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28,055 |
<p>I have put into my paper a photo (available <a href="http://www.apenusa.com/images/Apen_A3_DetailPage_06.jpg">here</a>) that I have collected from the company's website available for free. There is no copyright note, except the one at the bottom of the website and product is available for sale (probably patented). I have contacted the company seeking permission, but they did not reply after a week and I cannot wait anymore.</p>
<p>The paper will be published in an IEEE magazine.</p>
<p>So here are my questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>How to make sure an online photo carries copyright?</li>
<li>Is citing to their website sufficient to avoid copyright violation?</li>
<li>If received copyright permission, how to use the permission in the paper? (I received permission from another company for another photo). Write it on the image or write "courtesy of ..." (I have seen this phrase quite a lot).</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>UPDATE 1:</strong> Thanks all of you, referring to your answers, I decided to stay in the safe side by removing the photo from the paper. I did not criticize anything and did not admire it either (but it could be a free publicity for them which is ignored despite second email to the company). I just discussed its functionality as an encouraging innovation for particular domain.</p>
<p>However, almost <strong>NO ONE</strong> yet commented on <strong>3rd question</strong>. Can any one help in this regard?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28057,
"author": "Moriarty",
"author_id": 8562,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8562",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Without reading the paper, are you sure that the photo is necessary? It looks to be purely decorative, so perhaps you could sidestep the whole issue and leave it out of the paper.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Just because the owner does not reply to your request <strong>does not</strong> give you implicit permission to use the content. <a href=\"http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/permissions/if-you-cannot-find-the-owner/\">These guidelines by Colombia University</a> lay out the situation well.</p>\n\n<p>If the licensing situation is not clear, <em>assume it is copyrighted</em>. Private companies may get a little prickly if their products are conveyed in anything less than a glowingly positive light. Nevertheless, they usually can't do much if someone posts a bad review on a blog. I don't know for sure, but perhaps fair use will apply.</p></li>\n<li><p>If there is an attribution license, yes. For example, content posted on Stack Exchange has a <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\">CC license</a> with <a href=\"http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/attribution-required/\">attribution required</a>. Otherwise, nope.</p></li>\n<li><p>Whichever is common in your field, or specifically requested by the owner of the copyrighted content, should be fine.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28058,
"author": "Peteris",
"author_id": 10730,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10730",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<h2>Photography and other creations carry copyright by default</h2>\n\n<p>The answer to your part 1 - the exclusive copyright of a photo belongs to someone from the point of its creation, even if no explicit copyright note is attached.</p>\n\n<p>If <em>you</em> had made the photo of that product, then it would be an entirely different question, but redistributing a photo someone else made is legally almost exactly as redistributing a Hollywood movie.</p>\n\n<h2>Available for free doesn't imply a permission to redistribute</h2>\n\n<p>If something is freely distributed by it's owner, it doesn't come with an implied permission for you to do the same thing. Unless it comes with a licence that explicitly allows you to do so (e.g. the various Creative Commons licences), you don't have a permission to copy that image further. Citing the source doesn't change that.</p>\n\n<h2>Lack of response means lack of permission</h2>\n\n<p>If you don't have an explicit permission, then you don't have it regardless of reasons - if an author chooses not to communicate with you, then tough luck. It also may be that the company doesn't have free hands in licencing the image - it's quite possible that the copyright is owned by some photographer, and the company has a licence to use it in their website but not in print.</p>\n\n<h2>The journal may want clarifications</h2>\n\n<p>The journal submission documents will likely include either a statement that all images are your own, or that you have licenced them appropriately. They may leave the licences as your responsibility or require you to send them the documentation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28066,
"author": "nerdfever.com",
"author_id": 21494,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21494",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The other answers are technically correct.</p>\n\n<p>However you ought to think about it practically.</p>\n\n<p>Every company wants to sell their products, and unless your article is saying bad things about the product or company, they're going to be happy for whatever publicity they get via your article.</p>\n\n<p>Unless the company is run by morons (does happen sometimes), they are NOT going to sue you for helping them by giving them free publicity. Even tho they could, technically, if they wanted to.</p>\n\n<p>Just credit the source of the photo properly and you're done.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28100,
"author": "David Z",
"author_id": 236,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/236",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A quick answer if you are subject to US law:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>1. How to make sure an online photo carries copyright?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><em>All</em> online photos (and text, videos, etc.) \"carry copyright.\" That is, someone holds the copyright on anything you find online. You are not allowed to redistribute it unless the copyright holder <em>explicitly</em> does something to grant you the right - for example, if they specify a license. (Though under certain circumstances the fair use defense allows you to \"get away with it.\")</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>2. Is citing to their website sufficient to avoid copyright violation?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>No, citation is completely irrelevant to copyright infringement. Copyright law says you cannot copy and redistribute the content, regardless of whether you cite its source.</p>\n\n<p>Exception: if the content is under a license that makes citation relevant. For example, the Creative Commons Attribution licenses say something like \"You are allowed to copy this as long as you credit the author.\"</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>3. If received copyright permission, how to use the permission in the paper? (I received permission from another company for another photo). Write it on the image or write \"courtesy of ...\" (I have seen this phrase quite a lot).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Follow the conventions of your field, of course, but the typical way is something like \"Figure from [source], used with permission.\" <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26250/how-can-should-i-indicate-that-its-okay-to-use-open-access-content-in-a-paper\">This question</a> of mine addresses the case of open access content.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28115,
"author": "Chris",
"author_id": 7567,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7567",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As there have been good and extensive answers to your first two questions and you explicitly asked for answers to your last question, I will only address question number 3.</p>\n\n<p>How you can use an image in a paper depends entirely on the type of license/permission you have received. Basically, you and the copyright holder are free to negotiate any type of attribution or none at all. But even if they do not explicitly mention attribution it is still a sign of good manners to include at least their name somewhere close to the image. In case you are unsure, ask the copyright holder how they would like to be attributed and suggest a manner which you think might be suitable for your paper.</p>\n\n<p>Some images are available under free licenses, e.g. all the images on Wikipedia (with some fair use exceptions) and Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's image repository. These licenses specify what you need to do when you want to use an image. Usually, they require that you attribute the author and name the license under which the image was used. Some licenses might also require that you release derivative works of the original image (i.e. when you edited the image in some way) under the same license.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/05
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28055",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6393/"
] |
28,062 |
<p>I'm wondering how best to respond to queries from non-academics along the lines of "Why should you be paid during the summer holidays?" This is the sort of question I hear a lot in this economic climate here in Ireland, though I strongly suspect that one encounters similar questions and opinions elsewhere.</p>
<p>There is a subtext that public money is scarce, that people in "real" jobs work themselves to the bone and pay high taxes, while some people get to spend a significant proportion of the year on a sun lounger at the tax payer's expense. I like to think that we academics do earn our crust, but as somebody paid public money I think it's a reasonable question, and one I would like to answer better.</p>
<p>There are a couple of obvious responses.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It's nothing like nine months, especially when you factor in exam marking and processing, dealing with appeals, Autumn repeat exams, lecture preparation for the following year etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Did I forget to mention research? That's a full-time job in itself! And there are secondary activities such as applying for grants, judging grant applications, and supervising (post-)graduate students.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>However these points don't apply to all academics. For example, I work in an Institute of Technology, possibly akin to a liberal arts college in the US, where there are typically 18 teaching hours per week in term time, but research is a bonus activity, and we have 10 weeks' summer holidays. So the core point seems to be that it's near-universal practice to have a teaching break during the summer months (exactly when this break is, and its length vary of course). But why is this? Are there good reasons that might satisfy somebody who is not already steeped in the academic life?</p>
<p>It's tempting to say that teaching is particularly intense, and this period of estivation is needed to avoid burnout. But is this true of teachers and academics more than, say, junior hospital doctors or care workers?</p>
<p>Presumably this question is tied to the question of why school teachers have summer holidays: I realise that this latter question may be off-topic for this site, but to the extent that answers to it have a bearing on my question, I would like to hear them.</p>
<p>Finally I am aware that not all academics are paid during the summer months. Many have temporary contracts that don't span the summer vacation. I hope that this situation remains the (in my opinion, disgraceful) exception rather than the rule.</p>
<p>EDIT: Thanks to Oswald Veblen and Dave Clarke for pointing out the general practice in US academia of being paid for only 9/12 of the year. In Ireland, and I think in much of Europe, academics are usually paid for 12 months. So some of the motivation for this question ("Why are we paying you academics during the summer?") may not apply in the US, although the basic question still stands ("Why don't academics typically have to teach during the summer?" or, in the more provocative (and inaccurate) terms that this is sometimes put: "Why don't academics work during the summer?")</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28063,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The following applies to a previous version of the question: \"Why do academics get paid to work only nine months of the year?\". The question of whether academics <em>do work</em> work in the summer, compared to whether they are <em>paid to</em> work over the summer, is more difficult. Most faculty in the U.S. have 9-month contracts, but in my experience most faculty nevertheless work on their research and teaching during the summer. </p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>In the United States, it is very common - nearly universal, in fact - for a standard academic contract to span 9 or 10 months. There are several reasons for this:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>It allows the university to pay less. The standard rule of thumb is that a 9 month contract pays 9/12 of what the corresponding annual contract would pay. Many (most?) faculty have their 9 months of pay split up into 12 months of paychecks -- but this is an accounting fiction, not a sign that they are paid for 12 months of work. If few students are around over the summer, there is less reason for universities to pay salary to their faculty for that time - having a break in the contract balances the university income and expenses.</p></li>\n<li><p>It allows faculty to be paid more. This is the flip side of paying 9/12 of an annual salary: the faculty member can, in principle, take another job during the summer.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Many grants, for example, are able to pay \"summer salary\", which is really just extra income. But these grants do not allow the faculty member to take salary from the university at the same time they take salary from the grant. The \"9 month contract\" resolves this: the faculty member can state they are actually only paid for 9 months of university work, so the grant can pay 2 or 3 months of extra salary during the summer.</p></li>\n<li><p>Similarly, some universities pay extra to faculty who teach during the summer - that would not be possible if the summer was treated as part of the basic contract.</p></li>\n<li><p>A smaller number of faculty use the summer for consulting work, or other jobs genuinely different from their university position.</p></li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><p>Faculty like to travel over the summer. During the academic year, it is hard to leave for personal reasons, because of class. By claiming that the summer is \"off contract\", academics can travel however they like during that period of time, without having to justify their time. So having the contract pause during the summer makes the job more attractive to job candidates, allowing the university to attract some people who might otherwise take higher-paying jobs elsewhere.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The reason I just cited are all purely economic - they can be justified solely in terms of saving money for the school, increasing pay for the faculty member, or attracting better candidates. There is also \"tradition\" as a reason for the summer break, as is also the case at lower levels of education. </p>\n\n<p>However, the \"9 month contract\" is fictitious in a few ways:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Most faculty still have access to their office, library, email, and other university resources even when they are technically not \"on contract\" over the summer. </p></li>\n<li><p>Research faculty usually continue to work on research during the summer, and travel to conferences (which may even be reimbursed by the university, even though the faculty member is technically not on contract!). This often happens even when the faculty don't have grants or other summer funding. </p></li>\n<li><p>Many faculty use some of their summer time to prepare for their classes, even though they are not being paid to teach over the summer.</p></li>\n<li><p>There are other activities during the summer: committee meetings, advising, etc. Some faculty participate in these, for various reasons, even when they are off contract. </p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28065,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As someone who works in Asia (teaching for a British university), I get paid 11-12 months out of the year (depending on my yearly negotiations). I had one student ask me why I don't teach 40 hours a week since that is a full-time job. So, I took a moment to explain to the student that standing in front of students is only one part of my job. Yes, it is the most visible but there are many, many other things I do and my work does consume 12 months out of the year (even when I'm only paid for 11 of them).</p>\n\n<p>There is always prep, which includes research (identifying what should be taught based on the latest literature). Of course, there is marking, resits, special classes, along with a host of general administrative tasks which need to be done.</p>\n\n<p>While it is possible for someone to work less than I do, it is only possible by producing lower quality, quickly outdated content for the students.</p>\n\n<p>So, in short, I do not believe teachers work only 9 months out of the year. Those in the US might only work 9 months and take 3 months off but that is more related to the lack of appreciation (and sadly the lack of pay) for the efforts that go into properly educating the next generation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28077,
"author": "Relaxed",
"author_id": 11596,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11596",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In the Netherlands, I get paid 14 months (one of those is called “holiday allowance” and another one is called “end-of-year bonus”). One way or the other, it's a fiction, the most relevant comparison is between yearly income. Whether it's excessive or not is an entirely different question.</p>\n\n<p>Academics are not the only ones to have a regular salary, paid holidays or flexible time. What sets them apart is that there is relatively little oversight compared to many occupations. To some extent, you can show up, read, write, etc. whenever you decide. And you do get two to three months without many concrete obligations or schedule constraints.</p>\n\n<p>Note that at my university (and I guess at many places), you have to officially take holidays and you “only” get about 6 weeks (a couple weeks more than the mandatory legal minimum). During the rest of the summer, you are supposed to work and account for your time in the usual ways.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28080,
"author": "Christopher Carl Heckman",
"author_id": 21509,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21509",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<pre><code> \"Why do academics work only nine months of the year?\"\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>As pointed out, we don't. I work year-round; for instance, this summer, I revised an online course that was introduced in Spring 2014 at my university. Without being paid. (However, the paycheck issues mentioned elsewhere might make this last sentence \"not quite true\".)</p>\n\n<pre><code> \"Why don't you work 40 hours a week?\"\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Working is not just teaching. There's also: </p>\n\n<p>preparation for class (\"what will I talk about today, and how will I do it?\"), </p>\n\n<p>creating preparation materials (the PPT Fairy doesn't create Powerpoint presentations), </p>\n\n<p>responding to emails (homework questions, excuses for absence, policy questions), </p>\n\n<p>choosing homework exercises (you can't use anything from a book that's a few years old, because all the solutions have been worked out and posted somewhere online), </p>\n\n<p>grading tests (at my university, we have graders for homework, but tests we have to do all by ourselves), </p>\n\n<p>and probably a few other things I can't think of off the top of my head.</p>\n\n<p>Final note: I've always respected my high school teachers [well, the good ones; my Phys Ed teacher nicknamed \"Bobo\" is an obvious exception], but after realizing how much grading they do overnight for more classes than I teach, I have a new-found respect for them.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28120,
"author": "Eric",
"author_id": 20424,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20424",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Having been in Academia in both the US and in the Netherlands, I can safely say that academics work the full 12 months and dedicate most of the summer to \"real work\" (i.e. research) when they are less distracted with teaching responsibilities.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/05
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28062",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8560/"
] |
28,072 |
<p>Our law school has (soon to be had) an endowed professorship that was awarded (on a 5-year rotating basis) to a faculty member with an outstanding record of research and scholarship, consistent with the traditional role of endowed professorships and chairs. The money in the endowed fund has grown sufficiently to transform it from a "professorship" into the law school's very first endowed "chair." At the very same meeting that the faculty was informed of this positive development, we were also informed by the University's chief development officer that this new and first chair would be awarded to the dean, not to increase his salary but to augment his administrative line of funds for travel, fundraising, etc.--a move consistent with our university's persistent shift of more and more resources away from faculty and to administration. The endowed professorship--awarded to a faculty member--will expire as soon as the current holder's remaining term ends in two years. </p>
<p>The CDO maintained that it was usual to award the first chair to deans and not to faculty members, a statement that members of the faculty found to be ludicrous. </p>
<p>Is it usual anywhere else for chairs to be used more often for administrative support of the dean rather than to recognize, encourage, and support faculty academic research and scholarship? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28472,
"author": "Marxos",
"author_id": 19703,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19703",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>No. What you're seeing is an example of academic politics. An attempt to grab truth before anyone else can argue against it. </p>\n\n<p>Many people who attempt such reptilian measures tend to \"double-down\" whenever they are questioned. Just persist and you'll see that they back off.</p>\n\n<p>Then take charge. This is the kind of stuff that makes academia look ridiculous.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 29889,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have never heard of using an endowed chair to support administrative duties of a dean, but then again, I have never heard of a rotating endowed chair before. Many donors stipulate terms as to what their donations can be used for. It may be that some endowed chairs exist explicitly for supporting deans administrative duties, but I would think this is quite rare. While I would assume that your law school is not breaking any laws, they may be bending them. I would ask the CDO (whatever that is) for some evidence to back up their claim. You could probably gather evidence from within your university and other comparable universities to back up your belief that it is uncommon.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 29912,
"author": "Andy Putman",
"author_id": 4513,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4513",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I only know how these things work in the natural sciences at R1 institutions, so my experiences might not be helpful for your institution. </p>\n\n<p>However, at my university, both the current and former deans of natural sciences were given endowed chairs when they arrived: the (former) dean Daniel Carson (see <a href=\"http://biosciences.rice.edu/facultydetail.aspx?riceid=184636\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a>) is the Schlumberger Chair of Advanced Studies and Research and Professor of BioSciences, and the current dean Peter Rossky (see <a href=\"http://chemistry.rice.edu/FacultyDetail.aspx?p=E0A3C34EC39EB389\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a>) is the Harry C. & Olga K. Wiess Chair of Chemistry. As you can see from his webpage, Carson continued to run a lab and churn out great research while dean (he finished his position in the spring of 2014), and I expect that the same will be true for Rossky (he just arrived and doesn't have much of a web presence at Rice, but <a href=\"http://www.cm.utexas.edu/peter_rossky\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a> is his former webpage). So it is not necessarily nefarious -- to hire really top-notch scientists into administrative positions, you have to offer them things.</p>\n\n<p>But of course I have no idea what is going on at your university, and it could very well be a power play by the administration.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/05
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28072",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21498/"
] |
28,086 |
<p>The two journals I am considering for my paper each demand that the paper be submitted exclusively to their journal for consideration.</p>
<p>What do I win if I don’t keep this rule?</p>
<ul>
<li>If I get rejected by both, I will have found out earlier that the paper is not worthy of publication.</li>
<li>If I get accepted by one of the journals, this is very good. I will have found out faster which of the two journals is willing to publish me.</li>
<li>If I get accepted by both, this is really a dream. I should probably find a reason (excuse) to withdraw the publication from one of them. </li>
</ul>
<p>In any case how can submitting to two journals negatively impact my reputation more than the gain by being actually accepted? (More so considering I will probably leave academia after my PhD dissertation.)</p>
<p>What can I lose if I don’t adhere to this rule? What sanctions, if any, can I expect?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28089,
"author": "Arno",
"author_id": 12047,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12047",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p>It is quite likely that there is an overlap in who gets asked to referee the two submissions, which would lead to the double submission being detected.</p></li>\n<li><p>Double submission of papers is sufficient ground for retraction - even after the paper has been accepted for publication. As some journals publish submission dates with published papers, it is conceivable that your double submission is uncovered after publication - and that you end up with a retraction, ie no published paper.</p></li>\n<li><p>Academic misconduct (and double submission is such) typically is sufficient for dismissal from a PhD program.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28090,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To submit the same material to two journals simultaneously is against the ethics of publishing. When you submit to many journals, you will be specifically asked to verify that your work is not under consideration in another journal. This has to do with copyright. Your paper will be published somewhere and under a specific copyright. If the same paper then appears somewhere else, it will likely be subject to a different copyright. Journals and publisher's therefore look very seriously at such attempts. You may be rejected by both in the end and as was stated in other answers, your reputation will be ruined very quickly.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28092,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Just as a note which won't fit in a comment, the use of single submission is wide-spread in the western academy outside of law. Legal academics in the US, on the other hand, are expected to pursue a multiple-submission strategy where they shop their articles to many journals at the same time. There is all sorts of gamesmanship and politicking when it comes to finding one to publish it, which I see as a negative for their publishing environment. Some of their issues are probably also due to the fact that the vast majority of law journals are the so-called \"law reviews\" which are run and edited by second and third-year law students with little to no faculty input. There is no peer review or blind (single nor double) review. </p>\n\n<p>The standard accusation about this model is that articles are accepted based on author prestige not quality or correctness since third year law students are not experts and cannot evaluate quality. Furthermore, it is often asserted that authors choose their venue based on the highest prestige law review that makes them an offer. As such, there is some brinksmanship around who offers when and how long authors have to accept. As a result of all this, many submitted articles by prestigious professors are not ready for publication and require substantial work with the student editors. </p>\n\n<p>If you'd like to know what it's like to publish in such an environment, there's lots of blogging and literature on the state of legal academic publishing. I think you'd find that since peer review is volunteer and that acceptance happens after all the reviews are conducted, reviewers would dry up. I certainly wouldn't volunteer in an environment where I knew that the article could get yanked out of the journal I reviewed for because it got accepted by a more prestigious one. Single-submission helps prevent the volunteer peer-reviewing model from falling apart. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28093,
"author": "J. Zimmerman",
"author_id": 7921,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7921",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Simultaneous submission to more than one journal can be lethal to your reputation.</p>\n\n<p>For an example, see <a href=\"http://publicationethics.org/case/repetitive-duplicate-submission-multiple-journals-and-redundant-publication\">this article</a> from COPE (Committee On Publication Ethics). In that case, the author(s) were effectively blacklisted by all the journals to which they had submitted simultaneously, and the information was made public. Even if you are planning to leave academia, you do not want a reputation of being willing to break the ethical norms in your field. And it is <a href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021155/\">taken seriously</a>.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Editors take this so seriously that they may ban authors from submitting to their journal if they have broken the rules.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As @Arno noted, double submission may be sufficient to get you dismissed from your PhD program--this is serious academic misconduct. Also, if the double submission is discovered after acceptance, you may well see your paper being retracted. You might thus end up with neither a publication or a doctorate! </p>\n\n<p>Other answers have touched on the reasons <em>why</em> you should not submit to more then one journal at once, including the non-trivial consideration of wasting reviewers' time with a submission that you will retract if another journal accepts first. In addition, simultaneous submission to multiple journals <a href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021155/\">will increase the cost of publishing journals</a>, thus increasing the subscription cost for every one of us. </p>\n\n<p><strong>There are multiple reasons to submit to only one journal at a time, from respect for others' time and effort to consideration of your reputation and future in the field.</strong> As mentioned, the stigma of being perceived to have attempted to cheat the system is so severe that it may well follow you even outside academia. Just don't do it! </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28179,
"author": "Edit4English",
"author_id": 21578,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21578",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Aside from the ethical problems, I would think that trying to prepare the paper for two publishers simultaneously would be counterproductive, and that the quality of the paper would suffer. </p>\n\n<p>Each journal has different requirements for article length, organization, style, abbreviations, and so forth. Journal requirements may overlap, but a paper prepared for one journal generally requires at least some revision before it's ready to submit to a different journal. </p>\n\n<p>Journals are more likely to publish papers that match the background and interests of their audience. Considering what the audience understands and what bits of knowledge need to be explained rather than assumed is best done for one audience at a time.</p>\n\n<p>Most journals I've worked with require the authors to state (as part of the submission process or in a cover letter) that no part of the article has been published, and that the paper is not under consideration elsewhere. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28228,
"author": "CommaToast",
"author_id": 17890,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17890",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Being honorable means striving to meet all the things that are expected of you. It would be dishonorable to game the system as you appear to be contemplating doing. </p>\n\n<p>Be honorable. It's that simple.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 103741,
"author": "Allure",
"author_id": 84834,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/84834",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One thing not mentioned yet is that publisher policies typically have a line forbidding multiple submission. For example, Springer's <a href=\"https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/journal-author/journal-author-helpdesk/publishing-ethics/14214\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">publishing ethics page</a> requires that \"The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration\", whie Wiley's <a href=\"https://authorservices.wiley.com/ethics-guidelines/research-integrity.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">research integrity page</a> says \"The Copyright Transfer Agreement, Exclusive License Agreement or the Open Access Agreement, one of which must be submitted before publication in any Wiley journal, requires signature from the corresponding author to warrant that the article [...] is not being considered for publication elsewhere in its final form.\"</p>\n\n<p>If you dual submit, you are violating the publisher's policies. If you are detected, there's a chance you'll be blacklisted by the publisher (not just the journal), which will close <em>all</em> the publisher's journals to you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 162820,
"author": "Nica",
"author_id": 135299,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/135299",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It certainly <em>is</em> in your best interest, otherwise there would be no need to prevent you from doing so. As far as I can tell, it seems like an edict against simultaneous <em>publication</em> somehow turned into an axiom that simultaneous <em>submission</em> is deeply unethical. It is not. (If others have more insight into this history, I'd love to know more!) It is not unethical for you to have your work under consideration at more than one journal, and it's certainly not "a crime." Arguments to the contrary tend to hinge on one of two things:</p>\n<ol>\n<li><p>That it raises the cost of the journal. I do not work work in a field that pays its reviewers. If you do, perhaps this argument has more merit. In most disciplines, however, review is volunteer work. It does not raise the cost of the journal.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>If it doesn't raise the cost of the journal, then the argument is that you are wasting people's time. You are not. If I receive an article I have seen before, I can submit the same review and be done with peer review for the day. Copy-paste is there, and it does not waste my time.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<p>My personal belief is that it is unethical to prevent simultaneous submission. People are precariously employed. Others are on a 5-year tenure clock. It is deeply wrong to waste <em>their</em> time sitting on an article for months before telling them you are not interested. Sure. If your reviewers suggested minor revisions and you really want to publish the piece, you can ask the author to withdraw it from consideration elsewhere. But, at the very least, the initial outset should allow simultaneous submission.</p>\n<p>I am not surprised that law reviews tend to operate this way. Those journals are obviously interested in ethics and legal considerations (it's one of their fields!), and their conclusion is that simultaneous submissions should be allowed. I agree. Unfortunately, you will risk offending people and possibly being "blacklisted." Then again, I have to wonder if this is an urban myth. I have heard about people being punished for simultaneous submissions, but I have never actually seen it happen...</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28086",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21523/"
] |
28,094 |
<p>Currently, I am a PhD student from material science and I wish to become a TT professor in the future. When submitting papers, we see an option to submit it in arxiv and it seems to me that the acceptance to the arxiv would probably be much faster than usual journal. I want to ask if publishing articles in arxiv instead of usual journals would make my career less promising or not.... thank you:)</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28095,
"author": "P.Windridge",
"author_id": 21527,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21527",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Submitting a paper to arXiv.org is not equivalent to publishing. There is no peer-review process and no acceptance (well, apart from a lax moderation policy).</p>\n\n<p>The arXiv is a preprint server. It is not good practice to upload documents that you do not intend to submit (at least in my research area).</p>\n\n<p>It will look rather suspicious if you have only a string of arXiv papers in your CV that have not been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal of good standing.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28097,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>No, you shouldn't just submit to the arXiv instead of journals. </p>\n\n<p>Articles in the arXiv are not considered published in the traditional sense, and they are not peer reviewed. In fields that use the arXiv, papers are typically submitted there and to a journal (but you can do this only if the journal's policies permit it, so you should check if you aren't sure). The role of the arXiv is then to provide access to preprints before publication and \"green open access\" to published papers.</p>\n\n<p>You don't have to submit an arXiv paper for publication, and occasionally people use it to distribute papers they don't intend to publish (and for which they aren't looking for publication credit). But you should be careful to avoid getting a reputation for putting mediocre papers on the arXiv.</p>\n\n<p>There have been a few high-profile cases of great arXiv papers that were never published, like Perelman's work on the Poincaré conjecture. However, you can't get away with that when starting an academic career (unless you are revolutionizing your field). If you just submit papers to the arXiv and not to journals or conferences, it will destroy your career. They will count for far less than published papers, and search committees will wonder about all sorts of explanations. Are you profoundly eccentric? Do you have no idea how academic careers work? Are your papers just not good enough for journals? Is there something you are hoping nobody finds out via peer review (e.g., that you plagiarized or rediscovered something already known)? Basically, everyone will make uncharitable negative assumptions, in addition to considering the papers themselves as worth less.</p>\n\n<p>The question you've asked is a perfectly reasonable thing to wonder about, but I find it a little alarming that you've basically proposed career suicide with no indication that your advisor has warned you. This suggests that talking with your advisor more about career issues could be helpful, or attempting to find another mentor if your advisor is not so helpful. Academic career paths can be narrow and demanding, and good advice is essential.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28098,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As the other posters have suggested, you should not rely exclusively on arXiv uploads as \"publications.\"</p>\n\n<p>However, if I understood your question correctly, the arXiv \"option\" is not an option to publish <em>instead of</em>, but rather <em>in addition to</em>, your submission. In effect, many journals allow you to upload to public repositories like arXiv while <em>simultaneously</em> submitting the article for consideration to the journal. For example, all of the <a href=\"http://journals.aps.org\">APS</a> and <a href=\"http://journals.aip.org\">AIP journals</a> allow for this option. This allows you to reach readers who may be interested in your journal but who do not have access to those journals for whatever reason. This can be a very effective strategy for maximizing \"views\" of your article. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21426/"
] |
28,103 |
<p>I completed a BA in philosophy, but then my interests changed and I did a BSc in mathematics. I am currently finishing my MSc in mathematics and applying for a PhD in maths. I have the following questions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Does the fact that my very first degree was in philosophy put me at a disadvantage in terms of applying for a PhD? Could it potentially be interpreted as a sign of indecision or inadequate motivation?</p></li>
<li><p>Should I refer to my philosophy degree at all in my personal statement? Does my change of academic interests call for an explanation, or is it better to leave it out?</p></li>
</ol>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28106,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The way I see it (but I am not in any admissions committee), the career choice that you did being 18 should have very little impact now. At that age, most people are immature.</p>\n\n<p>For me, having those two degrees tells me:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>You have had the persistence to finish the Philosophy degree, even knowing that that was not your cup of tea; and then pursue your real desire.</li>\n<li>You have the flexibility to work on very different intellectual environments.</li>\n<li>Your experience is broader than most people that start their Maths degree at 18. Also, you are in Mathematics after a concious decision, and it was revalidated when you pursued a MSc, and now applying for a PhD.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In any case, I think you should absolutely mention it, otherwise you would have a 3 years gap to explain. Having been studying is definitely better than doing nothing.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28109,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me add on to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/28106/15723\">Davidmh's answer above</a>. The major issue is that you're <strong>not</strong> switching from philosophy to mathematics at this stage; you already made the switch a long time ago. As far as the graduate schools are concerned, you will be evaluated <em>as a mathematics major would be</em>. </p>\n\n<p>If you believe your study of philosophy will help make a case for your admission as a mathematics graduate student, then you should mention that in your statement of purpose. However, you need not obsess over it; no one will say that you're unable to pursue graduate studies in math just because you started out in philosophy.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28125,
"author": "Edmund Heaphy",
"author_id": 15927,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15927",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I must say I find this question quite odd in light of the two undergraduate degrees you have: philosophy and mathematics. They have been linked for thousands of years, and some of the most prominent mathematicians of the past two hundred years were philosophers. And some of the most prominent philosophers were also mathematicians. They have gone hand-in-hand for a really long time.</p>\n\n<p>George Boolos, author of <em>the</em> textbook on mathematical logic, Computability and Logic (I'd be surprised if you hadn't used it during your undergraduate studies), started out with a degree in mathematics from Harvard, did a masters at Oxford in philosophy and mathematics, and particularly the philosophy of mathematics, and went on to do a PhD in philosophy at MIT. </p>\n\n<p>People like Hilary Putnam, one of the most famous philosophers alive, have made major contributions to mathematics even <em>outside</em> of the philosophy of mathematics. Putnam published major works on the Boolean satisfiability problem and Hilbert's tenth problem, for instance.</p>\n\n<p>Another prominent mathematician, Solomon Feferman, is also a philosopher.</p>\n\n<p>While certainly there are not a lot of Fields or Abel winners who are philosophers, there is no doubt that the two fields compliment each other immensely.</p>\n\n<p>More relevant is the fact that there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that there is <em>no way</em> having an undergraduate degree in philosophy could somehow negatively impact your application. It can <em>only</em> improve it in universities where they understand the links between the fields, and in departments where it doesn't, it's going to have no impact at all given you also have a masters in mathematics.</p>\n\n<p>I must say that I am surprised, however, that someone considering doing a PhD in Mathematics would be so oblivious to the obvious, though.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28103",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21229/"
] |
28,108 |
<p>This <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/28053/929">answer of mine</a>, in which I advocate listing internal funding of your PhD studies on your CV, is not well liked. When evaluating potential post docs for my lab, I am interested in if the applicant is going to be competitive for external funding. I take self funding a PhD as being an indication that the applicant was unable to obtain external funding. I give applicants who were funded internally by a department or someone else's grant a big pass since the need for external funding was absent. Is the no funding/internal funding distinction important for a potential post doc supervisor to know? If not why?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28106,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The way I see it (but I am not in any admissions committee), the career choice that you did being 18 should have very little impact now. At that age, most people are immature.</p>\n\n<p>For me, having those two degrees tells me:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>You have had the persistence to finish the Philosophy degree, even knowing that that was not your cup of tea; and then pursue your real desire.</li>\n<li>You have the flexibility to work on very different intellectual environments.</li>\n<li>Your experience is broader than most people that start their Maths degree at 18. Also, you are in Mathematics after a concious decision, and it was revalidated when you pursued a MSc, and now applying for a PhD.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In any case, I think you should absolutely mention it, otherwise you would have a 3 years gap to explain. Having been studying is definitely better than doing nothing.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28109,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me add on to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/28106/15723\">Davidmh's answer above</a>. The major issue is that you're <strong>not</strong> switching from philosophy to mathematics at this stage; you already made the switch a long time ago. As far as the graduate schools are concerned, you will be evaluated <em>as a mathematics major would be</em>. </p>\n\n<p>If you believe your study of philosophy will help make a case for your admission as a mathematics graduate student, then you should mention that in your statement of purpose. However, you need not obsess over it; no one will say that you're unable to pursue graduate studies in math just because you started out in philosophy.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28125,
"author": "Edmund Heaphy",
"author_id": 15927,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15927",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I must say I find this question quite odd in light of the two undergraduate degrees you have: philosophy and mathematics. They have been linked for thousands of years, and some of the most prominent mathematicians of the past two hundred years were philosophers. And some of the most prominent philosophers were also mathematicians. They have gone hand-in-hand for a really long time.</p>\n\n<p>George Boolos, author of <em>the</em> textbook on mathematical logic, Computability and Logic (I'd be surprised if you hadn't used it during your undergraduate studies), started out with a degree in mathematics from Harvard, did a masters at Oxford in philosophy and mathematics, and particularly the philosophy of mathematics, and went on to do a PhD in philosophy at MIT. </p>\n\n<p>People like Hilary Putnam, one of the most famous philosophers alive, have made major contributions to mathematics even <em>outside</em> of the philosophy of mathematics. Putnam published major works on the Boolean satisfiability problem and Hilbert's tenth problem, for instance.</p>\n\n<p>Another prominent mathematician, Solomon Feferman, is also a philosopher.</p>\n\n<p>While certainly there are not a lot of Fields or Abel winners who are philosophers, there is no doubt that the two fields compliment each other immensely.</p>\n\n<p>More relevant is the fact that there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that there is <em>no way</em> having an undergraduate degree in philosophy could somehow negatively impact your application. It can <em>only</em> improve it in universities where they understand the links between the fields, and in departments where it doesn't, it's going to have no impact at all given you also have a masters in mathematics.</p>\n\n<p>I must say that I am surprised, however, that someone considering doing a PhD in Mathematics would be so oblivious to the obvious, though.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28108",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929/"
] |
28,110 |
<p>I am a PhD student in Europe and I am in the state of permanent crisis because of my PhD supervisor. He is a very nice person, who is very active with public engagement, very successful at grant applications and all that. But the problem is, it turns out he does not know the subject. Now I realize this is a very arrogant thing to say. However, for a very long time I refused to believe it and thought that there was some problem with me. Now all evidence (corroborated by others) shows that he really is incompetent. He somehow manages to pull it off, getting on other people's papers and so on.</p>
<p>The fact that this takes place in Europe is significant: I had to choose someone from the start of my PhD and the time is extremely limited. Also, I am not sure, but I have an impression that you will not be able to get funded, if you quit your PhD and start over. Is this so? Also, there is a <em>very</em> small number of people doing similar things around and none in the same institution. Additionally, it seems very likely, that no one would support a rebellion (i.e. switching a supervisor), because of politics.</p>
<p>I have a very good track record, I finished at a top American university with very high grades, and most importantly I do want to do research. So this situation makes me very unhappy. I can't see any way out, but maybe there is someone who can? I will consider changing the field somewhat (but not too radically) and starting over, but it seems like the funding will most definitely not be available. Or maybe it will?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28112,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Switching from one thesis supervisor to another is hardly a \"rebellion\". In fact it's a fairly common thing: in my own PhD program it seems to happen roughly 5-10% of the time. (In institutions with a higher rate of faculty turnover, it is probably more common.) And switching advisors is <em>much</em> easier than any form of \"starting over a PhD\". You should definitely look into this: starting by identifying some other faculty member in your program that you think would be a more suitable supervisor, and see if they are amenable to research-related discussions.</p>\n\n<p>Your claim that your advisor \"really is incompetent\" is disturbing. I am a bit skeptical of it: not necessarily through arrogance, graduate students often have unrealistic ideas about faculty knowledge. If you walk into my office and ask me a question about something, maybe I can answer it right away and maybe I can't. But if I can't it might still be in one of my papers! Being an expert is much more about knowing how to find out important information / solve problems eventually than about what can be summoned at a moment's notice. In general I feel like I am fairly helpful in providing information to others in a professional context, but I have had the experience of people who for whatever reason simply don't wait a reasonable amount of time for me to answer their question. I remember one person in particular who would ask me a question cold, and after less than a minute of my thinking about it, he would say \"Never mind\" and move on to something else. That was rather frustrating: what kind of question is important enough to deliberately ask someone else yet not important enough to wait a few minutes for a good response? </p>\n\n<p>Another point is that there are levels of expertise. Most faculty members are regional, national or global experts on <em>something</em>; but that thing or things may not be what they are teaching in all their courses or even what they want their students to work on. One of the hard parts of the advisor/student relationship is to find a topic of mutual interest in which the advisor's expertise is strong and can be appropriately conveyed to the student. Oftentimes this requires some patience and several tries: most of my students have not written their thesis on the first thing I suggested to them.</p>\n\n<p>Anyway, though I may not want to, I have to admit the possibility that there are truly incompetent faculty members supervising PhD students. That sucks. If you feel this way about your advisor that's more than enough reason to look for a new advisor. But I think that in practice you should keep this to yourself as a reason for switching, at least until your thesis is approved and you are ready to move on to your new job. To have an incompetent tenured professor is only possible through some alarming combination of enabling / incompetence / total lack of contact or oversight on the part of the other faculty in the department. Fixing that kind of problem is above your pay grade.</p>\n\n<p><b>Added</b>: Though switching to a different faculty member in your department is easiest, it need not be the best choice: there may or may not be another suitable advisor in your current department. It's quite possible to transfer from one PhD program to another: doing so need not be (and probably will not be, unless you promote it this way yourself) a failure or rebellion. If you have only been in your current program for a year or two, you could plausibly start fresh elsewhere. If it's been more than that, you may want to look into the possibility of arriving at another program with advanced standing, up to \"ABD status\". Also, (especially) if you are American and studying in Europe, maybe consider coming back to the US, especially if that's part of your post-PhD plans. I mention that because coming back to your native country provides a sort of implicit explanation for your change of programs: many fewer questions will be asked of you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28114,
"author": "Sumyrda - remember Monica",
"author_id": 13138,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13138",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Adding a student's perspective to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/28112/15723\">Pete's answer</a>:</p>\n\n<p>My advisor told me at the being of my master thesis, that soon I would know more about my particular area of research than him. At the time I didn't believe a word he said, but at our third meeting I was already explaining stuff to him and by the fifth I started to feel irritated that I had to explain stuff to him which I didn't have to explain to his PhD student whom I collaborated with.</p>\n\n<p>But then I realised that I worked on this topic all day every day, my collaborator worked on a related topic and discussed my research with me several times a week but my advisor only got to spend time on this topic every other week when we met with him, because he had plenty of other students to advise in the meantime and also had his own research, teaching and some administration to do.</p>\n\n<p>So from the sixth meeting on it became a habit for me to open the meeting with a quick catch up on my topic and my progress before diving into the details. And from that meeting on I always got great advice from him.</p>\n\n<p>I think you need to think about whether you have given your advisor a fair chance to help you when you were stuck and whether he has been able to help in that regard, because that's his job and knowing all the details about your current topic is your job.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28132,
"author": "Relaxed",
"author_id": 11596,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11596",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It's true that switching advisers might be difficult, especially within the same department. There are a few other options:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Make do and finish your PhD nonetheless. Remember a PhD is supposed to be an open-ended research work on a challenging topic. It means that many things are not going to work, that the end result cannot be perfect and, importantly, that your adviser cannot hold your hand and lead you to a guaranteed solution like instructors in bachelor or master courses. It's difficult to judge how serious the situation is from the outside but some level of frustration is quite common and you do need to manage your expectations (if your adviser has time for you and is happy to sign off on your work, you are in a better position than many PhD candidates…).</p></li>\n<li><p>Seek a secondary adviser. For better or for worse, it's actually quite common for professors to oversee theses on a broad range of subjects and exercise only minimal supervision, relying on junior colleagues to deal with the details. In some cases, the secondary adviser can also be a full-professor at another university. Ideally, he or she should complement the first one and help deal with some specific aspect of the topic the latter knows less well. This could help you get guidance on some important aspect of your work you feel your current adviser is not competent to deal with. But do clear that first with him before approaching others. </p></li>\n<li><p>Switch adviser. Yes, it's difficult and politics often make it almost impossible within the same institution but it's not unheard of. If things look very dire, think about switching country. I know someone from Germany who rescued her thesis that way. The way she explained it, things went very bad with her previous adviser and she would not have been able to defend at her university or to switch advisers. But a professor at my university thought the work was good and took over the thesis almost at the end, asking for about 6 months of work to correct and add various things.</p></li>\n<li><p>Start over. It might be somewhat more difficult to get hired (or not) but it's not the case that it would be impossible to get funded Europe-wide. Here again, if some country-specific regulation regarding grants complicates things, consider going to another country. As noted by Pete, going back to the US is also an option and would be easier to explain later on.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>You can also seek advice from other people at your university. There might be a research coordinator, a PhD “coach” or councilor or some HR person whose role is to help in those situations. But whatever you do, be very careful how you present things: “my adviser is incompetent” might not go well.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28141,
