaborated with your supervisor in the past. Maybe some former grad students of your supervisor figured out how to effectively interact with your supervisor and you can learn the trick from them.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 66560,
"author": "Nikey Mike",
"author_id": 51566,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/51566",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My dear friend, I am somehow in a similar situation. I have analyzed N body simulations and have written one conference paper with my supervisor. The plan with my supervisor was to write a very good paper on it and submit it to a leading journal in the field. All is in order, I have the plots, interpretations of the results, 3 oral presentations on the results, but somehow my supervisor keep delaying apparently the publications of the paper. After I have seen this, I have approached another problems in the field and I have one paper accepted with me as a sole author, and one in review with no supervisor, maintaining some sort of liberty. The irony is that the impact factor of my of the journal where I have published is +1 higher than the usual journal the supervisor normally publish. If you wish to keep a balance with your supervisor, I would recommend leaving at it's normal pace, keeping in mind that it is only one paper, and go publishing with your peers on another papers and problems in your field. Good luck!</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20139",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14682/"
]
|
20,144 | <p>I have read many questions on this site that relate to Journal impact factors, for example, in relation to how that may affect where to publish etc. </p>
<p>I am wondering is there an independent oversight body that regulates the area of impact factors?</p>
<p>I was thinking along the lines of something like the <a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/home.html" rel="nofollow">International Organization for Standardization</a> that regulates the ISO standards across the world.</p>
<p>Specifically is there an independent body (either commercial or not for profit) that sets the standards for impact factors and audits them so as that one impact factor can be compared with another with the knowledge that they are calculated in the same way?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20145,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<h2>No.</h2>\n\n<p>Academic publishing is not regulated by any oversight body. There is not even a universal standard for what constitutes a <em>publication</em>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20161,
"author": "badroit",
"author_id": 7746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There's multiple questions contained within your question that have different answers.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is there independent oversight of Journal Impact Factors?\n ...\n Now I am wondering is there a oversight body that regulates the area?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This depends on what you mean by \"independent\".\nIf you mean an official unbiased centralised not-for-profit professional organisation, then the best answer is probably <strong>no</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>But ...</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Specifically is there a body that sets the standards for impact factors and audits them so as that one impact factor can be compared with another with the knowledge that they are calculated in the same way?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The answer to this part is definitively <strong>yes</strong>. The notion of an impact factor (<- <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor\">a recognised term of art</a>) was invented by the founder of the <strong><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Scientific_Information\">Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)</a></strong>, Eugene Garfield. The impact factor of journals has been computed by ISI since 1975 using a prescribed methodology.</p>\n\n<p>In terms of comparability, the impact factor is specifically the average number of citations per publication in the journal, over a fixed time span (the two years previous, or five years for 5 year impact). Citations are collected from the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) index.</p>\n\n<p>And so if you are a journal editor and you wish to have an impact factor, you need to apply to ISI (now owned by Thompson Reuters). They oversee the computation of the official Impact Factor metrics in common use today, as publicised on various journal websites. </p>\n\n<p>In fact, Thompson Reuters (through ISI) <em>own</em> the concept of Impact Factor for journals and copyright said metrics.</p>\n\n<p>So for sure there is a body \"<em>that sets the standards for impact factors and audits them so as that one impact factor can be compared with another with the knowledge that they are calculated in the same way</em>\". But I would hesitate to call Thompson ISI an <em>independent</em> body.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>This answer is not intended to promote the idea of an Impact Factor, but merely to indicate its oversight, regulation and history as per the question.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20144",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12454/"
]
|
20,146 | <p>I am trying to use/find the correct term for the <em>practice of publishing research results in academia</em>, mainly a reference to the practice of publishing research findings in a formal journal or conference. </p>
<p>The term has to have a clear contrast to the practice of <em>publishing full data-sets of research results (ex: in a repository)</em>, but which is also a sub-form of "publishing of research results" </p>
<p>I have started my work by using the term "Scholarly Communication" which was somehow influenced by one of my mentors. Although I was happy on the initial suggestion, I am finding myself not so keen on the use of it, as it seems cheaper in contrast to for example: <em>Academic Publishing</em> which seems broader to include more research ventures (done also by non-scholars, but still viable for academic recognition).</p>
<p>The problems with the term <em>Academic Publishing</em> are two for my perspective. 1) I have not been able to find a strong definition of it, and 2) it is so broad that can include the "publishing of research data-sets" which I need to reference separately. </p>
<p>Would appreciate a discussion for a creative term which coins the academic publishing as it has been referenced traditionally? </p>
<p>Update 1: Considering also <em>Academic Literature</em> referenced in a comment below by darthbith</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20160,
"author": "Not Quite An Outsider",
"author_id": 10390,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10390",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I suggest \"(modifier) dissemination\" with (modifier) used to make things more specific. Usually I find the phrase \"dissemination of (noun)\", and it often refers to a formal release of information, where some semblance of validation of (noun) has occurred. You might find \"result dissemination\", \"data dissemination\", \"report dissemination\" useful. Of course, I'm already getting tired of seeing the word \"dissemination\" used many times in the same paragraph. I also suggest some synonyms to alleviate developing madness in the reader.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 23933,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If a thing is publicly available, it is literally published, nevermind paywalls. It would be an unhelpful abuse of language to have \"publication\" mean exclusively \"publication in a traditional, recognized, peer-refereed, journal\". I propose (only partly facetiously) referring to the latter as \"gatekeeper publications\". :)</p>\n\n<p>Srsly, there <em>is</em> an issue here. If the NSF or NIH require that we make our research public, but we can't get it through the gatekeepers, then what?</p>\n\n<p>So, if you want to refer to publication in peer-reviewed journals, say \"peer-reviewed journal publication\". This might be in contrast to \"internet publication\". Adjectives.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20146",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1428/"
]
|
20,147 | <p>I have been using some online proofreader tools for checking for grammar issues in my writing, but I have found that the solutions they give are not so good at all.
For that reason I would like to know any human-proofreader service that somebody could recommend me. Some of the characteristics of the service that I am requiring are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Not so expensive</li>
<li>Confidentiality, I do not want my article to end up published by somebody else</li>
<li>Reliable</li>
</ul>
<p>Could anybody has experience with those services and could recommend me one? I need to review an article asap</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20162,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Have you tried getting the proofreading done within your own university? This is not made explicit in your question, but my guess is that you are not a native speaker of English and you are writing in English. If you are attending an anglophone university there will probably be places where you can just show up and get help on proofreading your paper (the humanities version of drop-in tutoring). So I'm assuming that you are not attending an anglophone university. But at (almost?) any university there should be faculty and students who are working on English writing specifically. Can you find a student who is willing to help you? Perhaps you may even be able to offer some other academic service to the student in exchange. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20164,
"author": "h22",
"author_id": 10920,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10920",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is generally not worth to use a paid commercial proofreading service, as a typical translator (unless clearly specialized in this area) does not know the necessary scientific style and terminology. </p>\n\n<p>Once my laboratory relied on fully translating the article into English by the paid translations service, assuming, professionals do better. The received comment from the editor sounded \"do not write English text yourself, ask somebody to do this for you\". Wise.</p>\n\n<p>Pay attention to grammar when reading articles and try follow the style. Most likely, nothing can do much better than you yourself. Also, the idea to ask the English department of your university seems very good.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20147",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6144/"
]
|
20,148 | <p>Some journals bundle relevant papers on a currently hot topic into special issues. As far as I know, potential manuscripts must be specifically submitted for inclusion in special issues rather than the journal itself (or get selected from conference proceedings).</p>
<p>In my field, special issues tend to have shorter review periods which makes them interesting venues. I have heard that special issues tend to have lower impact than regular journal issues, though I am not sure if this is factual. Do special issues usually meet the same standards as regular issues?</p>
<p>Is there any difference in prestige in publishing in special issues vis-à-vis publishing in regular issues? Do hiring committees make meaningful distinctions between both types?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20153,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I have not been a journal editor. But I have dealt with many journal editors, and in my experience the kind of thing they are <em>most</em> concerned about is maintaining and elevating their journal's standards at all times. So I have to imagine that when they put together a special issue, they take pains to ensure that this does not result in any measurable lowering of their journal's standards.</p>\n\n<p>In my branch of mathematics, special issues are not that common but not unheard of either. I have never noticed any difference in the quality of the papers published in these special issues. Also in my experience people may not even list on their CV that the publication has appeared in a \"special issue\". </p>\n\n<p>I have on the other hand been on many hiring committees, and I have not heard a thing about this. Again though in my field this sort of publication is relatively uncommon and it may even escape our notice. I suppose that if a candidate had ten publications and they were <em>all</em> in \"special issues\" that might be curious. </p>\n\n<p>All in all, in my neck of the woods there is nothing to worry about here.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20154,
"author": "Suresh",
"author_id": 346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my part of CS, where like other fields of CS the conference publication is the primary delivery mechanism, a journal special issue is viewed as prestigious and is highlighted in CVs. </p>\n\n<p>Typically a set of papers is accepted for publication and presentation at a conference. This conference is usually associated with a specific journal. Editors from that journal prowl the conference checking out the papers and presentations, After the conference is done they will then send out invites to selected authors inviting their paper for publication in a special issue of the journal. </p>\n\n<p>This is considered prestigious because it's viewed as a 'cream of the crop' selection. It's also easy for authors because special issues normally have expedited refereeing. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20158,
"author": "badroit",
"author_id": 7746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My own experience of special issues in Computer Science journals is that they are typically considered the same as regular issues. There are two types of special issues: one is (as Suresh notes) invited extended versions of the best papers from a conference. Another is just based on open calls for guest editors to propose special issues. Indexing services do not typically note that the paper was part of a special issue. I have not highlighted special issues in my CV.</p>\n\n<p>Whether or not the review process is expedited depends on the guest editors. From my own sample set of journal papers, the fastest turnaround for reviews was on a special issue (three months for acceptance after one minor revision, six months to publication). However the slowest was likewise a special issue (eighteen months for acceptance after one major revision, over two years until publication).</p>\n\n<p>The risk with a special issue (timewise) is that all the papers of the special issue have to be accepted so as to be published on slices of the same dead tree. So one paper that lags behind will slow down the rest of the papers from being finally published and indexed.</p>\n\n<p>In terms of acceptance rates, again it can be risky. If your paper is on topic for a special issue that does not receive many other submissions, your chances of acceptance may be slightly higher since the guest editors will be anxious to fill out the special issue. Likewise if your paper was solicited (e.g., from a conference) it would stand to reason that you would have better chances since the editors have already expressed interest in publishing the paper. On the other hand, the space for a special issue is more rigidly bounded than the more elastic regular call (which spans multiple issues). Hence if you submit an unsolicited paper to a special issue that receives lots of other submissions, the special issue could be a lot more competitive than the regular issue.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20148",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7173/"
]
|
20,150 | <p>When a professor goes on unpaid leave from her university, can she normally continue to use her grants to fund graduate students and postdocs? Or, do all grants "freeze" until the professor returns?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20155,