"author": "o-0",
"author_id": 21552,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21552",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Actually you are asking two different questions: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>The supervisor is not good, for whatever reason. So how to change the supervisor, in a political oriented office environment. </p></li>\n<li><p>The research area is and its potential contributions are all on you (few people are doing it around), and with addition to the 'bad' supervisor what can you do, such as large number of publications for better future in research (find a postdoc, academic, etc.) </p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So here are my answer to that: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Let me give you the benefit of the doubt. Some academics are in fact horrible mentors. Lets face it, being an academic means the person has large number of publications and good networking here and there. Also their job doesn't require to be 'nice'. They can close their doors and don't really supervise, act like crazy person, but as long as they have large number of publications, with the name of the university on the top of it; they will be praised. So here what I do: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Talk to your supervisor, and express your unhappiness. Tell him/her this is not what you are expecting. He does not supervise in the area of his/her expertise, and therefore not suitable for you. </li>\n<li>Talk to the head of research group, or the person in charge, and express your unhappiness about your supervisor. </li>\n<li>All the universities have human resources. You go there and tell them, you need to change your supervisor; and you talked to him/her and the head of the group; but nothings seems to change. </li>\n</ol></li>\n<li><p>This is the tricky one! Some supervisors get a PhD student, and want them to be a postdoc (independent researchers). Now that you already started your PhD, with some effort, you can change a little, the direction of the research; but stick to the same area. For example, if I'm doing a research about security in software systems, and all the other PhD students around me are doing research in the area of database; I can change the focus of my PhD to the security in the database systems, and write my thesis about it. Remember, you are the one that will defend your thesis, in whatever area you want it to be. </p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Good luck.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28163,
"author": "DrPsychadelic",
"author_id": 21565,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21565",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Oh wow! I've seen other MSc students in that situation - they arrived at college and felt the course wasn't what the were expecting. I've been in that exact same political situation in my PhD (one minute I was publishing papers and cruising across the edge of space like a SR-71, next minute I find myself shot down because someone else felt I had invaded their airspace). </p>\n\n<p>Your university should have a PhD course councilor. That's the first person to talk to, in order to explore your options. Many universities now require that each PhD student has two supervisors to make the thesis stronger, and to avoid any problems due to \"sudden departure\" by a single member of staff. Perhaps you can suggest this. You could also try to see if you can adjust the direction of your thesis to suit your needs. My supervisor had a preference for tried and tested technology - crufty bits of code out of 1970's coding cookbooks. I let him direct my work in this direction even though I could see the rest of the industry was moving onto cloud computing, parallel processing and GPU's. My external examiner then asked why I hadn't used any of those technologies.</p>\n\n<p>The purpose of completing a PhD is to demonstrate that you have creativity, can keep up with the rest of industry, see where things are going wrong, think up ways that they could be improved or fixed, evaluate them systematically, and convince others logically and tactfully that this is the correct direction to take. So if you have a feeling if something isn't going right, you have to tell someone. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28293,
"author": "arj",
"author_id": 21618,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21618",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have not even completed MS so I can't predict the detailed experience of a PhD student but before changing your supervisor, please give it a second thought. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I had to choose someone from the start of my PhD and the time is extremely limited.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You admit that you have limited time span for PhD completion and most it has already finished. Selecting some other supervisor, creating a mutual understanding and good working relationship, and completing your work atleast at the same pace at which you are working will most probably consume the time left and you may not be able to complete your thesis in the given duration. \n<br/>Now lets assume, the time limit has exceeded, you'll have to face financial pressures as well in addition to the actual workload. You may get financial assistance (if you are lucky enough) but what if you don't get it? You'll have to work for managing your finances. Obviously, you'll need some time for it, which means your concentration will be divided between your job for managing expenses and your research work. Feeling bored, tired and depressed is very common among graduate students so even if you think you are really happy and contended (which you don't seem to be), with the passage of time you'll get more and more frustrated with the time your PhD is taking to be completed. So in short things will most probably get worse. (At this point i can be called a pessimist :) but still all this is possible to happen)</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>He is a very nice person, who is very active with public engagement, very successful at grant applications and all that.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So you are actually satisfied with the non-technical/social side of your supervisor and the major (if not only) reason for dissatisfaction is his lack of technical expertise. Lets assume, you manage to somehow change your supervisor (even without facing any political issue). What if the new supervisor is technically very sound but is non-technically too rude, proud and arrogant; not very social, takes too much time to respond to your queries, is not very good at public engagements, not really good at grant applications and so on. \n<br/> You'll most probably start comparing the two supervisors in each and every single thing that happens to you. There is a big chance that you'll start missing the old one and will find some other problems in the new one. You'll regret your decision and will want to go back but most probably you won't be able to due all those financial, time, ego and politics related issues. If you continue going on in the same nostalgic mood, you'll start comparing the students/researchers working under the two supervisors and you'll probably find the better ones working with your old supervisor. In short, chances are there that you'll feel more depressed and frustrated that you are right now. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>But the problem is, it turns out he does not know the subject</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It may be just a wrong assumption. I totally agree with the well explained response of @Sumyrda and @Pete L. Clark</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Now all evidence (corroborated by others) shows that he really is incompetent. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Don't be misguided and confused. Every one has his own opinion about the same thing and can have different experience based on his/her mindset, psychology, behavior etc. Being a student, i can easily say that there are very few students in the whole world who'll proudly say that their supervisor is actually a good one. Most students are dissatisfied by their supervisor due to one reason or the other. \n<br/> At this point, you must use your own experience only to decided about your supervisor. Don't try to judge your supervisor in terms of the experience of \"OTHERS\". He/she may not be considered a good supervisor by everyone else in the world but still there is a chance that he/she prove to be the best supervisor for you or vice versa. \n<br/> I may be wrong but i think that when you started working with this supervisor you were happy. You started expecting a lot from your supervisor and he/she was unable to meet your expectations. In the meanwhile, you tried to convince yourself that everything is fine. If in case any thing is wrong, its with you. Then at a later stage, you started discussing it with your fellows. They shared their experiences with you and you started making opinions based on their stories. Please don't be judgmental about your supervisor. He/she may actually not be that bad. \nEven if he/she is, no one in this world is perfect. Every one has some strengths as well as weaknesses and we need to accept this fact. Your new supervisor will not be perfect as well. Strengths and weaknesses may vary but they'll be there. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>He somehow manages to pull it off, getting on other people's papers and so on.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It seems that he tries his best to satisfy (but may be unfortunately he is not successful in his efforts). What if he or your supposedly new supervisor is least bothered and does not even try? You'll have to live and work even in that situation. At the end of the day, its your work and your job. No one else can live your life. <em>\"Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else\"</em>- Les Brown\n<br/> You are going to be a PhD soon and you should not expect spoon feeding from your supervisor like a FYP student. Its your field of specialization not you supervisor's so you should know more about it than him (and you'll definitely know more). Getting on other's papers is fine because no one is expert of everything. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Additionally, it seems very likely, that no one would support a rebellion (i.e. switching a supervisor), because of politics.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This part is actually serious (although most fellows here will probably won't take it seriously and ideally it shouldn't be). But lets assume you are right that your supervisor and department suffer from organizational politics etc. Changing your supervisor would really harm you. If you manage to change your supervisor (taking care of time limitations, financial, administrative and departmental issues) but your supervisor(both new and old one) are in the same department or even in same university. In such a case, you can't surely assume that you'll never see him again. If you'll have to interact with him, what level of interaction would it be? Based on this interaction, you can decide the consequences. </p>\n\n<p><br/> <strong>Last but not the least</strong>, have you actually considered alternate PhD supervisors available for switching? Does their research interest match exactly with what your work requires? What kind of guarantee can you provide yourself that your new supervisor would be technically more strong and overall better than the current one. Even if you have enough time, finance and every other relevant thing, you can't spend the whole life experiencing supervisors for PhD. Currently you are experiencing Mr. A, left him, went to Mr. B, worked with him and realized he is no better than Mr. A or is even worst than A, then what would you do? Coming back to A or finding some Mr. C would definitely be not possible</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28110",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21538/"
] |
28,116 |
<p>I'm curious about today's focus on external funding versus that of the past. </p>
<p>In Mathematics anyway, it seems that the quality of a researcher is increasingly being measured in dollars of external funding rather than by some other, more idealistic measure. That means that pure mathematics, for instance, seems to be much less valued than "fundable" mathematics. </p>
<p>Do any veterans have any perspective on what seems like a changing climate? Are things really different today than they were 20 years ago with regard to the importance of obtaining funding for ones research?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28121,
"author": "Eric",
"author_id": 20424,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20424",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>When I was in the Netherlands, a group at the university needed about 450,000 euros to fund a PhD student. If the money is not coming from the university either indirectly from the government or other revenue sources, then the money needs to be secured by the faculty themselves.</p>\n\n<p>In the US, the story is similar, but the costs may vary. In short, academia is not cheap and someone has to pay for it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28127,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I agree that there is more pressure nowadays to get funding in areas like pure math in which it's valuable but not mandatory for doing great work. It's still entirely possible to make an argument along the lines of \"Sure, Alice doesn't get much funding, but look how wonderful her papers are,\" but it's slowly getting harder.</p>\n\n<p>The short answer as to why this is happening is World War II plus inertia. Here's a longer answer:</p>\n\n<p>The first thing to keep in mind is that grant funding is on average genuinely good for universities, because the overhead rate paid to the university is often higher than any extra costs imposed on the university. All other things being equal, it makes sense to prefer to hire faculty who can get funding, because they are subsidizing the infrastructure for everyone else (e.g., libraries and internet access). Of course, all other things are rarely truly equal, and I wouldn't advocate for giving grant funding much weight, but there's a reasonable argument for giving it nonzero weight.</p>\n\n<p>There's also a temptation to use funding as a simple numerical measure of popularity. Universities should serve the public, and it's clear that people are much more eager to fund work in some topics than others. It's not crazy to take that into account in university decisions. However, if taken too far I feel it's an abdication of our responsibility for intellectual leadership.</p>\n\n<p>But why do these things seem to be changing in recent decades? Universities are generally conservative and slow to change, so it's always worth looking for an explanation of any movement, and in this case I think it's World War II.</p>\n\n<p>Most funding agencies were set up in the aftermath of the war (e.g., the U.S. National Science Foundation dates back to 1950), and the whole tradition of large-scale government funding of research didn't even exist until then. How academic leaders reacted to it was based on their personal history, and academic inertia meant the changes were slow in coming. Some of the effects are still surfacing now.</p>\n\n<p>Let's divide things up into academic generations since World War II, giving each generation a twenty year time span to displace the previous one. Here are my impressions of what happened for cheap or theoretical areas in which funding is not essential to do good work (I'm sure things were very different in big science):</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>The senior faculty of Generation 1 (1945-1965) were strongly influenced by pre-war traditions. They had never dreamt of making hiring decisions based on external funding and weren't about to start doing so now. They were suspicious of how wisely the funding would be allocated, and they saw no reason to think these agencies were even going to continue indefinitely in their present form.</p></li>\n<li><p>Those in Generation 2 (1965-1985) had still been brought up to be skeptical of paying more attention to funding track records than necessary. However, they were getting more comfortable with the funding agencies and starting to wonder about how grants could or should be taken into account. I believe this is the point at which listing grant funding on your CV became mainstream in pure mathematics.</p></li>\n<li><p>The senior faculty in Generation 3 (1985-2005) went further and began taking funding information into account in ways that would have scandalized Generation 1. If you didn't list grants on your CV, the dean might now complain about it. But there was still a sense that this was somehow shallow and historically new.</p></li>\n<li><p>Generation 4 seems to be taking the trend still further and normalizing it.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Of course this is all vastly oversimplified, and no serious history can be conveyed in a few paragraph-long sketches (even if I were an expert). However, the key phenomenon is real: the funding landscape was revolutionized after World War II, and academic traditions have slowly been adapting to this fact.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28116",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20776/"
] |
28,117 |
<p>Often in a Calculus or Linear Algebra class, my students may ask - when am I ever going to use this? The answer I try to give them is "You're not. And that's totally OK. But you do need to learn how to think logically and solve problems. Mathematics provides a safe place to learn these thinking skills."</p>
<p>But increasingly, the focus of the students is still "Is this going to be on the test?" </p>
<p>They seem unhappy when questions they haven't seen before end up on the test. My thought is that if they learn the process for solving problems, then they should know how to approach a new (but similar) problem. </p>
<p>I'm not interested in seeing them regurgitate facts, but I want them to develop their thinking skills and use them to solve new problems. This often causes backlash. I get it - learning how to think is harder than memorizing facts.</p>
<p>How do I effectively communicate that it's not the individual questions or ideas that are important, but it's the learning and thinking processes that are key?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28119,
"author": "J.R.",
"author_id": 780,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/780",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I disagree with your fundamental premise: that the concepts <em>won't</em> be used, and therefore the main benefit of learning calculus is to hone a student's problem-solving skills. </p>\n\n<p>Many engineering problems <em>do</em> require an understanding of calculus. Perhaps not all your students are destined to be engineers or physicists, but, if you explain that there are people who <em>do</em> need and use this knowledge to advance in their career field and solve real-world problems, you might get them to sit up and realize they aren't trudging through their homework as a mere academic exercise. Fact is, some of these courses are taught to freshmen and sophomores because they <em>will</em> need those problem-solving skills as juniors and seniors – not just to know how to solve a problem, but to also understand the underlying theory and mathematics. If all the students in a particular demographic will never use calculus in the future, then they probably don't need to take calculus now. </p>\n\n<p>I'd try to find some real-world problems that require the knowledge taught in your course to solve. Perhaps that might spark an interest and help students realize that the are not just solving integrals for integrals' sake. </p>\n\n<p>If I was at your university, and I taught an upper-level engineering course in heat transfer or thermodynamics, I'd be disappointed to learn that my students' calculus teacher thought the main reason to teach my engineers calculus was to provide a \"safe place\" for them to \"learn how to think logically and solve problems.\" </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28122,
"author": "Alex",
"author_id": 21251,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21251",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While it's indeed likely that many of your students will not extensively use the material they learn in your class, it may not be encouraging to them to hear that they won't use it. And indeed, they do learn important critical thinking skills, but they may be wondering what is special about the sort of critical thinking in calculus and linear algebra that they couldn't get out of another course.</p>\n\n<p>In this vein, one solution may be to present real-world examples of how calculus and linear algebra are used today, get the students involved as you present, and <em>relate the topic to the students' lives</em>. </p>\n\n<p>For instance, after you present a basic optimization example (maximize fence perimeter given the area it contains) you might present a slightly more complicated problem <a href=\"http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcI/MoreOptimization.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">(building a window of a particular shape that maximizes the amount of light coming through with a fixed amount of building material, for instance)</a>, and get the class involved in trying to solve the problem. Ask them what's different about it, maybe have them briefly discuss a strategy with the person next to them. (This is not usually done in a large class, but at least one very popular professor at my school does this in his large classes.)</p>\n\n<p>Continuing with the example of optimization, there's a great topic on matheducators.stackexchange about real-life optimization problems <a href=\"https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/a/1561\">here</a>. In particular, I've linked to a problem that video-game players might find to be really cool and related to their everyday lives. Of course, it may also help to branch out and briefly discuss some current, advanced applications of calculus and linear algebra. An excellent example where ideas from calculus and linear algebra are essential is the story of how <a href=\"http://www.sus-bus.com/ups-route-optimization/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">UPS route optimization involves the minimization of left turns</a>. This last example might inspire a lively discussion in your classes, because it shows how calculus and linear algebra can trump everyday intuition... and how pushing beyond a basic understanding can lead to new, interesting ideas! (I'm sure if you asked students in class, they could come up with reasons for why UPS's strategy might make sense.)</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, some students might not be moved by industry applications and might benefit from seeing mathematics as the kind of \"safe place\" you suggest where perfect formulations lead to perfect results. Strogatz has some interesting words <a href=\"http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/horizons/strogatz_feb14.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">in a Math Horizons article</a> about the importance of enabling others to experience the beauty of math, and he provides a great example of why math is beautiful. I also just found a <a href=\"https://www.ted.com/talks/greg_lynn_on_organic_design\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">TED talk discussing the use of calculus in some parts of modern architecture</a>. Though this last one is admittedly again an industry application, it at least sheds some light about how aesthetics and mathematics can interact in interesting ways.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28117",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20776/"
] |
28,118 |
<p>Instructors can use reflective teaching to analyze their teaching, in the hope that they can improve their course for subsequent terms. If a teacher focused on insuring that all students earned A's, would that bring about unintended negative consequences.</p>
<p>Here are some examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>If some students did not earn an A because they failed to understand some material, the teacher would attempt try harder in the next term to explain this material more clearly and to also identify or correct the course readings.</li>
<li>If some students did not earn an A because they were uninterested and unmotivated, the teacher should try harder to make the lessons more interesting.</li>
</ul>
<p>Assume that students only earn an A by demonstrating that they have achieved the course goals, the teacher never lowers their standards for what is an A, and students not made aware of this goal, would such an "all A's from everyone" focus create any intended problems?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28139,
"author": "Steve V.",
"author_id": 10661,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10661",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<h2>No, there are no negative consequences.</h2>\n<p>The key is this sentence right here:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Assume that students only earn an A by demonstrating that they have\nachieved the course goals</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>That being the case, grading becomes evaluating the following:</p>\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/BDYUw.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\" /></p>\n<p><em>If everyone in the class is able to do everything that they <strong>should</strong> be able to do... mission accomplished</em></p>\n<hr />\n<p><em>Edit</em>: I teach pilots how to land airplanes safely. Students only earn an A by demonstrating that they have achieved course goals (they land the plane), and I never lower my standards for anyone (you don't get an A unless you land safely). As for the third criteria, I don't make students explicitly aware of my goal, but let's face it, it's implicit in the training.</p>\n<p>My argument comes from seven years of personal experience:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are there any negative consequences of me making sure that all my students are able to land the plane safely? No.</li>\n<li>Are there any negative consequences of me <em>not</em> making sure that all of my students are able to land the plane safely? Yes: flame and then newspaper headlines.</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28145,
"author": "David Richerby",
"author_id": 10685,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The potential disadvantage is that wanting every student to get the top grade results in the teacher spending all their time with the weaker students. The stronger students, who can get an A without extra help, don't get stretched and find the course dull and unmotivating. Thus, the next generation of people who might take the subject farther, even to research level, get switched off and do something else.</p>\n\n<p>You're also assuming that every student is capable of getting the top grade, and they're not. However much time and effort you put in, you will not get the weakest students up to the level of the top grade. Your time and effort are valuable: it doesn't make sense to invest them beyond the point where they've stopped having any effect.</p>\n\n<p>Also, what does it even mean for every student to get an A? If your entire grading system is essentially a single binary decision of \"Can do X\" versus \"Cannot do X\", wouldn't a pass/fail system make more sense?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28146,
"author": "ping",
"author_id": 15507,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15507",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's not clear to me how a teacher would know whether students missed an A because they \"failed to understand some material\" or whether they were \"uninterested and unmotivated\".</p>\n\n<p>If most people are getting an acceptable mark then repeatedly changing the course to try and make it more interesting to a small portion of the class could lead to:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>actually making the course less interesting to a larger group of people - not everyone will find the same things interesting.</li>\n<li>making the teacher(s) less capable of teaching the course well since they're now less familiar with the outline.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Also, if a specific course gets a reputation for a high level of As being achieved, it could potentially attract people that want to take the course because they expect an easy A. I don't think that's really much of a problem though, and shouldn't put people off making an interesting and well explained course.</p>\n\n<p>So: while there are probably no real disadvantages to aiming for all students to get an A, a poor implementation has potential disadvantages and if \"all students should get an A\" becomes some kind of department standard (or maybe even just a personal goal), it has potential to cause stress, annoyance, and low morale as it may be an unobtainable goal for staff to meet.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28118",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/"
] |
28,126 |
<p>I saw the PhD transcript of a colleague graduated from a US university. There was no score for the <code>dissertation</code>, just stated <code>Pass</code> with no effect on the cumulative GPA.</p>
<p>Is it common?</p>
<p>How the dissetation quality controls the final GPA? </p>
<p>Isn't the major academic credit (40 - 60%) of a PhD program its dissertation?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28128,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is it common?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>How the dissertation quality controls the final GPA?\n Isn't the major academic credit (40 - 60%) of a PhD program its dissertation?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The quality of the dissertation has no impact on the final GPA because <strong>nobody cares about the PhD GPA</strong>. </p>\n\n<p>The only real indicator of the quality of a PhD student's work is the research he/she produced over the course of the PhD, which can't be reduced in a meaningful way to a single number.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28129,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, this is near-universal in the United States. Dissertations are not graded, and the GPA includes only course grades.</p>\n\n<p>For the most part, people do not care about course grades in Ph.D. programs once you've completed your dissertation. The GPA is understood to refer only to courses, so the GPA is also not considered important. In particular, it is not viewed as a summary score for the whole program, but rather only for the initial coursework.</p>\n\n<p>Dissertation quality is measured by reading it, gauging where it was published, or reading letters of recommendation. For any job where the hiring committee cares how good the dissertation was, they will be reading recommendation letters, so there would be little benefit in having a numerical score in addition to the letters.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 38927,
"author": "einpoklum",
"author_id": 7319,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7319",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is my (not-well-founded) belief that PhD dissertations are not graded because grading is (or should be considered) essentially foreign to academia, and it is industry, or the commercial world, which has the basic interest in placing people on a unidimensional numeric scale of who's better than whom. It is (somewhat) humiliated to be stamped with a number or grade. When you've made a significant research contribution, you are respected by not being graded any more.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28126",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
] |
28,130 |
<p>For the problem I am trying to solve,
I considered 2 base algorithms and devised about 30 variations on each.</p>
<p>I then threw about 2 CPU-years and ran a number of simulations to see how they went.</p>
<p>When that completed I drew alot of graphs and came to some conclusions like:</p>
<ol>
<li>Variations of the form <code>X</code> do almost exactly as well as the control</li>
<li>Variations of the <code>Y</code> family can be predicted to have unpredictable (and thus useless) results</li>
<li>The <code>d[1,0*]</code> variation is great under these conditions</li>
<li>The <code>d[0*]</code> variation is great under these other conditions</li>
</ol>
<p>I took the last 2 and made a new algorithm and then tested that and found further useful results.</p>
<p>Now I am going to write my findings up into a paper.</p>
<p>I have 3 kind of results above:</p>
<ul>
<li>Points 3,4 (and the subsequent improvements) are interesting and will be the main focus of the paper.</li>
<li>Points 1, 2, are kind of nonresults. They are failures, they did not produce anything useful.
<ul>
<li>For most it isn't even surprising that they didn't.</li>
<li>For others they are a approach by taken on a similar problem in a paper that inspired me to try and solve this related problem.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>So should I comment at all about algorithm variations that were tested and found to not be good?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Why/why not?</strong></p>
Pros I can see:
<p>This would help prevent others, not spend time trying them. I have read that it is a problem that in many disciplines (including this one) "negative results are not published".</p>
Cons I can see:
<p>Takes up space, may confuse reader as to which algorithm is the focus of the paper.</p>
<p>It feels abit weird that of the 2 CPU-years I spent testing these, and the considerable time I spent making the tests, I will only tell the rest of the world <strong>about 5% of my results</strong>.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28135,
"author": "Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen",
"author_id": 11257,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11257",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You could omit the uninteresting 95% in the peer-review journal version, but include them as an appendix in the arxiv.org version of the paper. That way they're available but you're not forcing anyone to read them...</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28189,
"author": "ddiez",
"author_id": 21435,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21435",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Negative results are as interesting, in my opinion, as positive ones. They allow future researches to know what won't work, and prevent them wasting their time (unless they thing you did something wrong- in which case they will try it anyway :-). However, the main paper should probably focus on the positive part, since most researchers have enough to read already and will not care much about the negative results. </p>\n\n<p>In biology at least, it is frequent to mention some negative result and then include \"(not shown)\". But nowadays with the facilities to add supplementary material there is no reason to not include some proof. I would suggest to include negative results as supplementary material and just mention them in the main manuscript. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28130",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8513/"
] |
28,131 |
<p>I spent sometime recently at a HR department of a government company (in the utilities) in the US.</p>
<p>I accidentally found a file that listed out interview outcomes for new applications for a technical position (spreadsheet jockey - nothing fancy)</p>
<p>Out of the 10 applications, 2 of which had a PhD, 1 with a masters degree and the others unknown.</p>
<p>One of the PhD (call him PhD A) had spent considerable time doing research at a university, the other (call him PhD B) just recently finished his PhD program.</p>
<p>The comments to the interview outcomes as follows:</p>
<p>PhD A:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>spent considerable time in university, have academic (not real world) experience</p></li>
<li><p>might have difficulty adjusting to a new environment </p></li>
<li><p>may contribute to discussions </p></li>
<li><p>not likely to be followed up</p></li>
</ul>
<p>PhD B:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>fresh out of university, have less experience than PhD A</p></li>
<li><p>research is too narrow</p></li>
</ul>
<p>What I found funny is that very few people who actually works at the organization have PhDs (or masters for the junior staff), you'd think they would get a staff rotation just to improve upon their overall knowledge level.</p>
<p>Do you also feel that people with higher degrees are not welcomed with open arm in the job market? Why do you think that is the case? Have you personally faced discrimination or prejudice when applying for a job that is not too academic in nature?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28138,
"author": "Maarten Buis",
"author_id": 14471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14471",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think of a PhD as \"vocational education for researchers\", not as the \"highest level of education\". So if a company is looking for a researcher then a PhD should be an advantage, but if a company is looking for a \"spreadsheet jockey\" as in your example then there is a mismatch between the education and the job and a company should take that into account.</p>\n\n<p>On top of that there are large cultural differences between companies and universities. Such differences can lead to frictions, and if you can hire someone without such frictions then that will be an argument.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28144,
"author": "Eric",
"author_id": 20424,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20424",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It also depends on the type of job someone with a PhD is looking for outside of academia and how strong his or her preference is for \"pure\" research.</p>\n\n<p>In academia, the focus is usually more on \"pure\" research where you just need to demonstrate that an idea is viable. You don't need to bring it all the way through to a finished product. In industry, the focus is usually more on development and/or \"applied\" research where ideas are converted into marketable products or services.</p>\n\n<p>If you have a PhD and have a strong affinity for \"pure\" research and little experience / interest in applied research or development, and you are applying for a job in an organization that does very little pure research, then it will definitely be a disadvantage. However, if you're applying for a position at a research lab in a big or niche company, then this is probably an advantage.</p>\n\n<p>For example, I work for a company that develops software. If during your PhD, all you did was hack together prototypes for your papers and are not very interested in the end application, then I'm not very interested in hiring you. If, on the other hand, you like the end application and like good software development practices, then having a PhD is a big plus.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28512,
"author": "DVK",
"author_id": 20300,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20300",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><blockquote>\n <p>Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've <em>worked</em> in the private sector. They expect <strong>results</strong>. - <em>Dr Ray Stantz, \"Ghostbusters\"</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Basically, the discrimination is not against someone being an academician. The discrimination is against someone having zero industry job experience - and that includes intangible but important things like different priorities, balances and tradeoffs in academia vs the for-profit workplace. You can do research but produce no results in academia. You can research pretty much anything you want. Doesn't work that way in real company.</p>\n\n<p>In other words, an academician who just got his PhD is treated exactly like a fresh BS graduate - nameley, like a guy with education but no industry exposure. <sub>(The difference being that BS analyst level fresh hire isn't paid a lot and doesn't have trust and responsibility in their first job that would have majors consequences because they are unused to \"real world\" and the needs of the business, so they pose a lot less risk)</sub>.</p>\n\n<p>An easy way to falsify your theory is to compare the employability and level of interest in someone who has a PhD vs. someone who has a MS or PhD <strong>and</strong> after that worked in the industry for at least a year. Personally, when I do hiring recommendations, no-experience person has no chance by comparison, all other qualifications being equal.</p></li>\n<li><p>In certain cases, having a PhD isn't of any help (doesn't hurt, but it isn't a research position, or even one requiring super-high-IQ).</p>\n\n<p>As such, a PhD would be a hindrance since PhD holder would expect to be compensated higher merely due to holding his degree (since on average, PhD does lend itself to higher pay if you look at labor market statistics). So, why would a company overpay someone for a useless skill/resume point?</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28131",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20070/"
] |
28,133 |
<p>A professor who knows me very well is currently on maternity leave (her baby arrived in late April). </p>
<p>This professor has known me for 4 years (since first semester of undergraduate career) and also advised my undergraduate thesis (2 semesters). In addition I also did an independent study course with her, and she has provided me funding from her own grant money in the past in order to pay for me attending academic conferences. </p>
<p>I am planning to apply to several master's programs, possibly PhD, in addition to other things that require such letters (Teach for America, Summer School, etc.). All of these things require letters of recommendation. </p>
<p>Is it appropriate to ask her for letters of recommendation on her maternity leave, and if so, how should the request be phrased in email? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28134,
"author": "Neo",
"author_id": 6898,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6898",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><strong>Yes</strong></p>\n\n<p>I think It would be different if say, you took one or two of her classes. But it sounds like she advised you a great deal, and thus she should have some investment in your educational success. Especially if you have talked about graduate school before. What is important is you give her notice as soon as possible so she can find some time to do it: Having a newborn is no easy job. </p>\n\n<p>I would phrase it as follows:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Dear X <em>(unless you call her professor, then Professor X, but my\n advisors I call by their first name)</em></p>\n \n <p>How is your newborn? </p>\n \n <p>I realize you are very busy with your maternity leave, but I was\n hoping you might have some time to write me a strong letter of\n recommendation for graduate school. As you might know I am interested\n in ZQR, and your mentorship over my senior thesis has been essential\n to my education. </p>\n \n <p>Thank you for your time,</p>\n \n <p>user</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I'd also like to add that while I was applying to PhD programs, the professor who eventually became my advisor was on maternity leave while I was asking her questions about the lab. In confidence, she enjoyed my emails because having newborns, while a joy most of the time, often lacks the intellectual rigor that most people are accustomed to in their day to day conversations. </p>\n\n<p>My guess is she will be very happy to do this, and somewhat expects you to ask.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 98772,
"author": "James Peng Liao",
"author_id": 38854,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38854",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is fine since it doesn't take too much time. However, you should ask the professor very politely. Remember just invite one time, if the professor says no you shouldn't invite anymore and say thanks to conclude the request. Anyway, in such case, it would be better if you are very familiar with the professor.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28133",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21069/"
] |
28,148 |
<p>I am doing my MS thesis on wireless networking, I give the codes from the author of the paper, for some month, after reading his paper and also working on the some aspects of his codes (the implementation of his paper). Now it is the time to create the idea, Can I send him "Do you have any idea which improve some aspects of your paper ? " </p>
<p>would you please give me some advises ? can I ask him or not? how to ask that ? what I should say to him ? </p>
<p>NOTE: my reason for asking him is this: I am sure he knows his codes better than every body, also I am afraid in implementing any idea which do not lead to good result at the end. By the way I do not have lot of time to try and test another ways I mean try and implement one idea with bad result and after that switch to another idea.</p>
<p>UPDATE: If I ask him, "... , that is my idea, what do think about my idea?" what will happen? what is his possible respond?</p>
<p>UPDATE2: The meaning of idea in my question is "HOW TO EXTEND HIS WORK"</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28134,
"author": "Neo",
"author_id": 6898,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6898",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><strong>Yes</strong></p>\n\n<p>I think It would be different if say, you took one or two of her classes. But it sounds like she advised you a great deal, and thus she should have some investment in your educational success. Especially if you have talked about graduate school before. What is important is you give her notice as soon as possible so she can find some time to do it: Having a newborn is no easy job. </p>\n\n<p>I would phrase it as follows:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Dear X <em>(unless you call her professor, then Professor X, but my\n advisors I call by their first name)</em></p>\n \n <p>How is your newborn? </p>\n \n <p>I realize you are very busy with your maternity leave, but I was\n hoping you might have some time to write me a strong letter of\n recommendation for graduate school. As you might know I am interested\n in ZQR, and your mentorship over my senior thesis has been essential\n to my education. </p>\n \n <p>Thank you for your time,</p>\n \n <p>user</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I'd also like to add that while I was applying to PhD programs, the professor who eventually became my advisor was on maternity leave while I was asking her questions about the lab. In confidence, she enjoyed my emails because having newborns, while a joy most of the time, often lacks the intellectual rigor that most people are accustomed to in their day to day conversations. </p>\n\n<p>My guess is she will be very happy to do this, and somewhat expects you to ask.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 98772,
"author": "James Peng Liao",
"author_id": 38854,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38854",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is fine since it doesn't take too much time. However, you should ask the professor very politely. Remember just invite one time, if the professor says no you shouldn't invite anymore and say thanks to conclude the request. Anyway, in such case, it would be better if you are very familiar with the professor.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28148",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19761/"
] |
28,149 |
<p>I am nearing the end of my PhD and I would quite like to buy a "thank you" gift for my supervisor (although, she's the socially awkward type who I'm sure will be greatly embarrassed to receive one).</p>
<p>I'm just wondering whether a gift is the done thing? And if so, what sort of gift seems appropriate? I suppose a bottle of wine would be a safe choice?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28150,
"author": "o-0",
"author_id": 21552,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21552",
"pm_score": 8,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>After your defense, and final submission to the university; you can give the gift, with a thank you note. Right before your defense is a big no, in my opinion. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28151,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The appropriateness would depend on the culture. In Sweden it is customary for advisor and advisee to exchange presents. Usually, they consist on things like a fine vase of pottery. Personally, I would go for something that is somehow related to your research. For example, a pathologist expert in chimeric cells got custom made necklace and earrings with chimeras, and was greatly appreciated (and not only saying it because my mother made it!). In my opinion, originality is what counts most.</p>\n\n<p>And you can always do it privately to avoid her the embarrassment.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28153,
"author": "Mast",
"author_id": 21558,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21558",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This might be a location dependent question, but in NW Europe a bottle of wine is appropriate for such and even lesser events.</p>\n\n<p>Many campus shops offer a standardized wine bottle in a gift wrap with the name of the university printed on it. They are the obvious choice, but there is plenty of room for creativity.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28158,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Following the defense, a small token of appreciation would not be inappropriate. However, this should not be a substantial gift, as even after the defense, it could be viewed as a <em>quid pro quo</em> arrangement.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28160,
"author": "Bob Brown",
"author_id": 16183,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16183",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As others have already written, a gift is appropriate only after you are <em>completely</em> done. In my case, that was after the registrar had notified me that my application for degree had been approved by the program office.</p>\n\n<p>I had asked my supervisor a couple of probably unsubtle questions after the defense, and sent (to his home, not to the university) two bottles of wine that would have been hard for him to find and a pretty nice decanter. I also sent three small (very low three figures) checks to the university, one in honor of each committee member, so each should have gotten a letter stating that a gift had been made in his name.</p>\n\n<p>(I'm in the United States.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28277,
"author": "TT_ stands with Russia",
"author_id": 21653,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21653",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my case it was a bottle of cognac, of course after the defense. I brought it to my supervisor's home. It was in Russia 18 years ago, I believe nowadays it is still nice/appropriate gesture. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 33035,
"author": "Keith Brawner",
"author_id": 25408,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25408",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I took my adviser out for a steak dinner at the finest restaurant in town. I'm told that I was the first to do so (other students bought him a box of red pens, etc.), but cherish the occasion. One of my happiest memories is this occasion, enjoying each other's company as equals, after having completed a long/hard joint project.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 62956,
"author": "Burak Ulgut",
"author_id": 31803,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31803",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a new assistant professor, I feel awkward whenever my students offer me gifts. I am sure they have the best of intentions, but potential implications and potential alterior motives are enough to make me uncomfortable. </p>\n\n<p>I am sure this is culture dependent as some of the other answers have suggested, but I would recommend going with the local culture of the deparment and former graduates(if any)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 103905,
"author": "einpoklum",
"author_id": 7319,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7319",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It completely depends on:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The kind of relationship you have with your advisor/supervisor and</li>\n<li>The extent to which s/he has gone out of their way to help you over the course of your Ph.D.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In most cases I would say no, because you are the underpaid employee and s/he is sort-of the boss, or at least the representative of the university. Would you give your supervisor at work a gift after finishing a significant project? Probably not.</p>\n\n<p>PS - It's true that it's not your advisor who decides that Ph.D. salaries be low, but then, that's usually true for your supervisor at a regular job.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28149",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19470/"
] |
28,162 |
<p>At least in the humanities, it seems to be fairly common for journals to publish book reviews. To be honest, I don't think I fully understand why many academics write them and why many journals publish them. I don't read them very often because I usually don't find them very enlightening. If I want to find out whether a book is worth looking at, it is usually easier to take a look at the table of contents or else to get it from a library and take a look rather than reading the review.</p>
<p>However, I could imagine the following incentives:</p>
<ol>
<li>The reviewer thinks the book is particularly interesting and should be known to a greater audience, so they want to promote it.</li>
<li>Writing book reviews is considered a service to the community, and authors would also like to get their own books reviewed in a journal later on.</li>
<li>Reviewers influence the community with their evaluation of a book.</li>
<li>Reviewers accrue prestige by publishing book reviews.</li>
</ol>
<p>Which of these reasons, if any, make academics write book reviews? If it does add to their prestige, how much? Is it, very roughly, possible to say that one research article equals x published book reviews in terms of added prestige (and increased prospects for promotion)?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28368,
"author": "cheesemeister",
"author_id": 21678,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21678",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my experience, reviews are written at the request of journal editors and are typically not initiated by the person writing them. My colleagues and I usually write several book reviews every year because our supervisor is on the editorial board of the journal and tells us to write them. As reviewers, we do receive a free copy of the book, if you consider that an incentive. There is no prestige associated with writing one, and they don't count as publications in our annual performance reviews. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 53973,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 11565,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11565",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I wrote a book review once. For me (1), (3), (4), and the first half of (2) were all relevant factors. (Like all book reviews in mathematics of which I am aware, it was at the unsolicited request of the journal editors.)</p>\n\n<p>In mathematics, book reviews are uncommon, and (contrary to cheesemeister's experience) they are somewhat prestigious to write. Only about a quarter of my book review actually reviewed the book. In the rest I described (as I was asked to by the editors) why someone would want to read a book on Subject X in the first place. I had an opportunity to \"sell\" my research area, and this was definitely rewarding!</p>\n\n<p>Finally, it was an excellent excuse to thoroughly read the book I was reviewing, which I was eager to do in the first place. This was a lot of work, but it was very rewarding (as I could tell from the beginning that it would be). Personally, I would only review a book if I was keen on carefully reading it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 90956,
"author": "Amanda",
"author_id": 74856,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/74856",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm a bit late to this game, but thought I'd remind you that librarians are academics! We read book reviews to help with our collections decisions. I'm a nursing librarian, so I read reviews in nursing journals regularly.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28162",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21144/"
] |
28,164 |
<p>For given papers A and B, I would like to search for all papers that cite both A and B. I guess one can generalize to papers {A,B,C,...} and find all papers that cite all of them. </p>
<p>A quick Google Scholar and Web of Science search revealed nothing. Google Scholar has a "cite=..." thing in the URL, which I messed with a bit to no avail.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28221,
"author": "aaragon",
"author_id": 19409,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19409",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Just get the citations of each document from the Scopus database, export the results into two files, and write a Python script that does a set intersection. You can generalize this to any files.</p>\n\n<p>You can export the Scopus results to .csv files, and then use the <code>csv</code> python module to read the files. You can then have the set operation based on the title of the articles (even though I would also export the DOI and use it). If you know how to program in Python, writing this script shouldn't take you more than one afternoon.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 97266,
"author": "Finn Årup Nielsen",
"author_id": 36757,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/36757",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In Wikidata, we have at the moment around 36 million citations. It is not much compared to Google Scholar, but you can query them in flexible ways with the Wikidata Query Service, - a SPARQL endpoint.</p>\n\n<p>In Scholia, a website that uses Wikidata Query Service, we have implemented a query that shows \"all papers that cite both A and B\". You can see an example for \"Protein measurement with the Folin phenol reagent\" and \"Novel method for detection of beta-lactamases by using a chromogenic cephalosporin substrate\" here: <a href=\"https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/works/Q20900776,Q24564458\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/works/Q20900776,Q24564458</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Scholia will also show results for more than two papers, see, e.g., <a href=\"https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/works/Q20900776,Q24564458,Q39309940\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/works/Q20900776,Q24564458,Q39309940</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Following the link \"Edit on query.Wikidata.org\" gets you to the SPARQL query at the Wikidata Query Service interface. The SPARQL query currently reads:</p>\n\n<pre><code>SELECT ?date ?work ?workLabel\nWITH {\n SELECT (MIN(?dates) AS ?date) ?work \n WHERE {\n ?work wdt:P2860 wd:Q20900776 . ?work wdt:P2860 wd:Q24564458 . \n OPTIONAL {\n ?work wdt:P577 ?datetimes .\n BIND(xsd:date(?datetimes) AS ?dates)\n }\n }\n GROUP BY ?work\n ORDER BY DESC(?date)\n LIMIT 1000\n} AS %results\nWHERE {\n INCLUDE %results\n SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language \"[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en,da,es,fr,nl,no,ru,sv,zh\". }\n}\nORDER BY DESC(?date)\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>You can read more about the approach of using Wikidata and SPARQL for citation analysis work in this paper: \"Scholia and scientometrics with Wikidata\", <a href=\"https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04222\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04222</a></p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28164",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21567/"
] |
28,166 |
<p>I have recently graduated and I was wondering whether, after submitting my thesis, there are any issues (legal or otherwise) if I publish parts of my thesis as a paper in a journal.</p>
<p>My thesis was not published as book, as was the case in <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2937/can-i-publish-parts-of-the-ph-d-thesis-as-a-paper-in-a-journal">this related question</a>.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28167,
"author": "Bob Brown",
"author_id": 16183,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16183",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Ask your thesis advisor! In most cases, the answer will be, \"No. Go for it!\"</p>\n\n<p>Schools <em>love</em> for their graduates to have publications.</p>\n\n<p>In some institutions, including the one at which I teach, the institution claims ownership in the intellectual property of student work, but even then, a derivative work that results in a publication is likely to be welcome.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28168,
"author": "ddiez",
"author_id": 21435,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21435",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In some (many/all?) PhD programs you have to publish before being able to defend your thesis. Some PhD theses can even be composed of the published papers with some sort introduction/discussion (a colleague in the laboratory where I did my PhD did so). Of course, your PhD supervisor needs to approve it, but otherwise I think you can (and maybe you should) safely publish your results before writing your thesis. As an additional note, it is also OK to publish <em>after</em> you have written your thesis, i.e. there should not be issues with self-plagiarism.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28186,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Nobody here can say whether there are issues with <em>your</em> thesis. Perhaps there is something different than usual about it. </p>\n\n<p>The most common situation for students in the U.S. is that you can do what you like with the content of the thesis. You can submit the entire thing as a book, or you can divide it up and use it as several papers. This is not plagiarism, because the thesis is not viewed as \"published\", even though it may be available from your school's library or from services like ProQuest.</p>\n\n<p>The flip side of this situation is that, when we evaluate someone's vita, we don't count the thesis as a \"real\" publication. So if you are pursuing an academic career, you probably <em>should</em> publish the results of your thesis elsewhere, to develop your vita. </p>\n\n<p>In Europe, some students have many copies of their thesis professionally printed, and distribute the hard copies. I don't know whether they view this as a formal publication. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28217,
"author": "Neal Fultz",
"author_id": 14412,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14412",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One other thing to keep in mind is patent rights; a journal article would count as disclosure and invalidate a patent, whereas a thesis may or may not. Some universities have an IP office, and you should check with them if possible; they might have an ownership claim if they employed you.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28166",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21568/"
] |
28,170 |
<p>I just spent a year preparing a set of course slides for an introductory course in engineering, and they now look really good. In addition to posting them on my web page, what more can I do to get use out of them?</p>
<p>For example, it would be nice to see if there's a MOOC that would be interested in them, but it doesn't seem like any of the major ones ever solicit such things.</p>
<p>I'm not aware of any examples of "publishing" slides either, so I'd be curious what more experienced users here have done.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28180,
"author": "Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen",
"author_id": 11257,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11257",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your university may have a digital institutional repository where you can post the slides together with related course materials. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28197,
"author": "mhwombat",
"author_id": 10529,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10529",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here are some ideas:</p>\n\n<p>Make a video of yourself presenting the slides (either to a class, or just to the camera), and upload it to YouTube (or similar). Others have done this, and as a result there are some great free resources available for people who otherwise would not have the time or money to take the course. For example, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXl0Zbk8_rvjyLwAR-Xh9pQ\">N J Wildberger</a> has several maths courses online. If you don't want to be on the video, you can just have the slides, with your voice presenting them. (See the videos of <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFsZ2CadKpAt_yInoTcVRnQ\">Bill Shillito</a>, for example.)</p>\n\n<p>Put the materials on your website, and spread the news.</p>\n\n<p>Turn the materials into a <a href=\"https://www.wikibooks.org/\">wikibook</a>, where others can add to them.</p>\n\n<p>Put the materials on <a href=\"https://www.oercommons.org/\">OER Commons</a>, <a href=\"http://www.curriki.org/\">Curriki</a>, <a href=\"http://www.myoer.org/\">MyOER</a>, or <a href=\"http://www.sharemylesson.com/\">Share My Lesson</a>. I haven't used any of these myself (yet), so I don't know which would be most appropriate for university-level or postgraduate teaching materials.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28170",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21572/"
] |
28,171 |
<p>When a professor stays in another university as a visiting professor during his sabbatical leave, his salary is partially paid by his home university. Then, he is not a regular employee of host university, but how is the official processing?</p>
<p>For example, he needs lots of employment stuff such as ID, parking, etc. Thus, he should have a profile with the human resource.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Is he hired by the university (HR) or directly by a department?</p></li>
<li><p>Does he need to provide regular documents such as academic credentials (diploma, transcript) or an employment status from the home university is enough?</p></li>
<li><p>Following these questions, when he teaches a course or supervises a student, what is his employment reference in official records? I mean can a guest professor teach/supervise without official records in the university HR?</p></li>
</ol>
<p><strong>EXAMPLE:</strong> A full professor goes to another university on sabbatical leave whether for teaching or research. He needs ID card, and normally HR or similar central unit issues the ID card, not individual departments. Shouldn't he have a record in the HR files as the reference for the ID card issued?</p>
<p>My question is: <em>When the HR is creating a file for a visiting professor/scholar/researcher, what documents should be supplied?</em></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28172,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me clarify some terms:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Despite the language, <em>Visiting Faculty</em> are not usually faculty who are gainfully employed at one university who are just staying at another university during their research leave. </li>\n<li>Most visiting faculty are \"<em>Visiting Assistant Professors</em>\" who are (usually recently graduated) scholars who do not yet have full-time employment and are hired as one-year (or two-year) replacements for professors who have gone on sabbaticals. This is different from an adjunct as the recipient university is hiring you full-time (not per course) for a term of one or two years.</li>\n<li><em>Visiting (Full or Associate) Professors</em>: Only rarely would a tenured, senior faculty use their sabbatical year to go to another university solely to <em>teach</em>. Exceptions would be: 1) they aren't being paid during their sabbatical year and need the money; 2) the recipient university has resources that they would like access to (archives, etc.); 3) they want to live in the recipient city for a year, etc. This last one is the most common -- especially with American faculty visiting European capitals (sigh... Paris...). Some faculty are contractually forbidden to use their paid sabbaticals in outside teaching -- at my university, a sabbatical is a leave from teaching responsibilities but it is ultimately a time when I am supposed to be doing research. </li>\n<li>There is also the category of <em>Visiting Researcher</em> - this is the category which most visiting full faculty would use on sabbatical at another institution if they had no teaching responsibilities. It would not normally come with pay or any benefits except library/archive/gallery access, e-mail, and an office. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Thus if Prof. Smith@UniX goes on sabbatical, then Visiting Asst. Professor Jones@Unemployed is hired by UniX to replace Professor Smith. </p>\n\n<p>To answer your specific questions, UniX is entirely responsible for Prof. Jones' salary and benefits. </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Hiring is usually done by the department who needs a replacement. Often a full search is not run and sometimes the hiring is done on the Chair's prerogative. While HR of course handles the details after the department makes their choice, it is rarely HR that runs the search from the very beginning.</li>\n<li>Credentials may not be checked as thoroughly since it is a temporary hire.</li>\n<li>Visiting Faculty have appointments in their recipient universities and can serve as the instructors on record for courses. Depending on their term (and the rules of the institution) they can also serve as readers for senior essays, but usually they do not serve on doctoral dissertation committees. They are also usually exempt from most service work. \n<br></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Biographical note: After I received my PhD, I taught for a year as a visiting assistant professor, as a sabbatical replacement. This was before I received my first tenure-track job. [note: simplified version of a complex reality]</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28188,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Assuming a professor will teach at a temporary university during sabbatical, the official processing can be done several ways, depending on the situation and the specific institutions. Because the teaching is something extra, the professor would almost certainly expect the temporary institution to pay for it. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Some institutions just hire the visiting professor as normal, the way they would hire an adjunct. If the sabbatical already has some pay, the professor receives pay from both institutions.</p></li>\n<li><p>Some institutions would make a deal with the professor's home institution. In this type of deal, the temporary institution sends money to the home institution, which then continues to pay the professor's salary as normal, and the professor receives no direct pay from the temporary institution. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In any case, setting up this type of visiting position during a sabbatical requires planning well in advance, so that both institutions can approve it. </p>\n\n<p>To address some specific questions:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>In the U.S. I am only aware of hiring by HR departments. I have never heard of someone hired \"directly by a department\". The department will make an offer, with the approval of the dean, and then the actual employment is always done by the university HR department. </p></li>\n<li><p>It's likely the visiting institution will need to review his academic credentials, as part of their hiring policy, but that is really just a minor detail. </p></li>\n<li><p>The third question seems to be very university dependent. There will be <em>some</em> form of record keeping. </p></li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28171",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
] |
28,174 |
<p>I was reading about email etiquette. Dos and don'ts when you are sending mailing your professor. One of them was about email domain. I was wondering if it is a good idea to use personal website domain? (eg. [email protected]) </p>
<p>(Does the professor really look at those things? Seriously?)</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28185,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Nowadays, I really don't think it makes any difference whatsoever. You are free to use whatever domain you like, so long as it's not somehow offensive or insipid (for instance, if the choice would be considered a curse word or epithet). If there's something potentially offensive, your email could get blocked by a spam server or filter. </p>\n\n<p>Otherwise, though, it really doesn't make a difference. I'm not going to judge a student more or less favorably because they use an email address that isn't a school-based address, or if it's a \"vanity address\" like the one you've listed.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28190,
"author": "o-0",
"author_id": 21552,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21552",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If the professor's email is an university-based account (e.g., ends up with ac.uk), to make sure the email doesn't end up in the 'Junk' section (i.e., because of universities' firewall system), send your email through your university account. I had an incident through major free email providers, based on the username I chose. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28207,
"author": "Jack Aidley",
"author_id": 5614,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5614",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would recommend against using a university e-mail account for this because you are presumably about to graduate and you will likely be about to lose access to your current university e-mail account when you do so.</p>\n\n<p>Any sensibly named personal account will be okay. But if your e-mail address is something like \"[email protected]\" or \"[email protected]\" then take the time to get yourself a more sensible e-mail address (while those two aren't real examples you'd be surprised how often people use these kinds of e-mail addresses for serious correspondence).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28214,
"author": "johnpaton",
"author_id": 21606,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21606",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I agree with other answers that assuming it's not obscene or childish, it won't make a huge difference either way. I just wanted to add that if you're sending it from a personal website, the domain may pique your potential supervisor's interest. Make sure that you have some information on there about your academic achievements, maybe a writing sample, things like that. Some personal stuff to make you a bit more memorable is good as well. It's not guaranteed to make any difference, but on the off chance they do type in the domain you want to make a bit of an impression.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28174",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11488/"
] |
28,176 |
<p>I am a PhD student in mathematics and I’d like to visit professor X (whom I don’t know personally), as he’s an expert in my field and could really help me with some passages in my research. I have quite a few questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>How to approach professor X to ask if I can visit him and what sort of information should I provide?</p></li>
<li><p>When PhD students visit academics, what happens usually? I mean, would professor X become a sort of supervisor for the time of the visit, or would it just be that me and professor X would mostly be in the same place at the same time and able to chat a bit if the opportunity arises?</p></li>
<li><p>How long do visits last, usually? Would I be a student at professor X’s university during the time of my visit? Would I have any academic requirements (e.g. to give talks at seminars, etc.)?</p></li>
<li><p>Professor X is in a different country than I am. Are professors based in a different country than a potential visiting student more reluctant to let students visit them? If so, why?</p></li>
</ul>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28177,
"author": "Pieter Naaijkens",
"author_id": 22,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Academic visits take all sorts of forms, so it really depends on the situation. There are however some general things that you should keep in mind.</p>\n\n<p>First of all, it would be necessary to come into contact with the professor you want to work with. Just contacting him out of the blue might not be very successful. If your PhD advisor knows him, it is probably a good idea to let him make the initial contact. Another option would be to try to talk to him or his students at a conference of workshop.</p>\n\n<p>Another question is who will fund the visit (hotel, travel costs, etc.). If you would be able to attract funds yourself, that would be helpful. Especially since you say you will have to travel abroad, this could run up the costs.</p>\n\n<p>As to what happens during the visit, that really depends. It is usual that the visitor gives a seminar or colloquium talk. What I usually do is to try to talk to as many people in the group as possible, to get some feeling about the kind of projects the people are working on. If you come there to solve a particular problem with the professor, then in-dept dicussion sessions with him make more sense. Finally, most groups have desks available for visitors, so that you can work on your own as well.</p>\n\n<p>For longer visits, say more than a week or two, the professor might take more of an advisor role, but that really depends on the goal of the visit and on the people involved.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28178,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>There's no definite answer to any of your questions. All of these details depend a lot on the professor, the circumstances (e.g., funding), and you:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>How to approach professor X to ask if I can visit him and what sort of information should I provide?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I would assume a mail is sufficient. However, if you don't know the prof personally, and you are not overly well-known in your community yet, it may be better to <strong>ask your advisor to establish contact</strong>. Professors get many mails from prospective students on various levels, with various intends. Those mails tend to get discarded quickly and unceremoniously. </p>\n\n<p>I don't know what information would be required, initially probably almost none, except who you are and what you would like to work on with the professor. At a later point, <strong>details of how this visit would be funded may become an important discussion item</strong> (e.g., who pays your travel? who pays your hotel / apartment? if you are an university employee, who pays YOU during your visit?). Don't expect your host to arrange funding - this is something that you / your advisor will need to arrange, and just agree with the host.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>When PhD students visit academics, what happens usually? I mean, would professor X become a sort of supervisor for the time of the visit, or would it just be that me and professor X would mostly be in the same place at the same time and able to chat a bit if the opportunity arises?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I have seen both happen. Clearly, in the second case, the visit is often close to worthless. However, in most cases, the truth is somewhere in the middle. The prof meets a few times with the visitor, and \"appoints\" one or more of his own students with a matching profile /research interests as a contact point and collaborator for the visit. <strong>You should not have too high expectations of how much time your host can really invest into you</strong> (and not into, say, his own students or his own research).</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>How long do visits last, usually? Would I be a student at professor X’s university during the time of my visit? Would I have any academic requirements (e.g. to give talks at seminars, etc.)?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>Depends.</strong> I have so far done two research visits, one as a short as 2 weeks, one for 6 weeks. I know of others who have done visits for up to 6 months. You usually have little academic requirements, and you are not usually considered a student of the host institution (at least for visits that are shorter than one term). Giving a talk is sometimes necessary as part of your funding arrangements. For instance, in my second stay, my travel was funded by the host institution over the vehicle that they officially invited me as an expert speaker for their seminar series (so that they could formally pay for my travel, which they could not do for a visit). In my first visit, the expectation of the funding source was that at some point a paper would be published related to the visit (clearly not within those two weeks, but at some point). Further, I had to write a brief report.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Professor X is in a different country than I am. Are professors based in a different country than a potential visiting student more reluctant to let students visit them? If so, why?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Not typically, however, finding funding may be even more difficult. However, both of my visits have been cross-country, in one case cross-continents, so <strong>it definitely can be done</strong>.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28176",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21581/"
] |
28,196 |
<p>The reason I'm asking this question is that I've never used Web of Science before. My apologies if it is silly or irrelevant.</p>
<p>I'm gathering materials for an application to a tenure-track job, and one of the things I have to submit is a list of my publications as indexed in WoS. This is an important thing for them, because they make it clear in the call for applications that those publications that are indexed in WoS are going to count more that those that don't (they do it this way because the call is division-wide, not department-specific, so they use WoS as a scholarship quality metric that doesn't require the members of the search committee to be experts in the specific fields of the candidates). </p>
<p>WoS behaves well in that, if I query my name and field, it returns all of my journal publications, including a couple of obscure book reviews I did in my first year of grad school. On the other hand, it also behaves badly in that it fails to return anything that is not a journal publication. This bothers me because I have a couple of book chapters with reputable presses (e.g., OUP) and proceedings of high-profile conferences that my peers and mentors acknowledge are as important (in terms of quality and contribution to the field) as any of my journal publications; but because they don't appear in WoS, the search committee will view them as second-rate publications.</p>
<p>The question is, is there a way I can make WoS index these publications?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 29690,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Web of Science is terrible in coverage of many fields (not sure what yours is from the post), and if you're stuck with it, you're stuck with it. Try to see if there's anywhere that you can also say, \"and here are my important publications that WoS doesn't cover, and here are all of their many many citations...\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 29698,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To answer the question directly, No, you can't get Web of Science to index your other publications. They only index papers from a collection of sources that they've deemed high quality and been able to negotiate access to. If the journal you've published in isn't on their list (or if you've published in a conference proceedings volume or a book chapter) then it simply won't be indexed. Furthermore, their citation counts won't include citations that occurred in publications that they don't index. </p>\n\n<p>Other services have different policies on this. Google Scholar is perhaps the most broad in its coverage, but this sometimes includes things like student term papers that aren't in any normal sense considered \"publications.\" There are also various discipline specific services (such as MathSciNet for pure mathematics) but their coverage is often quite narrow. </p>\n\n<p>When comparing the publications and citation counts of two scholars in the same field, you can typically use any of these sources and assume that the two authors are on an even playing field. However, it's a very unwise idea to do this across disciplines, since the various services have very different coverage of different fields. For example, Web of Science does an awful job of covering computer science (particularly because of the many important conference proceedings in that discipline) but gives much more reasonable coverage of fields like chemistry and physics. </p>\n\n<p>Similarly, it's unreasonable to compare citation counts across the different services because of the differences in what they index. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28196",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12314/"
] |
28,199 |
<p>How do I cite a very old and well-known book which has multiple editions and reprints, various editors, facsimile reprints, and a recent paperback version, plus it's even available free online, again at more than one site. The text I want to cite is common to all of them so that's not an issue but I'd like to be able to give page numbers in the standard way. I don't know which edition to cite. The actual copy I've been using is a hardback 1970s reprint of a 1900s edition from the university library but it's not necessarily easy for others to find.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28200,
"author": "o-0",
"author_id": 21552,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21552",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Actually you don't want to put the reader of your article, at the same position, where you are now; and want to highlight the important background and related works, the reader needs to know about. </p>\n\n<p>Therefore, cite the version you actually read and was part of the inspiration to your article/journal. This way, the reader knows exactly where to look, for further readings. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28203,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Things can occasionally get tricky, but most situations are handled by these guidelines:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Cite what you've seen. If you have one edition, don't assume that another has the same numbering (for pages, chapters, sections, equations, or whatever) without checking. It's always better to cite an out of date edition correctly than to risk giving an incorrect reference to another edition.</p></li>\n<li><p>If you've seen several editions, try to cite the one that will be most useful to readers. Recent editions are generally preferable, both because they are easier to find and because they may be more up to date in other ways. (But if a book is out of copyright and reprinted by many publishers, then recency may not be salient.) If you know that a recent edition is not useful (for example, because material was cut), then you should say so. Translations may be preferable for readers who do not speak the original language.</p></li>\n<li><p>If you can't tell which edition would be most useful, then the decision probably doesn't really matter. The most recent edition is generally a safe choice, if you can get your hands on it to check the reference.</p></li>\n<li><p>More detailed references can help disambiguate. A quick numerical reference is efficient, but it becomes near useless if the numbering has changed, while adding more context can make it easier to figure out where it might have moved in another edition.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28199",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13539/"
] |
28,204 |
<p>My understanding is that colleges with sports programs will admit students with "low end" but not "off the charts low" grades if the respective sports teams want them. By this, I mean grades just above the "cut-off" for admissions, without having to make a special case or allowance for the athlete.</p>
<p>Suppose a certified athlete tried to get into a graduate program with similarly minimum grades. To take an example, suppose the Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter retired, went to college, and got something like a 3.3 GPA which is the cut-off for certain graduate school programs.</p>
<p>What constituencies (if any) might such a graduate applicant have (e.g. celebrity value)? Or are "athlete" slots open only to undergraduates?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28205,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I'll answer based on the U.S. (which is where these issues are most relevant, I believe).</p>\n\n<p>There is no special consideration for athletes in graduate admissions. Undergraduate admissions are handled by admissions officers who often use all sorts of non-academic criteria, and recruiting athletes to play for the university is a specific goal at many universities. However, graduate admissions is done by departmental committees made up of faculty, and the non-academic criteria that play an important role for undergraduates (well roundedness, extracurricular activities, athletics, etc.) are irrelevant. If anything, a continued desire to participate extensively in high-level athletics could be considered a disadvantage, since it would take time away from academics.</p>\n\n<p>If Derek Jeter wanted to go to graduate school, I'm sure some faculty would be impressed by his fame, but they would also be careful and skeptical in evaluating his qualifications. In any case, there certainly wouldn't be a special admissions slot designated for an athlete.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28233,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To add to Anonymous Mathematician's answer (i.e. no special treatment), I would add that the major reason to recruit athletes at the undergraduate level is <em>you want them to play for you</em>, in intercollegiate sports. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the governing body for US college sports, and their rules would normally exclude graduate students from playing.</p>\n\n<p>The NCAA eligibility rules are complex, but a general principle (as I understand it) is that each athlete may only play intercollegiate sports for at most four years in their life. Moreover, all four of those years must normally come within 5 years of first enrolling in college (as an undergraduate). A college athlete applying to graduate school would almost certainly have used up their eligibility and would not be able to play for the graduate institution; perhaps for a year at most. Thus the institution would have no real interest in recruiting them for athletic reasons, since they wouldn't be able to play on the intercollegiate teams.</p>\n\n<p>For Derek Jeter, there's another reason he couldn't play: there is an amateurism requirement, and anyone who has played a sport professionally would likely be ineligible under that clause. Indeed, athletic programs have suffered severe penalties merely for letting their athletes talk to agents.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28302,
"author": "Neil Strickland",
"author_id": 12638,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12638",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a partially parallel case, Imperial College readmitted <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May#Astrophysics\" rel=\"nofollow\">Brian May</a> to complete his PhD in astrophysics after a 30 year gap. They might not have done that for someone less famous.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28204",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/755/"
] |
28,206 |
<p>Please read the bold text before answering.</p>
<p>A colleague has shown me that one of his students has posted exam questions with answers , and prior assignments with answers to a commercial web site intended to communicate such material to other students. Sadly, I am the chair of the university's Honor Council and the question of whether these actions rise to the level of academic misconduct has landed in my lap.</p>
<p>Also sadly, I am ill-equipped to have an opinion. Almost every assignment I've given in the last ten years is available on the public web and I return assignments with critiques. I give pen-and-paper tests and return them to the students, then go over the questions and give the correct answers in class. There are thousands of copies of my old exams around, many of them with answers that were either correct to begin with or corrected <em>post facto.</em> I am sure there are fat binders in fraternity and sorority houses with that material.</p>
<p>I can get all legalistic and ask, "Well... did you tell him not to do that?" In fact, I am in the process of finding that out. I am pretty sure that widespread commercial distribution of questions with answers is bad. My concern is whether contributing this information to such a web site rises to the level of academic misconduct.</p>
<p>So, here is a question that has an answer rather than leading to discussion: <strong>Are there universities that prohibit students from contributing material created by the faculty, such as exams or assignments, to commercial web sites the purpose of which is supplying that material to other students? If so, how is that prohibition worded and how is it enforced?</strong></p>
<p><strong>September 10:</strong> This has been edited by several people, and several people have added tags. I've just edited it myself to remove the word "cheaters" from the description of the commercial web sites involved in this case, and which are in general the subject of the question. I've also deleted most of the tags, leaving only "ethics" and "policy."</p>
<p><strong>November 15:</strong> Thanks for the responses. After a certain amount of back and forth, my institution has adopted the following (voluntary) syllabus language: "Some lecture slides, notes, or exercises used in this course may be the property of the textbook publisher or other third parties. All other course material, including but not limited to slides developed by the instructor(s), the syllabus, assignments, course notes, course recordings (whether audio or video) and examinations or quizzes are the property of the University or of the individual instructor who developed them. Students are free to use this material for study and learning, and for discussion with others, including those who may not be in this class, unless the instructor imposes more stringent requirements. Republishing or redistributing this material, including uploading it to web sites or linking to it through services like iTunes, violates the rights of the copyright holder and is prohibited. There are civil and criminal penalties for copyright violation. <strong>Publishing or redistributing this material in a way that might give others an unfair advantage in this or future courses may subject you to penalties for academic misconduct.</strong>" [emphasis in the original]</p>
<p><strong>December 8, 2017:</strong> I just received a request from someone at another institution to use the language above. Although it was adopted by my institution, I wrote it, and I now contribute it to the public domain. Use it as-is or modified, with no need to attribute it or otherwise give credit.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28212,
"author": "Nahkki",
"author_id": 18092,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18092",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First define the problem. \"It feels wrong\" isn't really an actionable reason right? Is the problem that the student published the exam with answers? Is the problem that the student removed the exam with answers when she/he was expected to return it to the instructor? Is the problem that the student published the exam with answers on a 'cheater' website? </p>\n\n<p>To narrow this down a bit it might be useful to ask yourself and the professor: \"Would your feelings be different if the student published the exam with answers on their own website?\" As a student if an instructor returned an exam to me and I felt the information was worthwhile(aka not a 'multiple choice') I certainly published my exams, projects and some assignments on my personal website. I used this as a resource when I was tutoring students in the course and found it very useful. </p>\n\n<p>If the student 'stole' the exam, by which I mean they took the exam and their answers when the instructor was expecting the exam to be returned, then you are in a different ballpark. Then you have something actionable but...</p>\n\n<p>Let's step back a moment to something you yourself said:\n\"I am sure there are fat binders in fraternity and sorority houses with that material.\"</p>\n\n<p>This is absolutely the case and no matter what you or any of the other professors does this will continue to be the case. The question then becomes - is it fair to non-Greek students who don't have access to these binders? What do you gain by trying to prevent the 'publication' of exams? </p>\n\n<p>I've heard of a couple of instructors who reuse the same exam year after year. I understand the rigors of teaching, I understand it can be hard to come up with new questions/new assignments/new exams every term. But, that being said, using the same exam over and over is just plain laziness. Even changing the order of the questions bypasses that issue - and if students are memorizing the 'correct' answer to a general question(instead of a multiple choice value or a number value) then aren't they essentially studying? </p>\n\n<p>In the end the question needs to be asked - WHY is it important than exams and their answers not be published? There are only a few answers to that and most of them are going to be fairly flimsy. </p>\n\n<p>A bit of an Anecdote here about this. One of the most challenging instructors/courses during my undergraduate career was with an instructor that had every single exam he had given(since he started keeping copies in the 1980s) put up on his website. A handful had partially worked out answers / solutions. Students didn't even bother looking for the 'cheating' websites for these exams because they were on his website(sans answers of course) and because the exams showed that, although they were great for studying and practice, memorizing past exams was going to be completely worthless. If I were a professor at the moment I would probably take example from this - I would put all the exams(and probably homeworks) online. Drown them in information. All the sudden there's little value in going to a 'cheater' website about it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28222,
"author": "D.W.",
"author_id": 705,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/705",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Since you asked for norms at other schools, here is one data point: UC Berkeley has an explicit policy on this subject. At UC Berkeley, instructors own the copyright on their course materials and are allowed to specify the policy on dissemination. In additional, dissemination for a commercial purpose is prohibited without express consent of the instructor. If instructors specify a policy, students who violate this policy can be punished for academic misconduct -- and this is stated explicitly in the UC Berkeley policies.</p>\n\n<p>In more detail, UC Berkeley's <a href=\"http://campuspol.chance.berkeley.edu/policies/coursenotes.pdf\">policy on Course Note-Taking and Materials</a> states:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Individual instructors retain copyrights to [...] class materials they create. Instructors may permit, limit, or prohibit the [..] further distribution of class materials created by an instructor (class notes, recordings, exams, and class materials, collectively referred to as “Class\n Materials”). Instructors are encouraged to clearly communicate their preferences on recording and sharing Class Materials in their syllabi. [...]</p>\n \n <p>Unauthorized use of Class Materials may subject an individual to legal proceedings brought by the instructor as well as disciplinary and legal proceedings by the University. [...]</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Thus, if an instructor states in the syllabus that dissemination of exams is not allowed, then a student who violates that restriction may be disciplined by the University for academic misconduct. On the other hand, if the instructor does not state any policy, and the students shares the exam with others (for non-commercial purposes), there is no violation of University academic misconduct rules, though there might well be a violation of copyright law.</p>\n\n<p>Also, UC Berkeley's <a href=\"http://sa.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/UCB-Code-of-Conduct-new%20Jan2012.pdf\">Code of Student Conduct</a> has a section that deals specifically with this subject. It states:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>102.23 Course Materials</p>\n \n <p>Selling, preparing, or distributing for any commercial purpose course lecture notes or video or audio recordings of any course unless authorized by the University in advance and explicitly permitted by the course instructor in writing. The unauthorized sale or commercial distribution of course notes or\n recordings by a student is a violation of these Policies whether or not it was the student or someone else who prepared the notes or recordings.</p>\n \n <p>Copying for any commercial purpose handouts, readers or other course materials provided by an instructor as part of a University of California course unless authorized by the University in advance and explicitly permitted by the course instructor or the copyright holder in writing (if the instructor is not the copyright holder).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Exams count as course materials and thus are covered by this policy.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Personal opinion: I think sites like CourseHero are scummy, sleazy sites: the worst of the worst. They require students to submit additional course materials to view the ones that are on record there, and they make no attempt to validate that students have permission to share those course materials; indeed, they have every incentive not to validate whether the student has authorization, and every incentive to encourage unauthorized uploading. Thus, their business model is based upon encouraging students to share stuff they might not have permission to -- and they profit off of this. I find this business practice reprehensible and worth of condemnation.</p>\n\n<p><em>However...</em> it is a separate question whether student use of those sites constitutes academic misconduct. Personally, I would say that students have a due process right to be informed of their responsibilities, and to only be published for actions that are a clear violation of published policies. Therefore, I believe it is the instructors' responsibility to establish clear policies -- either on a course-by-course basis, on course syllabi, or else by adopting clear policies at the campus level. In the absence of such policies, I would be very hesitant to punish students who shared exams with others. That does not feel fair to me.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28225,
"author": "NotMe",
"author_id": 11585,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11585",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>@D.W. highlighted Berkeley's policy which is a decent attempt at stopping people from reselling an instructors course materials. However, even with clear cut legal verbiage the only real approach is to monitor those sites and issue <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act\" rel=\"nofollow\">DMCA takedown</a> notices as required.</p>\n\n<p>This will lead to an incredible amount of lost time, possibly more than the material is worth.</p>\n\n<p>Rather than play wack-a-mole, the better policy here would be for instructors to stop simply reissuing the exact same test from one year to the next. Instead, do things like change the question order. If multiple choice is used, substitute new options and rearrange them. If written answers are required, change the questions subtly such that the prior year answers are completely wrong.</p>\n\n<p>With that said, the best course would be to ignore the actions of this student because the instructor and the university failed to give them clear guidelines ahead of time; and instead have a discussion with your department on how best to eliminate problems where a student just memorizes \"#14 is A, #15 is C\". </p>\n\n<p>If you are changing the tests each year, then review of prior year tests will only aid in the students understanding of types of questions you will be asking and therefore be limited to acting as a study guide as opposed to a one stop shop. In this scenario there is no reason not to allow students to upload the tests..</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28227,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Nahkki's answer hits the nail on the head. However, there is another possible angle from which to consider this, which is the utilitarian perspective.</p>\n\n<p>It sounds like this instructor did not have a clear policy, and your school does not have a clear policy, so the most that is going to come out of this is that they might now write clear policies. Suppose those policies said that it was an honor code violation to publish exam questions. What would be the outcome?</p>\n\n<p>The outcome would be that there would be absolutely no effect on the prevalence of sharing exam questions, and no effect on the fairness of exams, i.e., no reduction in the unfair advantage gained by people who obtain old exam questions. Sites like Course Hero already allow people to contribute exam questions anonymously, so the contributor can't be punished. Students already have the option of waiting until they graduate before they post these materials online. Fraternities already have plausible deniability of the contents of the file cabinets sitting in their basements.</p>\n\n<p>With a small amount of effort, instructors can make it a hassle for students to gain an unfair advantage through these means. The problem arises because some instructors are too lazy to expend this minimal effort. Changing policies will have no effect on this outcome.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28229,
"author": "zxq9",
"author_id": 13156,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13156",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Did the student sign a confidentiality policy before enrolling? If not, then no.</p>\n\n<p>As for opinions on the matter... (yes, mine is smelly, too)</p>\n\n<p>Let's consider a few angles: Does it help other students cheat? Should it help other students cheat? Does it help other students learn? Should your students be helping other students learn?</p>\n\n<p>Cheating is a funny subject. If your instructors are permitted to re-use prior year tests then you have more serious problems than the eternal issue of students <em>trying</em> to cheat. That some students will try to cheat is simply a part of human nature. It is impossible to control whether the urge exists, only whether a cursory assessment of difficulty against risk against payoff indicates that the attempt is worth it. If your instructors reuse prior year testing material consider that the assessment criteria is seriously weighted against honest students <em>and</em> (in my opinion, more importantly) your testing material <em>is not getting any better</em>.</p>\n\n<p>On the subject of students learning, which is supposed to be the point, after all... I would circumvent the issue by encouraging students to discuss class material openly and often, even to the point of posting prior material. If they are so stupid as to post a key-value list of [question-number]:[answer] for tests, this is their own waste of time and not your problem. If, on the other hand, they are discussing their subject with other students or (especially) with real-world practitioners someplace like stackexchange (hey!) then you can expect that your students actually care about their subject, and if they care, even a little, then passing the class will be a happy side effect of having done some genuine learning in and out of class. This is the best possible outcome an educator could hope for, unless, of course, the educator in question is actually a professional bureaucrat.</p>\n\n<p>Ultimately I think the only way to encourage students to choose to actually commit themselves to study beyond just trying to get some paper after negotiating the academic bureaucracy is to foster an environment of active discussion. Any move toward censure is wrong-minded (if the RIAA is effectively powerless here, you certainly are) and will only serve to create an \"us VS them\" mentality in the students. Then the students are pouring their personal efforts into learning how to connive (a useful skill, indeed, but not the one intended!), and not into learning whatever the actual subject is. Don't let arbitrary notions of \"honor\" distract from concrete study.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28230,
"author": "Franck Dernoncourt",
"author_id": 452,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It turns out that many years ago I created a website to publish exams for my undergrad school: \n<a href=\"http://www.annales-exam.com\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://www.annales-exam.com</a> (in French). </p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/EtWJF.png\" height=\"100\"></p>\n\n<p>It contains many computer science exams of classes in my undergrad school.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Ethically</strong>: I created this website because I was very annoyed by the fact that some students had access to the previous exams (e.g. the fat binders in the frats mentioned in the question), while other less connected, less GPA-focused, etc., did not. The website aimed at breaking this iniquitous situation.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Legally</strong>: Publishing exams of classes in my undergrad school is legal (by jurisprudence) due the status of my school (CNAM). Here is what the law in France <a href=\"http://www.cnamien.fr/telecharger-annales-ue-examens/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">says</a> :</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Le droit d’auteur protège toutes les créations originales. Mais on\n admet traditionnellement qu’aucun droit d’auteur ne peut être invoqué\n sur les textes législatifs et réglementaires, les rapports officiels\n ou les décisions de justice. La question de la protection des sujets\n d’examen par le droit d’auteur a été examinée par la jurisprudence. Le\n Tribunal de grande instance de Paris le 9 novembre 1988 et la Cour\n d’appel de Paris le 13 juin 1991 ont refusé la protection par le droit\n d’auteur à des Annales officielles du concours de l’Internat en\n médecine. Les sujets des épreuves, en permettant de connaître la\n pratique suivie, complètent et précisent les textes normatifs\n définissant les épreuves et sont donc des documents officiels dont la\n reproduction et la diffusion sont libres. L’accès aux sujets d’examen\n ne saurait être restreint par l’application des droits de propriété\n littéraire. Il faut donc considérer les sujets d’examen organisé par\n l’État comme des actes officiels et, à ce titre, non protégés par le\n droit d’auteur. Ce ne sont pas des œuvres protégées.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>As a side story, the only feedback I received from the administrative folks in school was a legal threat due to the fact I had used the school logo on the website:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>---------- Forwarded message ---------- <br/>\n From: X [Cnam] <br/>\n Date: 2013-02-25 8:46 GMT-05:00<br/>\n Subject:\n Utilisation abusive de la marque Cnam<br/> To: [email protected]<br/></p>\n \n <p>Bonjour, Sur votre site <a href=\"http://www.annales-exam.com\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://www.annales-exam.com</a>, vous faites, sans\n autorisation, une utilisation abusive de l'ancien logo du Cnam, que\n vous avez, de plus, déformé. Pour toutes ces raisons, je vous demande\n de retirer au plus vite cette image, avant que le contentieux soit\n transmis à notre service juridique. </p>\n \n <p>Cordialement, <br/></p>\n \n <p>Conservatoire national\n des arts et métiers<br/> Direction de la communication Communication\n Paris Cédex 03</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>No professor complained to me.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28235,
"author": "nickalh",
"author_id": 21611,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21611",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As an instructor myself, I realize one aspect of studying involves learning material which may or may not be on the test. Unless students are willing to take 10 page tests every time, there is some expectation or need for students to learn material which is not directly tested. Of course well written tests will cover the majority of the material the student is expected to learn and sometimes on a specific topic there is only one or two very good relevant questions.</p>\n\n<p>Most likely the student's actions indirectly violated the idea that work is original from the student.\nIf the written policy includes a line about helping others cheat, then it would be a direct violation. If the written policy includes a line about needing to report cheaters, then he failed to turn himself in. In a justice system, consistency is essential- what has been done in similar cases by the university?</p>\n\n<p>I worked for an online tutoring company whose official policy- we will not answer homework questions, but we could work similar questions, give general direction, correct mistakes, give ideas/hints etc.</p>\n\n<p>In my personal opinion, posting a previous test without the instructors direct permission is cheating. Academic misconduct can mean several different things depending on the consequences. If the university's written policy on this aspect is unclear, some minor consequences instinctively speed up would seem appropriate to me. Perhaps, drop the student one letter grade in the course?</p>\n\n<p>A relevant analogy- A. people who see a yellow light & instinctively speed up vs. B. people who see a yellow light & instinctively slow down. A. people are far more likely to get tickets or into accidents. It's a question of do you want to live as close to the legal line as possible?\nAlso, going forward the policy needs to make a clear distinction between acceptable behavior & cheating in this area. If a student plays in that gray area, don't be surprised if consequences occur.</p>\n\n<p>Having a clear written policy on the topic agreeable to all professors is important. Or better yet give the professors the freedom to set their own policy. Ensure each professor is comfortable with their policy regarding groupwork, copying answers, kinds & level of help one can give or receive, etc.</p>\n\n<p>For example, I have seen a student google questions, find someone who had posted his questions & answers verbatim & simply copy the website's answers into his work. The website he used had recently posted his questions verbatim so they most likely came from another student in his online class. This student had no idea how to do the problems himself. On the public school level, expecting teachers to create different assignments for every student every time is ludicrous.</p>\n\n<p>Also, to give different students different questions raises the question- is a 95 this semester worth the same as a 95 from two years ago? 70 now vs. 70 from five years ago?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28266,
"author": "mechalynx",