"author": "Ben Webster",
"author_id": 13,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I don't see any reason that a professor wouldn't be able to continue to use grants while on leave. In fact, I'm on unpaid leave from my home institution right now, and have been able to use my grants (for travel support for myself), so that's one data point.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20156,
"author": "Michael Zieve",
"author_id": 14724,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14724",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The answer is \"yes\". For instance, I was on unpaid leave this academic year, and used my grant to support a graduate student.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20181,
"author": "Emme",
"author_id": 12532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12532",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It depends on the breakdown of the grant. If there are students or staff who were hired to do the proposed work then I don't see any reason why they wouldn't continue being paid if they are continuing to work. The same goes for research related services and products. Sometimes sabbaticals are unpaid, but that doesn't mean that the work stops. Most grants are on a schedule, so PIs need to be making some form of progress on the project (whether or not they are getting paid from it).</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20150",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9173/"
]
|
20,159 | <p>I am about to apply for a Master program in U.S. as I am about to graduate in Bachelor of Engineering. Though I heard that all my grades during all my academic life is taken into consideration (GPA). Here in Brazil is very common to have a huge gap between universities both in teaching level and avaliation process. So, holding a degree from a weak college may be much easier and thus helping you to get a higher GPA while a well-known college will be much more difficult and probably your grades will be lower. Even though you have a degree from the very best college and you do have a good knowledge of most subjects, the GPA from the person who came from the weak college may be higher.</p>
<p>This also extends to the outside world (comparison between GPA's from different countries). So, how is it really done in practice? Do I still hold a reasonable chance of getting into a nice college with not a so high GPA?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20163,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>We have the same phenomenon in America, of course. All other things being equal, a 3.5 GPA from Princeton is much more impressive than a 4.0 from some random state university. The whole idea of GRE scores is to provide a metric that isn't confounded by the difficulty of different programs at different colleges in these ways. An additional difficulty you face is that your American evaluators won't know how good or bad your university is. This makes your GRE score doubly important. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20237,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You can add a note in your statement or supplemental materials that \"At my university, <strong>____</strong>, the mean GPA was 3.5 with an sd of <strong>_ and in my department, the mean was xyz with an sd of __</strong>\" so that it's clear that you are two sigmas above average, etc.</p>\n\n<p>That assumes that you are above average. You should be able to get this info from the university registrar or office of institutional research.</p>\n\n<p>But you should know that GPAs as a whole are deprecated in the application process. Individual grades (how well did you do in computer science, for example), some test scores in some disciplines, and your statement is much more important. As well as your letters of recommendation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36981,
"author": "sevensevens",
"author_id": 14754,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14754",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In general 3.4 or 3.5+ is considered a good GPA, and you won't need to explain why it isn't higher to any reasonable admissions board no matter where you graduated from. Well know schools want a diverse grad student body, and will look to pull students from prestigious schools as well as smaller state schools and international schools.</p>\n\n<p>No matter the GPA, I would apply a prestigious \"dream\" program or two and see what happens. This is especially true if you can line up excellent recommendations. While it might be a longer shot, $50 application fee isn't much, and you will not be left playing \"what-if\" with yourself.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20159",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14731/"
]
|
20,165 | <p>Would it ever occur, historically, that a PhD student could not obtain his degree from a university due to the high costs of publishing his thesis, such that he would have to publish it at another university and get his degree there instead?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 21848,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Emphatically, I don't see how this could happen in any subject in the U.S., nor, to my knowledge, in Europe, though I understand that there, in some cases, the actual work can be viewed as somewhat disconnected from a university.</p>\n\n<p>But the point is that, in most subjects in the U.S., for example, one is not required to \"publish\" one's thesis in any fashion that would incur great expense. A handful of required copies, often printed nearly-for-free, and everything else is optional. <em>Not</em> \"page costs\" to journals, for example. </p>\n\n<p>Further, in the U.S., it would be essentially impossible to \"change universities\" for any reason whatsoever, without re-doing many required activities, time-in-residency, and such. So whatever other advantages, there'd be something like a two-year delay, tuition, other things.</p>\n\n<p>I really think that the question's hypotheses are iffy, possibly due to a misunderstanding of how things work. Certainly in the U.S., most likely in Europe, and I'd be surprised to hear that the questions implicit assumptions made sense anywhere in the world (though I'd certainly be interested to hear about such a thing).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 183352,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>When my parents were students in Germany (1930's and 40's) and probably for a long time before that, doctoral theses had to be published, either privately at the student's expense or in a journal. Because of the cost of private publication, students had a strong incentive to write a thesis good enough to be accepted by a journal. (And there were far fewer journals in those days.)</p>\n<p>That information came from my parents. I don't think they mentioned how many copies would be required in the case of private publication, but I'd expect it would be enough copies for quite a few libraries. Journal publication was not associated with a university, so there was nothing to be gained by changing universities.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20165",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9425/"
]
|
20,171 | <p>Is there anything like a directory or list of notable leading living figures based on subject area or research concentration?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20179,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think the American Academy of Arts and Sciences might be a good place to start, at least if your focus is primarily on academics in the U.S. Two criticisms of the academy: it tends to be clique-y. Harvard is always going to have the most new fellows every year because they've already got the most fellows. Second, not everybody who deserves to be a member is one. They're really good about not giving memberships to people who <em>don't</em> deserve them (at least in my field, Philosophy), but there are some people who clearly should be members but aren't. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20189,
"author": "Federico Poloni",
"author_id": 958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another online resource (although last updated in 2008) is the list of ISI highly cited researchers at <a href=\"http://highlycited.com/browse/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://highlycited.com/browse/</a>.</p>\n\n<p>A google search returns also this \"preliminary\" <a href=\"http://community.thomsonreuters.com/t5/InCites-Customer-Forum/Preliminary-publication-of-new-lists-of-Highly-Cited-Researchers/td-p/36685\" rel=\"nofollow\">list</a> from December 2013.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20171",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9429/"
]
|
20,174 | <p>Should I modify my CV to emphasize certain traits before including it in my application for a master's degree or just include my usual professional CV? </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20175,
"author": "Jonathan E. Landrum",
"author_id": 7134,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7134",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>An academic CV typically contains items you wouldn't want to list in a professional resume, such as a complete publishing history. Your resume may list as a bullet point that you are published, but they don't want 20 pages listing each publication, for instance. So, yes, your academic CV should be different.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20201,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, it's a good idea. </p>\n\n<p>It's a good idea to tailor your CV and/or resume to each position you apply for. Keep two copies of your CV:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>comprehensive (academic) version that has everything you've accomplished in academia and your profession, and </li>\n<li>short version that only contains pertinent information. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Some applications require you to submit a short (2 page or less CV). You might consider submitting both a long and short CV to your program. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20232,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A CV is very different from a professional resume. Your CV should emphasize those elements that pertain to the Master's program that you are applying to. For example, if you've been working in a biotech lab and are applying to a bio MS, then filter that up to the top. </p>\n\n<p>Academic publications should also rank very highly -- but deprecate most non-academic publications such as novels, unless you are applying to an arts or literature related MA></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20313,
"author": "Joshua Dance",
"author_id": 14498,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14498",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You should always modify your CV to emphasize certain traits. If a decision maker is sorting CVs, you want yours to be noticed. Citing specific and credible experience directly related to the program (or company for a general CV) to which you are applying, gives you a much better chance of getting noticed. </p>\n\n<p>I personally re-work my CV for each opportunity I ever applying for. It takes 15 minutes, and can make a huge difference between where you will spend the next few years of your life. </p>\n\n<p>Take the 15 minutes to rework your CV and make it specific to the desired opportunity. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20174",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11754/"
]
|
20,178 | <p>Completely unrelated to my field (I do not work in languages) but I have written a small piece of software that proof reads my work for grammar and syntax. I'm interested in finding a few documents (ideally from a range of academic disciplines) that I can use to check my proof reading software.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 21086,
"author": "user15395",
"author_id": 15395,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15395",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am unclear how this would differ from the grammar and spell check in a word processing software such as Microsoft Word; but presume it must differ or you wouldn't have created it! Perhaps as an initial trial for proof of concept, you could compare how yours competes with Word or other similar programs. This would provide some preliminary data with something most researchers are familiar with so can relate to it. If it compares well, it would also allow you to begin telling the story of your tool in that context, which is valuable in gathering support, and even funding if there are grants out there for this you may want to seek. Next, (possibly the beta stage for the new grant!) you could design a study using professional human (teachers, scientists, etc.) reviewers to compare against. The student papers suggested in another post may provide material for this.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 23275,
"author": "Steven Schulman",
"author_id": 7789,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7789",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>If you perform a search for \"examples of bad student papers\" or \"examples of bad writing\" you should find many examples. As an added bonus, many of the examples are then analyzed to provide suggestions for improvements.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20178",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11359/"
]
|
20,182 | <p>Say you have a homework assignment and you're struggling with it. You ask a question about some portion of it on a site like physics.stackexchange or math.SE or stackoverflow.com, etc.</p>
<p>You then cite the help you received in your homework, as well as including a link to the post which helped you.</p>
<p>Given that you are removing the "dishonesty" part of the equation, is this still considered cheating? Or would a professor just not give you credit for the part which they feel you didn't do on your own?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20183,
"author": "vadim123",
"author_id": 7222,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7222",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>This depends a great deal on the professor and course in question. Better to ask first if you plan to do this. Also, check the syllabus if there is a stated policy regarding help on homework.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20185,
"author": "John Johnson",
"author_id": 8530,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8530",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As vadim123 says, it depends on the professor.</p>\n\n<p>What I have done in the past (when outside help was not expressly forbidden) was write that I obtained help from someone on the internet or the tutoring center because I was stuck. Then I would go to great lengths to explain the concept in such a way that the professor could see that I had gained mastery of the concept, and I put some work into the problem. Sometimes I would do additional problems too. Other times I would turn in problems I had worked several times, never arriving at a reasonable answer, and ask the professor for help. As I recall, I was always given credit for doing the work. Your mileage may vary.</p>\n\n<p>There is a difference between asking for help and cheating, and I think it comes down to ones motivation. By doing the additional work, it should show that your goal was not to just get an answer to turn in, but to gain understanding of the concept. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20191,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think it is acceptable, but you might considering asking your professor first. </p>\n\n<p>I have cited help from cross validated and stack overflow before with help on modeling in R. I tested my data for heteroskedasticity using a test (Breusch–Pagan)that the professor did not mention in class.I provided a link to the discussion in my assignment. I did not receive negative marks, in fact, he actually <strong>complemented my work</strong> in front of the class for \"going the extra mile\" and using alternate resources and finding a test he did not mention in lecture. </p>\n\n<p>I think most professors want you to learn, it shouldn't matter how. Now if you post you data and someone does all the work for you, that is a different animal.. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20193,
"author": "Sverre",
"author_id": 11053,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11053",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would say that it also depends on how you asked your question online. You should demonstrate in your homework that you have understood the procedure you're outlining as your answer, and then acknowledge that you received help online by providing the link where you asked your question. If I were the professor, I would click the link to see the question. If it were a question along the lines of \"Here's a problem. What's the answer?\", then I would give you no credit. If your question clearly showed some effort and understanding, and that you made sure you properly understood the answer(s), I would say it's ok. But most importantly of all (I think), you should admit in your question that you're working on a homework problem. That way people will try to <em>help</em> you rather than just give you the answer.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20218,
"author": "keshlam",
"author_id": 10225,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10225",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em>Asking</em> for help on the internet may be considered cheating, depending on how much help you got versus how much of your own research you did.</p>\n\n<p><em>Not crediting</em> help received on the internet may be considered even more unethical, verging on plagiarism.</p>\n\n<p>If you're going to incorporate other folks' answers in your own, it's polite to acknowledge their contributions. At the very least.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20310,
"author": "Trevor Wilson",
"author_id": 8937,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8937",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think that the other answers do not quite answer the question that was asked. My answer is no, it is not cheating to turn in a homework assignment that cites a website like Math.SE. (This is assuming that you put quotation marks around any text that you copy; otherwise it could still be plagiarism.)</p>\n<p>Of course it would be a good idea to ask the professor beforehand whether this is allowed, but failure to do so would not constitute cheating any more than attempting to turn in a homework assignment late without first determining whether this was allowed would constitute cheating. As long as the student makes it clear that the homework uses outside sources (or was turned in late,) the professor has the choice to accept the homework or not according to his or her policy.</p>\n<p>Keep in mind that if citing outside sources in your homework is a violation of the professor's policy, then the penalty could be significant (just as for failing to turn in the homework on time.) However, it is still not something that the professor could reasonably report to the university administration as cheating, nor is it something that a reasonable university would consider to be cheating.</p>\n<p>According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the relevant definitions of "cheating" are</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>1a: to practice fraud or trickery</p>\n<p>2b: to violate rules dishonestly.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In both definitions, dishonesty is a crucial element (and one which the OP has explicitly ruled out.) In fact cheating, plagiarism, falsification of data, <em>etc.</em>, are often collectively termed "academic dishonesty," making this condition explicit.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20321,
"author": "mort",
"author_id": 13427,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13427",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think that there are two dimensions to this question: </p>\n\n<pre><code>- 1) Would it be considered cheating by your professor?\n- 2) Should it be considered cheating?\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>The answer to 1) depends on your professor, university, curriculum, etc. If you are unsure, it's probably best to ask your professor. My personal experience is that lecturers actually like it when a student stuck with some homework exercise approaches them (as long as you show them that you actually thought about the problem and tried different things and don't just ask them for a solution). At my university most professors state at the beginning of the course how they expect the students to do the assignment - e.g., discussing it with colleagues is allowed (but you have to be able to explain your submitted solution in detail); using other sources than the course material is allowed (but you have to cite it properly), etc.</p>\n\n<p>The answer to 2) very much depends on the personal code of ethics. I strongly think that it should not be considered cheating, as long as (i) the student can explain the solution in detail (ii) other material is cited correctly, and (iii) the student didn't use the solutions of other students from previous semesters. After all, the job of a student is to understand things - being able to ask the right questions at the right places is actually a very important skill.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32893,
"author": "Isabella Rose",
"author_id": 25291,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25291",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>According to my understanding, this is not consider as cheating if student explore and search by the help of second tutor or professor. There are many websites offering the same services and provide your proper platform for online tutoring and homework help like udemy, tutorvista and StudentLance.com Actually, some time student could not get the teacher point of view and needs something different for better understanding especially in Mathematics.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/03 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20182",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14559/"
]
|
20,186 | <p>I have recently completed a manuscript and I want it to submit to the arXiv. But there I find that there is an endorsement requirement. But since I am quite new in this field (and this is my first time wanting to submit to arXiv), I don't know how to find an endorser myself. I have mailed the <em>admin</em> also but in reply they also told me that <em>searching for an endorser is a responsibility of the author himself</em>. So, can anyone help me regarding the process as to how to find an endorser?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20187,
"author": "Ben Webster",
"author_id": 13,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>If you go to a paper on the arXiv (for example, this one of mine: <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.7357\">http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.7357</a>), at the bottom, there is a link that reads \"Which authors of this paper are endorsers?\" If you click through, you'll see something like </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Ben Webster: Is registered as an author of this paper.\n Can endorse for math.AG, math.AT, math.CO, math.CT, math.GR, math.GT, math.QA, math.RA, math.RT, math.SG.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>which means I can endorse submitters in algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, combinatorics, category theory, group theory, geometric topology, quantum algebra, rings & algebras, representation theory and symplectic geometry. </p>\n\n<p>Presumably you know of some papers on the arXiv related to yours, so look at their authors. If you don't know of any, then maybe you should rethink whether the site is a good fit for you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 86685,
"author": "Wrzlprmft",
"author_id": 7734,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7734",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The following order of steps seems reasonable to me:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Do you personally know any other researchers in the endorsement domain? Consider in particular former colleagues, former advisors, anybody with whom you communicated about your research.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Check whether any of these people already can endorse. To do so find an ArXiv publication by them and check the <em>Which authors of this paper are endorsers?</em> link at the bottom of the page.</p></li>\n<li><p>Check whether any of these people may become an endorser by claiming ownership of their publications. If somebody co-authored Arxiv publications in the endorsement domain in the last five years, all they may need to do is claim ownership (which is comparably easy) to be able to endorse. Note that the number of required publications depends on the domain. (More details <a href=\"https://arxiv.org/help/endorsement\" rel=\"noreferrer\">here</a>)</p></li>\n<li><p>Check whether any of these people may become endorsers by publishing one or more existing peer-reviewed publication on the Arxiv. Again the publications must not be older than five years and they must be published in a journal whose copyright agreement allows this. Be aware that preparing papers for Arxiv publication might involve some time and work. Therefore this would be asking for more of a favour than just endorsement. On the other hand people who personally know you do not have to read your paper, so you might still cause less work than asking somebody else for endorsement.</p></li>\n</ol></li>\n<li><p>Is there anybody with endorsement capabilities (see above) in the direct vicinity of your topic, i.e., somebody who might be particularly interested to read your work and can easily read it? Consider people whose work you cited or whom you would suggest as reviewers for your paper when submitting to a journal.</p></li>\n<li><p>Finally, consider other people who can endorse in the respective domain. The closer they are to your subject, the better. Also you are probably more successful with lower-ranking academics as they are less flooded with requests and have more time on their hands.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>In all cases, heed <a href=\"https://arxiv.org/help/endorsement\" rel=\"noreferrer\">the Arxiv’s guideline not to “email large numbers of potential endorsers at once”</a>.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/03 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20186",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14733/"
]
|
20,196 | <p><em>I tried to search in the previous Q/As, but I do not think my case falls in any of the previous entries.</em></p>
<p>While looking for a certain topic in my field, I found two papers.
The first paper was authored by authors A, B, C, and D and published in some conference proceedings. The second paper was published in a journal in a year after by authors A, E, D, and C. That is, the second paper lost one author and gained a new author.</p>
<p>The two papers report the same research hypotheses, the same data collected, the same data analysis, the same results. That is, the "numbers" in the papers are the same (even the table contents).</p>
<p>The texts differ in a subtle way. The first paper is entitled "Studying topic T in the domain D". The second paper is entitled "Using Measurement Instrument M to measure T in the domain D". The second paper somehow avoids copy/pasting of the paragraphs from the first paper-they rewrote the sentences. It is a little bit longer than the first one. The authors actually spent some more words talking about measurement instrument M, which is taken from another discipline and it takes 3 minutes of Google Scholar searching for learning more about it. There is even a Wikipedia page about the instrument.</p>
<p><em>I think</em> that this is a case of self-plagiarism. The second paper does not add anything useful to the first one. Additionally, <em>the second paper does not cite the first one</em>. This ringed a bell.</p>
<p>Please note that in my field, conferences are archived and are often considered more important than journals. Regardless of which venues are more important, both papers are formally considered publications.</p>
<p>Now, am I morally obliged to contact the editor of the journal where the second paper was published? This is not precisely a double publication, nor are the authors damaging me nor anybody else. Still, <em>I feel</em> they did something wrong. Should I instead live and let die?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20199,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is a grey area in my opinion. Findings were published in proceedings, and then a journal. Technically, they should have cited themselves. If this had been two journal publications of the same work, I would argue you should bring it the editors attention. However, in this case, I'm not so sure..</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20200,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>This is an interesting case that you cite. I think it falls somewhere between 'standard behavior' and 'clear misconduct' (though I am sure others will disagree). Some thoughts and facts:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>In Computer Science, even though both journals and conf proceedings count as papers, it is common accepted practice to submit extended versions of proceedings papers to journals. Typically, journals expect between 30% and 50% new content for such papers.</li>\n<li>Realistically, many journals (especially ones that are not exactly top quality) are not super-strict with what they consider \"additional content\". Describing only their methodology in more detail, without providing new insights or results, is certainly very little new contribution, but I am not sure if that already qualifies as misconduct.</li>\n<li>That one of the original authors was missing in the journal version is curious, but there <em>may</em> be reasons for that. Presumably, something a little shady has happened along the lines, but it is impossible to tell from the outside. One realistic possibility is that first author A has submitted the conf paper while at institution (1), with help from B and C. D was the supervisor and contributed little to nothing at all, but was added due to lab policy. Now, before submitting the journal version, A moved to institution (2), and has replaced lab head D with lab head E.</li>\n<li>What strikes me as <em>very</em>, <em>very</em> odd is that the journal paper does not make clear that it is an extension of an earlier conference paper by citing it (and saying so explicitly in the introduction). <strong>This is the one thing that I certainly agree has a very bad smell to it</strong>. If I receive such a \"hidden\" journal extension for review, it is an auto-reject for me. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Now, am I morally obliged to contact the editor of the journal where the second paper was published? This is not precisely a double publication, nor are the authors damaging me nor anybody else. Still, I feel they did something wrong. Should I instead live and let die?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In summary, I would say the entire case certainly does not look good. That being said, I do not think that the case is blatant enough that you need to feel required to report to the journal editor. To be honest, even if you did, I think not much would happen. Likely, it is not a paper that the journal feels overly proud of, but I do not think that the case is bad enough to warrant formally retracting the paper. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/03 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20196",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