"author_id": 21638,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21638",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my country, no policy about disseminating exam material is enforced (or at least, I've never heard it happen or even threatened to be punished during my college years). As far as faculty-created study material goes, it didn't seem to happen much, but it was also not enforced, if there even was some kind of policy. In many cases, students would photocopy books (or the institution/professor would recommend doing so, or do it themselves) instead of getting them through distributors (which used to be funded by the government but seems to not be anymore :( - it was usually how faculty distributed their own study books though, instead of having to publish them - some uploaded them to the college database as well).</p>\n\n<p>Throughout my college life, me and all my fellow students used old exams, answers to old exams and other notes and materials (which we often found online through institution-related but unofficial forums) to study. Often, we tried to memorize the answers due to time constraints (more time to study harder material) but usually, it was because the professor was dreadfully bad at teaching, the textbook was terrible, the examination questions where unclear or the teacher was inconsistent in grading (there where multiple occasions where there where multiple, mutually exclusive answers taken to be correct and even then inconsistently, so you never knew what, according to the teacher, the \"correct\" answer was, so you just placed your bet on previous behavior).</p>\n\n<p>Let me stress that this study environment was <strong>well known</strong> by all faculty members. Some would attempt to actually <strong>punish</strong> using old exams to study and memorizing by subtly changing the questions or through other underhanded means (such as grading the question differently). However, there was never any action taken based on institution policy. Overall, teachers that where not useless would work around this; they either allowed it to happen, leveraging it to reduce stress in students and increase attendance and interest, or put work into both teaching properly and constructing exams that where consistent in format but always different enough in content that studying and comprehension where necessary (and where loved by all, even when we failed those exams).</p>\n\n<p>Your question ends in a clear request for how other institutions handle this. However, it is also tagged with <code>ethics</code>, <code>cheating</code> and <code>policy</code>. Pedantry aside, I think it is understandable when faced with such a question that so many of us feel strongly about how such policy is made, since it has a deep influence on what environment students live in. In short, it seems that any policy that prevents students from exchanging information in a university, no matter what information that is (in relation to subjects at least, if not entirely), seems to contradict the purpose of a university and reduces transparency. It would train students to think backwards. If cheating is a problem, then <em>make it impossible</em> by crafting exams properly. My entire experience and that of others that has been relayed to me, clearly indicates that only the incompetence of educators makes cheating necessary and desirable.</p>\n\n<p>I agree with most of what others have said. I'd like to end by saying, the question of how to handle \"cheating\" students feels a <em>lot</em> like DRM. Like DRM, it punishes those who don't break it - in this case, those who choose to follow institution policy will be at a disadvantage and/or will be forced to face the dilemma of snitching on other students and gaining a terrible reputation that will follow them throughout their university life. Don't do this to them. Bad students don't graduate - period. If a student is lazy or can't deal with the material in general, they won't make it. Extremely few students I knew that where terrible graduated - and those that did, managed to do it by brute-force memorization on at least some subjects.</p>\n\n<p>Trying to track down the material will only push it underground. If the colleague in question feels that this dissemination of his exam material could invalidate his exams, he/she is a fool to believe it only happened now that they discovered it and is probably lazy or bad at creating exams. They may be a fine teacher, but there is no excuse for being so bad that a leaked exam invalidates your exam process.</p>\n\n<p>You yourself do <em>not</em> do this. You distribute your material and seem to do fine. Remember, this will create a precedent and <em>policy</em>. Do you really want to place this gun in the hands of future faculty members so they can punish students for their own failings and bad performance?</p>\n\n<p><strong>also, retroactively applying a rule that wasn't known to the perpetrator at the time is inherently immoral - you <em>should</em> ask the colleague if they told the students, if they didn't want that to happen</strong></p>\n\n<p><em>edit: I should add that I helped fellow students cheat many times. This was usually by telling them the answers during the exam. I never cheated. I used to finish my exams a lot sooner than them and would spend the rest of the period helping them with the material at the library. This was usually for weeks at a time, 3-4 times a year. I never regretted it and I did it because, to see others struggle without a chance, to be able to help and not do so, is also deeply immoral. Don't punish those that try to help fellow students manage. Many of those that disseminate material will be this sort of person - the lazy cheaters do not care about helping others.</em></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28325,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is no legitimate reason for selling past exams. It seems a pretty clear case of collusion with the intent of giving another student an unfair advantage, albeit indirectly. The question, in my mind, is does your university policy allow for this particular type of misconduct to be penalised. The <a href=\"http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/academicservices/qualitymanual/assessmentandawards/academic-misconduct.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow\">policy at the University of Nottingham</a> is sufficiently vague:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>2.1 The following is a non-exhaustive list of examples of academic misconduct which will be considered under these Regulations</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Basically this means students cannot claim that we didn't tell them they couldn't do something. We reuse exams and essay and have had a number of cases in the past that we have followed up on. We have had enough of these cases that we have discussed the hypothetical situations to help us clarify our internal and somewhat private policy. The case we dread is when the materials are posted to a personal website to advertise the quality of the student's academic performance with appropriate disclaimers that the work should not be reused. This seems to us to be a legitimate reason to post the material and therefore probably not misconduct.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32089,
"author": "mako",
"author_id": 5962,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5962",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some of the other answers have alluded or mentioned this fact but it is important enough that it bears foregrounding with an answer. <strong>Whether or not your university has rules about this in its guidelines for student conduct, you are almost certainly violating copyright by redistributing course material without permission and there are civil and criminal penalties for doing so.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Copyright gives the exclusive right of distribution to the authors of creative works in almost every country on earth. As a result, copyright will almost always apply to tests, homework assignments, syllabuses, slides, and other course materials. The owners, depending on the situation, may be the institution, the professor, or a third party that has licensed content. In any case, unless you have a license to redistribute course material, you cannot do so without putting yourself at risk of civil, and possibly even criminal, penalties.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 68614,
"author": "thebishopofcalc",
"author_id": 54015,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/54015",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A case study: This sort of website was, in its own twisted way, beneficial in revealing to me just how widespread was the practice (almost entirely confined to my international students) of posting scans of my past years' tests so that students could see what sort of format I preferred, and which of the topics I tended to ask more often than others (some were inevitable; we had discussed them for a full week, so it was clear I was highly emphasizing that topic). There were occasional instances in which the questions were identical, in the form of those core definitions that formed the core concepts of the chapter. (Not worth many points, of course, since there was no requirement to \"work\" anything to find a \"solution,\" just demonstrate memory of the same formula that would then be used to work the next problem.) </p>\n\n<p>However, when those same students began miraculously began regurgitating not merely the answer to the wrong question, but the answer <em>as I would often specifically phrase/format it</em> (when correcting those old tests), I became aware of just how little those students really knew. All they had learned how to do was transcribe their memory's recollection of the \"general shape\" (typically mangled almost beyond recognition) of the sentences that comprised an answer to \"the problem in the upper left corner of page 3\" (as if the new question were asking anything remotely related). Asked about it, they would typically go for guileless subterfuge efforts like \"Well, I studied a YouTube video about it, so that's probably why my answer is slightly different from yours.\" I was highly irritated, but had to admit that they had exposed a potential weakness, one I should have been expecting from Greek-heavy universities of the past: test-file archives (just a new digital version). I have made it my business to try and stay just different enough every year to be able to throw off such efforts while still remaining true to those concepts that I wanted to be able to focus on year after year.</p>\n\n<p>But <em>then</em>....</p>\n\n<p>I noticed a student on the final exam spouting an absurdly irrelevant answer to one question, and recognized elements of it as coming from a question on the previous year's final. A search of such \"cheater-friendly\" websites under my name revealed scans/photos of the entire final exam. Since our university policy is to keep students from being able to take home their final exams after inspecting them (for the sake of those who <em>do</em> ask a \"canned\" final, I think), it should have been impossible for any such record to even exist; the secretarial staff have well-understood instructions to prevent the students from keeping, copying, or photographing them if they stop by to view them while we're away for an inter-term holiday. </p>\n\n<p>But I was lucky; even with the name redacted, finding a matching test was trivial. The final exam in question was a \"special edition\" taken by only one student, who had a family emergency requiring him to depart the country a week early. Digging through the archives to find the proof, I confronted both the student who had used the \"source material\" to study with as well as the original student himself, now a year removed and well on his way to graduating. The latter protested his innocence, claiming that someone must have done this terrible thing without his knowledge. (He had gotten an A that year.) \"Look,\" he pointed out, \"it's not even <em>graded</em> yet, so I couldn't have possibly smuggled a copy of it out of the department office.\" </p>\n\n<p>\"You're right,\" I said, noticing the lack of my <em>own</em> handwriting for the first time. \"That means the photo was made the day you took the test, <em>while it was still in your possession</em>.\" Things got worse for him from there.</p>\n\n<p>Aesop's lesson: you'd be amazed at how little clues can add up to a finding of massive fraud or collusion. I take even the smallest suspicious coincidence seriously.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28206",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16183/"
] |
28,210 |
<p>I wonder if anyone can give me some advice about how a computer science graduate shifts career to mathematics? I'm currently doing a Master's degree in computer science and i was thinking about doing a PhD in pure mathematics? so I was thinking is this transition feasible? how can I make this leap of faith?</p>
<p>Kindly note that currently -after graduation- I nearly don't do mathematics anymore, currently all what I am doing is writing software and administrating open source operating systems. In undergrad levels I took an introductory course in discrete mathematics and some calculus courses.</p>
<p>someone told me: Yes, the transition is feasible but it requires I take some courses and attend some math classes even as a special student (no degrees, no exams). But I thought I can get other opinions and views.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28213,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Take a look at <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23935/is-it-easy-to-change-your-major-after-starting-your-phd-or-master-if-it-is-nece/23943#23943\">Is it easy to change your major after starting your PhD or masters, if it is necessary?</a>, which is somewhat similar. </p>\n\n<p>In particular, unfortunately, it sounds like your current mathematics background is very far from what would be needed to enter a math PhD program - it's maybe 1/4 of the coursework that would be expected. You would need to have preparation equivalent to that of a BS in mathematics, and that sounds like it would be the equivalent of 2-3 more years of full time coursework for you.</p>\n\n<p>To be honest, I don't think that the coursework you describe can even have given you much of a sense of what pure mathematics is, much less what it is like to do research in the area. One needs rigorous proof-based classes such as real analysis and abstract algebra. </p>\n\n<p>I would not really advise you, or anyone, to even think about grad school in mathematics before they have enough of a background to reasonably understand what it involves.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35012,
"author": "galois",
"author_id": 25375,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25375",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's always possible to go into another field, especially ones that are somewhat related (i.e., you'll have an easier time going to mathematics with CS than if you had a Psychology degree, for example).</p>\n\n<p><strong>The Bad</strong></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In undergrad levels I took an introductory course in discrete mathematics and some calculus courses.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That's about one or two classes more than even most humanities majors have to take. I'm assuming you've taken at most integral calculus (Calculus II in the US). </p>\n\n<p>You're going to need to take quite a few courses to be prepared for a PhD program, and have a chance at doing some useful research afterwards, considering you want to do <em>pure</em> math. </p>\n\n<p>Undergrad math majors usually take (to prepare for grad school) courses such as:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Real Analysis (at least two semesters)</li>\n<li>Modern/Abstract Algebra</li>\n<li>Vector and/or Complex Analysis</li>\n<li>Geometry and/or Topology</li>\n<li>Combinatorics/Graph Theory</li>\n<li>Number Theory </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Many schools also require a course on proofs/logic/set theory before you can do many of those, as well. It could behoove you to also know about functional analysis, and differential geometry/riemann surfaces before you enter as well, though you may be able to take those as graduate coursework. </p>\n\n<p>So you're looking at a good amount of time and effort before you can even competitively apply.</p>\n\n<p><strong>The Good</strong></p>\n\n<p>Having a master's in CS is a very useful thing. After all is said and done, you will be a very big asset in industry and R&D. A computer scientist who knows mathematics is a very dangerous person ;^)</p>\n\n<p>Good luck, and I'll be cheering for you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35024,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The easiest transition is probably to focus on mathematics programs where you can study topics closely related to computer science. You didn't mention in the question which areas of mathematics you are interested in studying. There is a significant amount of overlap between \"theoretical\" computer science and mathematics, although you have to take time to find the schools where this is studied in the mathematics department.</p>\n\n<p>Even at such schools, though, a mathematics PhD includes a significant amount of \"general\" coursework. For my PhD in mathematical logic and computability theory -- which is one of the closest mathematical topics to computer science - I passed exams in abstract algebra and real and complex analysis. The exact topics you would need to study vary by school. </p>\n\n<p>One option that has not been mentioned -- which has advantages as well as disadvantages -- would be to take a master's degree in mathematics first. This would certainly give you the background needed to be prepared for PhD studies. The main disadvantages are that it takes a year or two of your life, and that the funding for master's programs is not as generous as for PhD programs. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28210",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21602/"
] |
28,224 |
<p>I hope to receive my PhD in Mathematics in May of 2015, so I am currently applying for jobs. Due to life circumstances, I'm fairly certain that I will only be staying at my next position for about 2 years. Does this mean I shouldn't even try to apply for tenure-track positions? Will a hiring committee not even consider me for the position if I'm not willing to commit to staying with them for a certain amount of time?</p>
<p>I would love to get a teaching/lecturing position at any institute of higher education (4-year research university, liberal arts school, community college), but as I look for openings, a lot of them are tenure-track assistant professor positions. Should I go through the effort of sending in an application, or will that be a waste of my, and the committee's, time?</p>
<p>Thanks for any advice you have!</p>
<p>Edit (to address Nate's comment):</p>
<p>My wife is currently applying for 2 year graduate degree programs in various cities in the US, so I'm applying for jobs in the same cities. When she finishes her program, we plan to move outside of the US (Africa or Southeast Asia), where I do hope to remain in academia, teaching mathematics to college-aged students.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28226,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 11565,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11565",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Apply. </p>\n\n<p>If you accept a position, you are committed for the following year. Leaving after two years will disappoint people, but it happens fairly often, and the potential consequences of you not applying to these jobs are perhaps more serious than the potential consequences to the departments if you leave after two years.</p>\n\n<p>Besides, I don't know what your circumstances are, but you are presumably not completely sure you won't stay.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28242,
"author": "ddiez",
"author_id": 21435,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21435",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To expand on @Anonymous answer, even if you are certain <em>now</em> about what you plan to do in two years, you do not really know what life has waiting for your. In two years your certainties may be very different- and you may regret not having applied for those positions.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28244,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Faculty come and go all the time at universities. Although we may hope a tenure-track hire will stick around for a decade or more, in practice we know many examples of people who have left voluntarily before getting tenure. So the disappointment that your departure might cause will probably not be very significant. (My personal viewpoint is that it is much better to hire the \"best\" candidate who applies, even if she only may stay for a short time, than it is to hire someone else just because they will stay longer.) </p>\n\n<p>Regardless of how long you plan to stay, when applying for a tenure-track university you are likely to need to write some sort of teaching statement and some sort of research statement. These will be scrutinized by the hiring committee and neither can credibly say \"I am leaving in two years\". So you need to develop a plan <em>for the possibility</em> that you will stay in the tenure track position indefinitely, and use that plan when applying. </p>\n\n<p>The bigger concern I have is when you write</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I would love to get a teaching/lecturing position at any institute of higher education (4-year research university, liberal arts school, community college),</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Those three types of schools are very different, and they are looking for very different types of faculty (and there is a fourth type, \"non-research-intensive moderately large public university\", with its own idiosyncrasies). Very few candidates have a vita that is competitive for hiring at even two different kinds of institutions. </p>\n\n<p>If you have not yet started thinking about which sort of institution you want to specialize in, now is a good time. I am in mathematics myself, and I have seen many candidates try an ineffective \"shotgun\" approach where they apply to huge numbers of schools for which they are not competitive. Remember that even a non-elite school is likely to receive hundreds of applications for a single tenure-track position in mathematics these days. A generic application is not likely to rise to the top. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28280,
"author": "Ben Webster",
"author_id": 13,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First of all, this isn't really answering your question, but you should seriously discuss with your advisor or another trusted senior mathematician about what sort of jobs you should be applying for; even mentioning research universities as a new Ph.D. makes me wonder if you have been told the \"facts of life\" by someone. It is much more likely that you'll be able to find a short-term position anyways.</p>\n\n<p>That said, I don't think you should worry about the fact that you want to leave in 2 years. I can speak from the experience of having left two TT jobs within 2 years of starting. Of course, it's not something to be proud of, but it does happen pretty often, and I don't think it offends anybody's sensibilities too much. Honestly, I don't think you need to worry about people asking you about your plans (as long as they don't read this question and follow the link back to your webpage); leaving to move to Africa is so far outside what most people will imagine that they won't even be considering it. They assume that if you're applying for the job, you're at least thinking at the moment that you'll be in for the long haul. </p>\n\n<p>I think if you do mention your plan to anyone involved, it will hurt you a lot. No one actually wants to hire someone into a TT position who will leave in 2 years. It's a huge amount of wasted work and money, so I think it's only worthwhile apply to TT jobs if you feel comfortable just not mentioning it. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28224",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21610/"
] |
28,232 |
<p>I am a teaching assistant for the first time this semester. A couple of friends have asked how it is going, and I have used phrases like "some of my students..." or "my students are ..." when telling them my experiences.</p>
<p>I'm not so concerned when talking to my friends, but in an academic setting (ex. talking to another professor) is it appropriate for me to say "my students" when referring to the students in the class which I am TA'ing for? </p>
<p>I'm definitely leaning towards "no", because I am not the one instructing the class, I am just <em>helping</em> instruct the class, but I'd like to get SE's opinion.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28234,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Yes, it is perfectly appropriate to refer to students in a class you are TAing as \"my students.\"</p>\n\n<p>You are teaching them; hence, they are your students. It doesn't really matter whether or not you are the primary instructor.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28268,
"author": "keshlam",
"author_id": 10225,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10225",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>\"My students\" is not a possessive. It's \"the students whom I am responsible for.\" As such, it's wholly appropriate.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28232",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14556/"
] |
28,240 |
<p>Are there any <strong>general</strong> (not field-specific) <em>researcher digital identification</em> services or directories, <em>similar</em> to <em>ORCID</em> and <em>ResearcherID</em>?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28241,
"author": "Willie Wong",
"author_id": 94,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Some of the obvious ones:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>The <a href=\"http://www.isni.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ISNI</a> initiative wants to assign unique identifiers to all \"creators\". (They take authors in the broad sense of individuals generating copyrightable content or something like that, since they include musicians and others.) That is about as \"general\" as you can want. </p></li>\n<li><p>If you want to restrict to Academia, the <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/help/author_identifiers\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">arXiv author identifier</a> is not specifically field-specific, though it is limited to fields which have an arXiv presence. </p></li>\n<li><p>Since you didn't specify what is required of a \"researcher digital identification service\", social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate which you <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28239/are-orcid-and-researchid-compatible-with-research-social-networking-sites\">mentioned in your other question</a> can also serve the purpose of disambiguation of publishing records. </p></li>\n<li>Certain countries maintain their own databases of researchers residing there. The most comprehensive and successful seems to be that of <a href=\"http://www.surf.nl/en/themes/research/research-information/digital-author-identifier-dai/digital-author-identifier-dai.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Netherlands</a>. </li>\n<li>The American Mathematical Society has recently starting maintaining <a href=\"http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/help/getauth.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">author profiles</a> as part of their MathSciNet service (I know that the question asked for \"not field-specific\"; I'll weasel and say that the AMS profiles include also those working in related sciences to mathematics, such as physicists and computer scientists, and some engineers.)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>For a list of some of the other services, the <a href=\"https://repinf.pbworks.com/w/page/13779410/Author%20identification\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">International Repositories Infrastructure Wiki</a> has a slightly out-dated list of such services. Note however some of the items listed there have stalled and shutdown since the last edit. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 67172,
"author": "Hamish McWilliam",
"author_id": 52631,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/52631",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A few more creator/author/researcher identifiers:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus/support/authorprofile\" rel=\"nofollow\">Scopus Author Identifier</a> - automatically generated from author name and affiliation appearing in publications in the Scopus database</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://loop.frontiersin.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Loop</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://academic.research.microsoft.com/RankList?entitytype=2&topDomainID=4&subDomainID=10&last=0&start=1&end=100\" rel=\"nofollow\">Microsoft Research Academic Search for authors</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://scholar.google.co.uk/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Google Scholar</a> author profile <em>aka.</em> \"My Citations\" </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Please note that ORCID lives within a reserved section of the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) namespace, see \"<a href=\"https://orcid.org/blog/2013/04/22/orcid-and-isni-issue-joint-statement-interoperation-april-2013\" rel=\"nofollow\">ORCID and ISNI Issue Joint Statement on Interoperation</a>\", and works associated with an ORCID can be more than just publications but can include performances and presentations too, see \"<a href=\"http://members.orcid.org/api/supported-work-types\" rel=\"nofollow\">Supported Work Types</a>\" for a list.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28240",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12391/"
] |
28,246 |
<p>This is a hypothetical question so no hard facts about conferences etc.</p>
<p>Say for example there is a conference at your own university that you get to present a paper at but you also get accepted at another university's conference to present a paper at as well. </p>
<p>For this example we will say that both conferences/universities are of the same standing and there is no disadvantage to attend the other one such as cost etc.</p>
<p>Would both look equally good on a CV or would there be a view that the presentation at your own institution would not carry as much weight when viewed by, for example, by a hiring committee?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28247,
"author": "o-0",
"author_id": 21552,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21552",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First of all, think about your career in a long run. The outstanding CV shows high number of publications with high factors. </p>\n\n<p>If you have an opportunity to formally present your work at another university, do it; simply because you can discuss your work with new people at your field, and get their feedback about your work. You need these feedbacks to direct you, to an outstanding results, and ultimately great publications. You can talk to your colleagues, about your work/results at your university, at any occasion. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28249,
"author": "dnaiel",
"author_id": 21633,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21633",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In general, I think there is usually the perception that having papers accepted to conferences at your home institution is easier and, thus, carries less reputational weight. This \"home institution penalty\" is probably less severe:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>the higher your home institution ranks in the discipline, and</li>\n<li>the greater the perceived importance of the conference in the field.</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28252,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Rtisan is probably right about a local conference carrying somewhat less weight and prestige on a CV.</p>\n\n<p>However, there are some other benefits of presenting at a local conference:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>It's usually free. With the travel money you save, you can attend another conference far away later on. Now you have two conference talks on your CV instead of just one. (In other words, \"present locally\" versus \"present far away\" is probably a false dichotomy. Even if the local conference conflicts with a faraway conference, there is very likely another faraway conference in the near future that's just as good. And if the conflicting faraway conference is, like, the one and only awesomest conference in your field, then the organizers of your local conference probably shouldn't have scheduled theirs to conflict with it.)</p></li>\n<li><p>Less travel: you get to save a day or two of travel time, sleep in your own bed, see your family, etc. This may make the conference much more relaxing.</p></li>\n<li><p>Being the attraction: People may be saying to themselves: \"Hey, there's a conference at Podunk University. I think that's where gman works, so I'm sure he'll be there. I was just reading his paper and it will be great to hear his talk and ask him questions.\"</p></li>\n<li><p>Networking: as a local at a conference, people are more likely to want to talk to you. For instance, \"Hey gman, you live here, can you recommend a good restaurant in town? Would you like to join us for dinner?\" The opportunity to talk to other researchers informally can be very valuable to a career. Even fielding mundane questions like \"How do I connect to the wifi? Where is Room NNN? Can you help me turn on the projector?\" can start good conversations. (Make sure you know the answers to these questions!) It can be harder to initiate interactions like this when you are a stranger in a strange city.</p></li>\n<li><p>Help organize: Try to join the organizing committee, or at least offer to help them out. Organizing a local conference is a lot of work, and by contributing to this you will gain the appreciation of your colleagues. It's also valuable experience, and \"conference co-organizer\" is a nice line to have on a CV. Finally, conference organizers tend to have more contact with the visiting participants, contributing to Networking as above.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28246",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12454/"
] |
28,255 |
<p>What would be best practice in indicating the source of text samples used to illustrate some concept or analysis result in linguistics or computational linguistics?</p>
<p>For example, I might want to use the sentence </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you had told someone in 2012 that in just two years hence, the eurozone would remain bonded together but the United Kingdom might not, they would have thought you insane.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>from a recent The New York Times article (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/upshot/why-does-scotland-want-independence-its-culture-vs-economics.html?abt=0002&abg=0" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/upshot/why-does-scotland-want-independence-its-culture-vs-economics.html?abt=0002&abg=0</a>), augmented with some annotation, in order to illustrate how different anaphora resolution methods would work or fail for this real life example. Copyright fair use policies allow to use such limited extracts without any permission, and using them is common practice, but the attribution and quoting seems unclear.</p>
<p><strong>How, and if, should I quote the source of that sentence within a paper?</strong></p>
<p>Would publication style (say, short paper vs. a dissertation) affect it?</p>
<p>Would density of examples (2 examples in whole paper vs 20 different examples in a single page) matter?</p>
<p>Would indirect sources change it? E.g. if the sentences are taken from, say, British National Corpus - but, naturally, they originally come from some different publication.</p>
<h2>Language utterance sources are different from other references</h2>
<p>At least in computational linguistics, general practice clearly is to not include the source of language utterance or sentence examples together with normal references. There are various approaches seen in practice among respectable publications: no referencing at all, a footnote reference for the sentence, a mention in article text, a single reference to a whole corpus (by referencing not the source but some authoritative paper about the corpus), etc. I'm wondering about those options, which would be preferable and which should be avoided.</p>
<p>Avoiding the whole problem by using sentences made up by myself is not a good solution - artificial examples are biased towards using constructions that behave in the same way as you and your tools expect, so real life examples of natural language from domain-representative sources are strictly preferred.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28247,
"author": "o-0",
"author_id": 21552,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21552",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First of all, think about your career in a long run. The outstanding CV shows high number of publications with high factors. </p>\n\n<p>If you have an opportunity to formally present your work at another university, do it; simply because you can discuss your work with new people at your field, and get their feedback about your work. You need these feedbacks to direct you, to an outstanding results, and ultimately great publications. You can talk to your colleagues, about your work/results at your university, at any occasion. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28249,
"author": "dnaiel",
"author_id": 21633,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21633",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In general, I think there is usually the perception that having papers accepted to conferences at your home institution is easier and, thus, carries less reputational weight. This \"home institution penalty\" is probably less severe:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>the higher your home institution ranks in the discipline, and</li>\n<li>the greater the perceived importance of the conference in the field.</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28252,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Rtisan is probably right about a local conference carrying somewhat less weight and prestige on a CV.</p>\n\n<p>However, there are some other benefits of presenting at a local conference:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>It's usually free. With the travel money you save, you can attend another conference far away later on. Now you have two conference talks on your CV instead of just one. (In other words, \"present locally\" versus \"present far away\" is probably a false dichotomy. Even if the local conference conflicts with a faraway conference, there is very likely another faraway conference in the near future that's just as good. And if the conflicting faraway conference is, like, the one and only awesomest conference in your field, then the organizers of your local conference probably shouldn't have scheduled theirs to conflict with it.)</p></li>\n<li><p>Less travel: you get to save a day or two of travel time, sleep in your own bed, see your family, etc. This may make the conference much more relaxing.</p></li>\n<li><p>Being the attraction: People may be saying to themselves: \"Hey, there's a conference at Podunk University. I think that's where gman works, so I'm sure he'll be there. I was just reading his paper and it will be great to hear his talk and ask him questions.\"</p></li>\n<li><p>Networking: as a local at a conference, people are more likely to want to talk to you. For instance, \"Hey gman, you live here, can you recommend a good restaurant in town? Would you like to join us for dinner?\" The opportunity to talk to other researchers informally can be very valuable to a career. Even fielding mundane questions like \"How do I connect to the wifi? Where is Room NNN? Can you help me turn on the projector?\" can start good conversations. (Make sure you know the answers to these questions!) It can be harder to initiate interactions like this when you are a stranger in a strange city.</p></li>\n<li><p>Help organize: Try to join the organizing committee, or at least offer to help them out. Organizing a local conference is a lot of work, and by contributing to this you will gain the appreciation of your colleagues. It's also valuable experience, and \"conference co-organizer\" is a nice line to have on a CV. Finally, conference organizers tend to have more contact with the visiting participants, contributing to Networking as above.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28255",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10730/"
] |
28,257 |
<p>I'm a first year PhD student (computer science), and I've felt that I lost this year up to now due to some life difficulties. I'm getting no financial support and I was forced to teach to get some money and pay my expenses. I have another personal problems that took me to a state of depression, where I've spent some months completely stuck in my work.</p>
<p>I want to "be back on the rails" and continue to work on this, but I'm feeling lost. I need to go back to the very beginning and find what a PhD is, and what I must do to advance the state of art with my current (weak) capabilities. At the same time I must to show some results to my advisor with what I already have in my hands.</p>
<p>I know that my "question" is pretty obscure, but I need some advices on how to proceed, from people with some experience in this situation. <strong>How can I overcome depression and 'get back on the rails' with my PhD?</strong></p>
<p>IMPORTANT EDIT:</p>
<p>Some years later I finally got my PhD. I cannot believe I made it. At the time that I wrote this post it seemed utterly impossible to achieve this. If you are in the middle of a PhD you may try to endure and fight until the end. But if you are wondering about starting a PhD, please make sure YOU ABSOLUTELY LOVE your topic, otherwise you'll end like me when I wrote this. I didn't like my research area and the topic I choose. Everything else seemed to be way more interesting. I wanted to do everything instead of reading papers and conducting my own research. I felt unproductive and useless, and at some point my advisor started to complain about my lack of results. It was my fault since the beginning since I didn't followed a research area that I could have joy with it. I should have choose something that matched my abilities and preferences, for instance, I'm pretty good with programming, but my math skills aren't great, and yet I tried to enter a field that is dominated by math and advanced statistics. I couldn't do what I do the best, neither I was able to catch up with the involved math.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28258,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Depression is very common amongst graduate students and faculty. So know that you are not alone. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>About 60% of graduate students said that they felt overwhelmed, exhausted, hopeless, sad, or depressed nearly all the time. One in 10 said they had contemplated suicide in the previous year. <a href=\"http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2014_02_04/caredit.a1400031\">-- AAS Science Careers</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>However, there is very little that the community on SE can do to help you. We are not therapists and cannot provide a therapeutic relationship.</p>\n\n<p>Know that there is no shame in seeking help. Your university almost always has a mental health clinic with free or subsidized service. Whether you prefer talk therapy or psychopharmaceuticals (or both) is up to you and your insurance plan -- but please do go seek help from specialists.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28259,
"author": "badroit",
"author_id": 7746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your question is:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Overcoming depression and getting back on rails on PhD's work?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>My advice would be to treat these as two separate problems. </p>\n\n<p>First you must tackle overcoming (or at least learning to cope) with depression ... which you say is due to personal problems. You should prioritise this. Only then can you aim to get back on the rails with your PhD work. In terms of coping with depression, this may involve lifestyle changes, seeking counselling, and so forth.</p>\n\n<p>Once you are healthier, you can then prioritise pushing forward your PhD work. It's important to keep communicating with your supervisor what is going on with you. Their job is to advise you. Let them know what is going on. Likewise set yourself small achievable goals. Thinking about a PhD in its entirety is very daunting. Break up your work into little milestones (no longer than a week, say) and try to focus on one thing at a time.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>On a side note, there can be a pathogenic aspect to academia where working ridiculous hours and being depressed all the time is sort of implicitly tolerated, for students and staff alike. <strong>This is wrong.</strong> If you find yourself in such an environment, try to improve it. If this doesn't work, just get out. Learning does not require suffering. Research does not require suffering. Depression should not be a side-effect of a PhD.</p>\n\n<p>If it is your PhD that is an underlying cause or aggravator of depression, I think you need to ask yourself: Is getting a PhD really worth it? Can you take steps to improve your situation? Could you find another PhD position elsewhere? Maybe you could try find a job or just do something different?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28260,
"author": "o-0",
"author_id": 21552,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21552",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a past PhD student in the domain of software engineering, and having some personal problems during my PhD; I can totally relate to you. </p>\n\n<p>First of all, doing little/nothing (in your opinion) during the first year is pretty common. In fact there is a lesson in itself. That is, a year, is not a long time in a lifestyle of a researcher. So you can plan your years ahead more wisely. </p>\n\n<p>Second, you need to understand that, doing a research in computer science is sometimes is very hard; as many big successful companies are doing great things, and for marketing purposes, bragging about it publicly; and you need to sit and think about a contribution that is not tackled before, with limited resources (e.g., time, budget, etc.). Hopefully in near future you will find the purpose in your research, and will be happy about your role in the computer science domain. </p>\n\n<p>Third, you need to start exercising on a daily basis. Sitting long hours, and trying doing a research in an office environment, sooner or later will effect your mental health. So plan a light workout at least 3 times a week. </p>\n\n<p>Fourth, eat well. If you use any self medication (cigarets, alcohol), stop them. They will contribute to your moods. </p>\n\n<p>Fifth, work during reasonable hours. Do not work more than 8/9 hours a day. Do not work strange hours (late nights, midnights). </p>\n\n<p>Hopefully by balancing your life, you will start feeling good and then great again and will continue your research. </p>\n\n<p>If you still have the problem, contact the student union at your university, they can help you get some time off, so you can tackle this issue professionally. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28272,
"author": "einpoklum",
"author_id": 7319,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7319",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Ok, here is my (partial) take on the matter.</p>\n\n<p>I completed a PhD, also in Comp Sci, but in theory rather than software. In retrospect, I believe it may not even have been a good idea to do so. I'm not suggesting that you quit, though; nor am I going to write my long personal story since it is, well, personal and long. So let's just make some suggestions:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Ask yourself this: \"Is my self-esteem, my sense of self-worth, based on me succeeding academically? As a student and now as a researcher?\" If the answer is \"Yes\", then you need to rewire your brain. Because even if you don't end up in a deep emotional crisis right now, you will at some point in the not-too-distant future, and until then you'll probably suffer most of the time. I was very afraid of asking myself that question, because I sort of knew the answer; but if it reaches your consciousness than you know you have to do something about it.</p></li>\n<li><p>Suppose your PhD tanks. You don't reach publishable results, you wander around in circles, you need money and there's nothing you can do on campus to make enough - it goes up in flames. You advisor frowns and is disappointed. Your parents wonder \"Gee, what's he going to do with his life now?\" Sounds terrible, right? Can you live with that? The answer is: Of course you can. What you can't live with is spending your time trying to avoid this possibility, or imagining it out of existence. It may happen. Don't start spending all your time on planning for PhD failure, but try to entertain it as a real possibility. Try to \"pre-accept\" this failure and thinking of your PhD prospects as a sort of a calculated bet. </p></li>\n<li><p>Some people bypass their emotional issues by making research breakthroughs relatively quickly; they supposedly never have to deal with the kind of anguish we go through. For us, however, it's all the more exasperating to see them progress while we're stuck. If you spend <em>any</em> time trying to compare yourself to them: \"Why am I less successful/quick/able than that guy\" - again, you're in trouble. You're thinking of the PhD as a sort of rat race. Unfortunately, it's half-become that in some fields. Your PhD is supposed to be something unique, that you are pursuing for its own sake (or because you need to apply the research personally). Don't adopt the goal of <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU6m5UqLx9M\" rel=\"noreferrer\">\"getting ahead\"</a> abstractly in your PhD.</p></li>\n<li><p>It is my (non-universal) experience that many people around you, especially senior tenured staff, can be total <em>assholes</em> about this kind of problem. It is so commonplace, so fundamental, so frustrating... and yet, they're just shuffling along untroubled. Even when all the signs tell them how you feel. And nobody prepares you for this. They make you think you're just, well, continuing your studies. Don't be afraid to develop a nice grudge :-) and, on that note</p></li>\n<li><p>A PhD candidate is not a student. That is, you are also a student, and research is a kind of study, but in that sense a Professor is also a student. You now have something between a strange kind of <em>job</em> and an also-strange kind of <em>contract work</em> (perhaps half-unpaid). I know usual capitalist class divisions (hired labor / capitalist employer) don't apply very well to academia, but I think it's emotionally (and sometimes financially) useful to think of it that way. Of course, you should be very committed to your job and take it seriously, not slack around...</p></li>\n<li><p>Is your advisor actually advising you? Academically, at least? That is, does he provide guidance, suggestions on how to proceed research-wise and academic-life-wise? Clearly, you're not close with him, and he doesn't realize what you're going through. Do you think you could tell him? Or will he not 'get it' emotionally, and just end up thinking you're a weak person? I would say it's probably a good idea to share your situation with him even if he's expected to respond relatively poorly. Don't make excuses to him and try to hide what's going on. Better for him to think of you as a wuss who can't handle it than a dodgy person who can't be trusted to tell the truth.</p></li>\n<li><p>You wouldn't believe how many people use psychotherapy, or take anti-depression medicine - in society in general and in grad school in particular. If you're, say, at the point of having trouble sleeping, or having other physical symptoms of depression or anxiety - talk to your GP (your doctor) and ask him/her to explain such possibilities to you.</p></li>\n<li><p>Teaching is part of the calling of being an academic. Researchers should teach, regardless of money. It's good for keeping in touch with the foundations of your discipline, and what's more - it can help your mood. At least, it did for me. Still, if you need to do a lot of it to make ends meet, that sucks. There are academic staff labor unions for these kinds of problems (and for wider concerns hopefully), but I'm not going to suggest to you as a single person that all the graduate teachers should go on strike for better pay etc. Although they generally should :-)</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28274,
"author": "Edward Ames",
"author_id": 12475,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12475",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Depression is the root cause of why I didn't finish my Ph.D., so please take it seriously.</p>\n\n<p>First divide things into stuff that you can fix and stuff that you can't. Things that you can't fix include lack of sufficient money to study without work and the difficulty of your subject. Things that you can fix include exercise, diet, and sleep patterns (@badroit). Also, there are extra things that you can do such as using the campus psych help and medications.</p>\n\n<p>It is surprising how much a change to logical exercise, diet, and sleep can help. The only problem is that those changes take a significant amount of effort which is the original problem. Nevertheless, try a \"21 day challenge\": more than 7 hours of sleep a night (at night), no junk food nor soda, and at least light exercise (e.g. yoga, hiking). Also, try to socialize, more than just drinking buddies.</p>\n\n<p>As to the medications, I have found most of the prescription stuff of little use. Zoloft, etc. had only a marginal effect. The single most effective thing has been wheatgrass juice. I used up to 4 oz of freshly ground wheatgrass juice daily, and after about 10 days, I noticed an improvement. Within about 2 weeks of starting, my depression was GONE. I haven't been without depression since puberty (~20 years), and it took me awhile to get used to it. At first, I felt fragile, like anything might break it. Then, all of a sudden, I could finally do all of the things that I wanted.</p>\n\n<p>One thing to bear in mind. No matter what type of medication you take, your mental habits still remain from the depression. Be aware that one of your first priorities should be to change your mental habits (e.g. always seeing the bad side, assuming everyone hates you / makes fun of you / holds you in contempt, assuming that you can't finish anything, assuming that you are a horrible person or stupid, etc.). These are just artifacts. You will finally be able to change them like changing your clothes. I know that that statement sounds stupid, but once the depression stopped forcing my mental outlook, I actually could gain control of it. Big change.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, you mentioned that you have weak capabilities. That might be true or not, but that is FIXABLE. That is the purpose of school. You are in the process of improving those capabilities. Where else would you expect someone to improve their academic capabilities. So, don't worry about that.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28279,
"author": "lemon",
"author_id": 19470,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19470",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The legendary physicist Richard Feynman struggled with a terrible bout of depression shortly after Hiroshima and was unable to work. He talks about it in his book <em>Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman</em>. In the end, he decided to go back to his roots and just work on things that interested him - rather than what he <em>should</em> be working on. As it happens, while modelling the motion of a flying and oscillating plate (for fun), he inadvertently solved a quantum mechanical problem.</p>\n\n<p>As a PhD student who has also wrestled with depression for many years, I have adopted this same indulgent approach: find a problem or task that interests you and work on it <em>for fun</em>. You'll be amazed with how often this leads to something publishable.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28290,
"author": "Patrick Sanan",
"author_id": 8796,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8796",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Talk to people</strong>\nTalk to your advisor, your professors, your TAs, your fellow students, your friends, your family, the people at your school's graduate office (often just waiting to help), or a counselor if you have access to one. People on the internet don't count. It might be tempting to get stuck in your own head and believe that you can figure everything out on your own if you just work hard enough, but clearly that isn't working.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28297,
"author": "tod",
"author_id": 14747,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14747",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Don't be depressed! Always, Be hopeful! Posting this question means that you still have a lot of hope within yourself. You just need to get it recognized by yourself and acknowledged. Try to think, imagine and act in such a way, read, write and watch such stuff which provides you hope.</p>\n\n<p>Since you have mentioned about the first year that is some what about the course work. Let me tell you the fact that you have lost nothing, if you have passed the courses you took and, maybe, only something very little and not everything (of course, not a complete year) otherwise. </p>\n\n<p>The fact that you have no financial support is something that happens to many and you are not alone to be in such a situation. You are rather lucky that you have made it up by teaching. I personally know those who have had similar situations in grad schools and were forced to take odd jobs. </p>\n\n<p>Try not to think about that personal problem much. Your too much mental involvement in that is not only harming you in your present, rather it would leave its marks on your mind and would also be destructive for your future. Remember not to think about the things too much which are not under your control. </p>\n\n<p>Forget about showing results to your adviser so far. He won't kick you out of the PhD program. Try to bring your problems in his knowledge, otherwise, it won't work this way for rest of the years during your PhD. Do not try to be a superman, just be realistic with your life, work and supervisor. Try to keep him in 'CC' about the challenges (not problems) of your life and work. </p>\n\n<p>Keep your emotions under control and remember that: \"PhD is also a patience test\". During the course emotions won't let you complete it at several occasions and they might even force you to quit. But, please! don't let your emotions hinder you work, your life will be okay.</p>\n\n<p>Best Luck!</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28257",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21628/"
] |
28,270 |
<p>I would like to apply for following PhD studies in the Nordic countries, particularly in the field of Computer Science. The problem that I found is that it says in the admission procedure that "before applying one should get a Professor or Researcher that agrees to supervise the applicant". </p>
<p>I have checked up the personal webpages of the Professors and I have found their topics of interests, publications and so on. I like a lot of the topics in which they make research, but I do not really know how to address an email to them asking if they would agree to supervise me. Particularly I have the following doubts:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Should I make a small research article putting my ideas about one research interest of them? The problem here is that I believe I would not have the enough time to go through a lot of papers made on their reseach groups. What can I do if do not have the enough background? Time is running fast for submitting the application and I do not believe I would have enough time to study in deep their research.</p></li>
<li><p>Should I send my CV and ask to a specific Professor that I have interest in following PhD studies under their supervision, and if it would be possible if he or she to send me some open question or open research task so that they could see that I will manage to do it well on his or her research group?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I will transcribe what the ad specifically says:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li><p>You must do your best to find a suitable supervisor at the department who agrees to supervise you. Please see the research pages
of the department, and especially the descriptions of the research
groups.</p></li>
<li><p>You must agree on a study plan, a research plan and a financing plan together with your (found) supervisor, and submit an application
to the steering committee of the department's doctoral programme.</p></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>also about the supervisor it says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A student who wants to become a PhD student should start the
application process by finding a supervisor at the department, who
works in the field of interest of the student and who is willing to
supervise the student. If the student is unsure of which supervisor to
contact, he or she may first contact the research coordinator of the
department who will steer the student in the right direction.