|
20,202 | <p>I need to add a photo with some additional data drawn over it to my thesis in computer science. But the photo is large and I want to crop bottom half of it. But then it could be misleading, that there is a part of the image missing.</p>
<p>I will write it to the image description, but I want it to be obvious at first sight without reading the description. Is there some standard way to display that part of the figure is cropped?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20203,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Usually this is shown in biology/biochemistry journals by a solid border around the cropped image. This is fine to do only if, like you say, you are not removing meaningful data or hiding potential confounding results. If in doubt, ask your advisor.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20213,
"author": "ahmet",
"author_id": 14874,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14874",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>What kind of a figure is that? If it is a plot, and you want to zoom in to a particular range of it, then you may want to include full plot, then a zoomed in one. For the latter, you may mention that \"plot of y from x{a to b}\" in the caption. Plus, it would be much better if you say a few lines about why this particular range is important to be emphasized this way, in between your text.</p>\n\n<p>This is not a symbolization, but an effective one to crop something out of a drawing. Thus, I'd prefer this if I were to read your thesis. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20215,
"author": "Matthcw",
"author_id": 14875,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14875",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You can show it is cropped by having a lined/<strong>dashed border</strong> around the edges this will show that it is cropped.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/03 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20202",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14871/"
]
|
20,204 | <p>I'm wondering whether there's any way to enter the academic world, do research at a university for a living, without an undergraduate degree, but instead with several years of experience in industry (the same field of the research).</p>
<p>This is actually my situation. After 8 years of software development in several professional environments, I want to enter the academic world. But I'm frustrated about having to go back to the basics.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20206,
"author": "Jhz832",
"author_id": 14804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14804",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Academia is a circle. Normally you need an outstanding work during your PhD and Post-PhD to get a university position. Without these, the possibility of getting an entry-level long-term (not tenure) position in the university is near to 0, let alone without an undergraduate degree. </p>\n\n<p>But your situation won't prevent you from doing some serious research work yourself, in an UNUSUAL way. I'd suggest you give up seeking any normal recognition in the academia circle (like a long-term position or a title) until you've achieved something obviously awesome.You have to understand it's hard for people to view you as an exception unless they are surprised by what you've achieved. People would doubt, if this guy is awesome enough, then an undergraduate and PhD degree are like a snap for him, why he didn't just get the degree.</p>\n\n<p>If you insist on not pursuing a degree and go for an usual way, that would be very hard. But maybe you are indeed an exception. Wish you good luck!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20210,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I'm sure it varies by country, but in the US you would not have a good chance of getting an academic position. </p>\n\n<p>However, you might find a position at an academic institution as an OPS (other personnel service), which is considered equivalent to a \"contractor\" position with no benefits and hourly wages. </p>\n\n<p>I'm by no means a degree snob, but getting a degree is akin to getting a ticket to an event. If you don't have one, though shall not pass..</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20225,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It depends on what you consider <em>academia</em>. It is very unlikely that you will be able to become a professor. However, working in an industry research lab is always an option for computer scientists, for instance at Microsoft, IBM, Intel, or SAP. I do have collaborators at these places that are working in research in reasonably high positions, and which at least do not have a PhD. Whether there are people that do not have an undergrad degree either I am less sure, but it is not entirely inconceivable.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, not having any degree will be a <strong>huge</strong> disadvantage during your entire career. I presume the number of doors you will find closed due to your background will significantly outnumber the opportunities where people do not care. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/03 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20204",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12847/"
]
|
20,214 | <p>I have been teaching a humanities course at a higher education institution for about more than three years now. I am expected to get full tenure this year. Perhaps it is the only chair dedicated to my field in my country; it is certainly the only one in the subfield I teach. In other words, yes, I am the only professor who teaches that subject in the whole country, and the only professor totally dedicated to teaching and researching in the broader field of study. However, before I took the position, I was not specialized in the subfield I teach now. At the moment, my research and publications in field A are split between subfields A1 (in which I pursued research for my MA and PhD) and A2 (my new teaching position). To complicate things, I am in a multidisciplinary department in <em>another</em> field.</p>
<p>There is no available teaching position in my whole field (A) in the whole country in the foreseeable future (say, 10-15 years, unless a miracle happens). I could teach in related fields, and that is what I am doing (and plan to do in better conditions in the not-so-distant future). </p>
<p>The conditions under which I work might be described as both appalling and depressive. I know there are worse conditions in my country; and I know that I earn just as much as anyone else, but that is not the issue. The issue is having no perspective of future research; virtually no intellectual life; almost no contact with other faculty. There is only one room for more than 18 professors in the department; in it there are some 5 computers, 3 of which do not function. The library does not have the books I need for my basic, mandatory course -- in fact, it only has <em>one</em> textbook I use in class! I have to make do with articles and books from the Internet, when and if available. Grants and funding are virtually non-existent. I am in debt because of a conference in which a paper of mine was accepted. After that, I could not attend 3 international conferences because there was no funding.</p>
<p>So, in the end, my question is this: is there any way (attitudes, habits) to make academic life more bearable under these circumstances? Should I give up research and focus on teaching basic subjects, at the risk of fading into oblivion for not publishing? </p>
<p>A note:
I cannot just "run away", because, as I said before, there is no way I can find a similar job anywhere. I have been trying to busy my mind with other part-time activities, so as not to worry or stress too much, but that also leaves the feeling that my "real" job is useless, or worse: a fake.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20239,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This question is very specific to your circumstances so it is hard to respond with solid advice.</p>\n\n<p>Your problem is not unique. By the time most faculty get tenure, they are extremely specialized in a single field or have huge sunk costs that make it very hard to move geographically or topically. </p>\n\n<p>There is also the issue of post-tenure blues (or in your case, pre-post-tenure blues) which you should explore.</p>\n\n<p>In any case, you should remember that your university is just one part of your intellectual and personal life. If you don't find your university stimulating, then you could be more active in your academic association's activities -- or be more active in your local community, etc. </p>\n\n<p>Getting tenure is a perfect time to withdraw a little bit and discover new things. People generally expect the post-tenure blues so they won't be surprised to see less of you for a while.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20240,
"author": "Kate Gregory",
"author_id": 12693,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12693",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Since you seem to have decided that you must accept the situation where you work, let me make some suggestions to make it less depressive. Some of these might not be good ones for you, so pick and choose those that appeal.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>the room. One room for 18 people? They don't seriously expect you to use it. What can you use instead? Do you meet students there, or write conference papers, or prepare coursework? Can you do those things somewhere more pleasant? Your own living room, a coffee shop, a park bench, a table in the library, a classroom that's empty more often than not? Do you have to sit in a crowded place jammed with broken things, or can you go somewhere nicer and get more done?</li>\n<li>no funding for conferences. Good for you managing to get a paper accepted and managing to get yourself there. That's probably one more conference than many of your peers. If there is someone who goes to more conferences than you, go and ask them how they do it. They will probably be happy to show you the tricks. In the same spirit, if you can get your own computer you won't care that the department can't provide decent ones.</li>\n<li>intellectual connection. The people in the depressing room are half of your peer set - the other half is the A1 and A2 people around the world. Find them! Follow them on Twitter, read their blogs, download their conference sessions and papers, email them with questions about something they published. Use the internet to forge ties with these people - you aren't a moonstruck teenager, you're their peer and they will be happy to hear from you. Who knows, this activity might even lead you out of your current situation some day, but more importantly it will help you grow and solve a pain point for you.</li>\n<li>the rest of your life. It's common to push everything else aside while chasing tenure. Do you have any hobbies or habits? Even just following a sports team? Try to ramp up that side of your existence, make some friends who don't work at the university, spend some time cooking or hiking or reading the latest celebrity gossip or watching that tv show everyone watches. Do some fun stuff, whatever fun is for you. Meet some people who can bring you joy.</li>\n<li>find a way to be more connected to the university as a whole, not just your department. Join a club or team that has profs from all faculties, or even better has faculty, staff and students from all faculties. Attend (if appropriate) religious activities that happen on campus. Go to the \"our university day at X\" events. Help with fundraising or political activities that will let you meet people from all over the campus. You're going to be here a long time right? Get to know the place and the people and weave it into your life.</li>\n<li>if the tenure you're expecting comes with a raise, start working out now what the consequences of that are. Will you be able to move to a nicer place? Get specific about looking for that place now. Imagine being able to have a lovely view, or a spare bedroom you can use as an office, or quieter, safer nights. The hard work you have put in will be bringing you benefits soon, start to think about those now.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Your department would be amazing if they handed you a bright sunny office, a delightful collection of peers who you enjoy talking to, plenty of important work, a steady stream of bright students, a fully-equipped working environment and a library that's the envy of everyone in your field. But very few places are really like that. So roll up your sleeves and get yourself what you need to excel, and fill your days with work and not-work that make you happy. Your department is never going to do that for you, but you can do it for yourself.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/04 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20214",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
|
20,220 | <p>In short:</p>
<p>I have ported a package in another programming environment, and I want to write a paper of my ported package. Would it be considered cheating?</p>
<p>In details:</p>
<p>I have implemented a package in Python, that is modeled after an R package, which means my package has the design and APIs similar to original's.</p>
<p>The authors of original R package has published an official paper about the package on Journal of Statistical Software. And now I want to write a paper about my python package.</p>
<p>The point is, since the design and APIs are similar, the structure and content of the my paper would be similar to that of the original package's paper. For example, in the original paper, the authors explained what <code>Corpus</code> class is, and in my paper, I would explain that my python-version <code>Corpus</code> has similar attributes.</p>
<p>The biggest differences are brought by the environments and dependence, and some language-specific details.</p>
<p>So, would it be considered cheating if I write the paper of ported software? Of course, <strong>the relative sections of my paper would include the comparisons between two packages and I would cite the original paper as appropriate as I can.</strong></p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20221,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your paper must clearly delineate what is your original contribution and what is the same as, or based on, the previous package. So if you write about your Corpus class, for example, you must say that it is modeled after the R package's Corpus class. Otherwise it <em>is</em> \"cheating,\" as you put it.</p>\n\n<p>(It's also not clear to me that a straightforward port of an existing package would be considered a novel research contribution by most venues for publication. But that's an entirely different question.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20229,
"author": "h22",
"author_id": 10920,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10920",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Every scientific work is normally always based on some previous works.</p>\n\n<p>These previous works must be cited. Cite paper, conference thesis or in the worst case website or \"personal communication\" of the original software saying that this is the initial version that you have ported. If you do this, it is completely honest to write the article. </p>\n\n<p>I am not sure if just porting to another language brings enough scientific novelty but say porting the old forgotten 1965s piece of code in FORTRAN into C++ using object oriented design and some new advanced algorithms probably is.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20230,
"author": "Andy W",