Generally, a supervisor is a professor and/or principal investigator
employed by the department.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For what I read it seems, at least to me, that one should really have in mind a good research proposal before applying, am I wrong? or only with an email will suffice to contact the potential supervisor?</p>
<p>What should I do in this situation?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28318,
"author": "hepidad",
"author_id": 10804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10804",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You might read these:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If the student is unsure of which supervisor to contact, he or she may first contact the research coordinator of the department who will steer the student in the right direction. Generally, a supervisor is a professor and/or principal investigator employed by the department.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Contact the research coordinator at first and kindly follow these steps.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Prepare your research proposal and CV that state your research interest. </li>\n<li><p>Write an email that explains these points: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>State your intention to apply to his/her University. </li>\n<li>Explain why you apply to his/her University? </li>\n<li>Inform them that his/her\npublications caught your attention. </li>\n<li>Explain your research plan, inform them that you attached your research proposals.</li>\n<li>State your appreciation if they give their guidance. </li>\n</ul></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Wait for response from them. If their response is positive, they will be questioning you more detail about your research as part of the pre-selection process. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28319,
"author": "Ondřej Černotík",
"author_id": 8164,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8164",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you have a specific potential advisor at a university, start by sending a brief (and polite, of course) email. Ask whether she would be willing to take a new student and say a few words about your background (what you did in your bachelor/master, where and with whom). Thus you can show that your background is compatible with the advisor's research. If you manage to add a few words about how you liked something specific about the advisor's recent work, that will certainly be a big plus. End by thanking the supervisor for her time and say that you are ready to provide more info if necessary. The advisor can then help you get through the formalities if she sees a potential in you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 48609,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From my experience in Sweden, what most professors weight the most to evaluate a candidate is the research experience. Make sure you include a list of all your projects, with a brief explanation of what you did; and a copy of the reports of the finished ones, if they are not very big. Glancing at your profile, I see you have been published, that is very good, make it visible!</p>\n\n<p>Grades are (usually) not very important, but be prepared to promptly produce a transcript if requested.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, common sense applies, a large dump of stuff is more likely to get ignored or deleted than a well distilled selection.</p>\n\n<p>Best of luck!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 91014,
"author": "MosunO",
"author_id": 74919,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/74919",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would suggest you have a very good research proposal. Go through your proposal and then contact the professor(s) who also have interest in what you are interested in. </p>\n\n<p>Ensure that the email is well thought out and avoid all unnecessary spelling errors.</p>\n\n<p>The email should also include your academic achievement as it relates to that of the professor(s). </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28270",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6144/"
] |
28,276 |
<p>As a professor, I am sometimes asked to help undergrads (I'm currently at the University of Michigan) find funding for math research during the summer. In the past I have seen some get funding from the NSF REU program. The only problem with this is that it is only 8 weeks (At least at my school). Are there any other research grants that are given to undergrads that could last the entire summer?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28522,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Probably you are asking about programs, rather than grants. Typically only faculty receive grants. There are a variety of <a href=\"http://www.pathwaystoscience.org/programs.asp?descriptorhub=SummerResearch_Summer%20Research%20Opportunity\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"search tools\">search tools</a> available for these programs. Typically the most flexible situations undergrads can get come from the undergraduate's university office of undergraduate research or from a faculty member the student knows who is willing to hire undergraduates using grant money. Most of the government research funding agencies offer a summer research program. These typically range from 8 to 12 weeks in duration and are not usually flexible, though I have heard of accommodations being made for students whose classes end late.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28523,
"author": "Geoff Hutchison",
"author_id": 21869,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21869",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'd also ask around your department. Many universities have various summer research fellowships available. For example, one enterprising student in my lab found money through NASA that was administered through the physics department but also funded math, science, engineering, etc.</p>\n\n<p>Also, most funding organizations are happy to \"pad\" a research grant with 1-2 undergrad research positions. I usually add these to my budget when submitting. While other areas get trimmed, the undergrad positions have never been a problem.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28276",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18365/"
] |
28,281 |
<p>When applying for postdoc positions, one has the option to send out lots of applications, possibly get several offers, then choose the one that seems best.</p>
<p>Alternatively, the applicant could contact the research group that looks the most relevant or best suited for him, and focus on getting a position there. If the feedback is not positive, then (and only then) move on to the next best choice.</p>
<p>I believe that in the USA it is accepted that people will shop around for positions, and not taking an offer is considered completely normal. However, in some other places it is possible that if the applicant shows a lot of interest for a certain position, then gets an offer to be hired, and doesn't accept it anyway, it could be considered rude.</p>
<p>What is the usual or best way for applying in various countries? I think it is very important to research this point to avoid any misunderstandings or bad feelings because of differences in attitudes towards the application process.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28285,
"author": "299792458",
"author_id": 17534,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17534",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28281/applying-for-posdtoc-positions-is-it-okay-to-send-out-many-applications#comment60725_28281\">Pete's concern</a> looks valid to me, even in this hypothetical situation, a polite declining letter/email should do fine. For a somewhat reliable account of how faculty generally thinks you should go about declining an offer, follow <a href=\"http://science-professor.blogspot.in/2010/03/go-ahead-reject-me.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this link</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, the above was written in the context of grad school applications, and post-doc is much more personal than that AFAIK. (You contact a person, not an institution - so if there's any possibility of declination being deemed rude, it is more likely to be the case in a post-doc application than in the grad school context, which necessitates it further). But the intent is the same, and content (of the email) could also follow suite! </p>\n\n<p>But having said that, please bear in mind that the professor would've himself been in your position some time back. He/she would've himself declined offers in his days, and I don't he will consider it rude. (Unless of course, if your correspondence went to a very advanced stage, you assured him you would join, he told other applicants that he's full and has no vacancy, and now you insist on not joining! But if it is simply that you were considered and found good enough, and decide on not joining, go ahead with the advice to avoid rudeness concerns.) </p>\n\n<p>Hope that helps</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28286,
"author": "Arindam Pal",
"author_id": 21663,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21663",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You should remember that universities are also looking at the resumes of many candidates for a given position. If it is not rude on their part to consider many applications and rejecting most of them, why will it be rude for a candidate to apply to many positions and reject some of them?</p>\n\n<p>This is a many-to-many matching market between applicants and positions. You are trying to optimize your chances, they are trying to optimize their interest. If you look at it from this game theoretic perspective, you will not feel any qualm of conscience.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28295,
"author": "o-0",
"author_id": 21552,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21552",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For a moment think about both ends: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>You want to find a postdoc position, to continue your research. Hopefully you will contribute a number of good journals, and move forward through your goal (an academic position). So you should be very careful where and with whom you will do your postdoc. In a long run playing the number game (i.e., sending your cv everywhere) does not pay off, because even if you find a position, it doesn't mean that much until you contribute great results. And that 'great' result is based on many factors out of your hand (e.g., supervisor, the team he/she made around him or herself, the city you will do your postdoc, etc.). So, do your search wisely and apply to ones that truly you think you will be useful. </p></li>\n<li><p>Supervisors look for a postdoc position to ease their job to some extent in the first place (e.g., help them with proposals, help them in labs, etc.). Lets face it, they already have their permanent position, so if they pay for a postdoc, they want a helping hand in the first place. In some cases, publication comes second hand for them, they already publish papers/journals on regular basis without you anyway. </p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So if you want the situation be in your favor as a postdoc, you really need to look into these factors. Just don't send your CV some strange place, expect to be great situation. You might tie yourself to a nightmare (e.g., in the middle of project, and they don't care about your input). </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28281",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21656/"
] |
28,288 |
<p>During my bachelors and masters degree I have attended some brief talks called colloquiums in which a researcher was invited by a professor at the university and s/he gave a one-hour talk about a scientific topic most of which about his/her own research interests.</p>
<p>These talks are a little different from normal conference presentations and seminars because the speaker is invited to give a talk and he is not presenting a specific paper; but in a conference, except from keynote speakers; people normally submit their papers to be peer-reviewed.</p>
<p>I don't know what's the role of colloquiums in academia and what the speaker is seeking by giving such talks? Also, who can give such talks (a researcher, somebody from industry, an outstanding professor, etc.)?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28291,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>what the speaker is seeking by giving such small talks?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>One word: <strong>exposition</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>As a rule, the more senior a researcher gets, the less of her/his attention is devoted to writing single research papers. It becomes more central to be known for a specific niche, a specific topic where (s)he is the world's foremost expert. One does not become such a figurehead for a specific niche by writing good papers in the area <em>alone</em> (although, clearly, this is still required). One also needs to be an ambassador for the niche. This includes giving keynotes at conferences, as well as giving seminars and colloquia. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Also, who can give such talks</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Everybody who gets invited by somebody. However, typically, one does not give keynote-level talks before senior postdoc or assistant professor level, simply because most PhD students do not have all too much of a vision going beyond their thesis yet. And, frankly, the keynotes of most postdocs also suck. Like most skills in academia, giving good exposition talks is also a skill that comes with training.</p>\n\n<p>(there are exceptions, of course - I can think of at least one outstanding PhD student in software engineering who was regularly invited to give keynote talks at conferences midway through her dissertation)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28306,
"author": "ddiez",
"author_id": 21435,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21435",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/28291/15723\">@xLeitix answer</a>, another reason comes from the inviting part point of view. For example, in my institute from now and then researchers (at the levels mentioned by <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/28291/15723\">@xLeitix</a>) are invited to give talks. The goal is that researchers in the institute get to know about other researchers vision, topics and approaches. The aim is mainly to broaden our knowledge in order to stimulate new ideas and collaborations between researches from different topics or even fields. This is why typically these presentations are not just about a specific paper (likely niche topic), and look more like keynote presentations in conferences.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28308,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to other answers, a colloquium series is often used as a way to indirectly fund research collaboration.</p>\n\n<p>In many cases, the colloquium speaker is a collaborator of one of the institution's own faculty (call her X), or at least X is specifically interested in the speaker's work. X may suggest that the speaker be invited. The speaker will usually be on campus for a day or two (or more), during which he and X can have longer technical discussions. The colloquium talk is for the benefit of the rest of the department: they can learn about the speaker's work at a higher, less technical level. (Colloquiua are usually meant to be pitched to an audience of faculty and grad students with a general background in the field, not necessarily the speaker's specific subfield; of course, that isn't always the way the talk turns out!) The department pays for the speaker's travel expenses, and everybody is happy. Next week, someone else's collaborator is invited.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28288",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723/"
] |
28,294 |
<p>Around a month ago, I was requested to review a paper submitted to a well-known APS journal. The main idea introduced in the paper was nice and the experimental implementation had fairly good results. I therefore sent my approval with some minor revisions. </p>
<p>Last week, I was shocked to find (through a poster presented at an international conference) that the idea in the work I refereed had been <strong>blatantly plagiarized</strong> from another work published earlier this year. In fact, a few sentences had even been simply copy-pasted. </p>
<p>In the course of reviewing, I had checked all the references in the paper and not surprisingly, the original work had <em>not</em> been cited. </p>
<p>I immediately sent a correspondence via the APS referee interface to revert my earlier decision and reject the paper outrightly. The editor later sent me a detailed reply saying that the paper has been rejected by the journal and the authors have been <em>made aware</em> of the original work. </p>
<p>But anyhow, the question I wish to raise here is: <em>whose responsibility should it be to find out if a work submitted for publication is an act of plagiarism</em> ? </p>
<p>While I feel both referees and editors must work on this aspect, I think the primary onus should be on the editors/publishing team. They have far more resources to investigate plagiarism. Furthermore, in contrast to editors, referees do not get paid and are doing this job mainly because of their belief in the edifice of peer-review, to add to their CV, etc. </p>
<p>Perhaps the experts and experienced researchers can give their opinion here?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28298,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>I think the primary onus should be on the editors/publishing team.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I don't think most editors would agree with you here.</p>\n\n<p>Further, you say:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>in contrast to editors, referees do not get paid </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Neither do most editors of scientific journals. Both are community service jobs taken up by academics. Many journals do (in addition) have copy editors and lectors, but those are typically not responsible for any content-based decisions. Those copy-editors are responsible for making sure that the layout is correct, that references etc. are in the right format, and (in some cases) improve the language, grammar, and spelling. They do not have the field knowledge to judge whether the document they are currently looking at is plagiarized, except for maybe the most blatant cases.</p>\n\n<p>Finding plagiarism (both, in sentences and ideas) is the job of the refereeing team, which consists of the reviewers, the responsible associated editor (if any), and the editor-in-chief.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28304,
"author": "ddiez",
"author_id": 21435,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21435",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As referee I would say I never actively check for plagiarism- neither I have been asked to do so in the instructions for referees (my fields are life science and bioinformatics). The responsibility falls mostly on the editor's side. Indeed, many journals will pass your paper through plagiarism tools like <a href=\"http://www.ithenticate.com\">iThenticate</a> and they warn you during the submission process (indeed, you have to agree with this before being able to submit). I think all journals should do this.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, if we find proof of plagiarism or self plagiarism we should report it to the editors, as you did. During my reviews I have found a couple of cases of limited self plagiarism when looking for information related to the manuscript and noted that to the editors in my review. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28332,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Well, we now have two opposing views, so I'll add a third: <strong>Neither.</strong></p>\n\n<p>I don't think that either the editor or the reviewer has a responsibility to try to detect plagiarism. When I read a journal, I don't assume that anyone has taken explicit steps to check for plagiarism. I don't see it as incumbent on either of them to take steps like matching against a database of previous papers (indeed I think such things cause more trouble than they are worth; see arXiv's \"textual overlap\" detector).</p>\n\n<p>If a plagiarized paper should make it into print, I blame the author, but I don't blame the editor or referee for not catching it. They are victims of the plagiarist, along with the rest of the community.</p>\n\n<p>The referee is typically asked to judge the novelty of the paper, so they should be reasonably familiar with the existing literature (if not, they should decline to review the paper). If the paper seems very reminiscent of a paper they've seen before, then they should certainly compare them, but not so much to check for plagiarism as to better understand the innovations of the new paper.</p>\n\n<p>That said, the referee certainly has a responsibility to <em>report</em> plagiarism if they do notice it, and the editor has a responsibility to thoroughly investigate any reports or allegations of plagiarism, and take prompt and decisive action if warranted.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28294",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18210/"
] |
28,305 |
<p>I have finished writing my first paper to be published in a journal. My intent is to try to publish in a high-impact journal (there are two candidates from the IEEE Transactions class). However, my advisor and another professor, who is close to our research, both suggest that I should refrain from trying to aim that high, i.e. first publish in a lower ranked journal. They state that the reason is not the insufficient quality of the paper, but rather the length of the acceptance process, which is in their experience particularly for first-time authors very prolonged. The argument is, that I would lose many months, perhaps even more than a year in the back and forward process of rejections and resubmitions, when all this could be cut significantly, if a l. All that seems a bit pessimistic to me, of course, I don't want to wait so long, but I was under the impression that such a process would take at most 3-4 months. </p>
<p>Are those considerations regarding first-time authors deemed accurate?
Would it be appropriate/advisable to contact the editors of the journals with my concerns regarding the length of the acceptance process?</p>
<p>PS: the field is computer science</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28307,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>I was under the impression that such a process would take at most 3-4 months.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>No.</strong> 3-4 months would be, in my experience, <strong>extremely quickly</strong> for Computer Science transactions. That would mean that your submission would get accepted without modifications in the first revision, which almost never happens (and even then 3 months would be very fast). 1 to 2 years for the entire process is more common. </p>\n\n<p>However, this has nothing to do with it being your first paper. It is the same for every submission. Those journals have pretty rigours peer review, which simply takes some time.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, it will also be similar for other non-spam journals. I am not aware of any reputable CS journal that would suit your 3-4 months expectation.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Would it be appropriate/advisable to contact the editors of the journals with my concerns regarding the length of the acceptance process?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The answer would very likely be \"deal with it or submit somewhere else\". Frankly, if a journal had a reasonable way to cut down on the time required for the review process <em>without hampering review quality</em>, they would arguably do it anyway. They are not going to \"make an exception\" or anything of this ilk.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>my advisor and another professor, who is close to our research, both suggest that I should refrain from trying to aim that high, i.e. first publish in a lower ranked journal. They state that the reason is not the insufficient quality of the paper, but rather the length of the acceptance process</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I would assume they meant not \"a lower ranked journal\", but rather \"a conference\". Review durations for conferences are indeed much more predictable (and, generally, shorter, in the 2-month range on average).</p>\n\n<p>Submitting to a weaker journal to get your notification a little bit faster does not seem like overly good advice to me. If they indeed were speaking about a lower-ranked journal, you should consider the possibility that they were sugar-coating their judgement that your paper is not good enough for a very strong journal.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28311,
"author": "ddiez",
"author_id": 21435,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21435",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think it is perfectly appropriate to contact the editors with whatever question you have regarding the submission process. But first check the information in the web site. If there is not explicit information about the time it takes to review the manuscripts in the journals' instructions for authors (or elsewhere) then you can of course contact the editors. Personally I have contacted the editors previous to submission in several occasions to inquire about different aspects of the submission process or the journal's policy or even status (e.g. IF, indexing in PubMed, etc.).</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28305",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14133/"
] |
28,316 |
<p>I am applying for a PhD at a certain university that requires the student to provide and evidence of support from a potential supervisor before submitting the application. After mailing some professors, one of them agreed to support my application. It was a very brief email saying "I am happy to support you". I immediately prepared a research proposal and sent it to her. She replied by saying "Noted". I prepared my application and submitted it two months later.</p>
<p>Is it appropriate to email her as a reminder of myself? If so, what would be a good email? This university is very important to me and I want to do everything I can to increase my chances of admission.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28317,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Yes, in general it's entirely appropriate to remind faculty members about letters/recommendations/paperwork they've previously agreed to. </p>\n\n<p>In fact many faculty members I've known (and I cannot, alas, wholeheartedly exclude myself) rely on such reminders to a greater or lesser extent. Faculty nowadays are faced with so much paperwork / routine correspondence (and are not necessarily trained or culturally aligned to regard such things as being important) that we start to believe also in the converse: what we have heard about once and never been reminded of must not be very important. </p>\n\n<p>Just now I got a second email from a secretary in my department about an annual inventory issue. She sent the first email just a few days before and included a hard deadline in both emails. In other words, she knows all the tricks to get faculty to do things without causing resentment. The keys: be polite but persistent, and make the convergence to the deadline clear by ramping up the email reminders accordingly. It really works: pardon me while I run down to her office so she can tag my laptop! </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28331,
"author": "hepidad",
"author_id": 10804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10804",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As my experiences, you should. </p>\n\n<p>But the tricky are, before you remind his/her about their \"promises\" to support you, in your email, inform him/her your little progress about your proposed research. This can be your opinion about some paper that you used as evidence. Better if you make something so called prototype. After it, change the discussion about your last email. Just ask about his/her opinion what should you do next. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28316",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18244/"
] |
28,320 |
<p>I'm currently in a class in my major that meets for 50 minutes 3 times a week. Meanwhile, I'm a member of a campus club, unrelated to my major, which meets right after this class one day. </p>
<p>My professor has decided that he should have the students stay an extra 30-45 minutes after class on the day of the meetings so that he can continue to teach. </p>
<p>I'm the only one in the class who has voted against this, which makes me uncomfortable, because I'm what's forcing the class to have a faster pace. </p>
<p>Am I right in being outraged? Is it not the professor's job to teach the necessary course material in the time allotted, as opposed to having students stay late for no credit? Should I cave in and just not go to the club meetings? They're not important for my major, and I'm not an officer, but I immensely enjoy them. </p>
<p><strong>Edit:</strong> I've been asked in the comments why my professor is doing this. It has to do with the pacing of the course--if we had to stick to 50 minutes 3 times a week, then the pace would have to be much faster.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28323,
"author": "The Almighty Bob",
"author_id": 16086,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16086",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Welcome to SE!</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Am I right in being outraged?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>No, I don't think so. The professor offered to spend some of his personal time to teach you something more in depth. He offered it and you declined it and that's it.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is it not the professor's job to teach the necessary course material\n in the time allotted, as opposed to having students stay late for no\n credit?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Just look at it in a different way: He is helping you to learn and therefore you are replacing learning at home with learning in class (with the help of the professor). I still think it is a great offer.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Should I cave in and just not go to math club meetings?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>We can't (and shouldn't) evaluate how important your math club meetings are. If you think they are more important than the better learning for your and your fellow students, go to your math club.</p>\n\n<p>On another note: isn't it possible to change the time of the math club by half an hour or so?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28339,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 9,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I guess I'm going to be the contrary opinion here. I don't think your professor's request is reasonable at all. Class time is scheduled the way it is so that people can plan the rest of their lives around the schedule. In this case, nobody but you seems to have anything from 12:50 on, but that shouldn't encourage the prof to monopolize that time. </p>\n\n<p>Some may think your extracurricular activity is trivial or that you should skip it, but that math club could easily have been another class or your job. The professor is in a position of power, and he should respect his position by not trying to compel you to work outside the system because it's convenient to him. Several of your peers may actually appreciate that you're the lone hold out even if they won't ever admit it. </p>\n\n<p>I would have no problem with the prof offering extra sessions where no required material was covered. This could be extra practice working example problems or a Q&A session to clear up anything confusing from class. That being said, I think professors should be held to teaching the required stuff in the allotted time.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28348,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is a strange situation: three out of the four answers so far express what is in my experience a very nonstandard view. Admittedly Bill Barth's answer is by far the most highly upvoted. But I think it is worth recording another opinion.</p>\n\n<p>First, as for so many questions on this site, context matters. It sounds to me like the OP is an undergraduate at a North American college or university. My answer will apply to that.</p>\n\n<p>At a university (and at all but the smallest colleges), scheduling classes is a major production. It is done at least a semester and often a year (or more) in advance, and a lot of time and effort go into crafting a schedule which makes the best possible use of limited resources: classrooms, peak hours, people's time, and so forth. Moreover the total amount of class time is also fixed in advance and has an official status as the number of <strong>credit hours</strong> for the course. The number of credit hours is meant to be correlated to the amount of material covered. In practice this means little in an absolute sense and one course can certainly be much more or less ambitious than another, but carries a meaning across different sections of the same course and within the course offerings of a given department.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Am I right in being outraged? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Outraged is a strong word, but the OP is right to disapprove of the practice and perfectly within his rights to object to it. I do not find the professor's request reasonable. In fact I find it very surprising that in an entire class of students, only one other student has an extra 30-45 minutes in their schedule on Friday afternoons at 1 pm: this is typically \"peak class time\". (I wonder if there is some missing context here: e.g. maybe the other students form a cohort who are all taking the same courses scheduled at the same time. That makes some difference, but not enough to change my answer.)</p>\n\n<p>The OP has made his schedule for the entire semester in advance and has signed up for the class assuming that it will meet at a certain time, which was fixed by the registrar in advance. He has a legitimate conflict with staying an extra 30-45 minutes. This conflict is academic in nature and it involves students other than those taking the professor's course. (In my experience with academic culture, it is obnoxious to try to get someone else's academic event rescheduled because you want to change the schedule of your own academic event. It is in the nature of a university that all of its participants are engaged in multiple events. We schedule things well in advance precisely to avoid conflicts like this.) However, even without a specific academic conflict the OP should feel free to veto the request: if e.g. he has made a schedule where he leaves campus at 1 pm, that would be reason enough to object.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is it not the professor's job to teach the necessary course material in the time allotted, as opposed to having students stay late for no credit?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes, it is! I agree precisely. Something is not adding up here: the course is a standard, required one for the major, so it has presumably been given many times before by other instructors and there is a <em>de facto</em> standard expectation for its content, as detailed in e.g. an official course description. Of course the instructor of a course should have some leeway in the choice of topics and even the intensity of the course....but not <em>complete</em> leeway. This instructor is proposing to increase the class time by about 25%: why is this necessary? If he is covering 25% more material than is standard, that's potentially problematic. If he takes 25% more time to cover the material than is standard, that is also problematic. Again some context is lacking, but as described the instructor seems to be having some serious problems \"coloring between the lines\". The OP should not have to adjust his schedule on account of this.</p>\n\n<p>I honestly think that almost any higher up university official -- the department head, the registrar, a dean -- would be chagrined to hear about what the instructor is proposing. At least that's the case in the university culture I'm familiar with. If the OP has a faculty contact (in any department) he is comfortable talking informally with, I would recommend broaching the issue and seeing what the faculty member has to say.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28356,
"author": "gnasher729",
"author_id": 11873,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11873",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Courses and their timings will usually be organised so that students having to attend to multiple related courses can attend to all of them. Of course only the <em>official</em> time is organised that way, unofficial time can't be organised. </p>\n\n<p>So what if some maths professor decides that his course on Friday from 11am to 11:50am should be an hour longer? Now the professor running the circuits class would be outraged if everyone comes late to his course. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28369,
"author": "glenn jackman",
"author_id": 21735,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21735",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Nobody's forcing you to stay in your seat. This is a university class, not prison. You are free to quietly pack up you material and walk out to attend to your other commitments. </p>\n\n<p>You are responsible to cover the material you are missing. You can:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>talk to other students in your class to go over the material (this is actually a great way for the other student to reinforce their learning)</li>\n<li>see the professor during his regular office hours to go over the material</li>\n<li>see if you can schedule time with your prof outside of his office hours.</li>\n<li>learn it from the textbook on your own.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>You don't have to make a big deal out of this situation. Just assert your rights to your professor's published time (office hours).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28550,
"author": "OrangeKing89",
"author_id": 21896,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21896",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Most of the answers I have seen here are assuming that the professor is saying he can't teach the material in the official time slot.</p>\n\n<p>When I read the question it sounded like the professor was saying that he could teach this material in the normal manner but if the students had no commitments immediately afterward he could cover the material in more in depth.</p>\n\n<p>For intsance:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>In class coverage of textbook material</li>\n<li>More example problems of the subject matter</li>\n<li>Time to cover questions in class</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If this is what the professor is doing then he is not being unreasonable in asking if the students have extra time. It shows he actually cares if his students are learning, which can't always be assumed in a college environment.</p>\n\n<p>In this case I would suggest to the original poster that he see if he could arrange with the professor that he not cover any new material in the extra time period so he can be sure not to miss anything.</p>\n\n<p>This would let anyone else in the class who might want to spend more time on the subject to take advantage of the extra instruction the professor is offering.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 30628,
"author": "JasMoia",
"author_id": 23377,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23377",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Every student pays tuition. My tuition is decided by the classes I take. Therefore, how I see it, I pay my teachers to teach me. This is their job. They are held to a certain standard. If a Professor is covering new material, scheduling tests, or giving out mandatory homework (that you might have an online turn-in deadline for, etc) in this 30-45 minutes after class has ended, you should absolutely be outraged.Perhaps discuss with your professor directly during office hours and explain why it isn't okay with you. I wouldn't have a problem emailing the head of his department, or whomever appropriate, about it either. Careful in starting a grudge-match with your professor though. And remember that your class room isn't a democracy. Majority doesn't rule when it comes to other students having no classes or obligations in the time after that class. If he's hosting study periods everyday after class that way, I'd just ask a friend for any helpful notes. Rehashing the material is good, even if you do have to miss it. Now it's just two study groups conflicting. But if he's introducing new materials, that's not okay.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 119921,
"author": "user100564",
"author_id": 100564,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/100564",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This question demonstrates that neither the students nor the instructor are familiar with scheduling regs at virtually every University in the US (and it sounds like the questioner is from a US school).</p>\n\n<p>The professor does not have the authority to schedule classes beyond the allotted time. If the faculty member feels students need more time to digest the material, and is willing to stay longer, and the room is open, then the extra time MUST be</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Optional, with no new material presented</li>\n<li>remedial/review to help students digest the material that was covered 'too quickly' in class</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>My take on the whole thing is that professor is very understanding of students difficulty with the material and is making themselves available out of concern for student learning.</p>\n\n<p>What the students and this student in particular wish to due once rules are followed is a personal choice.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 126261,
"author": "DragonShiner",
"author_id": 105442,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/105442",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would say, if your professor is reasonable, he will listen to you if you bring it up with him, say something like \"hey, I have other commitments after this class, and I'm missing them due to this class staying way longer than was promised on paper. Could you try to fit material into the time slot you were given? Because while I'm missing a club, in the future, you may have students who have other classes, or a job. Please consider this.\" Try to avoid accusatory language, framing the situation in a way that paints the professor in a negative light. Accusations tend to make most people behave defensive or even hostile, so try to have a polite conversation about the issue you have with his schedule keeping (or lack thereof), I would bring this up via email first, and if he doesn't respond, then I'd bring it up in person. If he responds negatively, I might make a formal complaint, depending on the severity. If a negative response is not bad enough to warrant a complaint, I'd talk to him in person, and communicate that you didn't appreciate the way he spoke to you over email, then go from there.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28320",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21694/"
] |
28,324 |
<p>Once a tenure-track professor finishes their initial 6 year evaluatory period, I imagine their publication/teaching/grant record should pretty much speak for itself to a tenure committee. Apparently, as I have recently found out, some departments additionally require a tenure defense talk at the end of this period. It seems to me that this talk is something akin to a dissertation defense, only on a grander scale of all the research I've done over the initial 6 year period. </p>
<p>But my question is: </p>
<p><strong>Why is it even necessary?</strong> </p>
<p>What could be expected from such a talk that wouldn't be readily and easily obtainable from the submitted tenure package? Is it just a formality or does it really hold an important weight in the tenure committee's final evaluation to keep me? </p>
<p>Should I just rehash and summarize what is already in my tenure submission package? Is there something more to it that I should emphasize in my tenure defense talk?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28333,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I haven't heard of such a thing, which suggests a simple answer: an oral tenure defense is not necessary. But regardless of whether it's necessary in some abstract sense, it might be a requirement wherever you end up.</p>\n\n<p>It's possible that your tenure defense would be a grueling affair, with the audience trying to poke holes in your research or dispute its significance, but I very much doubt it. At worst you could expect the same treatment as an outside candidate giving an interview talk.</p>\n\n<p>The tenure defense is presumably intended to give you a chance to explain your research program, specifically what you have done and why it matters. This is in principle redundant (your tenure file should already do this), but adding an oral presentation could help. It's often inspiring to see someone present their own work, and it can be valuable to have a chance to ask questions. In cases where tenure seems likely, the presentation could also play the role of an inaugural lecture, highlighting for the department the work of someone who is about to become a permanent colleague.</p>\n\n<p>This practice seems uncommon enough that I doubt there's a clear standard for exactly what it means. Anyone considering taking a tenure-track job with a tenure defense presentation at the end should ask how it works at that particular institution.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I imagine their publication/teaching/grant record should pretty much speak for itself to a tenure committee.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Publication records can speak surprisingly unclearly. A non-expert reading through someone's papers won't necessarily appreciate their novelty or how they contribute to the big picture, and may not even understand clearly how they fit together into a coherent research program. Keep in mind that most people evaluating a tenure case will be non-experts: even other department members will typically have different specialties, and that's not counting university-wide committees or administrators.</p>\n\n<p>One crucial part of preparing a compelling tenure case is sorting out these issues and framing everything appropriately. This is done partly by the candidate, partly by whoever is overseeing the case (typically the department head), and partly by the letter writers.</p>\n\n<p>So from this perspective, something more than just a binder full of papers is definitely necessary. However, the added context is typically supplied through written documents; if there is an oral presentation, then it is just to supplement the written file.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28338,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've not seen any case (in my U.S. -based experience in mathematics) where the junior faculty person up for tenure had to present a summary of their own work, in effect \"defending\" it as one \"defends\" the Ph.D. thesis.</p>\n\n<p>However, I have witnessed many cases where a more senior person with expertise in the tenure candidate's work was asked to describe/explain it, or, really, its significance, to the tenure committee (prior to having the full math faculty vote). But in all the cases I've seen, from both sides, the tone was informational, not confrontational or adversarial. And the candidate was absent.</p>\n\n<p>The necessity of <em>that</em> sort of tenure-defense talk is exactly that the body of work itself is hard to understand, the letters of recommendation are inevitably severely tainted by political gamesmanship and circumlocution and conceivably bias, and, thus, in the end, a local opinion+explanation from someone trusted by the tenure committee is highly desirable... despite all the formal procedures.</p>\n\n<p>I'm inclined to wonder whether the question's premise is partly based on inaccurate gossip.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28324",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/931/"
] |
28,335 |
<p>I am a 2nd year graduate student in physics, at one of the top 20 universities in the US. This semester, I am supposed to start a research project with a professor who agreed already to be my thesis advisor. </p>
<p>So, I emailed her at the beginning of the semester -10 days ago- but I didn't get a response yet. Nothing. I emailed her again yesterday and I hope for a response. I tried to go to her office, but I couldn't find her. She comes to the university only to teach and then she disappears.</p>
<p>I am really worried. Is this normal or is this a sign that the advisor doesn't care at all? Should I try and change advisor? She is a top scientist but I am very disappointed...</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28377,
"author": "duboce",
"author_id": 21734,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21734",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Flippant version: It is normal AND it is a sign that the advisor doesn't care at all.</p>\n\n<p>Less flippant version: I would wait a couple more days. Then, if still no response, I would ask around to see if the professor is sick/having a major life crisis/etc. If not, then I would conclude that they do not meet a reasonable standard of availability, and I would choose to work with someone else. There are few things more depressing in academia than colleagues who drop the ball and ignore you, especially when they are senior to you and you rely on them to make progress on your work. Life is too short to be working with someone who is not interested in working with you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28435,
"author": "Shion",
"author_id": 1429,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1429",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is, unfortunately, a not too uncommon occurrence in my limited experience in top US graduate schools. Some professors are over committed;others might be having a real life emergency/crises - yet others are just not good at replying to emails. There are a number of different strategies that you could employ at this juncture.</p>\n\n<p><strong>1. Email again, early next week:</strong></p>\n\n<p>There are a few variations to this strategy. First, if the professor has just missed your email due to a veritable deluge of emails in her inbox then this could be a timely reminder. Second, if there is another collaborator, temporary graduate chair or other, initial faculty that you worked with (since you mention that you are a second year graduate student), then an email with such a person cc'ed is usually good incentive to get at least, an initial reply. </p>\n\n<p><strong>2. Meet with the department chair/other goto faculty:</strong></p>\n\n<p>Every department will usually have one faculty who serves as a point of contact for students in any kind of a predicament. This is a predicament. You need to kickstart your research agenda with this professor (<strong><em>potentially</em></strong>) but have not been able to do so. In our department, we call them \"<strong><em>Director of Graduate Studies</em></strong>\". Your department might have a similar or different nomenclature for such a person. An email sent from this person (cc'ing you) is usually enough to get a reply.</p>\n\n<p><strong>3. If all fails, lie in wait to surprise them IRL:</strong></p>\n\n<p>Figure out their office hours. If they teach, then they must have office hours and usually, a website for the course that they are teaching. Ask their TA's (if they have any) when the office hours are. If you see this faculty in the corridors then stop them and chat with them.</p>\n\n<p>I am a fifth year graduate student and over the years, I have had to (unfortunately) employ most variations of the three broad strategies I mentioned.One reason why I chose the dissertation committee that I have is that these professors always make time for me if I want to chat with them about some academic (and sometimes non-academic) issues.</p>\n\n<p>I hope you succeed in your quest to locate said faculty. Good luck!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 90644,
"author": "Siyabonga Seme ",
"author_id": 74529,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/74529",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The important thing to always to remember here is that in fact the Advisor/Supervisor is also as interested in his/her students finishing their studies as students themselves. Mutual Benefits and Mutual Respect. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28335",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21702/"
] |
28,336 |
<p>Ok, here is a major issue I have with much of my work (which is experimental/computational research): I am a graduate student, and spend much of my day doing 5, 10, 20 and 30 minute experiments (both biological and computational), which require set up and monitoring, but result in small to medium size hunks of time when I'm really not doing much (essentially just checking every 1-2 minutes to make sure everything is still working). During these periods of time I either a) attempt to do other work or b) procrastinate. Both are not great, since either a) I'm constantly shifting my focus from the latter project and end up making mistakes in it or b) I'm procrastinate (usually by reading articles, twitter, etc.)</p>
<p>Does anyone have advice for how to deal with these small, awkward period of times (< 30 minutes) - is there something which you find useful to do that you can also shift your focus from incessantly? </p>
<p>As an example: <a href="http://xkcd.com/303/">http://xkcd.com/303/</a></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28337,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Given that you can't do something that requires your full attention during this time, I would at least advise to follow <a href=\"http://matt.might.net/articles/productivity-tips-hints-hacks-tricks-for-grad-students-academics/#procrastinate-productively\">Matt Might's advice</a> to <em>procrastinate productively</em> on meta-work:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Read articles (or answers on Academia.SE!) about how to be more productive as a grad student.</li>\n<li>Read a few pages of a book on data analysis, visualization, academic writing, or some other research skill.</li>\n<li>Use the time to review your schedule, make to-do lists, schedule a meeting, etc.</li>\n<li>Try a relevant Coursera course that has video lectures broken into small bits</li>\n<li>Put some thought into a tiny bite-sized aspect of your research or research presentation: How should I organize this manuscript? What is the best way to visualize this data?</li>\n<li>Unfocused literature search: check in on your favorite journals or conferences and identify interesting papers (to read later, when you can give them your full attention)</li>\n<li>Do a favor for someone else: Even if you're not teaching or grading this semester, I'm sure <em>someone</em> in your department is, and would be happy to give you a pile of quizzes to grade.</li>\n<li>Update your CV and/or web page.</li>\n<li>Start preparing a presentation on your current work. You'll present it to someone, somewhere sooner or later, right?</li>\n<li>Think about your ultimate career goals.</li>\n<li>Use the Internet to look for promising potential collaborators at other institutions.</li>\n<li>Try out a new programming trick, LaTeX package, or software tool.</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28352,
"author": "Craig Smedley",
"author_id": 21712,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21712",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A great deal of things we have already learnt are slowly being lost by our brains. <strong>Small chunks of time like this are ideal for a bit of memory consolidation</strong>. I would suggest a quick revision session on things you want to know better.</p>\n\n<p>It's best to select knowledge that will be <strong>most useful if remembered</strong>. Ignore any knowledge that is easier to just look up on Google (e.g. 5 Biggest Cities) and focus on knowledge that will help in your day-to-day (e.g. Chrome Keyboard Shortcuts).</p>\n\n<p><strong>How to create a summary of key information for learning</strong></p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Keep the 'bits' of information small and 'easily learnable'</li>\n<li>Write a dot-point summary of a topic you wish to understand better</li>\n<li>Highlight favourite passages on your Kindle then download them from <a href=\"https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights\">kindle.com</a></li>\n<li>Look up book summaries from websites like getabstract.com</li>\n<li>Use Evernote to collect information you wish to learn in notebooks (their Web Clipper is awesome)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><strong>Once you have a summary</strong></p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Use small chunks of time to review the material\n<ul>\n<li>Don't spend too long or your brain will switch off</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Use Spaced Repetition methods\n<ul>\n<li>Material you find <strong>hard</strong> to learn should be repeated more often</li>\n<li>Material you find <strong>easy</strong> should be repeated less</li>\n<li>You need to wait between sessions to allow it to sink in</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n\n<p><strong>Disclaimer/Self-Promotion:</strong></p>\n\n<p>I am the creator of <a href=\"http://revisy.com/\">www.revisy.com</a> - a tool that helps automate all of these steps.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28354,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>ff524's answer is awesome as usual, but the core problem for you may be that most of these suggestions are not, or at least not directly, useful to your research. If, as you say, <strong>most of your day</strong> is spent in this way, even \"productive procrastination\" may be too much procrastination and too little actual progress.</p>\n\n<p>In that case, you have two options:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Learn how to get actual work done in those short chunks.</strong> Being able to context-switch without getting thrown off completely is definitely a skill that can be learned. You will probably never get as efficient as when you can devote your full attention to the task, and you will likely need to double-check what you did while multi-tasking, but getting things done slower than usual is much better than not getting anything done at all.</li>\n<li><strong>Automate better</strong> (and, hence, increase the time between needing to check up on your results). In my experience, if you need to actually check every other minute or so what your experiments are doing, then your tooling is not good enough. Many things can be scripted so that they basically run from beginning to end on their own. Further, you can configure a system monitoring tool so that it (for instance) sends you an email when something abnormal happens. Of course this requires non-trivial IT skills, but in my experience most students working in experimental sciences are able to grok these things quite quickly if they devote a few days to it (believe me, the time necessary to learn how to automate pays off manifold in the long run).</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>In practice, you probably want to go for a combination of both of these options. Try to increase the time your experiments are chugging along on their own. In parallel, train making the best use out of this time.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Edit:</strong>\nThis question has been added by the OP in a comment. I think it is interesting, hence I added it to my answer:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>what can you do in the case of active code development? For example, when I am actively developing a piece of code to analyze data, that code may take a few minutes (up to 10) to run, after which I assess if it is working. How do you automate that process?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This has actually more to do with standard software engineering practices than the sciences, but I think it is a helpful concept nonetheless. When you are trying out different implementations, with a large possibility of error, make sure that your application <strong>fails fast</strong>. That is, make it so that your application does <em>not</em> take ten minutes to fail, but does the complex, error-prone stuff directly in the beginning. Two simple examples from my own research:</p>\n\n<p><strong>Example 1:</strong>\nSay you do research in Machine Learning. Your application first trains an <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network\">artificial neural network</a> (ANN) on your data (easy as you are using an external library, but takes ~15 minutes due to algorithmic complexity), after which you do some postprocessing (trivial, executes fast) and a statistical analysis of the results (executes fast as well, but relatively complex, error-prone code). If you now always run the entire application and have the code fail during the statistical analysis, you are always losing 15 minutes for every run for a step that you already know works. A better solution would be to train the model once, and store it to disk. Then write code that only loads the ANN from disk and <em>fails directly after that</em>. Almost no dead time anymore. When the statistical analysis is working, you can revert to do everything in the expected order.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Example 2:</strong>\nYou have written a complex, multi-threaded testbed, which is running distributed over multiple physical servers. You know you have a synchronization issue somewhere, as your application non-deterministically dies every couple of minutes. You have no idea where exactly. Hence, you repeatedly execute the entire application, wait for the error to happen, and then debug from there in different directions. Given that the error only happens every few minutes, you spend most of your time waiting. A better way is to take a page out of good software engineering practices. Make sure to <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_testing\">unit test</a> all components in isolation before throwing everything together. Specifically try to cover exceptional cases. Learn how to write good <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mock_object\">mock objects</a>. Some amount of debugging of the integration system will still be necessary, but you will not spend hours debugging components that are fundamentally broken.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28440,
"author": "Jen",
"author_id": 21806,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21806",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>a) Constantly shifting your focus from the latter project you overcharge your brain with additional tasks in the moment and possibly what your brain really needs from you is some rest, that's why you end up making mistakes because by the time you get to the lab projects your brain is already preoccupied with new tasks and have used up a lot of memory doing new operational memory tasks</li>\n<li>b) If you procrastinate by reading NY Times and Twitter you are also overloading your brain with new information that requires some analytical work(although it is of course incommensurate with the amount of work you need for academic journals, but precisely because the Times loves using such words as <em>incommensurate</em> on its pages you have to constantly query your memory and thus, keep your brain busy), so here we are, getting back again to the same problem-you are using your operational memory, the brain gets tired and by the time you get back to the lab work it is nearly impossible to focus. </li>\n<li><p>c) I hate to suggest that...but...is there a possibility of a short nap or just sitting quietly in your office and not exposing your brain to any additional flow of information? Plus, Twitter, email checking, Facebook, are all good examples of instant stimulation but that's a topic for another conversation. </p></li>\n<li><p>d) In a nutshell, trivial things like smells, sounds from the street, someone's voice etc. are all examples of additional information that you are exposing yourself to that inadvertently bombard our brains on a daily basis and they make it even harder to focus and get back to the actual projects.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28509,
"author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX",
"author_id": 725,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'd like to add a point of view from experimental science. I do spectroscopy of biological samples and I have experiments like that as well. </p>\n\n<p>Abstract:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>do not underestimate how strenuous experiments can be: if done well they often require you to keep up a high level of concentration. This is exhausting, and particularly if awkward timing is involved.</li>\n<li>Decide your priorities: do experiments only or start an experiment whenever that fits your other work schedule.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>My experience is that there are some people who cope with such situations relatively calmly: they vanish into the lab, do their experiments, don't go into fits because of the lost time, and reappear after the experiments are done. Other people (e.g. I) absolutely hate the situation, because tons of other stuff needs to be done, and don't get done while you are there waiting for the experiments in minute time chunks that don't relly let you do anything. </p>\n\n<p>Personally, I found 2 feasible ways of dealing with these situations, and the big idea is to decide beforehand where the priority is. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Experiments have high priority: In that case, I consider the time and concentration being reserved for the experiments. Any other things that happen to get done are a surplus. I find that most items from @ff's list shift my focus too much. Which in the end leads to chaos in the experimental data (e.g. slightly differing names of files which require manual adjusting afterwards etc.)\nBut setting up the measurement schedule for the next experiment, getting the notes and the samples ready for the next experiment, etc. is OK. (Though many of my experiments are in the dark, so preparations to be done in the same lab are not really feasible). Other than that, I do things like checking (e)mail, schedule meetings, preparing TODO lists and working off tiny tasks. If the waiting time is more like half an hour I may clean up my desk/the lab, but e.g.<br>\nI don't like reading papers or doing a literature search on an alarm-clock schedule. Such work I do only when </p></li>\n<li><p>Experiments have lower priority: I often have experiments where I need to change samples after measurements are finished after, say 30 min, but nothing really bad happens if I change the sample 30 min or 1 h later. In that case, I often decide to run the experiments on a lower priority, while reading or writing papers, doing literature search, etc. \nSo I do something, and when a natural break occurs after a chunk of work is done, I go and change samples before I start the next chunk of work.<br>\nThis way, I get maybe only a third or a quarter of the experiments done compared with the \"high priority\" experiment situation, but other work is possible as well. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>All in all, the first scenario is the more emotionally exhausting the more you dislike the breaks and fret about all the work that doesn't get done. It is the more feasible the better you can arrive also mentally in a state where you concentrate on the experiment <em>only</em>. Experiments are serious and exhausting work as well. One reason is that you have to be far more concentrated than at the computer*: If I make a typo, there's backspace. If I type an awkward sentence I can change it later. If I pipette wrong, I have to start from the beginning or even take out everything and clean my instrument. And this is the more strenuous if awkward schedules are involved. And weird little waiting times are in my experience as exhausting as an experimental schedule you can barely keep up with.<br>\n* most times: obviously, data analyses need to be set up correctly. But even there, e.g. literate programming allows to double-check later that everything was done correctly. This is not possible for the experiments - there I have to be concentrated so I'm sure afterwards that I did everything correctly even though I have at most very limited possibilties for double checking. </p>\n\n<p>If you have to do your experiments in that way, then the best way to deal with it is to also mentally accept this and make it your task. Make sure that the experiments really stay top priority if you decided that way: don't read SX if you realize that this in fact leads to the experiment waiting for you when you decided that you should wait for the experiment. </p>\n\n<p>The second way is of course only possible if if the experiments allow this. And if the lab has low enough use so your colleagues don't kill you for not making fullest use of the vaulable lab time you reserved. </p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>In terms of automatization of (biological) lab experiments, I for example print out \"experiment forms\" that have a predefined structure for my note taking so don't forget any of the parameters. This helps me to make fewer mistakes.</p>\n\n<p>In some cases I even write custom measurement programs, but this effort is usually only worth while if you know that large series of experiments follow (for totally non-scientific and awkward reasons: the instrument software often allows only very restricted programmed interaction, and if there are not many experiments following, it is not worth while to go down to the low-level control the SDK offers - if there is an SDK available at all). </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28336",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21704/"
] |
28,340 |
<p>I had contacted a potential supervisor and got a positive response from him. He said that he is interested but he said we should do a skype interview first. He also stated that he is moving to another university in 4 weeks and explained a few conditions and asked if I am still interested. I had no issue with the place or university since I am interested to work with him so I replied and sent my skype id for interview. Its been a week and I haven't heard back from him. I think he might be busy as he said that he will be moving to some other university. </p>
<p>Shall I write him again and if yes how do I start the conversation again or shall I wait for his response?.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28341,
"author": "Neo",
"author_id": 6898,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6898",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Wait a month before asking again, maybe longer because he is moving. Generally a month is a good time to wait even if he wasn't moving.</p>\n\n<p>There is still plenty of time to get your application in and have a Skype interview.</p>\n\n<p>The start of the semester is one of the busiest times in the year for an academic.</p>\n\n<p>He probably gets a lot of emails from prospective students, plus he has to set everything else up. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28342,
"author": "Greg",
"author_id": 14755,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14755",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I cannot agree with Neo: one month is awful long time in any conversation, and I would take that long wait only if explicitly said to contact months later. Long time is a problem because 1) he forgets what was it about, 2) it can give the impression that OP is maybe not that enthusiastic about the opportunity, 3) in a month a lot of things can happen with an open position.... </p>\n\n<p>People can forget mails, or not answer even if they not forget them, especially if he is busy and not you are his first priority. Just send him a polite follow up email: remind him in the first sentence or two about your discussion and he was positive about you. Then ask about the Skype interview, how you can roll this etc. </p>\n\n<p>If you are afraid that he is busy and you are too pushy, you can just state that you know he is busy so if he wants to postpone this conversation / scheduling the interview after his move, you are totally fine (are you? do you have any deadlines to care for?). If this latter happens, still ask that you will follow him up a month etc. later, if it is good for him. Busy people dont like to be pushed in a schedule, but if no one sets expectations for a schedule (any schedule that convenient for him), nothing will be done and also kind of unprofessional.</p>\n\n<p>(I assume this story is about US. Different countries call for different level pushiness.) </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28340",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21310/"
] |
28,343 |
<p>I want to know, since I am not a native English speaker, whether or not it is appropriate to reply to a thank-you email from a professor? </p>
<p>For example, if every time you get an email from a professor saying "Thanks," you reply "no problem" or "you are welcome."</p>
<p>Could it turn out to be annoying or offending if one replies to every "thank you"?</p>
<p>I realized sometimes misunderstanding may unnecessarily arise because of cultural differences. If one does not reply to a thank-you email from a professor, then would the professor be accordingly offended? On the other hand, if one constantly reply "you are welcome" or something like this, would he be instead considered prudish? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28344,
"author": "Ben Webster",
"author_id": 13,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>EDIT</strong>: Apparently, I'm wrong, and some professors write a lot more \"thank you\" emails than I do.</p>\n\n<p>I think you mean \"Is it appropriate to send a thank-you email in response to every email from a professor,\" and I'm answering that question.</p>\n\n<p>It probably depends on the professor, but I think it's a reasonable approach toconsistently send a short reply to acknowledge emails from a professor. It doesn't have to necessarily be a thank you (for example, if setting up a meeting, you can just write \"See you there.\", but it's always helpful to receive a reply showing you an email was read. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28345,
"author": "Jeromy Anglim",
"author_id": 62,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Email exchanges need to end at some point.\nIf the professor's email is a simple receipt of correspondence, then I don't think there's a need to reply. However, if the professor has initiated a larger email then a reply is probably appropriate. See these examples:</p>\n\n<h2>Thanks sent as a form of receipt:</h2>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>Student</strong>: Hi Professor Smith,\n I've run the analyses you have suggested (see attached),\n Cheers,\n Mike</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Then the professor replies:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>Pofessor Smith:</strong> Thanks for that</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In this case, I think there is no need for the student to reply \"You're welcome\".</p>\n\n<p>It wouldn't be a big problem, but it would be mildly distracting for the professor. Email exchanges need to end. The professor's \"thank you email\" was already a confirmation email indicating receipt of your original message.</p>\n\n<h2>Thanks sent by professor as part of a larger email initiated by the professor</h2>\n\n<p>Imagine the professor sends you an email that provides detailed information that also includes a thank you.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>Professor Smith:</strong> Hi Mike, well done on your work in the lab the other day. You did a really good job of fixing that equipment. I really appreciate it.\n Cheers,\n Professor Smith</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In that case it might be appropriate for the student to reply: \"you're welcome\".</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28350,
"author": "mako",
"author_id": 5962,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5962",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If the entire content of response is \"<em>thank you</em>,\" there is absolutely no expectation that you will respond to those emails with \"<em>you're welcome</em>\" or \"<em>no problem</em>\" or anything else. As I've used them, the point of the \"<em>thank you</em>\" email is usually just to acknowledge that the email being replied to you has been received and read. There is no need to acknowledge the acknowledgement.</p>\n\n<p>In this sense, an email reply that consists only of \"<em>thank you</em>\" can be used as an invitation to end an email thread. Saying your \"<em>you're welcome</em>\" will be read as polite but it might get annoying if it seems like you are always trying to get the last word on every thread. If it's really just \"<em>thank you</em>\", you can safely skip the reply.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28416,
"author": "Don Quixote",
"author_id": 21772,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21772",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm not a native speaker either but generally speaking \"thanks\" does not mean \"please waste another 2 minutes of my time\". </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28343",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18107/"
] |
28,346 |
<p>I work in a field that heavily uses arxiv.org and posts papers before submitting them to journals, so it's common for people to send a citation request when they see a preprint that they think has overlooked their work. I do this pretty rarely, because I think it's often abused by people looking to pad their citation count by asking for citations from work that's only marginally related. Still, when I see work that <em>very</em> closely resembles something I've done, I generally send an email.</p>
<p>My question is what to do when a paper appears that is very closely related to my work, has not cited me, and it was clearly <em>intentional</em>. In this case one of the authors had a previous paper that followed up on--and cited--one of my papers, so I know they were aware of my work in the past. Furthermore, in their current paper they use a technical term that I introduced. There is no possible way that they could have written their current paper without being aware of its close relationship to my work, but they haven't cited my papers.</p>
<p>In this context, the usual email of the form "I have read your interesting new paper and wanted to make you aware of my related work" would be so disingenuous as to be ridiculous: they are clearly already aware of my related work. I can only conclude that they have intentionally chosen not to cite it. All of my encounters with these authors in the past have been friendly, at least from my perspective, so I can't imagine any interpersonal conflict that's behind the omission.</p>
<p>A similar thing happened to me once before when some authors wrote a paper that had enormous overlap with one of my papers, which they cited, and they corrected, in passing, a minor technical mistake that didn't change any significant conclusions. Subsequently they built a minor industry on this work but never again referred to my previous work, with the result that their papers that were only a very minor improvement on mine have been cited several hundred times more than my paper has. So I may be overly touchy about this sort of possibility.</p>
<p>At the moment I'm inclined to do nothing, because any message I could imagine sending them would come across as either disingenuous or combative. But I wonder if anyone has a suggestion for dealing with this situation.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28349,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't know the details of your case, but in any case like this I tend to liberally apply <em><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Hanlon's Razor</a></em>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It does sound as if they know about your paper, but it seems to me entirely possible that they could have intended to cite it and accidentally omitted to actually do so. I think you can contact them tactfully and point out that the original source for the technical term is your paper (give the complete reference). They will probably reply with an apology for the oversight. </p>\n\n<p>If you want to be even more circumspect, you could ask a colleague in your subfield to contact them. (\"I saw your preprint and it looks interesting. The paper of Anonymous looks very relevant. Do you think you should cite it?\")</p>\n\n<p>I've been guilty of such an accident myself. I use BiBTeX to manage citations. I have a large file containing an entry for every paper I've ever considered citing. Then for each paper I write, I include inline citations where they belong, and BiBTeX automatically picks the papers I've cited and generates the list of references. In the case in question, I wanted to cite paper X in two places: in the introduction (as background) and in a specific technical passage. I neglected to cite it in the introduction, but since it was also cited in the technical passage, paper X still appeared in the list of references, so when I saw it there I thought to myself \"Good, I remembered to cite X.\" Then in a later edit I changed the technical passage in such a way that X was no longer directly relevant there, so I removed that citation, thinking it was also cited elsewhere in the paper. It wasn't, so BiBTeX accordingly removed it from the list of references, and it might certainly have looked to anyone as though I had intentionally failed to cite X (which was a well-known paper and clearly relevant). The omission made it into a public preprint and was pointed out by a colleague (though not the author of paper X; he is long deceased), fortunately before the paper was submitted.</p>\n\n<p>It was clearly my responsibility to have caught this and cited X correctly, and technical issues do not excuse my failure to do so, but I mention this as a specific example where such an error was due to stupidity rather than malice, and as evidence that the former could be an adequate explanation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28358,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I feel like the best you can do is send them a note while it's still at the pre-publication stage. If it appears in a journal or you are asked to review it, you should note it to the editor. Given that you invented the terminology, I'd be surprised if you weren't asked to review it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28403,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Assuming you are right about the authors' behavior (like @NateEldredge, I am skeptical) then you have nothing to gain by bringing the subject up. However, if you inform the authors that you enjoyed reading their work, maybe they will be nicer to you in the future.</p>\n\n<p>If I received a request for a citation, I would include the citation if it was relevant but my view of the requester's motivations would decline. Collecting citations is not the goal of science.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28419,
"author": "yo'",
"author_id": 1471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1471",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are three options:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><em>They overlooked it.</em> Then it's fine to contact them.</p></li>\n<li><p><em>They intentionally did not include it.</em> Then they are deliberately obtuse and the mail can't change anything at all.</p></li>\n<li><p><em>It's only you who thinks that the citation is proper.</em> I know you crossed out this option. Yet, since then the mail could hurt your relationships and reputation, I suggest that you <strong>first ask a 3rd party (your colleague) for their opinion.</strong></p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Then you can IMHO <strong>simply contact the authors,</strong> of course politely, maybe showing some passion, pointing out something interesting you found there etc. The level of politeness is up to you I'd say.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 68663,
"author": "Scott Seidman",
"author_id": 20457,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20457",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If the article went to referees in your field who should know of the work, and didn't point the authors at it, perhaps their work indeed stands alone, or the refs just didn't seem to think it was important that your work be cited.</p>\n\n<p>Whether that is the case, or not, try not to let it get under your skin. If somebody in your community chooses to look silly by allowing themselves to appear less than aware of the latest work, that's their choice, and the community will eventually recognize this.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28346",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21707/"
] |
28,353 |
<p>I am now working towards my PhD degree. In the very near future, I will have a citizenship change, which also leads to a name change. In detail, I am adding another given name to my current name with the original surname and given name untouched. So it's like going from</p>
<pre><code>FirstName1 LastName
</code></pre>
<p>to</p>
<pre><code>FirstName2 FirstName1 LastName
</code></pre>
<p>I already have some publications under my current name, <code>FirstName1 LastName</code>, which I do not wish to lose after my name change. At the very start of my PhD, my supervisor has advised me to stay consistent with the name for a better recognition in the field.</p>
<p>Is there a way to minimize my loss of recognition in the academia? Will the publication stats tools, such as Google Scholar, include my publications under my new profile?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28355,
"author": "Marc Claesen",
"author_id": 7173,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7173",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I would recommend sticking with what you started using, since there is no real advantage not to. That said, if you really want to change I don't think a change in <em>first</em> name will affect you much. Depending on the citation style, the name change won't even be visible. I don't think this particular change is anywhere near a change of last name in terms of impact on your popularity.</p>\n\n<p>With regards to Google Scholar: you can always add your new publications manually to your profile in the unlikely case that scholar borks, so that's not an issue.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28371,
"author": "Peter Bloem",
"author_id": 6936,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6936",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'd go for the change. Firstly, you want it, so if you stick with the old it's always going to bug you. Secondly, if you don't, you're stuck with a professional and a personal name. Imagine, for instance, that a friend of yours meets a potential contributor and tells him to google you. If the friend doesn't know your professional name, you miss out on a possible network connection. The damage goes both ways. If you change, you only have to worry about past publications.</p>\n\n<p>You can mitigate the damage by maintaining a well-curated list of publications:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Sign up for things like a scholar profile, and Mendeley profile. These pages will be spidered by other services, and used to correct their databases. Just add the publications manually.</li>\n<li>Find a curated database of publications for your field (like <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBLP\" rel=\"nofollow\">DBLP</a>) and make sure that all your publications are linked to the same person in there. A decent database should be able to hold aliases for a person. Basically, if you make sure that the most authoritative source gets it right, the information should trickle down.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If you show some diligence in maintaining this data, and letting people know that some publications are known under a different name, it shouldn't impact your career noticeably.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28353",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8079/"
] |
28,359 |
<p>I was torn between workplace and here, but I think the question is better here.</p>
<p>I have an assistant researcher that I have indirectly worked with for 3 months, and for the past month have hired directly for a research project full time (they are not taking classes for 6 months to work on my project). Recently the student informed me they have narcolepsy, and feel it may interfere with their work but would 'like me to understand'.</p>
<p>An important aspect to this is, I do not need advice on legal matters in terms of workplace disabilities etc. (which is why I believe this is not appropriate for workplace), as I have already spoken with HR and I am in a country in which an employer has the power (ie. they told me I can just fire the student, in fact, they were a bit too keen on this, not that I agree with this system at all).</p>
<p>This is a bit different than a physical disability in terms of accessibility, and I don't think it is that comparable to a learning disability as they have no understanding or application hindrance with this one caveat of random extreme lethargic feelings or tiredness. The closest I can think of is insomnia. In that type of situation, I could encourage the student to work hours that benefit their sleep schedule as long as they are responsible with it.</p>
<p>Has anyone had experience with a student researcher with this type of disability? Are there strategies that can help the student perform well? </p>
<p>Update:
The type of work is programming and algorithms. There are no safety concerns relative to the lab work.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28362,
"author": "user3209815",
"author_id": 14133,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14133",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This may be no direct help, but I knew a narcoleptic in high-school. This is a serious condition. Because of the main symptom, excessive daytime sleepiness, it is very hard for affected individuals to remain alert and direct their focus to tasks such is studying. reading, etc. For comparison, wikipedia says, that narcoleptics feel during the day \"comparable to how non-narcoleptics feel after 24 to 48 hours of sleep deprivation\" (try to imagine how it would feel like to perform under those circumstances). This is obviously a great hindrance to people in general, but perhaps even more so for academics. </p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, it is very important that affected individuals manage somehow to cope with the condition (which is very hard, serious lifestyle changes/adaptions are necessary), as an excessive use of stimulants may worsen the condition over time. I find this an important point, since people in academia are known to be subjects to stress, depression, feelings of being overwhelmed, imposter syndrome, etc, which all could push the student in question to increasingly use the therapeutic stimulants.</p>\n\n<p>So, in my opinion, if the individual is responsible and has a relatively stable personality, I see no problem in supporting them in their endeavor, by trying to (reasonably) adjust their working environment to their needs.</p>\n\n<p>I'm a strong proponent to inclusion of disabled individuals, so I suggest you should let the student finish the said project, so they might get a feel themselves, if that is really their future. A career in academia isn't for everyone, so there is no shame in quitting and moving on, regardless of any medical condition.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28445,
"author": "Stacey",
"author_id": 21816,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21816",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I have had Narcolepsy for ten years now. I am also currently an undergraduate at university. In my opinion, based on personal experience as a person with narcolepsy, there are a few things important to consider. </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><strong>Firstly, the severity of narcolepsy is different for all those who suffer it so abilities vary</strong>. I am at university full time and whilst I am offered accommodations to assist me, on the whole, I produce high quality work.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Secondly, a person with narcolepsy may doubt themselves regardless of their abilities because others around them are quick to doubt them</strong>. This is why, on most occasions, I have not disclosed my condition to employees. Once I am employed, the quality of my work speaks for itself and then I disclose it for safety reasons. This is an internal battle because I fear that I am being untruthful to start with. At the same time, I know the stigma narcolepsy brings and that given the choice between a candidate with narcolepsy and one without, I would lose. If this person has told you about their narcolepsy it means they trust you and respect you and feel compelled to be completely truthful with you. They probably don't want to let you down so they will probably downplay their abilities in fear of this.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Whilst narcolepsy is characterised by 'sudden uncontrollable bouts of sleepiness', it's usually brief and full alertness is resumed after a short nap.</strong> Narcolepsy occurs because the hypocretin/orexin have been fought off by an autoimmune disease. This means sleep/wake cycles aren't regular. A person with their hypocretin intact do all their sleeping in one block, usually when the sun goes down. A person with narcolepsy sleeps in smaller blocks of time and stays alert for a shorter amount of time. Theoretically then, a person with narcolepsy can be awake and alert for the same number of hours a day as a non-narcoleptic but needs to do this by by breaking it up into smaller blocks. (You could liken this to differences in diet - some people eat three big meals a day while some people eat six smaller meals a day.)</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>To conclude, yes narcolepsy makes my life more difficult. I wouldn't be able to succeed at university without the support and understanding I get from the staff. But life is full of challenges and it is the way in which we deal with them that sets us apart. If you have developed a good working relationship with this person, then they already fulfil one important aspect of those needed for the position. A person with narcolepsy is aware of their shortfalls and given the chance, will do what is needed to overcome them. Don't let a diagnosis change your perception - just because a person doesn't have a medical label attached to them, doesn't mean they don't have other relevant faults or issues.</p>\n\n<p>My advice is to write down what is required to fulfil the needs of the research - do it in measurable terms. For example., how many hours a day/week is sufficient? Then sit down with this person and discuss it with them. Approach the requirements as you would anyone else. (For eg. Can you commit to these requirements? etc) If you were happy with their work previously tell them that. Also admit that you don't know much about narcolepsy but you know that everyone is different. Tell them you want them to succeed and you have faith in them. Tell them how important the work is to you and if you think you are a good team, say so. </p>\n\n<p>I hope this has been helpful and thank you for not listening to your human resource department who clearly lack knowledge and empathy.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28465,
"author": "user30295",
"author_id": 15478,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15478",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a doctoral student (and research assistant) with narcolepsy I will echo much of Stacey's answer. After outlining the responsibilities and expectations of the job, I recommend meeting with the student to discuss possible accommodations which may allow them to conduct research without creating undue burden on your lab and project. As you mentioned, a flexible work schedule that accommodates their sleep schedule is one option. </p>\n\n<p>Personally, I've worked with my mentor (the PI) to create a very flexible work schedule and we focus more on the outcome of my work than the hours I spend working on it. There are rare times when (due to health insurance glitches) I can be without my medication for a few days up to 1 week. When this happens I make my mentor aware of how this is impacting my functioning; at times we've had to re-prioritize projects during those \"med gaps\" because I am unable to work as intensely as I normally would. Similarly, because narcolepsy medication can include stimulants, if I catch the flu my physician advises I skip my narcolepsy medication in order to allow my body to naturally rest. So, my mentor is also aware that if I catch the same flu bug as everyone else in the winter, it might knock me out of commission for a few days. Once I am back on my feet (or have received my meds from the insurance company) I make up the hours I missed in the following week. </p>\n\n<p>As mentioned in the other answers, narcolepsy has a range of severity and so the accommodations needed will vary as well; you will have to decide what works for your lab. One last note: as a graduate student there is often an emphasis on working excessive hours or going without sleep to meet the demands of research, classes, etc. This is not an option for me and at times my work output has been compared to classmates who sleep 5-6 hours a night to \"crunch\" large projects. I think sometimes with \"invisible\" disabilities or illnesses it is easy to forget the subtle or significant ways it can impact that person's life. The fact that you are seeking information on this topic and investigating ways to be supportive of your student is great. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 34646,
"author": "Megghan",
"author_id": 26885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26885",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't know if anyone is still keeping up with this chain but I just wanted to say to the original poster that I am a bit surprised that your HR Dept. encouraged you to just fire the employee. I was diagnosed with narcolepsy over 10 years ago and spent about a year and a half working for an employment lawyer as a paralegal. While every state is of course different, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a part of the Code of Federal Regulations (in other words it applies nation-wide), and it states that an employer must make \"reasonable accommodations\" for an employee with a disability who is otherwise qualified. It is likely that in your position you could have fire the narcoleptic employee for his or her condition with no consequences, but there is also the possibility that the employee is aware of the ADA and will consult with a lawyer on the matter, causing you to incur unwanted legal fees at the very least. </p>\n\n<p>In my opinion, for the benefit of all involved, a person in your situation should always make an effort to reasonably accommodate before considering termination. It could be as little as something like providing a place for the employee to put his or her head down to take a 15 minutes nap during the day. Considering that the steps of research are typically planned out in advance, I would say that it is probably one of the more manageable jobs for a person with narcolepsy as opposed to something unpredictable. </p>\n\n<p>Of course this is not legal advice but just my individual understanding of the situation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 40673,
"author": "MaryAdele",
"author_id": 31015,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31015",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have narcolepsy and I am a doctoral student. I don't know about for your student, but for me, praise is more productive than empathy, but empathy is much more productive than judgement. Your student will probably benefit more from encouragement and understanding mixed with praise than he/she will if they feel incapable and overwhelmed.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 117087,
"author": "user98180",
"author_id": 98180,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/98180",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a grad student with narcolepsy, I was originally super nervous to talk to my PI about it. Once I got up the courage to do so, I was able to get a number of small accommodations that made things so much better.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Because I am waiting for medication to kick in, mornings are tough. My PI worked to avoid scheduling meetings before 10am. There are many situations where this might not be feasible, but when it is it can make a huge difference.</p></li>\n<li><p>Sometimes during the day I get extremely sleepy. I used to spend hours trying to fight the sleep off, but now that I have permission to go nap in the breakroom, I can take 10 minutes to nap and reset my body, avoiding the hours I used to spend working inefficiently while struggling to stay awake.</p></li>\n<li><p>Now that my PI knows, I have also been able to share with her what tends to trigger my cataplexy, which helps me avoid it.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The accommodations themselves are not that big, but they have allowed me to be a much more productive student.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28359",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12718/"
] |
28,360 |
<p>I am reading the guidelines for authors on a research journal which is part of Wiley. In the guidelines for authors it is only mentioned it should be submitted in Word format but nothing about font, font size, and if it should be already in two-column format.</p>
<p>Also it says figures should go at the end of the Word file, but I want to insert two figures in the same page to avoid paying twice the color page charge.</p>
<p>How is this supposed to be done?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28365,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The review formatting and the final, camera-ready formatting are often quite different. You will probably get a chance to reformat it for publication after it is reviewed. If you have any doubt about that, you should contact the editor.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28376,
"author": "duboce",
"author_id": 21734,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21734",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The most common and universally acceptable formatting for scientific manuscripts is Times New Roman, 12 point, 1 inch margins all around, one column. Certainly don't attempt two-column format! That happens much later, during the typesetting process.</p>\n\n<p>Regarding figure placement, that is also something to discuss with the editor or copy-editor much later, after the paper is accepted.</p>\n\n<p>Right now you are preparing the paper to be read by reviewers. They don't care what page your figures are on, and they certainly don't want to deal with two-column formatting!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28379,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Journals typically provides guidelines as to what formats are possible, for example, Word and/or LaTeX for text, eps, pdf, TIFF; JPG etc. for graphics. Wiley, for example, provides a <a href=\"http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/illustration.asp\" rel=\"nofollow\">guide line</a> for graphics that is general in their <a href=\"http://authorservices.wiley.com/default.asp\" rel=\"nofollow\">Author Services section</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Adhering to the requested file formats may be quite important although with Wiley, I have noted that they accept common formats for graphics although they are not specifically mentioned in the general guide line. As for formatting of text, I would (as editor for a journal) argue that </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>you should keep it as simple as possible</li>\n<li>do not attempt fancy formatting, keep it tidy and readable</li>\n<li>make sure your figures are of good quality and reproduced well in the files you provide</li>\n<li>follow any <em>instructions for authors</em>, or equivalent, the journal may provide (if such IFAs do not exist, then use a standard font and make, for example headings clearly visible against the main text and check the journal for reference system and formatting)</li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28360",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4050/"
] |
28,378 |
<p>I am a masters student in Computer Science. I also work for a software development company which happens to sponsor a scholarship that I want to apply to.</p>
<p>I was concerned about the ethical aspect of applying to this scholarship, I contacted the communications department via e-mail and asked if it is illegal and/or unethical to apply. Response said that company employees can apply, which means, I can apply. The answer did not state anything about the second part of my question - would it be unethical?</p>
<p>I also know that the CEO of my company will be the head of sponsorship committee.</p>
<p>Should I just ignore this weird circumstance and write my motivation letter as if there was no connection between my employer and the scholarship? Or should I not even apply?</p>
<p><strong>Edit:</strong> My initial question had 2 parts so I split it into separate questions. The other question, <a href="https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/33588/how-would-applying-for-a-scholarship-sponsored-by-employer-affect-my-employers" title="How would applying for a scholarship sponsored by employer affect my employer's perception of me?">How would applying for a scholarship sponsored by employer affect my employer's perception of me?</a>, is posted on Workplace.SE. It is a different question and I expect an answer from a different angle to it.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28381,
"author": "fkraiem",
"author_id": 12864,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12864",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Companies funding their employee's studies is common and I believe not considered unethical. If you worry about whether employees will be given preferential treatment over non-employees, I'd say it's the scholarship committee's problem, not yours. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28382,
"author": "OJFord",
"author_id": 11896,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11896",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It wouldn't be unethical or surprising if, on receipt of the company's scholarship you were offered a work placement with them. For that reason, I don't think you should be concerned about applying <em>through the normal means</em> as if you were any other applicant.</p>\n<p>What <em>would</em> make this unethical, would be to turn up for work and:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Morning CEO! How's the wife and kids? I just got back from my holiday in Scotland, and I thought you might enjoy this whiskey.</p>\n<p>Oh -- by the way, I heard about the scholarship you're offering, I'm really interested in applying for that, so I just thought I'd drop off my application. I'll leave it over here with the whiskey.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In short, if you just apply through the normal process, I do not think anyone can complain of any wrong-doing. I'm sure there's <em>at least</em> one stage to get your application through before anyone even realises you work there.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28384,
"author": "Moriarty",
"author_id": 8562,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8562",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>\"I contacted the communications department via e-mail and asked if it is illegal and/or unethical to apply. Response said that company employees can apply, which means, I can apply.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think that answers the ethics about it as well. As long as you are open about the fact that you are a company employee, <em>there is no scope for you to violate any ethics</em>. Any possible violation (which I don't think there are any) would be in the company's hands.</p>\n\n<p>Think about this - why is the company offering a scholarship? They probably want the recipient to graduate and then work for the company. Thus by attracting top students to apply for an attractive scholarship, they gain a highly skilled and motivated employee. Sure, the fact that you already work for them might give you an advantage in the application process. But this is a private company giving out privately earned funding. They should be able to pay whomever they choose, for whatever reason.</p>\n\n<p>In the end, there is really little difference between this, and an internal hire.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28378",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21737/"
] |
28,385 |
<p>I've heard from people that generally, it's a bad idea to go to the same school as your undergrad to get your graduate education. </p>