"author_id": 3,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Just to add to ff524's answer, the <em>Journal of Statistical Software</em> (JSS) does have precedence for publishing articles that are simply \"ports\" of other current software. For one example see <em>An SPSS R-Menu for Ordinal Factor Analysis</em> (<a href=\"http://www.jstatsoft.org/v46/i04\">Mário Basto & Pereira, 2012</a>). This article doesn't rewrite the package in a new environment, but simply creates a set of GUI menu's in SPSS to call the R package - which is considerably less work. (This would be equivalent if you simply used <a href=\"http://rpy.sourceforge.net/\">RPy</a> to call the R libraries directly from Python.)</p>\n\n<p>It is hard to say whether you could get such a paper published in the JSS or somewhere else. As a positive, I would imagine there is a large user base (not necessarily statisticians) that are using Python for text processing that could use such a library. On the downside as others have mentioned its original scientific contribution is questionable in light of its redundancies with the R package. (I personally would rather do such things in Python, but you need to remember the editors of JSS are statisticians who may not hold the same views.)</p>\n\n<p>I would suggest you write the paper anyway and post it publicly online, as in a paper form it tends to be a gentler vignette to using the software than the doc's typically afford. Even if you can't get it published it still provides positive exposure for your work - and will still be cited if someone uses your library for academic work.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20242,
"author": "paxRoman",
"author_id": 14887,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14887",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If it is considered cheating or not depends on the field of work. In my opinion the fact that you implemented their algorithms in a new language confirms that the algorithms work. Regarding originality, what you should do is offer more than a simple explanation of why you did this in the first place: for example, Python is a faster language than R, or the way it is implemented in Python offers significant speed improvements due to the fact that certain data structures are faster, and come up with some numbers, tables, and charts that prove this assertion. Even if the code is basically the same in pseudo-code, therefore no novel contribution, the additional information about why you did this porting and the data that confirms it is faster (at least in some cases), should be enough to warrant an original contribution. This original contribution is typically required in Computer Science papers (maybe not in Statistics papers), even though it's not required in Physics (you can publish papers that reproduce certain experiments and confirm them or not, or just add small twists to them).</p>\n\n<p>After looking at your library, I see some things that are lacking in order to make it a good proposal: a good documentation, examples. It just says you can implement term-document-matrices with it. Please have a look at numpy or scipy or pandas packages how they present themselves to the pubic.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 34535,
"author": "xebtl",
"author_id": 17811,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17811",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As long as you give proper credit (cite the previous work and make clear that your package is based on it), I do not see how publishing a paper could ever be construed as “cheating” on your part. The more likely question is <em>if</em> and <em>where</em> you could get it published. It is not dishonest to try and publish something even if you are not sure it is “worth“ a paper. It is the journal's (i.e. editor's / referees') job to judge that.</p>\n\n<p>That said, in my field (physics), what you describe would likely <em>not</em> be considered “enough” for a paper. There are journals that publish papers which “only” introduce a new program package (Elsevier's <a href=\"http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-physics-communications\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Computer Physics Communications</em></a> comes to mind), but I do not know if they would accept a “translation“.</p>\n\n<p>Again, all this would depend on your field, but in my environment a typical approach would be to include some applications of your program, and try to publish in a “standard” journal (i.e., one not focused on software).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 34540,
"author": "mhwombat",
"author_id": 10529,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10529",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As xebtl says, assuming you cite your sources appropriately, no it would not be considered cheating, but it might be difficult to publish a paper about it.</p>\n\n<p>In general, an article about porting an existing package to another language <em>might</em> be publishable (in some computer science-related journal) if you discuss the challenges you faced and how you overcame them, and perhaps made recommendations about enhancements that you think should be to the language. This would be of more interest if the language is still evolving. Python is a fairly mature language, so it might be more challenging to find an audience.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 64857,
"author": "decvalts",
"author_id": 14700,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14700",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'd counter some of the other answers and say not only should it be fine, but there's a range of avenues you could explore for publication, <em>as long as</em> you consider the type of publication and journal carefully. (As well as following the advice already given about citing the original work thoroughly and highlighting differences in your implementation.)</p>\n\n<p>Consider that many journals may have additional manuscript types that authors can submit instead of a traditional <em>Research Article</em>. They're often called <em>Technical Communications</em> or similar, and are intended to be short articles on a technical development that is novel and useful to research. This type of article might be best suited to your contribution. </p>\n\n<p>The <a href=\"http://www.software.ac.uk/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Software Sustainability Institute</a> also lists a <a href=\"http://www.software.ac.uk/resources/guides/which-journals-should-i-publish-my-software\" rel=\"nofollow\"><strong>whole range of journals appropriate for publishing scientific software</strong></a>. </p>\n\n<p>Software (including ports, new versions etc.) may not be \"pure science\", but it is certainly useful for researchers to know about, and I feel it should definitely be written about and published where appropriate. (And not just on github or on blogs!)</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/04 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20220",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14139/"
]
|
20,222 | <p>I want to apply for a scholarship, but my TOEFL score is 81 and I think it is not good enough. Sending language proficiency scores is not compulsory for scholarship application but it is encouraged. I am indecisive to send it. What is your idea? </p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20223,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are not satisfied, take the test again to improve your score. </p>\n\n<p>If not, a score of 81 is good enough to get you into many schools. However, some schools require higher scores. Is there a minimum TOEFL score for the school you're applying to?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20236,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In general, test scores are only used as the minimum requirement for the scholarship. High scores don't help but a score much below median would likely hurt you. If your application statement was well-written and your other materials (letters, grades) were good, I wouldn't worry. If the accompanying materials were weak, then you have much bigger things to worry about than your TOEFL.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20247,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Presumably winning the scholarship requires evidence of your fluency in English. If your test scores do not provide that evidence, you should <em>not</em> send them. (But then the rest of your application still has to provide that evidence.)</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/04 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20222",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1070/"
]
|
20,226 | <p>Can anyone recommend an open source system for students to submit programming assignments? Ideally it would be something that would run on the web, do some level of testing on the server side, and provide feedback to the students based on testing.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 21011,
"author": "Leo Uieda",
"author_id": 460,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/460",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've never done this myself, but I think the following system could work using <a href=\"https://github.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">GitHub</a> and <a href=\"https://travis-ci.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Travis CI</a>:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Create a repository for the homework where students can submit pull requests to.</li>\n<li>Make scripts to run and test the solution and put them on the repo.</li>\n<li>Students would then fork the repo, add their submission, and make a pull request.</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://docs.travis-ci.com/user/getting-started/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Setup Travis CI</a> to run the test scripts on the solutions. This will require some form of standardization for the commands to compile and run the solutions.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The nice thing about this system is that the pull request page on GitHub reports the status of the Travis CI run. You can then leave comments for the students and they can iterate until Travis gives them the green light.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 76974,
"author": "Federico Poloni",
"author_id": 958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The open-source web program <a href=\"https://cms-dev.github.io/\" rel=\"nofollow\">CMS (Contest Management System)</a> was created by people at my university (CS institute, university of Pisa). <a href=\"https://cms-dev.github.io/screenshots.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Screenshots here</a>.</p>\n\n<p>It has been used also in the international informatics Olympiad and several other international programming contests, so it is mature and well tested.</p>\n\n<p>It is in use since a few years in the <a href=\"http://dijkstra.di.unipi.it/#/lessons\" rel=\"nofollow\">undergraduate course on Algorithms</a> in our CS degree. It allows students to submit their source code online, where it is executed in a sandboxed environment and scored automatically on the basis of some test cases. It supports out of the box C, C++, Java, Python, Pascal, PHP, and other languages can be added (although I don't know how easy it is).</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/01 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20226",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17657/"
]
|
20,246 | <p>I started a PhD program few years ago. My first PhD supervisor decided he wanted to quit university and stopped supervising PhDs (he was 70 years old). I lost about a year trying to convince this supervisor to continue, and another year trying to find another supervisor when he quit (he pretty much left all his PhD students in the air). </p>
<p>I transferred to another university, but nobody counts the missing years and I should finish in few months. The condition put by my new supervisor in order to be allowed to present my thesis was to come up with at least 2 new contributions in addition to my previous contributions (I have published some papers with some contributions, but many of them were group research and this supervisor said that only 2 or 3 of them really count as mine).</p>
<p>Now the problem is that during the last year I have worked a lot both at the university and at the PhD, but only during last weeks I started to have some ideas about what these new potential contributions could be. Considering the lack of time, there is a high chance that I won't finish on time (due to the regulations from this country you have to finish in 5 years, nobody takes into account the fact that you lost several years with other problems like replacing your PhD supervisor).</p>
<p>I'm not a lazy person, but first time I really had no luck, and with the second supervisor it took me a lot of time to play in the league he wanted ... Basically all articles discussed with him about Machine Learning were from MIT, Carnegie-Mellon, etc. Essentially I had to spend about a year and a half to get my knowledge to the level where I can design new algorithms or create new things that would get accepted to top journals reviewed by people from these institutions.</p>
<p>Of course, I can register again for the PhD, take the exams again, and present my contributions in a new thesis. The problem is when I will add all these years it will result a large interval for Europe: 7-8 years, instead of 4-5 years. My question is this: how will a potential future employer from both Academia or Private Company look at this time interval? Is it ok to try 2-3 times to finish your PhD? Will the fact that it took to long finish the PhD affect my career?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20248,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The fundamental issue here is that your first advisor left academia altogether—by retiring before his students were done. This is an awful thing to do to the people one is supervising—leaving them completely in the lurch in such a manner is <strong>unacceptable behavior.</strong> The advisor should not have taken on new students if he was planning on retiring. </p>\n\n<p>As a result of this, it is obvious that some allowances for this will need to be made. The way to signal this is through your CV: list <em>both</em> advisors, including the dates for which you worked with them. If your first advisor is well-known enough, then this will automatically clue in others about what happened. </p>\n\n<p>Overall, though, so long as the time required isn't too unreasonable for your discipline, an extended stay in graduate school isn't problematic. However, if you have mitigating circumstances such as these, it makes such problems a lot easier to overlook.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20251,
"author": "h22",
"author_id": 10920,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10920",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At least twice is absolutely for sure normal, but probably also more is normal, even if there are no any obvious reasons. And in your case the reasons are.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20253,
"author": "biohazard",
"author_id": 12049,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12049",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>What country are you in? I'm also from Europe (France) and with a letter of motivation, special circumstances, and proof that you will be funded, it's possible to do more years, although I'm not sure what the limit is (may depend on the institution).</p>\n\n<p>I'm in Japan right now, and here it's possible to present your thesis at a later time, even though officially you may be on leave from the University (this allows you to skip paying tuition for many more years, which can be helpful, as tuition is several times more expensive than in Europe).</p>\n\n<p>It may depend not only on the country but also on the specific University you are enrolled at. I don't recommend asking the administration yourself, as they may or may not be very receptive to your specific case. I suggest your advisor inquires for you, and if that's not possible, you can try asking for an appointment with the head of your department or doctoral school.</p>\n\n<p>[edit] To answer the OP's final question, I think you can list both advisors on your resume, with the word \"retired\" next to the first one. I know quite a few people with successful careers in academia who took 5+ years to complete their PhD, and being 30+ years old upon graduation is not unheard of, even in the hard sciences. The race starts after you complete your degree.</p>\n\n<p>PS/ saying that your first advisor unexpectedly retired in the middle of your degree would be enough to get the message through, even during an interview. You could even try throwing in some positive comments, something like, sure it took you longer but how it was actually an opportunity to gain high-level working knowledge of algorithms. :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20255,
"author": "Jhz832",
"author_id": 14804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14804",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am from Europe. Here 5-7 years for finishing a PhD is quite normal if you are working under a full-time work contract with your professor. I don't think it's a problem. </p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/04 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20246",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14887/"
]
|
20,257 | <p>Everybody I have met in academia uses recently-published journals entirely through electronic means. They may print out articles for their own use, but they will not receive printed subscriptions.</p>
<p>Does <em>anybody</em> receive modern journals in printed form nowadays? If so, who and why?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20258,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Very few individuals receive printed copies of journals anymore, but many institutions pay for print copies as well as online access. In part, I suspect this is because many publishers make this part of the sold \"package.\" However, an additional motivation for keeping a print copy is that most publishers do not allow for \"archival\" downloading—libraries cannot maintain their own copy of the publishers' website. Thus, if anything happens to the website, the institute would temporarily or permanently lose all access to the information if only an online subscription existed.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20289,
"author": "Fomite",
"author_id": 118,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I do.</p>\n\n<p>I have print subscriptions to three major journals in my field, all through optional add-ons to society memberships.</p>\n\n<p>I do so for three reasons:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>It forces me to read and interact with the literature. Online tables of contents, journal RSS feeds etc. can be ignored because another staff meeting is coming up, I really should submit an abstract, etc. The arrival of a printed journal gives me an excuse once a month/quarter/every two weeks etc. to sit down and engage with my field.</li>\n<li>I read articles I would not otherwise read. General society journals have papers in areas that are not strictly my field. Sometimes, I read these, because I know the authors, liked a particular plot while I was flipping through, or because it pings my curiousity. I <em>rarely</em> read PDF papers outside my field.</li>\n<li>Journals are more durable than print-and-staple publications. They live in my bag. I read them at lunch. I read them in the bathroom. I read them at the gym. I do things to them that I wouldn't dare do to either an iPad or other electronic reader or a few flimsy pieces of copier paper.</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20290,
"author": "Sverre",
"author_id": 11053,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11053",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I wish all questions here were yes/no questions.</p>\n\n<p>Answers:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Yes.</li>\n<li>Most of my colleagues.</li>\n<li>Presumably for the same reason that most people prefer physical books to e-books when they read. It's also much quicker and easier to browse through the volumes of a journal on your bookshelf than to do so online.</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20564,
"author": "Benoît Kloeckner",
"author_id": 946,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My library receives print copies of about 300 journals; I do browse new issues almost daily, and it has happened more than once that I found papers that did not reached me through other means (arXiv, bibliographical searches, toc alerts, etc.)</p>\n\n<p>However, in my department (pure maths) we seem to be little more than two people doing this. The other one is retired. I might be a romantic when it comes to scientific journals.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/04 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20257",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8394/"
]
|
20,260 | <p>I was wondering what I should do in this situation as an undergraduate student:</p>
<p>About a month ago, I applied for and did not get into a program that allows first-year students to work on research projects that professors put forward, with the intention of introducing students to research, which included a research stipend, housing, etc.</p>
<p>I was very interested in the professors topic of research, and was wondering if it would be okay for me to ask the professor for the opportunity to work with him essentially as an unpaid intern, as I would really like the opportunity to learn more about the topic.</p>
<p>Would he view this attempt to do research under him as desperate? Or would he appreciate the opportunity to have an extra research assistant?</p>
<p>I know that the answer would depend on the professor himself, and on my relationship with him, but how do professors in general feel about students coming up to them and asking to be a part of their research?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20261,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Personally, I am <strong>always</strong> happy to talk about possibilities for working in my research group with a student who's interested in the group. The challenge is that most first-year students might not have the background to understand what's going on in the research, so they end up being more \"technicians\" than researchers. </p>\n\n<p>So I don't think it's a problem for you to discuss the possibility of doing the \"internship\"; your university may even offer an opportunity to get course credit for it as an \"independent study.\" However, you should be prepared for the possibility that the professor feels you're not quite ready for the work—but he may definitely suggest ways to overcome that deficit.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20263,
"author": "mightypile",
"author_id": 14899,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14899",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Absolutely, with no qualifications, approach the researcher and ask what it would take to do research in his/her lab. As a first-year undergraduate student, it's very likely that you don't have the knowledge to contribute to the projects. So approach humbly, asking what you can do to prepare yourself. Ask for suggestions for a review paper or a few research reports that would bring you up to speed. Ask if you can attend lab meetings as a fly-on-the-wall to absorb the controversies and decisions being made day-by-day. The very worst possible case is that you're told, \"no.\" If so, you're already there. Next worst is that you invest your time and get only an education out of it. That's not so bad. You'll be positioned very very well for next year.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20264,
"author": "Jhz832",
"author_id": 14804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14804",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are basically two strategies to get a research opportunity in university. By \nexcellence or by motivation. For both situations, you have to find a way to show your excellence or your motivation to the professor. Working as an intern for him is a good idea. It gives the professor an opportunity to know more about you. If you are excellent enough, the professor will ask you about your plan in the future (to see if you're going to pursuit a PhD, probably with him), show his interest in you or even offer you research position in this team. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 58745,
"author": "Byte Lab",
"author_id": 35318,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/35318",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is worth noting that etiquette in approaching a professor to discuss research opportunities can vary by institution. At the university I currently attend it is considered <strong>extremely</strong> poor form to approach a professor out of the blue and ask them if they have any opportunities for research. This includes professors you are taking a course with -- rather, it is expected that you will work with your advisor to go through established channels to find research opportunities.</p>\n\n<p>At my undergraduate institution this was not the case, and reaching out to professors to discuss research opportunities was strongly encouraged. I suggest discussing this with your academic advisor and seeing what he/she thinks just to be on the safe side.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 150049,
"author": "ComputerScientist",
"author_id": 124943,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/124943",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here's another option: <em>email or talk to one of the professor's graduate students</em>. By working with the graduate student, you'll be working with the professor anyway.</p>\n\n<p>For context: I'm a computer science PhD student at a large United States research university. At my school, most professors are bombarded with emails and requests from undergraduates (in addition to, of course, PhD and masters students, and postdocs). Indeed, my PhD advisor told me that he/she gets about one email <em>each day</em> from an undergrad requesting research opportunities.</p>\n\n<p>I've worked with roughly 20 undergraduate researchers to some extent. About half of them got in our lab by emailing PhD students, who then recommended him/her to the professor if the undergraduate's resume exceeded a certain bar. The other half emailed the professor directly, but often in those cases, the professor ended up forwarding the undergrad's resume to the PhD students. While I don't have hard statistics on what this is like throughout my entire department (let alone university) I think this is a common strategy that students pursue, and the one I would begin with if I were back in my undergraduate days.</p>\n\n<p>As another positive note, sometimes graduate students' research websites are more up to date than those of the professor's!</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/04 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20260",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13561/"
]
|
20,270 | <p>Is it plagiarism if I copy several paragraphs from another's source (let's say a CS paper) into my work and then footnote <code>Source: ...</code>, for example, as background information?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20271,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you copy something verbatim, you are required to put quotations mark around it, and also cite where the quotation came from. Anything less could be construed as plagiarism. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20273,
"author": "Flyto",
"author_id": 8394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8394",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>So long as it is <em>obvious</em> that it is another's work then it is not plagarism. However, depending on the amount copied and a lot of other factors, it may be a copyright violation, and it may break other rules of your school/journal/whatever. Or simply be marked down by your examiners/reviewers, unless there's a good reason for such extensive quotation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20287,
"author": "DQdlM",
"author_id": 248,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/248",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The original author owns two things: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>the ideas in their work, and</li>\n<li>the language they used to convey those ideas.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Plagiarism occurs when you use either without proper attribution. If you paraphrase another author's ideas in your own words (i.e., use #1 only) then you need a citation. If you copy verbatim another author's words (i.e., use #1 and #2) then you need to put the copied text in quotes and include a citation.</p>\n\n<p>Generally if you are quoting the original author's language then the <em>way</em> that the author communicated their ideas is part of the argument you are making in your article. If this is not the case then it is better to paraphrase, since your reader will be expecting some discussion of the original author's language and changes in tone can be distracting to the reader.</p>\n\n<p>In your specific case, it sounds like paraphrasing would be more appropriate.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20307,
"author": "sevensevens",
"author_id": 14754,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14754",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another thing to consider, even if you correctly quote and cite the source, it may still be considered a form of plagiarism if</p>\n\n<p>1) A signification portion of the paper is made up of quotes (especially 1 quote).</p>\n\n<p>2) There is no original research presented in the paper.</p>\n\n<p>3) If the quote itself provides significant argument towards your point, and you fail to add your own supporting arguments.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 107881,
"author": "Stephen Evangelista",
"author_id": 91170,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/91170",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Copying verbatim a paragraph or more of research is considered plagiarism. When more than two words in a row are used from the source that is considered plagiarism. It probably would be better to change it up by extensively paraphrasing through synonyms, etc.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/05 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20270",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14910/"
]
|
20,275 | <p>I am planning on applying to a Master's degree program (in Canada, if it matters) and I've noticed that there seems to be quite a few grade cut-offs for applications. I've <a href="https://www.quora.com/Graduate-School-Admissions/If-I-contact-a-professor-for-research-graduate-school-and-he-asks-for-my-resume-transcript-what-should-I-do-if-my-transcript-is-embarrassing" rel="nofollow">read</a> <a href="https://www.quora.com/Graduate-School-Admissions/If-I-have-good-research-projects-and-publications-but-a-low-GPA-will-top-grad-schools-accept-me" rel="nofollow">elsewhere</a> <a href="http://3dpancakes.typepad.com/ernie/2005/03/re_phd_with_low.html" rel="nofollow">that</a> these are not set in stone, however, how important are they compared to other criteria such as references and research?</p>
<p>In my opinion, which I have no proof for, it seems almost absurd to put an emphasis on grades without knowing a class average or having a detailed knowledge of the course when examining a grade. However, this is my personal biased opinion, so I would like to see the rationale behind the opposite view. One argument I have heard is that school build up a database of GPAs from a certain school and classes (from the comments to <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/802/how-to-assess-the-chance-to-get-accepted-to-a-masters-program-in-the-united-sta">this question</a>), so I can see how this might be considered mildly accurate.</p>