<p>However, in the situation that you get into only your undergrad school and a few much-lower ranked grad schools, what would be the better school to pursue? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28387,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>I've heard from people that generally, it's a bad idea to go to the same school as your undergrad to get your graduate education. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think the underlying, and unmentioned, assumption on this statement is that you should not go to the same school as your undergrad, but rather you should go to a BETTER one. This would be consistent with my experience that many, possibly most, faculty at departments that consider themselves to be the best, do not often recommend their students to take a step down to study elsewhere (and if you consider yourself the best, everywhere else is lower).</p>\n\n<p>That said, graduate school ranking, especially for PhD studies, is a little ridiculous. More important than the rank of your university, school, department, is the reputation of your primary advisor. But even that is not nearly as important as the quality of your research. While better ranked schools/departments/groups tend to have better faculty and resources there is considerable variation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28389,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>I've heard from people that generally, it's a bad idea to go to the same school as your undergrad to get your graduate education. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The word \"generally\" is commonly used in two rather different senses. The first sense is \"typically\", \"most often\". The second sense -- perhaps more common in mathematical and scientific writing -- is \"always\", or \"in the largest possible scope which might be applied\". The quoted advice is valid if \"generally\" is construed in the former sense, not the latter. To briefly explain: on the one hand, there are advantages to acquiring a diversity of experience. \"Great University X\" will do its business in a way which is slightly different from \"Great University Y\". Experiencing this is very valuable, because if you stay in academia you will probably be affiliated with several more universities, different from each of these. If all of your student experience is at a single place, you will have subconsciously internalized the universality of your experience, and you'll be in for a rude awakening when you learn that what is obviously best to you is not the practice in your new environment. Then too, by going to different great universities, you meet different great people (many of whom will know each other and will be in transit to/from other great universities), both students and faculty. This is also very valuable.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, there are situations where it is most advantageous to stay where you are. For instance there are sometimes personal, family or financial considerations. Even neglecting these, there are times that the university you attended as an undergraduate is truly the uniquely best option for you to continue your studies, or the best option among those available to you. If you are an undergraduate at UCLA, if you want to study analysis, and if you did not get admitted to Berkeley, MIT, Chicago, Princeton or Stanford, then staying where you are sounds like an excellent (perhaps optimal) choice academically. If you've already done successful research with a top faculty member at your current program and you truly want to continue that research most of all: yes, think seriously about staying right where you are. </p>\n\n<p>The other answer says that graduate school rankings is \"a little ridiculous\". While I don't really disagree, let me try to put a finer point on that: grad school rankings are ridiculous if you take them <em>too</em> seriously, and especially if you regard them as a strict linear ranking. It does not matter that US News and World Report currently thinks that MIT is the best mathematics department in the US whereas in past years it used to think it was some combination of Harvard / Princeton / Berkeley. It would be more honest and more helpful if they simply recorded that these departments and several others (Chicago, Stanford,...) are in the <strong>uppermost echelon</strong> of graduate programs in mathematics. Asking whether Harvard is better than Stanford <em>is</em> ridiculous: it depends upon what you're studying. (If you want to study analysis, don't go to Harvard unless you know you want to work with the one faculty member there who does that.) </p>\n\n<p>Students should be thinking of departments in terms of echelons. Within a given echelon, ranking is not helpful. However, barring some truly exceptional circumstances you want to go to a program in the top echelon that accepts you. As a corollary to this: if your undergraduate institution is in the top 10, and every other program you've gotten into isn't in the top 30, then <strong>yes</strong>, I think you should stay where you are, unless you have a very good reason to go to a lower-ranked department (best reason: there is a superstar there that has agreed to work with you). </p>\n\n<p>Finally though I have to say that I find it slightly odd that the OP has apparently gone to a top department, been admitted as a student to that top department, but not at any other department of comparable quality. That suggests to me that her application is not as strong as it could be, as those who know her in real life apparently value her more highly.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28393,
"author": "Tom Au",
"author_id": 755,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/755",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In a forced choice, I'd go to the same, rather than inferior school.</p>\n\n<p>\"Diversity\" is a good idea when you can get into a comparably good school, or better than the one where you did your undergraduate degree. Then you will get a choice of viewpoints that will (hopefully) make you a broader, more qualified candidate.</p>\n\n<p>These advantages (mostly) disappear when your additional choices are all worse than what you have. This is what master investor Peter Lynch called \"diworsesification,\" which you might not want to do.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28385",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21743/"
] |
28,386 |
<p>What is a reasonable percentage salary increase for tenure and promotion from assistant to associate professor in the US?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28397,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Data on faculty salaries is available from the AAUP survey:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://chronicle.com/article/2013-14-AAUP-Faculty-Salary/145679/#id=table\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://chronicle.com/article/2013-14-AAUP-Faculty-Salary/145679/#id=table</a></p>\n\n<p>Associate professors make, very roughly speaking, 10% more than assistant professors. However, since professors get a few percent raise a year, you can estimate that the difference between the most experienced assistant professor and the least experienced associate professor is about the typical annual raise. So, I think the answer is \"not much.\" However, it varies widely by institution, school, department, governance model, etc.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 72698,
"author": "Anon guest",
"author_id": 57924,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57924",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At my institution, for CS, I got 5% raise from promotion from assistant to associate prof (about $4500) and a 10% raise (about $10K) for associate to full prof. Not sure how it compares to other schools. I know this is a late answer, but hope it helps others.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28386",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21741/"
] |
28,396 |
<p><strong>Background</strong></p>
<p>I graduated with a BS in math about a year and a half ago from a not well known school and with a less than stellar academic record. I did not go to graduate school (I was not accepted). Since then, I have improved my mathematical ability considerably, but I have not kept in touch with my professors. I can demonstrate this improvement in many ways, the most obvious of which is by referring to my subject GRE score.</p>
<p>Given that I was a mediocre student, I assume that my professors' letters of recommendation did not paint me in as positive of a light as they would have if they knew me now.</p>
<p>I am now interested in applying to graduate school again but this time I would like to secure stronger letters of recommendation.</p>
<p><strong>Question</strong></p>
<p>Is it appropriate to ask a professor the following question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Is there any way I can demonstrate my current mathematical ability
and thereby improve your letter of recommendation for me?"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If so, how should I ask this question?</p>
<p><strong>Further Considerations</strong></p>
<p>If the answer to the above question is "Yes", then for at least two of the professors, I can suggest showing them my typed solutions to every question (save the trivial ones) in the textbook used for their class. These classes were both upper level classes (second level Linear Algebra and second level Real Analysis). With the last professor, I can demonstrate knowledge of Calculus of Variations (a subject that this professor is interested in) as well as Functional Analysis. Should this be my approach?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28402,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I think it is okay to ask the question. However, I do not think you should suggest that professors read your solutions since they are likely very busy. </p>\n\n<p>You may do better to tell the professors what you have been working on, including your GRE score, and then ask them if there is anything else you can do to prepare yourself for graduate school. Then follow their suggestions. Essentially it is the same question, but I think it could show you are a \"deep learner\" rather than a \"strategic learner\" who only cares about the letter.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28441,
"author": "Scott Seidman",
"author_id": 20457,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20457",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You're thinking about the problem a little bit sideways, as do many students. </p>\n\n<p>First, when you originally request a letter of recommendation, ask the person your asking to support you if they can write you a strong letter. If they say no, they can write you a letter but they're not in a position to write a strong one, you can either move on to the next person (if there is one), or have a very mature conversation where you ask what's the best portrayal you can get. For example, if you feel like there's a hole in your application portfolio that this person can help fill, ask about it. Sometimes, if a student with average grade performance is a stand out in terms of writing, communication, leadership, I can focus on that and come out with an OK letter.</p>\n\n<p>Now, to new recommendations from your original references: If your original recommenders have had no interactions with you that would change their opinion, its probably already too late to get a better recommendation. If there's something about your overall package that would change your likelihood to be admitted to a grad program, then you should be able to dig up a new reference to support your application. Your personal statement should be carefully crafted, stating very clearly what's changed about your situation, why you're a better candidate than you were originally, and some evidence to support it that an admissions committee can understand. A recommendation involving a recent interaction from a new person would be extremely helpful.</p>\n\n<p>For what its worth, the admissions committee will be very interested in how you've spent your time since your BS. They might expect you to be showing maturity not typical of recent graduates. If you can show a solid understanding of why you are now seeking a graduate degree and how you expect it to impact your career in your application package, that will prove very helpful. If you've been twiddling your thumbs since you graduated, and that's apparent in your package, that will not go over very well. If that's the case, you might consider delaying your application until you can make your application package look right, and spend six months working very hard just to develop those good recommendations.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28396",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21749/"
] |
28,398 |
<p>I am rather disappointed by the existing research in my area of interest. There is a big disconnect between the solutions practitioners need and what researchers look at.</p>
<ul>
<li>I have read everything available on the subject in e-journals.</li>
<li>I have many ideas which I believe can solve some small problems in my field.</li>
<li>I also have ideas for paradigms (or major expansions of existing paradigms) which I believe can help the researchers and practitioners look at the problems in a different light.</li>
<li>I am not in a PhD program, so I lack the advice, time, resources, and know-how for setting up controlled experiments to validate these ideas, so I can only address them as thought experiments or identify the nearest related experiments not directly testing my ideas.</li>
</ul>
<p>Can I publish short here-is-an-idea paper (e.g. “Proposed Solution for X” or “(new) Model for Y”) well before having any means of providing some proof?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28400,
"author": "Nate",
"author_id": 21751,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21751",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Generally, no.</p>\n\n<p>Insights are a dime a dozen. Insights with <em>evidence</em> are how science (social and natural) proceed.</p>\n\n<p>Proceeding through your bullets:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>You mention e-journals. Have you read the \"literature\" in traditional journals/books/whatever the field's standard is? There's a lot of good reason to be suspicious of e-journals, so you may not have a full view of the field.</li>\n<li>Belief in ideas doesn't make them true(r). Sorry.</li>\n<li>Is there a reason that you think that these expansions of paradigms haven't been considered? Are you <em>sure</em> that they really have never occurred before?</li>\n<li>Perhaps that's the argument for obtaining a Ph.D. or research master's --- to demonstrate that ideas have empirical heft.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If you really want to make a difference, you will have to offer evidence that your ideas work or have worked, beyond the logic you offer.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28401,
"author": "Camden Conekin",
"author_id": 21752,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21752",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In order for a work to be scholarly, the content has to be reviewed by a group of experts in your field, tested by those peers for accuracy and then you have to find someone who is willing to publish your work. You don't have to have proof of your findings for them to be published, but the work wouldn't be considered a scholarly document. Just remember that theories aren't just ideas, but concepts that have been tried and tested to be logical and accurate. Whatever you do, make sure that your experiments can be repeated and that you get the same \"Proposed Solution for X\" every time. Remember that every revolution begins in the mind of one man, and that your \"proposed solution\" might possibly be the right one, with or without proof. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28438,
"author": "Miro Lehtonen",
"author_id": 21804,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21804",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Sure, one can publish ideas before properly evaluating their value. But it depends. Your area of research might be different from mine, but I have written \"position papers\" papers in the past where the main purpose is to generate discussion. Then you usually have to go to the conference and workshop your ideas with other participants.</p>\n\n<p>So if there really is a big disconnect between practitioners and researchers, do some groundwork, maybe interview those practitioners so that you can back up your claims when you meet the researchers. Then propose improvements to current research so that you can work on your ideas and study them properly. You may also find help and advice and co-authors for the future. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28398",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/"
] |
28,407 |
<p>I am not a psychology major. </p>
<p>I came across <a href="http://www.ucd.ie/artspgs/semantics/ConsequencesErudite.pdf">this paper</a>
that shows that using erudite vocabulary will not do one good.</p>
<p>What makes me want to ask here is a case study in the paper. Long story short, a bunch of admission officers, unaware of being tested, reviewed the application documents such as statements of purpose and were asked to rate them. It turned out that those documents using big, learned words instead got somewhat lower rating than those using simple, direct words.</p>
<p>Though this research seems convincing, my concern is: Is this phenomenon general enough to suggest one should avoid using erudite vocabulary if one does not use the erudite words in an affected way?</p>
<p>If you are experienced admission reviewers, would you please throw some light or insights on this issue? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28411,
"author": "299792458",
"author_id": 17534,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17534",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your question reminds me of the days when I was a young schoolkid and had barely started composing articles, essays etc. I had a habit of picking up the dictionary and learning a new word every day, writing it down somewhere, and (embarrassingly) also revising my notes every weekend or so. Invariably, it got to a stage where these fancy words started entering the articles and I started getting appreciated for it. Since I wasn't the only one in my class doing it, soon it got to a competition of sorts - who can use more fancy language and impress the teacher and ''<em>awe</em>'' the (misguided) audience. In the process, we got to a stage where we were bending sentences to accommodate our <em>sweat-and-blood</em>, or worse still, writing sentences according to the new word. I'm sure this isn't too uncommon.</p>\n\n<p>But now we look back at this and think that we were stupid (of-course we were schoolkids). Why would anybody do that? The purpose of having a good vocabulary is to have at your disposal the most-appropriate word for the intended purpose. And nothing more.</p>\n\n<p>So, coming back to your question, the purpose of a statement-of-purpose is to convey certain information to the people on the other side of the table. They want you to convey this information using minimum clutter, and be as to-the-point as possible. Use the most appropriate words for the intended purpose - think over it and take your time in composing the SoP. It is extremely unlikely that any sensible person sitting on the other side would be so impressed on reading exotic, but inappropriate-as-per-the-context, words in the SoP that he will count that as an advantage over the others. However, it is more likely that if he will have the same impression of you as you get by reading my first paragraph. I don't think that's an advantage at all.</p>\n\n<p>Hope that helps :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28426,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Erudition and eloquence are useful tools for academics to possess.</p>\n\n<p>However, excessively erudite writing can become opaque. That's <em>not</em> what you want to achieve in scholarly writing. Scholarly writing should be lucid, informative, and as direct as possible. Thus, using \"five-dollar\" vocabulary when \"fifty-cent\" words will do probably distracts from your writing overall. On the other hand, if that five-dollar word is <em>exactly</em> the word you need in a given situation, don't be afraid to use it. It's better, in my opinion, to moderately challenge the reader in a concisely written text than to be long-winded.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28428,
"author": "BrianH",
"author_id": 6787,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6787",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the\n difference between lightning and a lightning bug. - <em>Mark Twain</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<h2>What You Shouldn't Do</h2>\n\n<p>As I explain below, the article does a good job of illustrating what you should not do: do not, under any circumstances, write out a statement of purpose and then have a computer blindly replace words with longer synonyms taken from the Microsoft Word Thesaurus. A word is not better merely because it is longer - but sometimes a longer word is the better word. Your goal is to communicate, and you should seek to impress with your message and communication skill - not your ability to find really long words and use them poorly.</p>\n\n<h2>Problems With Interpreting the Research Article</h2>\n\n<p>First of all, I must say that I love the title of the article you linked: \"Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective\nof Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly\". From a psychological/cognitive perspective, however, it is not sufficient - or even suitable - to use to draw a conclusion on how one might wish to write a statement of purpose.</p>\n\n<p>An excerpt from Experiment 1 I think will help to understand this. Which of these following sentences is best?</p>\n\n<p>1) I desire to go to Graduate School so that I can learn to recognize literature satisfactorily.</p>\n\n<p>2) I want to go to Graduate School so that I can learn to recognize literature well.</p>\n\n<p>3) I want to go to Graduate School so that I can learn to know literature well.</p>\n\n<p>Here's the problem: these sentences, while similar, <em>do not convey the same precise meaning and attitude!</em></p>\n\n<p>In the first case, the sentence gives the impression that a person wants to \"recognize\" literature \"satisfactorily\". This sounds like a person aspires to be able to read something and say, \"Ah, this is definitely a kind of literature.\" </p>\n\n<p>Moreover, they want to be satisfactory at this skill? If a person wrote a letter of reference for you that read, \"This student's skills in English Literature were satisfactory\" you'd be damned by faint praise! Here, satisfactory sounds an awful lot like \"average\" or \"met minimum expectations\".</p>\n\n<p>This is all for an essay to try to get into Stanford - by any measure a competitive school. You don't need to go to Stanford to be satisfactory at a minor skill. Next applicant!</p>\n\n<p>The next sentence is a little better, as a person wants to be able to do something \"well\". This is a conservative, but still potentially ambitious, way to say that you want to be actually good at something - superior to the average. \"Well\" and \"satisfactory\" may be synonyms (and thus how the word was chosen), but they don't have the same precise meanings or connotations in every context. </p>\n\n<p>The final example sentence says that they want to \"know literature well.\" Knowledge is a higher goal than mere recognition. Compare the phrases \"I recognize her\" with \"I know her\" and you get the idea - similar meaning, but not at all the same.</p>\n\n<p>The funny thing is, sentence 1 is marked as \"highly complex\", 2 is \"medium-complexity\", and 3 is \"original\" because word length was used as a proxy for complexity. The originals tended to be marked higher than their \"more complex\" counterparts, but in every case included in the appendix I found the originals were superior to their algorithmically-derived versions. </p>\n\n<p>At least in Experiment 1, the research shows that replacing words blindly with their longer synonyms results in a poorer quality product than that produced by an intelligent human writing a statement of purpose to try to gain admittance to a competitive University. </p>\n\n<p>Before I go on, I wish to point out that this article is good research and interesting, and helps to build the field, and I do not criticize the authors for trying something and reporting their findings; these findings are a step on the road to greater understanding. But this paper alone is not suitable for drawing conclusions.</p>\n\n<h2>How You Should Actually Write</h2>\n\n<p>In most fields the goal is actual, genuine communication. Most professors and admittance personnel aren't looking to recruit low-quality bullshitters - they surely think they work with enough of such people as it is! So you need to decide what you are: a brilliant bullshitter with an extraordinarily artful grasp of the language and rhetoric, or a genuine communicator. There is a demand for both sets of people (in some fields more than others -<em>cough</em>-), but you need to decide: which extreme are you closer to fitting?</p>\n\n<p>If you choose to showcase your genuine communication skill and interests in your statement of purpose, write it out from the heart first, and then you can go in and agonize a bit more on word choice. Some things will inevitably need to be made simpler, while sometimes a few big-money words will suit just perfectly.</p>\n\n<p>What always dominates an appraisal of writing is the <em>appropriate</em> words. If I say \"I'm going to peruse your missive and aggrandize some terminal verbiage\" ... those are big words, but they are also supercilious, awkward, and downright poor choices. It would convey the meaning that I am trying to compensate for a lack of actual intelligence and understanding by trying to baffle you with more obscure parts of the lexicon. [Great, now I can't stop doing it...] Or I'm trying to be funny. Or I'm a bit of an ass... thanks in part to the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_bias#Fundamental_attribution_error\">fundamental attribution error</a>, such inappropriate word choices can doom an application.</p>\n\n<h2>Get Advice and Feedback</h2>\n\n<p>Statistically, only <a href=\"http://xkcd.com/703/\">1 out of 10 people are in the top 10% of ability</a> in written communication skills. Even for those in the top 10, advice and feedback from others on their actual written work is invaluable and there is no perfect substitute. This applies equally to native and non-native speakers - don't stumble in the dark when you can just turn the light on! </p>\n\n<p>Asking someone to review specific word-choice and phrasing is great, and some people have greater editing skills than others so you'll likely need more than one or two pairs of eyes. A good rule of thumb is if someone is willing to spend the time to write a letter of recommendation for you, they are probably willing to spend a little time going over a letter of purpose with you. After all, they wouldn't want their own words to fall on deaf ears, would they?</p>\n\n<p>Career centers, student-employment departments, English tutors/clubs/Professors, and college application workshops are all potentially great sources of help and review, and if you can bring a written draft of your statement with you then the time might prove extremely productive.</p>\n\n<p>As a parting word of advice, I find that busy people who only spend a few minutes with your writing can be very good sources of help on matters like this, because if they can't understand something or don't like the wording in such a quick read the people who actually read your application probably won't either!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 49409,
"author": "ewormuth",
"author_id": 37649,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/37649",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Two things are important here: 1) having control of vocabulary, however plain-spoken or erudite it is, and 2) writing in such a way that your meaning is clear and your statement effective.</p>\n\n<p>If you have control of your vocabulary, you will not use \"erudite vocabulary\" in an affected way. If you understand the connotations and denotations and idiomatic uses of a word, you will use it correctly. Don't use a word because it sounds impressive; use it because you know it's the right word in the right place. If you have questions about vocabulary in your statement, run it by your academic advisor or a faculty member you work well with.</p>\n\n<p>More important: Make your writing as powerful as it can be. Whatever vocabulary you use, choose strong subjects and active verbs. Seems elementary, but it's essential. Examples:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>One reason I would be a good fit for your program is my background in biophysics.</li>\n<li>My background in biophysics makes me an excellent fit for your program.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I must offer a correction to the previous poster's <a href=\"http://www.twainquotes.com/Lightning.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">quote from Mark Twain</a> -- the difference between that quote and this is like the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 49428,
"author": "irbanana",
"author_id": 37668,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/37668",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To quote NN Taleb in <em>The Bed of Procrustes</em>: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or\n consultant, the opposite.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28407",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18107/"
] |
28,409 |
<p>I'm currently an M. Phil student in Math and I failed a course last semester because I was not able to hand in a home work assignment (which was worth 40% of my grade) on time (I was 30 minutes late). </p>
<p>Apart from that I'd say I'm a fairly decent student, I got an upper second class honours bachelors degree, I have a B+ and A's for all my other courses in my current programme and I'm almost finished with my first paper to be published. </p>
<p>I've however been deeply worried about this failure as it would reflect poorly on my transcript if I were to apply to a Ph.D or another Master's programme. </p>
<p>Will my failing grade affect my chances of getting into a competitive programme or greatly lower my chances of getting a scholarship?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28430,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Will my failing grade affect my chances of getting into a competitive programme or greatly lower my chances of getting a scholarship?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Unfortunately yes, this is quite possible and, at least in certain contexts, rather likely. Most good graduate programs in mathematics (and presumably elsewhere) see very high grades in general from their applicants. One or two imperfect grades can be easily dismissed (still, better is better...) but a <strong>failing grade</strong> is a big red flag. In many (American, I don't know how it is elsewhere) graduate programs, the minimum GPA required to maintain good standing is 3.0. Thus a lackluster performance in a graduate course often results in something like a B/B+. There is a lot of variation here and many problems make a <em>de facto</em> distinction between lower level / core courses in which \"grades count\" and higher level / optional courses in which it may well be expected that everyone gets the highest possible grade more or less automatically. Either way, a failing grade in a graduate course looks especially bad. </p>\n\n<p>The more courses you take, the more one can discount any one grade. But if as you say you will be applying for admission and/or scholarships with one out of four grades a failing grade: well, I'm sorry to say it, but that doesn't sound good at all.</p>\n\n<p>What can you do? First I would look into the prospect of getting the grade changed (though of course it may not be possible and in certain circumstances it may not even be appropriate to ask). If that's not possible, the matter becomes how to <em>explain</em> the grade in a way which makes it minimally alarming to people who are evaluating your application. In this regard I have to be honest again and say that your given explanation is not a great one: there was one problem set that was worth 40% of your grade, you didn't turn it in on time, and there was no way for you and/or the course instructor to rectify the situation? Not good. Your perspective may well be that the course instructor was an extremely unreasonable, ungenerous individual. And you may be right, but that doesn't really fix the fact that you didn't meet the course requirements. Maybe your entire program is somehow off...which is still not great. </p>\n\n<p>I would try to have at least one faculty recommendation letter explicitly address this situation and explain it in a way which somehow allays the above concerns.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28439,
"author": "Amatya",
"author_id": 6674,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6674",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><strong>It's not a deal breaker.</strong> I had awful grades in many courses but I got offers with TA/RA-ship/fellowships from a couple of top 25 US PhD programs in Math. The reason, I think, was that I had very high GRE scores, I had participated in undergraduate/masters \"research\" projects for a few years with professors at my schools, and I had pretty good recommendations. My research statement was normal and earnest. I didn't have any extraordinary ideas nor some well defined research agenda in it. I think that, overall, the rest of my portfolio made up for my awful grades. </p>\n\n<p>In your case, it's just one course. That does not signal any systematic problem. If you feel particularly insecure, you can address it in your personal statement but don't talk about the professor in question negatively, instead you can focus on how you were tardy once but it does not reflect your work usual work ethic. I cannot speak for top 10 schools. They may have a sufficiently large pool of applicants who may beat you on every metric.</p>\n\n<p>Also, Math departments at large public Universities generally need lots of bodies to TA/grade their numerous remedial and baby-calc type undergraduate courses and generally do the culling at the qualifying exam stage. You may find their standards for an incoming PhD class to be more forgiving.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28409",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18330/"
] |
28,412 |
<p>I am almost 30 years old. I got my bachelor's many years ago, and I've been enjoying myself while in the industry. I am a practical person.</p>
<p>However, for some reasons, I felt my technical skills were regressing, so I decided to go back to school, to enhance and update my skills.</p>
<p>I chose a topic that is quite abstract, which is stressful to me. Also, I feel threatened by grades and such ... which sometimes make me regret having put myself in such a "delicate" situation.</p>
<p>Should I be patient (there will be better days) ? Or should I go back to the industry and discover things myself?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28413,
"author": "george",
"author_id": 21766,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21766",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I believe you should be patient because education is among the best investments you could ever make, in the sense that it is highly probable to pay off in the long run. Moreover, being (only!) 30 you are looking ahead at thirty years or so of a career, so some extra training will absolutely help in the long run; even though the picture may not be clear yet, education does open doors to new opportunities.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28424,
"author": "gman",
"author_id": 12454,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12454",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I believe there are some great answers at <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24577/i-want-to-do-research-but-im-too-old-for-a-phd\">I want to do research but I'm too old for a PHD</a> as stated in the comments. </p>\n\n<p>That said I have followed somewhat a similar path to you. I went to college at 17 to do accounting and still work in the area. I returned to college when 29 to complete a BA part-time. This course was over four years and I think no amount of experience can prepare you for returning to the rigour of study. Grades can be an issue, but I always found professors to be very open to discussing ways to improve, and in fact many stated that they preferred teaching the part-time course as the class where a bit more mature. Since then I have started a masters and although it can be stressful doing research I have found there are more good days than bad ones. Again having good communication with those that supervise you is essential. </p>\n\n<p>While I think only yourself can answer your question, I believe if you have a passion for your subject and use the supports that may be available at your institution (such as study support groups in your topic) it will may your decision easier. They best advise I can give is to talk to those in your course that may be able to assist and guide you.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28412",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21764/"
] |
28,417 |
<p>Having obtained by PhD in Computer Science five years ago, I have been working in R&D projects for the last years. I want to pursue an academic career and I am currently considering moving to UK. As far as it concerns my academic qualifications, very roughly, I have 8 journal publications, an h-index of 8 by google scholar, and a little teaching experience in university education.</p>
<p>The variety of titles in UK job openings is somewhat confusing: (Postdoctoral) Research Associate, (Senior) Lecturer, Research Fellow, etc. And then, there are open-ended and fixed-term contracts.</p>
<p>The question is: what kind of positions would it be best to aim for? In other words, what kind of position would correspond to my skill-set, given that I am interested in evolving academically (research and teaching)? And how could I improve my CV towards this?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28421,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I don't think it is feasible to make a sure-fire estimation of what \"level\" you would be considered to be on without knowing many details (and then the question would likely become too localized for SE anyway).</p>\n\n<p>Further, job titles and positions are not standardized between universities or, in some cases, even between different labs within the same university. What's called a Research Fellow in one place could be a Research Associate in another, and simply a Postdoc in the third. However, there are (typically) some \"groups\" of jobs:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>PhD students (which you clearly don't fall into, given that you already have a PhD)</li>\n<li>Non-professoral, non-student researchers (postdocs, various soft-money research positions)</li>\n<li>Junior Professors and Professors (I'll lump into this everything from lecturers, senior lecturers, and actual professors)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>You will likely fall into the second group, <em>maybe</em> you could also hunt for a lecturer position (i.e., the entry-level position of the third group). If you want to stay in research, you should aim to sooner or later get into the third group. However, typically, these jobs are significantly more competitive to get than postdoc jobs.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>And how could I improve my CV towards this?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Papers, papers, papers. I think your background in an R&D lab can be sold as a boon (\"I have industrial experience, while still not being out of touch with research!\"), but at the end of the day, papers are what people <em>really</em> look at. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 46711,
"author": "Dilworth",
"author_id": 8760,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8760",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As far as I see you potentially fit the Lecturer (i.e., Assistant Professor in the US system) level.\nThis is because you have a PhD, and you are too long after your graduation to become a postdoc (i.e., research fellow/associate). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 46725,
"author": "Jessica B",
"author_id": 20036,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20036",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The job you appear to be interested in is lecturer, open ended contract, probably at level 7 (I would guess from your description). You may want to consider the fixed-term contracts as well. Applying to anything above level 8 will be pointless. However, I'd advise applying to pretty much everything at the lower end of things, as the job market in most fields isn't great right now. A postdoc/research assistant position will probably be helpful if that's what you are offered. Hiring in the UK is cyclical, so what's on offer will vary greatly between years.</p>\n\n<p>Source: personal experience</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28417",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21766/"
] |
28,423 |
<p>My wife and I teach at different universities. This is the first year that we have run into a timetabling conflict that makes dropping our son off at school difficult. The conflict involves wife's 200+ person lecture that is centrally timetabled in a lecture hall that is in near constant use and my 30 person lab in a relatively unused computer lab. It is unlikely that any type of changes could be made to my wife's class that would help with the conflict. I teach one of 8 sections of the lab. While all the sections occur on the same day they happen in a number of computer labs which have some unused time on that day. I would like to see if I can reschedule, or adjust the schedule, of my teaching. The lab is scheduled to start at 9:00. My son's school starts at 9:00 and I could start teaching at 9:30. Who do I approach and what do I ask for?</p>
<p>I feel like I could try and swap sections with someone else (mine is the only section that starts at 9:00) or I could also ask the organizer for the lab if I can move my section. Is there another option? What is the best way to approach this?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28425,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I don't think you can ask to move the start of your lab section. As in the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28320/is-it-reasonable-for-a-professor-to-ask-students-to-stay-30-45-minutes-past-sche\">other related question about class times</a>, those times are fixed by the university and not really movable without lots of notice. Your best bet is to get together (physically or virtually) with the other section teachers and find someone willing to switch with you. Then you can propose it to the lab organizer. </p>\n\n<p>Outside your university, you might see if there's a friend or neighbor you trust who can drop your kid at school or a way to arrange with the school to drop your child half an hour early. It can't hurt to ask them. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28452,
"author": "Orion",
"author_id": 19732,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19732",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I assume getting a baby sitter or a before-school childcare is not an option? In our case, we have the children signed up in the before and after-school program on as needed basis. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28423",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929/"
] |
28,429 |
<p>I am a graduate student, 2nd year, in a STEM field at a US university. I have passed my quals. </p>
<p>Is it possible to ask from a Professor who is not at your university to be your advisor? Did anybody hear of a similar situation?</p>
<p>I am very interested in the research of a professor who is at a nearby university, I really want to work with him but I don't know if this is even possible. (Maybe I should also note that his university is not necessarily better than the one I am now.) </p>
<p>Any suggestions?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28431,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Extrapolating from the very few cases that I've seen, I think you'll need an official adviser at the school where you're actually enrolled. If it's OK with that adviser, then you could also have a \"real\" adviser elsewhere, on an unofficial basis. Your school may have some paperwork to be completed if your real adviser is to serve as a member of your official thesis committee. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28432,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've never heard of that except in the case where a prof left one university to go to another. During the long transition, some of his students physically moved with him but continued their PhD at the old school. I believe the professor retained some sort of appointment at the old university in order to make it fit within the University's rules.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, almost every PhD committee is required to have an external member. That's usually outside the department, but it is often outside the university. So, it might be possible to find an advisor at your current university to be the nominal head of your committee, but to include the other guy on the committee and have him be the de facto head. The biggest problem will probably come down to how your research is funded. If funding is not a problem, then you might be able to pull it off.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28429",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21702/"
] |
28,433 |
<p>I just heard about "dissertation embargoes". My institution recommends that every graduating student place an embargo on their dissertation.</p>
<p>What is a dissertation embargo, and what is its purpose?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28436,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A \"dissertation embargo\" means that access to the dissertation is restricted for a limited period of time (typically one or two years, but possibly longer).</p>\n\n<p>Possible reasons to embargo a dissertation include:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>You would like to patent some of the work described in the dissertation. The published dissertation would constitute prior art.</li>\n<li>The dissertation includes data covered by a nondisclosure agreement for a limited period of time.</li>\n<li>You intend to publish the dissertation as a book, with a publisher that restricts consideration of manuscripts based on publicly available dissertations. </li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28437,
"author": "Mad Jack",
"author_id": 11192,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11192",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>An embargo effectively withholds your dissertation from being placed on your institution's open-access dissertation archive (from which anyone can view/download your dissertation).</p>\n\n<p>I have placed an embargo on my dissertation so that I may attempt to get a few more papers published without my dissertation being searchable on the web. It is a common practice in the department where I did my PhD (though, I wondered sometimes if it was <em>really</em> necessary).</p>\n\n<p>For a more complete list of reasons why one would choose to place an embargo on their dissertation, I'm listing here an excerpt taken from a <a href=\"http://grad.unm.edu/degree-completion/thesis-dissertations/thesisdissert-embargo.html\">University of New Mexico</a> page:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Embargos may be appropriate for authors \n 1) who are seeking patents, \n 2) who want to publish their work through a traditional press that considers open access publication to be equivalent to prior publication, \n 3) who have published material from their work with a publisher that does not allow open access release for a certain period of time, or \n 4) who need to protect sensitive data or information.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 92888,
"author": "Charlie Brown",
"author_id": 75773,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/75773",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I know of one dissertation that has been on embargo. The person who wrote it has not said why, but I suspect it may be related to the content. It sets forth new and well-tested scientific methods to detect the secret burials of crime victims and mass graves associated with human genocide. A number of dictatorial regimes on this planet would love to get their hands on the contents of this dissertation because they could be used to make their mass burial dirty work less detectable and make it less likely that they would someday be put on trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity (see Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, etc.). Sometimes there are very good reasons to withhold a dissertation — even for many years. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 132882,
"author": "Part-time Engineer",
"author_id": 109642,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109642",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>When I graduated, I chose the embargo period as 5 years, because I need this 5-year to have my publication published on peer-reviewed journals. For my dissertation, besides the first and the last chapters, my goal is to have all of them published. </p>\n\n<p>But sometimes I wonder, when all the chapters of my dissertation are published, what is the point of releasing my dissertation??? </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28433",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21802/"
] |
28,434 |
<p>Is there any unified platform that would list the deadlines (especially the submission deadlines) for conferences/journals? Ideally I would like to select a few conferences/journals I am interested in publishing to, and the website would give me the list of upcoming deadlines. </p>
<p>Right now I have to check out each individual conference/journal website, which is pretty tedious and error-prone (all the more so as it is pretty common for deadline to be extended).</p>
<p>I am mostly interested in the field of computer science > machine learning, and English-speaking venues.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28608,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><a href=\"http://wikicfp.com/cfp/home\" rel=\"noreferrer\">WikiCFP</a> offers this. To use this feature, you are required to register and sign in to your account.</p>\n\n<p>Once you are logged in, find the Calls for Papers (CFPs) you are interested in and choose \"Add to my list\". (You can add multiple CFPs at a time if they appear in the same search results or \"recent CFPs\" list).</p>\n\n<p>Then, from the sidebar, choose \"My list\" or \"Timeline\" to see all the deadlines for the conferences you have selected in your preferred format. Timeline view is pretty nice; it shows you the registration, submission, notification, and camera-ready deadlines, as well as the dates of the actual conference. Here is a screenshot:</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/DBern.png\" alt=\"Wikicfp timeline view\"></p>\n\n<p>However, WifiCFP relies on user-submitted content (for both original CFP submissions, and updates e.g., for deadline extensions). So the usefulness of this for you will depend on how active people in your field are on WikiCFP.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 80632,
"author": "guest",
"author_id": 65509,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65509",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><a href=\"http://allconferencecfpalerts.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://allconferencecfpalerts.com/</a> is a unified platform that lists conference / journal deadlines.</p>\n\n<p>It also provides Open Access Research Sharing System - Share URL</p>\n\n<p>Share-url link in the allconferencecfpalerts.com site is mainly built for researchers to share their academic information category wise. It is an open access platform to help researchers get more visibility and citations. This page is user-friendly so that authors can share information easily.</p>\n\n<p>Authors who wish to post their Research information should register by creating Login id password. Login or registration is not required to view, search and download articles from the portal. All Share URL posts are categorized based on research area. User can search by title of the paper or author's name.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28434",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452/"
] |
28,442 |
<p>Browsing the internet, I found many professors, researchers and scientists that, in addition to their main affiliation to their main department, have also a <strong>second affiliation</strong> to another department of their university (for example, <a href="http://helix-web.stanford.edu/people/altman/">Russ Altman</a> at Stanford).</p>
<p><strong>Why so many scientists decide to have a second department affiliation?</strong></p>
<p><strong>What are the main advantages and benefits?</strong></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28443,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Sometimes, a second affiliation has real administrative meaning, for example if a professor's teaching duties are divided between two departments. In other cases, a professor's duties are in just one department, and the second affiliation is either just an honorary matter (saying that the second department regards him as respectable in their field also) or possibly (depending on university rules) enables the professor to officially supervise dissertations in the second department.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28457,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are joint appointments (split FTEs) and courtesy appointments (0 FTE lines). </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Joint appointments are when two departments equally (or not) contribute some of their dedicated faculty lines to a position. For example, Physics gives 0.5 FTE (half of a faculty slot) and Chemistry gives 0.5 FTE and they bring in a person who gains the title of \"Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Physics.\" Normally this person would have duties in both departments.</p></li>\n<li><p>There are also courtesy appointments, also called 0 FTE appointments. If the above person was brought in 100% by Chemistry (1.0 FTE) but for various reasons wanted to occasionally teach a cross-listed course in physics, serve as a chair on a couple of doctoral committees, or other sundry reasons, the Physics department could decide to add this person to their affiliate faculty list. It would not cost them any lines (which is why it is 0 FTE) and would solve some administrative requirements.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Note that some university programs are entirely consisted of 0 FTE positions and have no faculty lines of their own. Women's Studies is a good example of a program that on many campuses is entirely 0 FTE driven.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>In the case of the example given by the OP, the person is \"Professor of Bioengineering, Genetics, and Medicine (and Computer Science, by courtesy).\" This would seem to indicate that he has three 0.33 FTE lines (or 0.5 FTE, 0.25 FTE, 0.25 FTE; etc. etc.) and one 0 FTE courtesy appointment. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28442",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/379/"
] |
28,444 |
<p>I sometimes read in papers that <em>the opinions, findings, and conclusion or recommendations expressed in the paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the [funding agency name]</em> in the acknowledgments section. E.g. in this <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/~danqi/papers/emnlp2014.pdf" rel="nofollow">paper</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Stanford University gratefully acknowledges the support of the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Deep Exploration and
Filtering of Text (DEFT) Program under Air Force Research Laboratory
(AFRL) contract no. FA8750-13-2-0040 and the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency (DTRA) under Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) contract no.