<p>This is similar to <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10314/phd-admissions-importance-research-vs-grades">this question</a>, consequently if the response is similar, I will not be surprised. I'm applying to a researched focused engineering program, but a developed answer with respect to multiple faculties and multiple types of programs would be ideal.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20283,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Actually, admissions to master's degree programs are quite different than PhD admissions. Doctoral programs are research programs, and therefore promise as a researcher is perhaps the most important criterion of all to satisfy.</p>\n\n<p>However, at the master's level, this may or may not be the case—many master's programs feature no research (purely coursework), or only a small amount of research (for instance, a one-semester research project, or a lab course, or something similar). In such cases, research is not emphasized nearly as much, and undergraduate track record takes on greater significance. Similarly, \"terminal master's\" programs—ones that represent \"end degrees\" in their own right—will likely have less of a research background focus than degrees that are intended to prepare a student for doctoral studies. </p>\n\n<p>The other issue is the style of admissions: for \"US-style\" admissions, research will likely be more important than it is in \"European-style\" admissions, where research plays essentially no role at all in admissions to master's programs (although research is a prerequisite for PhD studies!).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20284,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Grades are important, but not the only thing taken into consideration. It varies from school to school and field to field. Three things to take into consideration (IMO).</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p>Field:</p>\n<p>In engineering, grades might have more weight or importance. In other\nfields, they may not be as important, but still taken into\nconsideration.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Competitiveness:</p>\n<p>It may depend more on how competitive the school or department is. If the school/department is hurting for students, then they may take anyone. If they have a surplus of applications, they may be very selective.\nI think it's fair to say that if you have a D average you will not be as competitive as someone with an A average in a highly competitive program.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Supporting material:</p>\n<p>Typically, you will need to write a SOP (statement of purpose), have 3 letters of support from undergraduate supervisors/mentors/instructors, and include a resume or CV. In my opinion, having a strong letter of support from 3 professors and a solid resume and/or CV is more important than grades, at least in my field. Now if you have crap grades, that won't look good and you will likely have a hard time finding professors to vouch for you.</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p>If you're grades are in doubt, I suggest you write a really strong SOP (have someone (career resource center or a professor) look it over, and create a really nice looking resume. Find advisers who will write strong letters of recommendation.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/05 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20275",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14831/"
]
|
20,276 | <p>Some time ago I contacted a professor at another university and, after some discussions, he agreed to supervise me and told me to make a formal application to the department. Unfortunately, the admission committee rejected my application. I asked that professor why, and he said he had no idea and I don't know if he tried to follow my application. </p>
<p>I am sure I meet the program's minimum requirements, submitted all necessary documents and even indicated that professor as a supervisor in a dedicated field. I would like to ask if I can do something, like making an appeal (although the department has no such thing), or keeping on sending email to the professor? Is this situation common?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20278,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>No PhD program that I am aware of guarantees admission to every candidate who meets the minimum requirements for admission. Moreover, an agreement to supervise you is not a guarantee of admission, either.</p>\n\n<p>Most likely what happened is the usual in such circumstances—there were enough other qualified candidates that the admissions committee did not choose to extend you an offer. I'm afraid that there's not really much you can do here. Writing the professor will be a waste of your time, and filing an appeal isn't likely to get you anywhere, either.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20281,
"author": "Jhz832",
"author_id": 14804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14804",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One of the possibility is that the professor is not that keen on having you on board. Otherwise, as far as I know, professors have some influence on the selection process if he really needs you to carry out his project and you meet the minimal requirements. </p>\n\n<p>In this case, it makes no difference you send an SOS to the professor.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20286,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Selection can sometimes be very political. I sat in on a board meeting recently while selection was being discussed. I was really surprised at the \"selection process\". The selection committee is not allowed to use a quantitative assessment, it has to be qualitative, which seemed absurd to me, especially considering grades and GRE scores are quantitative measures. Additionally, although my department is comprised of a majority of international students, none of them count as minorities, because they're not US citizens. Taking that into consideration, we have a very low minority student body (in this case, minority is anyone that is not a white male). Therefore, our department has received less funding from the college (which also seemed absurd, if not discrimination)... to increase funding from the college, we need more minority students. So I was not surprised when the minority students were accepted into the program. </p>\n\n<p>I don't believe you have many options. I would at least follow up with the professor, he may know of other opportunities. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20288,
"author": "Peteris",
"author_id": 10730,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10730",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<h2>Try again next time</h2>\n\n<p>Technically, you can try various things right now. In practice, most of those things will simply harm your chances of admission in the next session, so IMHO you shouldn't do anything about this particular rejection.</p>\n\n<p>Instead, work on making sure that your application is more attractive next time, keep in touch with that professor, work on research in your spare time, look for relevant seminars/workshops/etc there that are open to general public and not only to students, perhaps study some relevant topics in MOOCs like Coursera.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/05 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20276",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14682/"
]
|
20,279 | <p>How should one go about trying to teach students to "unlearn" a previous skill/principle they believe is correct but is actually wrong? </p>
<p>Hypothetically speaking as a really basic situation, if your student was adamant that the formula for the area of a rectangle is 2*l + 2*w, even though you tried to explain that is instead the formula for the perimeter, and explained to them the definition of area vs. perimeter, but they are overly confident that they are right, how can you gently guide them to the right direction? What is best practice?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20278,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>No PhD program that I am aware of guarantees admission to every candidate who meets the minimum requirements for admission. Moreover, an agreement to supervise you is not a guarantee of admission, either.</p>\n\n<p>Most likely what happened is the usual in such circumstances—there were enough other qualified candidates that the admissions committee did not choose to extend you an offer. I'm afraid that there's not really much you can do here. Writing the professor will be a waste of your time, and filing an appeal isn't likely to get you anywhere, either.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20281,
"author": "Jhz832",
"author_id": 14804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14804",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One of the possibility is that the professor is not that keen on having you on board. Otherwise, as far as I know, professors have some influence on the selection process if he really needs you to carry out his project and you meet the minimal requirements. </p>\n\n<p>In this case, it makes no difference you send an SOS to the professor.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20286,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Selection can sometimes be very political. I sat in on a board meeting recently while selection was being discussed. I was really surprised at the \"selection process\". The selection committee is not allowed to use a quantitative assessment, it has to be qualitative, which seemed absurd to me, especially considering grades and GRE scores are quantitative measures. Additionally, although my department is comprised of a majority of international students, none of them count as minorities, because they're not US citizens. Taking that into consideration, we have a very low minority student body (in this case, minority is anyone that is not a white male). Therefore, our department has received less funding from the college (which also seemed absurd, if not discrimination)... to increase funding from the college, we need more minority students. So I was not surprised when the minority students were accepted into the program. </p>\n\n<p>I don't believe you have many options. I would at least follow up with the professor, he may know of other opportunities. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20288,
"author": "Peteris",
"author_id": 10730,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10730",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<h2>Try again next time</h2>\n\n<p>Technically, you can try various things right now. In practice, most of those things will simply harm your chances of admission in the next session, so IMHO you shouldn't do anything about this particular rejection.</p>\n\n<p>Instead, work on making sure that your application is more attractive next time, keep in touch with that professor, work on research in your spare time, look for relevant seminars/workshops/etc there that are open to general public and not only to students, perhaps study some relevant topics in MOOCs like Coursera.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/05 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20279",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14020/"
]
|
20,294 | <p>I was wondering whether existed some software that would take as input a text file bibliography (for instance a bib file if you use bibtex), and that run it through google scholar (or any other database), so that it can return a uniformized bibliography.</p>
<p>As an example, suppose you have two items from the same conference</p>
<pre><code>@inproceedings{mpi,
author = {Surname1 Name1 and Surname2 Name2},
title = {Some nice work},
booktitle = {Editor of the Name of Conference},
year = {2004},
}
</code></pre>
<p>and </p>
<pre><code>@inproceedings{RRnrj,
author = {Name3 S. and Name4 S.},
title = {Some nice work},
booktitle = {Name of Conference (Acronym)},
year = {2020},
publisher = {Editor},
}
</code></pre>
<p>and you would want it to return:</p>
<pre><code>@inproceedings{mpi,
author = {Surname1 Name1 and Surname2 Name2},
title = {Some nice work},
booktitle = {Name of Conference (Acronym)},
year = {2004},
publisher = {Editor},
}
</code></pre>
<p>and </p>
<pre><code>@inproceedings{RRnrj,
author = {Surname3 Name3 and Surname4 Name4},
title = {Some nice work},
booktitle = {Name of Conference (Acronym)},
year = {2020},
publisher = {Editor},
}
</code></pre>
<p>(or whatever is the norm on the database).</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20301,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think what you are looking for would be a <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software\" rel=\"nofollow\">reference manager</a>. There are a number of commercial and free software available, many of which also support BibTeX files. I'm not sure what you mean precisely by \"uniformized,\" but I take that to mean that some style guide was applied to them (since only the \"Publisher\" field was added to reference \"mpi\" in your desired output). Many of those software programs will also allow you to choose a particular style of citation, and export the references to a BibTex file again.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 21956,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you have the DOI codes, the best thing is to use the API and get the references yourself:</p>\n\n<pre><code>curl -LH \"Accept: text/bibliography; style=bibtex\" http://dx.doi.org/[DOI code]\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>If you have them (and you should, for any modern article), parsing the bib to get them and getting the data can be done in a very simple script.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/05 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20294",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/87/"
]
|
20,295 | <p>I failed to complete my research project (undergraduate) in the time I said I would, because of overconfidence. It seemed like a quite simple project to both me and my advisor initially considering that it was very similar to a project another student of his had worked on, however for some reason (much of the blame is my own) I ran into countless difficulties and now I will not finish in time. How do I get past something like this? I do not know how to continue after such disappointment.</p>
<p>As an addendum: How does one develop an "aptitude" for research? I would like to go to graduate school, but a lot of the advice hinges on whether one not only enjoys but has an "aptitude" for research. Based on my minimal accomplishments this year, it seems clear that I do not currently have an aptitude for research. Can I ever develop such an aptitude?</p>
<p>Edit: I do not feel that this question is a duplicate. This is about UNDERGRADUATE research. Undergraduates have a very different situation - I cannot simply take another week and work on it as the semester will end soon, after which I will undertake an internship, and I have commitments to my courses and other things.</p>
<p>Also, this is not a case of me getting data that don't support my hypothesis - I do not have any data. Or rather, I have data, but it is meaningless until I finish my current project. Which I was supposed to do today.</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20297,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” \n― Winston Churchill</p>\n\n<p>You should not let one failure hold you back. I would also like to add that there is a difference between having a general interest or liking in something (i.e. research) and being passionate about it. In grad school (especially at the PhD level) you need to be passionate about your work to be successful. You have to look in the mirror and ask yourself if you truly enjoy doing research. If the answer is yes, then pursue it with vigor. </p>\n\n<p>Let this set back be a learning experience, and grow from it. Just remember, \"if you're not failing, you're not trying.\"</p>\n\n<p>I could go on and on...</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20298,
"author": "Peter Bloem",
"author_id": 6936,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6936",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think one of the most important things you learn as a PhD student (or Master's) is to deal with research that doesn't quite pan out as you'd expected. Because guess what, that's not the exception. That almost always happens. If research always conformed to our expectations, we wouldn't need to do it.</p>\n\n<p>The trick is to learn to look at it with fresh eyes. <strong>The main problem is not that the research did not conclude as you had hoped, the main problem is that you're letting it affect your confidence</strong>. Find a new perspective. It may not have yielded what you thought it did, but you did the work and you found stuff out. Now figure out how to present it:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Forget about the original expectations. Those tend to make for bad science. Look at your research so far, and pick out what's interesting, and why it's interesting. Let go of the original story.</li>\n<li>The fact that it was more difficult than it looked is a good indicator that you may have found out interesting things. Don't think of them as difficulties you created for yourself, think of them as results.</li>\n<li>What would you tell someone starting this research tomorrow? </li>\n<li>What's the shortest route to a publishable result? You may have learned many interesting things, but you need to find a single compelling result that you can explain in an abstract. Once you have that, you can fit all the stuff you learned into the story of that result. </li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20300,
"author": "Michael Zieve",
"author_id": 14724,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14724",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Regarding your first question: undergraduate research projects are a great way to experience some aspects of doing research, but deadlines are one way in which they differ from research in graduate school or beyond. So you shouldn't worry about the mere fact of not meeting your deadline. I can tell you that I set deadlines for myself all the time, and they always seem easily achievable, but then I often don't actually achieve them. Also I often think I should be able to prove some result in a certain amount of time, but then for whatever reason I'm not able to. So I turn that around and decide that my intuition must have been wrong, and in fact the result is more difficult than I expected; and I see this as progress since I've advanced my understanding, and I further try to identify what was the specific reason why my intuition was wrong.</p>\n\n<p>Also, one great feature of the long-term research that is done in graduate school or beyond is that there is lots of flexibility to change the direction of a project mid-stream, or to pause the work on a project and finish a side project, or to split a large project into several papers, or to decide at a certain moment that the work has reached a stage where it's natural to publish what you've done so far, even though you'll keep working on it further. This type of flexibility is missing in a short-term project like one typically does in undergraduate research. </p>\n\n<p>Regarding your second question about developing an aptitude for research: keep in mind that there are many different types of research projects, which rely on different types of talents. For instance, some people are great at big-picture thinking, some people are great at clever solutions to tricky questions, some people have the patience to do enormous amounts of seemingly routine things which put together can yield great results, and so on. The main thing you should strive for is to find some area of your subject, and some way of working on that area, which you love to do and which matches your particular talents. Don't get discouraged about not having great success in one particular project -- maybe that project just wasn't the right fit for your particular skills. I can tell you that one of the keys to \"aptitude for research\" is to have a kind of psychological toughness that enables you to keep working on a problem for a long time, despite setbacks. If you love what you do, and you have that type of resolve, then good things will happen.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/05 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20295",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12655/"
]
|
20,305 | <p>I am pursuing a PhD (computer science) from one of the reputed Indian universities. I have prepared some white papers for publication in coming journals. I prepared these papers by myself. I referred various links and study guides, books etc.</p>
<p>After getting these papers published, I received one notice from the editorial staff of publication that I have violated the contents/copyright law. They provided me some contents and images (they said violated areas).
I am surprised because I prepared all the things by myself. I have already mentioned the referred links, books etc. in the publication.</p>
<p>How can I avoid content violation in my own written material?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20306,
"author": "Layla",
"author_id": 6144,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6144",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For what I read in one comment you draw also the images, but still if the figures appears somewhere else you should reference them. For example put something like:</p>\n\n<p>Figure 1: Description... (based/largely based in Professor X)</p>\n\n<p>Try to make those changes.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 29677,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Copyright protects not only the original content itself but also anything which is clearly derived from the original content. That is why plagiarism doesn’t depend on whether you copied, retyped, or minorly reworded.</p>\n\n<p>If you created a figure using a figure that somebody else drew as a template, then it does not matter if there are minor differences between your figure and their figure. Because your creation is closely deirved from their creation, then it is still their copyright, from both a moral and legal perspective (personally, as a scientist I find the moral perspective more compelling than the legal).</p>\n\n<p>If you had simply created a figure from scratch, then it is highly unlikely that it would appear closely similar to another person’s figure – there are simply too many possible personal choices in how to diagram the same ideas, even for fairly simple ideas.</p>\n\n<p>At this point, there are two ways to proceed (assuming that the rest of your content is intellectually honest):</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Create your own diagrams from scratch with significantly different <em>content,</em> reflecting the different ways in which you think about the area.</li>\n<li>Obtain rights permissions from the original publisher, and include “(figure adapted from […])” in your paper. Many publishers have an automated online method for obtaining fragment reuse rights, which can then be sent to the publisher handling your paper. If the original figure was posted in a free-reuse medium (e.g., a US or UK government report), then you may not have to do formal obtaining of rights.</li>\n</ol>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/05 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20305",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14922/"
]
|
20,318 | <p>I'm an undergraduate writing a paper for a philosophy course in logic. My paper is exploring a relationship between Leibniz' logic and graph theory. In writing the paper, I've found some material in Leibniz' work on combinatorics that (to me) strongly resembles graph theory. However, I can't find anything that seriously discusses Leibniz in relation to the history of graph theory --- everything seems to start with Euler. (Most read "Leibniz made early contributions to topology. Later on, Euler developed graph theory" and continue onward from there)</p>
<p>I'd like to be able to say "I looked around on Google scholar, etc, and I couldn't find anything about this topic" by way of suggesting "It's possible that the midterm paper that you're reading is bumping up against an original area of research."</p>
<p>What kind of evidence is appropriate in this situation? Would providing something like the number of results of a search on Google scholar be worthwhile? In general, is there a technique to demonstrate the absence of literature about a certain topic?</p>
| [
{
"answer_id": 20319,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><em>(disclaimer - I come from computer science, and the little I know about conventions in philosophy is from hearsay)</em></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I'd like to be able to say \"I looked around on Google scholar, etc, and I couldn't find anything about this topic\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The usual expression for this kind of thing in my field is \"to the best of our knowledge, this topic/idea has so far not been considered in literature\". It tells the reader that you think that nobody has published this idea yet, but clearly the <em>absence</em> of existing literature is something very difficult to be sure about. Hence the rather defensive formulation.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In general, is there a technique to demonstrate the absence of literature about a certain topic?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Nope. How would you do that? It's a bit like proving a hypothesis - you can only find counterexamples (papers that <em>do</em> cover the topic), but you cannot prove that in some weird journal nobody reads somebody has expressed your thoughts already.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>What kind of evidence is appropriate in this situation? Would providing something like the number of results of a search on Google scholar be worthwhile?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The accepted convention in my field is to explain the methodology of how you searched for literature (you had a defined methodology, right?), and then explain / list / discuss what you found. Be specific - which keywords did you use and why? Why Google Scholar and not something else? Can you be sure that all papers that you would expect to be relevant are indexed by Scholar (some of those should be pretty old, long before the Internet was a thing)? Did you also check your library for dead-tree literature? Number of results and or similar metrics seem pretty much useless to me and would likely not improve your paper in any way.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20331,
"author": "h22",
"author_id": 10920,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10920",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em>The most relevant works we found are</em> (cite the publication where the water first have been mentioned when your publication is about the invention of the submarine) <em>however they</em> (and say why actually not <strong>too</strong> relevant).</p>\n\n<p>This will not protect from the deserved criticism if the relevant publications do exist.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20389,
"author": "Faheem Mitha",
"author_id": 285,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/285",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I actually wrote something similar in a recent paper. I wrote \"The author is not aware of any work that is directly comparable to the current paper.\" I'm not suggesting this is the best phrasing.</p>\n\n<p>After some further details, I then added some specific publications. \"Of the many publications relating to x, two representative papers with roughly similar aims to this paper are x1 and x2.\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20390,
"author": "Joe",
"author_id": 3998,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3998",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I phrased a similar idea in a published paper (in a computer science conference) like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Although it is well known that space-filling curves can be applied to the problem of approximate nearest neighbor searching, we are not aware of any extension of space-filling curves to approximate range reporting.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 20400,
"author": "Dutch Jeff",
"author_id": 14969,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14969",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is not a direct answer to your actual question. Such has been well provided above. Rather, I humbly suggest, as someone who majored in philosophy and has been burned repeatedly by the notion of originality, that when you are tempted to think \"it's possible that the midterm paper that you're [writing] is bumping up against an original area of research,\" refresh yourself with a jaunt to your school's library. There you might find such gems as Benoit B. Mandelbrot's <em>The Fractal Geometry of Nature</em> (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1982) and <em>The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language</em> by Benson Mates (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), both of which treat, at least briefly, Leibniz' historical contribution to the development of graph theory. Your library may also have less widely distributed journals and \"unpublished\" works which are not yet well cataloged on them interwebs. </p>\n\n<p>You might also find that some good scholarly work is done in introductions to collections of original writings. Leroy E Loemker's intro to <em>Philosophical Papers and Letters: A Selection</em>, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Dordrecht, Holland; Boston: D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1976, 1969) is one such which just so happens to mention your topic. You might also find inspiration in proximal works on such topics as Turing, computational logic, machine theory, and linguistics, to say nothing of the huge body of literature dealing with the interrelationship of analysis situs, graph theory, topology, and calculus. </p>\n\n<p>At the very least, the ability to reference prior works that broach your subject will lend legitimacy to what you might build upon them. </p>\n\n<p>If you're really interested in this subject, though, your best bet is probably to check your syllabus for your professor's office hours, and then drop by for a few minutes to briefly explain your topic, along with your difficulty finding references, and ask her if she has any suggestions as to where you might turn. But I wouldn't mention google.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 78745,
"author": "Joseph OA",
"author_id": 63764,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63764",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I know my answer is late, but this is for those who are recently looking into this topic:</p>\n\n<p>You can claim that you couldn't find enough relevant literature, although, you need to provide proof. The best method used in this situation is systematic literature review (SLR). Using this method you should record everything about your search process such as keywords used, years covered, libraries included, inclusion/exclusion criteria, statistics of results and selected studies. You should record everything, keep in mind that it should be repeatable, meaning that if anyone tries to follow the steps that you recorded he/she will get the same outcomes. Using SLR you make sure that your claim is backed up with evidence, this way you can defend your claim with numbers and facts.</p>\n\n<p>Edit: You can search for Systematic Literature Review or SLR online and you may find a lot of sources teaching you how to conduct it and the required steps.</p>\n"
}
]
| 2014/05/06 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20318",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12063/"
]
|
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