FA8650- 10-C-7020. <strong>Any opinions, findings, and conclusion or
recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors
and do not necessarily reflect the view of the DARPA, AFRL, or the US
government</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is it necessary to mention this? If the authors omit such statements, does this mean that the opinions, findings, and conclusion or recommendations expressed in the paper do reflect the view of the funding agency?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28449,
"author": "Mad Jack",
"author_id": 11192,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11192",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is it necessary to mention this?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If research is funded by a \"DoD component\" (as in your example), then typically\nany conference or journal publication stemming from the research </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>must be cleared for public release,</li>\n<li>must carry an appropriate <a href=\"http://dtic.mil/dtic/submit/guidance/distribstatement.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">distribution statement</a>, and</li>\n<li>must carry a disclaimer similar to the one in your example (e.g. \"Any opinions, findings, and conclusion or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of ...\").</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>In practice, it is sometimes sufficient to satisfy items 1 and 3 above.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If the authors omit such statements, does this mean that the opinions, findings, and conclusion or recommendations expressed in the paper do reflect the view of the funding agency?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Again, in the case of articles stemming from DoD component research funds: <strong>No</strong>. </p>\n\n<p>Manuscripts must first be submitted to the appropriate reviewing \"center\" for the particular DoD component funding body (such as the Public Release Center in the case of DARPA, etc.) to be reviewed for compliance. </p>\n\n<p>If the article does not contain the appropriate distribution statement and/or the required disclaimer, the reviewing center rejects the manuscript (it is not cleared for submission to a journal or conference), and the author must include the appropriate distribution statement and/or disclaimer before then resubmitting for clearance.</p>\n\n<p>The trivial contradiction to my answer includes those cases where authors are required to obtain clearance prior to publication, but don't do it for some reason (e.g. they forget to submit the paper for clearance). I'm not sure what happens to these authors, and I don't want to find out the hard way.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Edit: While my answer specifically addresses DoD funding per OP's example, as an author, it is important to follow the guidelines put forth by each particular funding body with respect to disclaimers, etc.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28455,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It depends on the grant that you receive to do your work. Most if not all grants require you to acknowledge the granting agency. Some grants give you very specific language that you must use in your acknowledgement (ranging from the request to include the grant number and use the full name of the agency to very pedantic requests for particular wording).</p>\n<p>And some grants do require you to specifically disclaim the granting agency from your conclusions and opinions. For example, <a href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2002/nsf022/nsf0202_6.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">NSF requires the following</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>An acknowledgment of NSF support and a disclaimer must appear in publications (including Web pages) of any material, whether copyrighted or not, based on or developed under NSF-supported projects:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. (grantee must enter NSF grant number).”</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>NSF support also must be orally acknowledged during all news media interviews, including popular media such as radio, television and news magazines.</p>\n<p>Except for articles or papers published in scientific, technical or professional journals, the following disclaimer must be included:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>“Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The NSF example is interesting because you don't need the disclaimer for academic journals -- presumably because the readers aren't presumed to be idiots.</p>\n<p>In any case, this is all part of the grant letter that you receive when you get a grant -- and part of the contract you sign when you agree to receive their money. There may be other terms inside the grant contract that are not visible (rights of first refusal in licensing technology, etc.) but by their very nature, acknowledgements are the most visible.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28444",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452/"
] |
28,450 |
<p>In my experience, most instructors spend a large portion of the first period in a term talking about the syllabus. This seems to serve to pass responsibility onto students:</p>
<ul>
<li>Students see the deadlines. No student can claim to not know about an assignment or deadline.</li>
<li>Students see the course rules. No student can claim they did not know they were breaking a rule.</li>
</ul>
<p>In the past, some students have tried various methods, such as skipping lessons, then claiming to not know about requirements, in an attempt to get the support of the administrators to back their case of "I didn't know".</p>
<p>I have lots of material to cover within the term, so do not like to waste lots of time with talking about the course and would rather get started. Is "here is the syllabus, read it" sufficient for passing responsibilities onto students? If students do not read it (many won't) is the responsibility nevertheless still passed?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28451,
"author": "Orion",
"author_id": 19732,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19732",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From the students' perspective, this is similar to giving them a textbook and asking them to show up for the final exam. There are three reasons I see the need to start with discussing the syllabus. </p>\n\n<p>First, talking about the syllabus is an opportunity to introduce yourself and the course, learn more about the students you will be teaching, and set the stage for the semester. It is a beginning of your semester-long relationship with the class after all. Skipping the overview is like taking a road trip without looking at the map first. </p>\n\n<p>Second, it takes more than one repetition of same material, and preferably in different forms, for the material to be absorbed and comprehended. Thus, when the responsibility is passed to the students, their understanding of the syllabus will not be as good, no matter how diligently they read it. How important is it to you that they understand the syllabus?</p>\n\n<p>Lastly, the students are denied opportunity to ask questions and discuss the syllabus and the course progression, if that is not covered in the class. Sure, they can email you, or ask during the office hours, but the entire class will not be on the same page.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28453,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It depends on what you mean by \"sufficient\".</p>\n\n<p>Sufficient for passing the blame to students when they don't do what the syllabus says, and getting administrators to side with you in case of dispute? Yes.</p>\n\n<p>Sufficient for actually getting the students to do what the syllabus says? No.</p>\n\n<p>Sufficient for covering yourself? Yes.</p>\n\n<p>Sufficient for a class that runs smoothly and that students find satisfactory? No.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28456,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To add to Nate Eldridge's answer, in project management it is important that all concerned really know what is supposed to be done. If you write an instruction and have others read it, you will likely have as many misinterpretations as people in the group. To run a successful project it is therefore vital not only to share such information but actually to make sure everyone is on the same page. If you think about it, you may have an idea, you write it so that it is clear to you, someone else reads it and they say it is clear to them, but there are at least three transfers, your thought to writing, your writing to someone's reading and read text to forming an opinion about what is written, so plenty of opportunities to go wrong. </p>\n\n<p>So to cover yourself, you can claim you have done what is necessary by providing a text, but in reality and to provide the best transfer of knowledge, a written paper is far from enough. So the answer depends on what is important, that students really understand or if one (just) wants to fulfill the rules. </p>\n\n<p>I often think of courses as projects with myself as project leaders and students as project members. Despite much effort, it is of course still impossible to reach perfection.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28460,
"author": "Greg",
"author_id": 14755,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14755",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Management roles are much more than just passing down responsibility. </p>\n\n<p>Legally / ethically one way or another may be sufficient to pass down responsibility, but your goal is not that you can punish students who do not obey the rule, your concern should be that the students are following those rules. </p>\n\n<p>In other words, you goal is to have them proceed according to your rules, because it produces better learning experience for them and easier workflow for you, less headache for everyone involved. Students who do not submit assignment by deadline, do not follow formats, they look for you beyond your hours or emailing you with unnecessary questions etc are generating you extra work, extra problem you don't need. It is primarily not a liability issue, it is \"lets make things work!\" issue.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28461,
"author": "Martin Argerami",
"author_id": 542,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/542",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here's my take, since I my experience disagrees with Orion's and Nate's answers.</p>\n\n<p>I stopped handing out paper syllabi some 10 years ago. I put all my course information in the web page and on the first day of classes I spend less than 5 minutes at the beginning saying so, and maybe going quickly over the grading scheme and the assignment regime. </p>\n\n<p>Over the semester, the number of hits on the page is proportional to the number of students in the class, which shows me that most students look at the page a couple times a week. </p>\n\n<p>The last time I had an \"I didn't know\" issue was 12 years ago, and that same day I got an email from another student in the class saying that the \"misinformed\" student was cheating about it. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28470,
"author": "Jim Conant",
"author_id": 9464,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9464",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I agree with Nate Eldredge's analysis. The question of whether responsibility has been successfully transferred seems to have \"yes\" for an answer. However, I still want to point out some tips for making sure students are aware of their responsibilities and the course structure, which is presumably a desired outcome. </p>\n\n<p>Spending 10-20 minutes in the first lecture talking about the syllabus (which nowadays is normally distributed electronically) can be good to ease the students into the class, making the transition from the break a little smoother. I will often project the syllabus in front of the class so everyone can follow along. I also encourage online discussions (using Piazza) in my class, and many of these discussions turn out to be procedural. Very often a student will be confused about a policy and not know where to look for clarification, and another student will respond online with the correct information before I even know there was a question. You can also make announcements this way and remind students of exams and things. This will certainly \"transfer responsibility,\" since students who miss class will still have access to online posted announcements. Finally, I devote a few minutes every once in a while while lecturing to reminding students of policies and upcoming events. The human brain has a physical limit on how much new information it can process at once, so breaking up lecture to give some procedural explanations can give a needed break from the material, and perhaps even increase retention. You mention not having enough time to cover all of the material you want to, but making the lectures too information-dense may end up having the opposite from the intended effect, and students may end up retaining less. For courses like this, with a lot of material, I think it's fine to keep the lecture pace moderate and assign the students to read some of the material on their own. I'm not suggesting a dramatic change of pace, just a moderate slowdown, but anyway that's not really on topic.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28707,
"author": "iBeth01",
"author_id": 19422,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19422",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't take up class meeting time with a discussion of the syllabus (though on day 1, I do highlight aspects of the course that might be different from what they expect). Instead, I give an online quiz about important policies from the syllabus. The quiz serves dual purposes:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>demonstrates that they can use the online quiz system (if not, it's\nearly enough for them to solve the tech problem or drop the class)</p></li>\n<li><p>demonstrates that they have understood key parts of the syllabus</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>My goal is not to transfer responsibility. As Nate said, I want them to follow the syllabus so that the class runs smoothly. Nothing a teacher does will ensure that every person always follows the directions, of course, but the more students understand what's expected of them, the easier it is to teach them. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 29799,
"author": "Superbest",
"author_id": 244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/244",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While having a well-written syllabus is a very good idea, it does not absolve you from responsibility.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Students may have missed the first few classes (many universities allow students to register for courses a few weeks after the first day of classes) and be unaware of the syllabus, or its importance.</li>\n<li>Students may forget that something was on the syllabus by the time it becomes relevant.</li>\n<li>The author of the syllabus cannot predict the future. There may be events which force a change of the rules (eg. you get sick and have to reschedule an exam, inclement weather causes school to be canceled) and compromise the status of the syllabus as \"always correct\".</li>\n<li>The syllabus may be unclear.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>You should definitely have a syllabus, and tell students that reading it is mandatory and they risk failing if they don't. But it would illogical to assume that by doing so, your job is done. The syllabus is a set of guidelines, not a legally binding contract drafted with the assistance of a qualified attorney - the reason is precisely this difference in applicability and scope.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28450",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/"
] |
28,462 |
<p>I was reading <a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1101.2951.pdf" rel="nofollow">this excellent paper by Alexander Berkovich and Will Jagy</a>.</p>
<p>And at the very bottom of the very first page it says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The first author was supported in part by NSA grant H98230-09-1-0051.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>(The NSA is the US National Security Agency.)</p>
<p>What does this mean? What does a security agency have to do with distributing funds? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28463,
"author": "J. Zimmerman",
"author_id": 7921,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7921",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As noted, the NSA is the US National Security Agency. This department <a href=\"http://www.federalgrantswire.com/national-security-agency-department-of-defense-federal-grants.html#.VBRB9PldVqU\" rel=\"nofollow\">issues federal grants</a> in the areas of <a href=\"http://www.federalgrantswire.com/information-security-grant-program.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">information security</a>, foreign language training <a href=\"http://www.federalgrantswire.com/language-grant-program.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">for Americans</a>, and <a href=\"http://www.federalgrantswire.com/mathematical-sciences-grants-program.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">mathematical sciences</a> (algebra, discrete mathematics, number theory, probability and statistics). These grants are <a href=\"http://www.federalgrantswire.com/writing-a-federal-grant-proposal.html#.VBRDXfldVqU\" rel=\"nofollow\">highly sought after</a>,and like all federal grants, require rigorous preparation. The authors of the paper which you read were successful applicants for a grant from the NSA. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28474,
"author": "Ben Webster",
"author_id": 13,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me just add a bit more context as a pure mathematician previously funded by the NSA, and in particular, respond to the question \"What does a security agency has to do with distributing funds?\" The first point is, they actually farm out most of the decision making to the American Mathematical Society (as described <a href=\"http://sam.msp.berkeley.edu/nsa-ams/about/program/guidelines.html\">here</a>). That still raises the question of why policy makers think routing the money through the NSA makes sense in the first place. The cynic in me points out that though lots of this research could easily be funded through civilian agencies (for example, NSF), it's a lot easier to pass \"defense spending\" through congress, and you get fewer questions from ignorant congressmen who like to make fun of grants based on their titles.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, that still requires somebody in the NSA thinking that requesting this funding is worthwhile. My reading (this is not based on any detailed knowledge of policy makers' thoughts, just general supposition) is this: the NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the world, much larger than any university or scholarly society. You would get an even more impressive number if you included other branches of the US Department of Defense, and contractors like <a href=\"https://www.ida.org\">IDA</a>. They thus have a vested interest in making sure more Americans get advanced mathematical training (a lot of their jobs are in practice only open to US citizens, due to security clearances), and keep in mind the possibility of working for the NSA. </p>\n\n<p>Giving grants to mathematicians is probably an inefficient method for this (some of the money goes to graduate students directly as salary or travel funding, some to universities as overhead, encouraging them to keep professors on their staff and run graduate programs), but it's also very cheap in the grand scheme of things. I'm sure they also do occasionally benefit from the mathematical results (while they have a reasonably broad program, they don't give grants in all areas of math). </p>\n\n<p>There's also tons of other grants coming from the DOD: DARPA, the Army, Navy and Air Force all have their own research offices, and the DOD has its own <a href=\"https://ndseg.asee.org\">graduate fellowship program</a>. In all cases, some of the research is directly connected to military needs, but quite a bit is just predicated on the idea that a strong a well-trained pool of scientists can be very important for national defense. I think ultimately, this grew out the experience of World War II (and the Cold War) where this was undisputedly the case.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28462",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21825/"
] |
28,466 |
<p>During writing my academic paper, I need to cite a definition in a scientific paper. The other part of the paper, is irrelevant to my work. </p>
<p>I have been advised that if you will cite a paper, you need to read that paper entirely. But in this case, it seems useless to do so. </p>
<p>It also happened a few times when I wanted to cite from some books.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28467,
"author": "410 gone",
"author_id": 96,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Yes. Always read the whole article before citing.</strong> Don't be sloppy. Don't take lazy shortcuts. Write responsibly. This is academia, not second-rate journalism.</p>\n\n<p>If you cite something you don't understand, or which is riddled with nonsense, or is later retracted, and you show no sign that you were aware of it in your citation, then it <strong>will</strong> reflect badly on you.</p>\n\n<p>Obviously, in any paper you cite, there will be things that are relevant, and things that are not. But that doesn't mean you can avoid reading the paper, and only cherry-pick reading the one sentence in it that is convenient for you to build your argument. If you don't read it all, you won't know everything in it that's relevant.</p>\n\n<p>Building comprehensively on predecessors' work is how scholarship progresses. Being lazy, omitting hte reading of your predecessors' work, and citing it blindly without reading it or understanding it, is how bad scholarship propagates.</p>\n\n<p>If it's a large reference work such as a dictionary, then no, you aren't expected to read the whole thing: in such cases, you'll just have to get by with an appeal to authority, by using the most reputable dictionary you can.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28468,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You need to read and understand enough of the material to feel comfortable relying on it to be authoritative for the material you are citing. If you are using a dictionary to provide a definition of a word, you don't need to read the <em>whole</em> dictionary. If you are citing a journal article to provide a definition of a scientific concept, it's probably in your interest to read the whole thing to be sure that those authors give and correctly apply that definition. Even if they define it correctly, if their use is misleading, wrong, or otherwise dubious, you don't want to send your readers there for authoritative information on the subject.</p>\n<p>You've got to consider the source and the purpose of your citation, but most of the time, you should read the whole thing. It's your reputation that's on the line, so it's best to make sure you understand your sources before you cite them.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28477,
"author": "rivu",
"author_id": 5820,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5820",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't think it's important to read the whole paper before citing it, unless you are extending on that paper's work.</p>\n\n<p>Side note: A <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0504094.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">recent paper</a> said that most of the citations are copied (\"when a scientist writes a manuscript, he picks up several random recent papers, cites them and also copies some of their references\").</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28480,
"author": "Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen",
"author_id": 11257,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11257",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>No, you don't have to read the whole paper.\nIf you think you do, ask yourself this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>do you also have to read <em>all papers cited in</em> the paper?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>For example, I recently needed to know a certain function of <em>n</em>. Some computer experimentation suggested that it might be 3*2^n, let's say. Then I found a paper published in a reputable journal that claimed to prove exactly that. As the reasons why it was 3*2^n were probably rather unrelated to what I was trying to do, I cited them but did not check their proof.</p>\n\n<p>On balance, I think that making every author read every paper they ever cite would slow down the progress of science.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Caveat</strong>: this may be field-dependent. For instance, if the paper can be thought of as consisting of just one long definition, then yes, one should read the whole thing.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 48735,
"author": "user49819",
"author_id": 37141,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/37141",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You don't have to read the whole article if you're certain about the point it makes. </p>\n\n<p>Ultimately it is up to you to defend your paper and if someone questions your findings you have to be able to give an appropriate answer. If they see that you misinterpreted something, because you didn't fully understand the article you cited they can call you out on that (regardless whether you skipped half of the article or just didn't understand it properly).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 48736,
"author": "Ahmad",
"author_id": 21885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21885",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To add to the Hansen answer</p>\n\n<p>Maybe you don't need to read an article completely, but <strong>abstract</strong> and <strong>conclusion</strong> are there to ease your way to understand an article and you must read them.</p>\n\n<p>It also depends on the subject and your purpose of citation. For example if you claim about something, you should have read and understand it but if you cite to provide a context you can be less sensitive.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28466",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21828/"
] |
28,469 |
<p>I am a physics lab TA and I was recently informed that my engineering students will receive a lab final at the end of the semester worth 50 percent of their grade. The final exam is not personally created by me, but is decided amongst all of the lab TA's teaching the same course in the same semester. The meeting amongst the TA's will occur next week, however I am attempting to prepare for whatever will come, for better or worse for my students. I want my engineering students to succeed, and I want to give them all of my resources to give them the preparation to pass the final exam. I assume that I will not be allowed to tell my students what the lab final will be, or what types of questions will be asked. My students are required to complete 9 weekly lab worksheets corresponding to their specific lab of the week. All sum total of all lab worksheets are worth the other 50 percent of the lab grade.</p>
<p>One issue I am currently weighing in my head is how to grade the lab worksheets. Should I go easy on the grading to soften the blow of the final exam, or should I grade harshly to force them to correct every mistake they make in prepration for the final exam?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28475,
"author": "Neo",
"author_id": 6898,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6898",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>While I don't TA physics, but Geology, our labs tend to have the same structure. Luckily the labs are small enough that I can get to know the groups ect, So I can determine how hard they are working on the labs ect, so I generally grade 70% effort and 30% correctness. The difference is though, that you are teaching engineering majors, where I tend to teach non geology or STEM majors. Getting something in the lab 100% correct for my students isn't as important and following the scientific process, but, for a class of engineers, I would have higher expectations since the content they are learning is helpful for their careers later. IE, they should have a vested interest beyond the grade. </p>\n\n<p>My experience with the Lab exams is that the students either do very well or very poorly. I would be somewhat lax on the labs, especially on first time mistakes. But there isn't much you can do if they aren't working hard and aren't completing the labs correctly and they will likely fail the test if thats the case anyway. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28491,
"author": "David Z",
"author_id": 236,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/236",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>People learn physics (and many other things) by making mistakes, and then trying to correct those mistakes. With that in mind, I would always grade activities in a way that was supposed to motivate my students to fix their mistakes. However, it's also useful not to penalize them too much for making mistakes when they are first learning the material. Usually what I wound up doing was grading in a way such that students had to basically know what they were doing to get a 90% or higher, and they would have to really get <em>everything</em> right to get a 100% on an activity, but even if they didn't understand some concepts they would still get around 80%.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, this grading scheme was specified by the administrators I was working for, so I don't really have any data comparing this with alternate grading schemes. I can offer the anecdotal evidence that when I was taking physics classes as an undergraduate, it was understood among the physics students that the grading would be harsh and thus grades as low as 60% or so could still be taken as an indicator that you were basically getting it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28492,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One of my lab instructors would force us to correct the mistakes until the report was of sufficient quality. Sometimes, the problem would be forgotten units on a table, or a numerical error in a formula (fixable in a few minutes); others would be conceptual mistakes (requiring more work).</p>\n\n<p>On another similar lab, the instructor would clearly indicate any errors and discuss them with us to make sure we understood them. There was then no need to rewrite the report, and the grade was only affected mildly. But, on the following reports, you better not make the same mistake, because it will then be penalised.</p>\n\n<p>With the first option you can give them an opportunity to correct the mistakes without harming their grades, albeit at the cost of more work for all parties. On the second, you can make sure they learn from their mistakes, while being nice when they do it for the first time.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28469",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21829/"
] |
28,482 |
<p>If you are applying for a faculty job in computer science in a US university, should your research statement have references to research papers in it?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28485,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><strong>Yes. Definitely.</strong> This gives the reader an indication of how your work fits into the larger body of research in the field.</p>\n<p>Without references, it may appear that you are working in an area that is so obscure that nobody cares about it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28508,
"author": "Greg",
"author_id": 14755,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14755",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One very important function of a research statement is to demonstrate that you know what you want to do from day 1. No one wants to hire a new faculty who have only vague ideas about what to do, since everyone is supposed to be productive as soon as possible. </p>\n\n<p>From that perspective, a research proposal without specifics can be a huge red flag, and evaluators may fear that you just made up something fast. On the other hand, you can give an impression that you already researched the literature, thought through details and specifics, i.e. have concrete details in your proposals with bibliography, people may have more confidence in you. Note, that majority of the people who filter and judge your CV have no clue about your field, so such superficial impressions can be important.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28482",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/802/"
] |
28,500 |
<p>How are faculty job positions in a US university evaluated? Do the committee members get to view (and discuss) electronic copies of a candidate's application before the hiring meeting (and possibly filter out some applications before the formal meeting), or is everything done in the meeting? I am asking because I think one needs to prepare the application differently in the two circumstances. If electronic copy of the application is emailed to the faculty members, then one can insert hyperlinks in the research statement E.g.:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"blah blah blah [1]"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>where clicking on "[1]" would take you to a website.
But if a printout is given to the committee members, one needs to make sure all the info you want to convey is in the printout e.g. web addresses will need to be spelled out instead of being embedded.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28505,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>We've had a variety of practices. Some of it depends on the computer literacy of the admin assistant doing the application file processing. We've had cases of electronic material (PDFs) being printed out and then rescanned back in as the staff person did not know how to collate multiple PDFs into a single document.</p>\n\n<p>[HEAD PALM] Sigh...</p>\n\n<p>To be entirely fair, some of our faculty are also very visual-tactile and will prefer print out the dossier and read it there, rather than online. </p>\n\n<p>In other words, you can't assume anything about how the files will be handled. You should be explicit in the URLs. If you have media files on disk or thumb drive (photographs, video, source code, simulations, etc.), then you should also post a visible link to an archive location.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28518,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 11565,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11565",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I was (twice) on a hiring committee for a tenure-track math professor. Applicants uploaded their applications via a central repository (MathJobs) and we evaluated them asynchronously. I read a lot of applications at 11:00 pm on my laptop; one of my colleagues printed everything out. We only met to discuss candidates we thought highly of.</p>\n\n<p>You should write a self-contained research statement that does not require hyperlinks. It is probably harmless to include them; for example, your bibliography might be hyperlinked, or your research statement might say, e.g. \"A visual demonstration of this phenomenon can be found on my web site at [URL]\", where [URL] gives the full URL and is a hyperlink. This probably won't help you, but it might, and I can't imagine it hurting you.</p>\n\n<p>One thing you should also do is to update your personal web page. Preprints of all of your publications, teaching materials (e.g. syllabi for past classes), slides for talks you've given, etc., etc. -- anything you hope a hiring committee might look at should be there. Ensure that googling your name, together with either the name of your university or of your subject area, will lead to the searcher finding these materials within three seconds.</p>\n\n<p>Fields other than math might vary. Good luck!</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28500",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/802/"
] |
28,504 |
<p>For my writing courses, about 5% of students will come to me prior to deadlines asking for help with their paper. I see no problem advising students, as I often similarly came for help when I was an undergraduate. Recently, though, I found an increase in students who apparently just want to abuse this:</p>
<ul>
<li>Students will bring me some plagiarized work, showing it to me early, as a sort of test if I will notice. It seems difficult to punish plagiarism when the paper is not yet submitted.</li>
<li>Students will bring in papers again and again, with little changes put in at each stage, hoping their minimal effort each time will be sufficient to reach their goal of a "D".</li>
</ul>
<p>I've tried stopping students, but then they are angry when they see the "F" that they hoped I would help them get away from. While most of these students are probably just incredibly lazy, there is a chance that some among them are genuinely trying to improve, but just struggling a great deal, and I can't see it.</p>
<p>How might I go about blocking such abuses?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28510,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here is one strategy:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Specify the level of changes the student needs to make before they can come back again. </li>\n<li>Request that the student shows you what changes have been made by comparing the old and new versions of the assignment. </li>\n<li>If student has failed to reach the level suggested or fails to show you the differences, simply tell them to go away until they have made the requested changes. Simply state that your previous comments still apply.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Adding a time delay between when they ask and when you give feedback or when you give feedback and when they can come again might also help.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28514,
"author": "keshlam",
"author_id": 10225,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10225",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you see something definitely plagiarized, you could try to get them to claim it as theirs when they consult you and fail them on the spot for making the claim whether it's in class or not.</p>\n\n<p>I do agree with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/28510/15723\">@DaveClarke</a> that on this <em>or</em> the other issue, announcing a policy at the start of the term (no more than N consults per assignment/per term, and plagiarism is an automatic F and will also be referred to the school's academic conduct team) would help set expectations, cut down on abuse, and give you grounds to say \"No, it wouldn't be fair to others if I helped you again before you turn it in.\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28517,
"author": "Aaron Hall",
"author_id": 9518,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9518",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Having taught in similar situations, I have to agree with Dave Clarke on requiring a demonstration of significant incremental improvement. </p>\n\n<p>You can't let plagiarism on the first draft pass silently, either. If you see evidence of such on the first draft, you need to report it to the proper authority as evidence that the student body needs better training on what plagiarism is and how to properly use other works.</p>\n\n<p>Hold firm to standards. You should have a rubric distributed stating the qualities of a paper at each grade level. If a paper is clearly an F paper, you should be able to point to your rubric and tell them that if no clear improvement is made, an F will be the grade they receive. </p>\n\n<p>You must grade them, the non-recursive definition of which, <a href=\"http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grade\" rel=\"nofollow\">as Merriam Webster puts it</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>to separate (things) into groups or classes according to a particular quality</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28521,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While there are some good answers here, I will just add a few thoughts from my own experiences.</p>\n<p>I also have plenty of students who try for minimal work just to get a pass. I used to explain to them what their grade would be and why but in the end, all they heard was what their grade would be. If it was pass they stopped listening. Of course, this is quite unhealthy for their longer-term success.</p>\n<p>I have since changed to not telling them what grade I would give them before they submit, partially because of JeffE's comment to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/25853/2692\">this question</a>. <strong>Now, I focus ONLY on showing the students how to judge their own papers</strong>. I explain that I will mark when they submit but if they want to understand how to mark their own papers, I will help them.</p>\n<p>I do not check for plagiarism on drafts (though some students do ask me to). If I see something which looks like plagiarism, like the level of English goes from very poor to perfect, I do let the students know that this looks like plagiarism and, if it is, they should fix it with proper citation before submitting.</p>\n<p><strong>In short, focus on teaching them how to grade their own papers.</strong> This helps a lot if you provide a rubric. Do not tell them "I will give you a 'D' if you submit this." Instead, tell them "Tell me what you think this paper deserves and explain to me why you believe that." Then help them develop that skill.</p>\n<p>They should become independent learners, even if they don't want to.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28525,
"author": "jpk",
"author_id": 21871,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21871",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From what I have read in your question, it appears that you are <strong>enabling</strong> the students. I have had the same issue and it happens not only in academia but in all professions. \nStick with the facts and the mechanics of writing, do not answer their questions directly, use an indirect method and point them to the source, allow the students to do the work. As an enabler you are in essence doing the work for your students(or so they hope).\nWhen you are enabling \"people\" to take advantage of you, it is very difficult to see and hard to admit. Your students are adding monkeys on your back, they are smarter than you think.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Stick to the facts</li>\n<li>Give direction of where to find answers</li>\n<li>Do not provide answers, provide guidance</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It took a few semesters for students to push you along into this trap. It will take a few more for the message to circulate that you are no longer a mark.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28543,
"author": "Nahkki",
"author_id": 18092,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18092",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It looks like you have two different issues, it's easiest to discuss each of these separately.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Students will bring me some plagiarized work, showing it to me early,\nas a sort of test if I will notice. It seems difficult to punish\nplagiarism when the paper is not yet submitted.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This one is rough. You can't punish someone due to plagiarism before they submit work. The best policy, in my opinion, is twofold. </p>\n\n<p>First - if a student brings plagiarized work then you should simply say \"I'm sorry, I cannot help you with work that is not your own.\" and point to you university's policy regarding academic dishonesty. Repeat offenders should be put on notice.</p>\n\n<p>Second - If you grade the final assignments or are involved consider spending a bit more time plagiarize-checking these particular student's submissions. These students have shown that they were willing to claim other's work as their own, being a bit more stringent in checking their work for originality is, in my opinion, completely fair.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Students will bring in papers again and again, with little changes\nput in at each stage, hoping their minimal effort each time will be\nsufficient to reach their goal of a \"D\".</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This sounds like a communication problem. After meeting with a student there should be no confusion about what will improve the student's work. For something like a paper it should be <em>\"In order to improve this paper you should: extend the intro, go into more detail here, etc\"</em> Students returning for additional assistance should have some sort of checklist that they should complete prior to returning for more assistance. Make this clear and obvious and, if there are multiple tutors a student could work with, something that is kept in some sort of notes system. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28706,
"author": "iBeth01",
"author_id": 19422,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19422",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another strategy is to provide more guidance about what sort of help you'll provide and how they should ask for it. Possibilities:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>The first time you bring your paper to my office [or during specific dates], we will focus only on whether you have answered the question.</p></li>\n<li><p>I will be happy to discuss aspects X and Y, but never Z.</p></li>\n<li><p>Bring the rubric with you. Be prepared to explain which part of the\nrubric you most need to address in your draft, and why. We'll focus on that part of the rubric during our meeting.</p></li>\n<li><p>Before you bring your paper to me, prepare a list of specific questions you would like me to answer. Bring two copies of the list, one for each of us.</p></li>\n<li><p>Before you bring your paper to me, show it to someone at the writing center. Bring with you your notes from that visit and the draft you showed to them, along with the draft where you implemented those suggestions.</p></li>\n<li><p>Always bring two copies of your draft--one for each of us. Be prepared to write detailed notes on your copy. (Then you can keep your copy and you'll be able to bring it out the next time and say--ok, what did you change? Or you can compare it to the draft they turn in to see if they made significant changes. And if they plagiarised it, you'll have a record.)</p></li>\n<li><p>Each time you show me your paper, I will expect you to create a checklist of things you will address. The next visit, you need to demonstrate that you have completed those things by bringing a draft with changes marked and annotated.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Another thing you can do is assign \"draft\" deadlines as well as final deadlines for everyone, then give the feedback you think is important on the drafts (maybe using a rubric) and not meet incessantly with a few students.</p>\n\n<p>Another thing you can do--particularly with very structured papers that you have assigned before--is provide to the class a list of the common problems students have. Then when a student shows you a draft, you can initiate a discussion about which common problem the student thinks it illustrates and what can the student do to address it?</p>\n\n<p>Another thing you can do is limit the number of times you will look at a draft, or the period of time during which you will look at a draft. </p>\n\n<p>I have had a similar problem with students wanting me to grade work before they turn it in for a grade--not just on writing, but with all kinds of assignments. Sometimes they are so lost they are completely stuck. Other times, they seem to be trying to minimize their workload by increasing mine. (\"Just tell me in exacting detail what to do, I'll do that and no more, you'll give me an A.\") But what I want is for them to learn how to assess their own writing! </p>\n\n<p>Whatever strategy you use, when you meet with students, try to elicit their comments. If you give a suggestion, and they nod, then ask them how they expect to apply it. What changes will they make to a particular sentence or paragraph? Are there any other places in the text they should also make that change to--which ones, and why? If they are to provide more evidence, ask them where they intend to search and how. Then you can better assess whether they understand what you've told them and whether they can actually do it.</p>\n\n<p>I often ask students about how they produced the draft. Which parts were the easiest and which parts were the hardest, and why? Which parts do they like best? Which parts do they think need the most revision? Sometimes I ask them to imagine a reader--if they were to show their paper to (mom, roommate, employer, etc.), which part would be the most controversial? What would need the most explanation? If their reader disagrees, what would that person likely argue back? The more they talk about their writing, the more opportunity you have to say, \"Yes! What you just said--write that down. Now do that!\" </p>\n\n<p>Another benefit of getting students to talk about their draft is that it is tough to talk about something you didn't write. If they let you know they copied passages, you can remind them (or explain how) to cite them properly. If they pretend they wrote every word, you have a different problem to address. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28504",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/"
] |
28,507 |
<p>I am using Mendeley to organize, highlight and to synchronize my references. I think a feature where you can see a list of annotations/highlight that you have made will be extremely useful during writing.</p>
<p>For example one day you just remember, "Oh I have seen this in some papers, I don't remember which one but I remember I highlighted it."</p>
<p>Right now I have to guess and open one by one the paper to look for the annotations that I meant and scrolling the screen to look for "it", or by performing a search, both are not efficient enough.</p>
<p>Kindle has this feature. Everytime you make some annotations (on different books) they aggregate and put it as a list for you. When you click on that, it will go to the page on the book. </p>
<p>Is there any reference manager that has this kind of functionality?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28510,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here is one strategy:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Specify the level of changes the student needs to make before they can come back again. </li>\n<li>Request that the student shows you what changes have been made by comparing the old and new versions of the assignment. </li>\n<li>If student has failed to reach the level suggested or fails to show you the differences, simply tell them to go away until they have made the requested changes. Simply state that your previous comments still apply.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Adding a time delay between when they ask and when you give feedback or when you give feedback and when they can come again might also help.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28514,
"author": "keshlam",
"author_id": 10225,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10225",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you see something definitely plagiarized, you could try to get them to claim it as theirs when they consult you and fail them on the spot for making the claim whether it's in class or not.</p>\n\n<p>I do agree with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/28510/15723\">@DaveClarke</a> that on this <em>or</em> the other issue, announcing a policy at the start of the term (no more than N consults per assignment/per term, and plagiarism is an automatic F and will also be referred to the school's academic conduct team) would help set expectations, cut down on abuse, and give you grounds to say \"No, it wouldn't be fair to others if I helped you again before you turn it in.\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28517,
"author": "Aaron Hall",
"author_id": 9518,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9518",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Having taught in similar situations, I have to agree with Dave Clarke on requiring a demonstration of significant incremental improvement. </p>\n\n<p>You can't let plagiarism on the first draft pass silently, either. If you see evidence of such on the first draft, you need to report it to the proper authority as evidence that the student body needs better training on what plagiarism is and how to properly use other works.</p>\n\n<p>Hold firm to standards. You should have a rubric distributed stating the qualities of a paper at each grade level. If a paper is clearly an F paper, you should be able to point to your rubric and tell them that if no clear improvement is made, an F will be the grade they receive. </p>\n\n<p>You must grade them, the non-recursive definition of which, <a href=\"http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grade\" rel=\"nofollow\">as Merriam Webster puts it</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>to separate (things) into groups or classes according to a particular quality</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28521,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While there are some good answers here, I will just add a few thoughts from my own experiences.</p>\n<p>I also have plenty of students who try for minimal work just to get a pass. I used to explain to them what their grade would be and why but in the end, all they heard was what their grade would be. If it was pass they stopped listening. Of course, this is quite unhealthy for their longer-term success.</p>\n<p>I have since changed to not telling them what grade I would give them before they submit, partially because of JeffE's comment to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/25853/2692\">this question</a>. <strong>Now, I focus ONLY on showing the students how to judge their own papers</strong>. I explain that I will mark when they submit but if they want to understand how to mark their own papers, I will help them.</p>\n<p>I do not check for plagiarism on drafts (though some students do ask me to). If I see something which looks like plagiarism, like the level of English goes from very poor to perfect, I do let the students know that this looks like plagiarism and, if it is, they should fix it with proper citation before submitting.</p>\n<p><strong>In short, focus on teaching them how to grade their own papers.</strong> This helps a lot if you provide a rubric. Do not tell them "I will give you a 'D' if you submit this." Instead, tell them "Tell me what you think this paper deserves and explain to me why you believe that." Then help them develop that skill.</p>\n<p>They should become independent learners, even if they don't want to.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28525,
"author": "jpk",
"author_id": 21871,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21871",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From what I have read in your question, it appears that you are <strong>enabling</strong> the students. I have had the same issue and it happens not only in academia but in all professions. \nStick with the facts and the mechanics of writing, do not answer their questions directly, use an indirect method and point them to the source, allow the students to do the work. As an enabler you are in essence doing the work for your students(or so they hope).\nWhen you are enabling \"people\" to take advantage of you, it is very difficult to see and hard to admit. Your students are adding monkeys on your back, they are smarter than you think.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Stick to the facts</li>\n<li>Give direction of where to find answers</li>\n<li>Do not provide answers, provide guidance</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It took a few semesters for students to push you along into this trap. It will take a few more for the message to circulate that you are no longer a mark.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28543,
"author": "Nahkki",
"author_id": 18092,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18092",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It looks like you have two different issues, it's easiest to discuss each of these separately.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Students will bring me some plagiarized work, showing it to me early,\nas a sort of test if I will notice. It seems difficult to punish\nplagiarism when the paper is not yet submitted.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This one is rough. You can't punish someone due to plagiarism before they submit work. The best policy, in my opinion, is twofold. </p>\n\n<p>First - if a student brings plagiarized work then you should simply say \"I'm sorry, I cannot help you with work that is not your own.\" and point to you university's policy regarding academic dishonesty. Repeat offenders should be put on notice.</p>\n\n<p>Second - If you grade the final assignments or are involved consider spending a bit more time plagiarize-checking these particular student's submissions. These students have shown that they were willing to claim other's work as their own, being a bit more stringent in checking their work for originality is, in my opinion, completely fair.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Students will bring in papers again and again, with little changes\nput in at each stage, hoping their minimal effort each time will be\nsufficient to reach their goal of a \"D\".</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This sounds like a communication problem. After meeting with a student there should be no confusion about what will improve the student's work. For something like a paper it should be <em>\"In order to improve this paper you should: extend the intro, go into more detail here, etc\"</em> Students returning for additional assistance should have some sort of checklist that they should complete prior to returning for more assistance. Make this clear and obvious and, if there are multiple tutors a student could work with, something that is kept in some sort of notes system. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28706,
"author": "iBeth01",
"author_id": 19422,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19422",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another strategy is to provide more guidance about what sort of help you'll provide and how they should ask for it. Possibilities:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>The first time you bring your paper to my office [or during specific dates], we will focus only on whether you have answered the question.</p></li>\n<li><p>I will be happy to discuss aspects X and Y, but never Z.</p></li>\n<li><p>Bring the rubric with you. Be prepared to explain which part of the\nrubric you most need to address in your draft, and why. We'll focus on that part of the rubric during our meeting.</p></li>\n<li><p>Before you bring your paper to me, prepare a list of specific questions you would like me to answer. Bring two copies of the list, one for each of us.</p></li>\n<li><p>Before you bring your paper to me, show it to someone at the writing center. Bring with you your notes from that visit and the draft you showed to them, along with the draft where you implemented those suggestions.</p></li>\n<li><p>Always bring two copies of your draft--one for each of us. Be prepared to write detailed notes on your copy. (Then you can keep your copy and you'll be able to bring it out the next time and say--ok, what did you change? Or you can compare it to the draft they turn in to see if they made significant changes. And if they plagiarised it, you'll have a record.)</p></li>\n<li><p>Each time you show me your paper, I will expect you to create a checklist of things you will address. The next visit, you need to demonstrate that you have completed those things by bringing a draft with changes marked and annotated.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Another thing you can do is assign \"draft\" deadlines as well as final deadlines for everyone, then give the feedback you think is important on the drafts (maybe using a rubric) and not meet incessantly with a few students.</p>\n\n<p>Another thing you can do--particularly with very structured papers that you have assigned before--is provide to the class a list of the common problems students have. Then when a student shows you a draft, you can initiate a discussion about which common problem the student thinks it illustrates and what can the student do to address it?</p>\n\n<p>Another thing you can do is limit the number of times you will look at a draft, or the period of time during which you will look at a draft. </p>\n\n<p>I have had a similar problem with students wanting me to grade work before they turn it in for a grade--not just on writing, but with all kinds of assignments. Sometimes they are so lost they are completely stuck. Other times, they seem to be trying to minimize their workload by increasing mine. (\"Just tell me in exacting detail what to do, I'll do that and no more, you'll give me an A.\") But what I want is for them to learn how to assess their own writing! </p>\n\n<p>Whatever strategy you use, when you meet with students, try to elicit their comments. If you give a suggestion, and they nod, then ask them how they expect to apply it. What changes will they make to a particular sentence or paragraph? Are there any other places in the text they should also make that change to--which ones, and why? If they are to provide more evidence, ask them where they intend to search and how. Then you can better assess whether they understand what you've told them and whether they can actually do it.</p>\n\n<p>I often ask students about how they produced the draft. Which parts were the easiest and which parts were the hardest, and why? Which parts do they like best? Which parts do they think need the most revision? Sometimes I ask them to imagine a reader--if they were to show their paper to (mom, roommate, employer, etc.), which part would be the most controversial? What would need the most explanation? If their reader disagrees, what would that person likely argue back? The more they talk about their writing, the more opportunity you have to say, \"Yes! What you just said--write that down. Now do that!\" </p>\n\n<p>Another benefit of getting students to talk about their draft is that it is tough to talk about something you didn't write. If they let you know they copied passages, you can remind them (or explain how) to cite them properly. If they pretend they wrote every word, you have a different problem to address. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28507",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21828/"
] |
28,511 |
<p>Several commercial database vendors include an end-user license agreement provision, known as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_DeWitt" rel="noreferrer">DeWitt Clause</a>, that <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/27631/452">prohibits</a> researchers and scientists from explicitly using the names of their systems in academic papers.</p>
<p>Has the DeWitt Clause ever been successfully defended in court?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28549,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The New York Attorney General <a href=\"http://www.leagle.com/decision/2003579195Misc2d384_1519.xml/PEOPLE%20v.%20NETWORK%20ASSOC.,%20INC.\" rel=\"nofollow\">got a judge to ban</a> Network Associates' licensing terms that prevented customers from reviewing their software without permission from NA. I think this started as a consumer protection suit by the AG's office instead of a customer defending themselves after violating such a licensing term. This was in New York state court, so who knows what would happen if a database vendor tried to sue someone in a different state. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28559,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Several users have suggested <em>People of the State of New York vs. Network Associates</em> as an instance of a DeWitt Clause being challenged, and struck down, in court. However, this case is <em>hugely</em> misunderstood by the media, and so these answers have been very misleading.</p>\n\n<p>This case <em>was</em> an instance of a DeWitt Clause being challenged in court. However, the court's ruling did <em>not</em> directly address the issue of whether such a clause is enforceable. The court ruled on the basis of the <em>specific wording</em> of the Network Associates clause, and so did not generally rule on the enforceability of all such clauses.</p>\n\n<h3>Arguments of the Attorney General</h3>\n\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/press-releases/archived/memo_of_law.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Attorney General's Argument in People v. Network Associates</a></p>\n\n<p>Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, mentions two claims in his preliminary statement for this case. The first relates to the general enforceability of a DeWitt Clause, and the second does not.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Violation of free speech and fair use:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Under New York law, a restriction that broadly chills or restricts important rights -- here, of free speech and fair use -- without a legitimate purpose, will be struck down. This Censorship Clause restricts consumers and the media alike from reviewing the software or disclosing important design or product flaws. Yet it serves no legitimate purpose, such as protecting trade secrets or confidential material. </p>\n</blockquote></li>\n<li><p>Deception:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Specifically, it misinforms consumers that the company’s prohibition\n against publication of reviews or benchmark tests (itself an illegal restriction) reflects existing “rules and regulations.” Of course, no “rules and regulations” actually exist, under federal or state law -- a fact that most attorneys, including those who drafted the Censorship Clause, surely\n know.</p>\n \n <p>...</p>\n \n <p>Finally, the Censorship Clause is also void and deceptive because it conflicts with the License Agreement contained with the company’s boxed software. The boxed License Agreement, which is by its own terms the “entire Agreement between the parties,” omits the Censorship Clause. Yet the company then places that very Clause on the face of the software diskette -- even though it is by the very terms of the License Agreement void and unenforceable. </p>\n</blockquote></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I'll elaborate a little bit on the latter point, regarding deception. The specific text that is the subject of the lawsuit is:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Installing this software constitutes acceptance of the terms and conditions of the license agreement in the box. Please read the license agreement before installation. Other rules and regulations of installing the software are:</p>\n \n <p>a. The product can not be rented, loaned, or leased—you are the sole owner of this product.</p>\n \n <p>b. The customer shall not disclose the result of any benchmark test to any third party without Network Associates' prior written approval.</p>\n \n <p>c. The customer will not publish reviews of this product without prior consent from Network Associates, Inc.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This text was <em>outside</em> of the license agreement. The license agreement itself did not contain clauses (b) and (c). Furthermore, the license agreement contained a clause specifying that it (the license) constitutes the entire agreement between the consumer and Network Associates, and supersedes any prior communications related to the software.</p>\n\n<p>The major claim of the deception argument was as follows: Consumers - having read the license agreement, with its clause that the entire contract between parties is contained in that license agreement, and without the \"gag\" clauses - will then read this text. They may reasonably conclude that the restrictions on publishing reviews and benchmarks are <em>not</em> part of the contractual agreement between the consumer and Network Associates, and are instead made and enforced by some other entity. </p>\n\n<p>That is, the text deceptively implies that the restrictions on reviews and benchmarking are imposed not by Network Associates, but by someone else - such as the state or federal government. </p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, the clauses restricting publishing reviews and benchmarking are not enforceable at all in this case (regardless of the general enforceability or legality of such clauses), because they conflict with the actual license agreement. Thus, consumers are deceived into believing that they have no right to publish reviews and benchmarks, when in this case, because of the way it is written, these clauses are not a valid contractual agreement.</p>\n\n<h3>Opinion of the Court</h3>\n\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http://www.leagle.com/decision/2003579195Misc2d384_1519.xml/PEOPLE%20v.%20NETWORK%20ASSOC.,%20INC.\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">PEOPLE v. NETWORK ASSOC., INC</a></p>\n\n<p>The court rules against Network Associates. However, the ruling states that the Attorney General's claims of <em>deception</em> are valid. It does not directly address the first claim, of violation of free speech and fair use. </p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, the ruling explicitly states that Network Associates is</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>enjoined from including any language restricting the right to publish the results of testing and review without notifying the Attorney General at least 30 days prior to such inclusion</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>which suggests that language restricting publishing of benchmarks is not necessarily prohibited. That is, Network Associates is <em>not</em> generally forbidden from writing a license in the future that restricts consumers' rights to publish reviews and benchmarks.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28511",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452/"
] |
28,530 |
<p><strong>Background</strong>: I remember when I was still in college here in the Philippines, one of the member of the school thesis committee tries to hack my system by injecting some kind of code (<em>I am not sure but I think this is SQL injection</em>). Now that I am working I realized that it is illegal to just hack and get inside of the system. This hacking includes breaking into the security of the system then extracting the datas (some are dummies only and some are original). He said that he do this to prove that our system has not enough security and therefore concluded that it is not safe to use, due to this my team has been subjected to re-defense. Also, there are no proper discussions whether he has the authority to get inside the system, I also don't know the privileges of the panelist.</p>
<p>Please take note that the computer we are using is ours (students) then the panelist are obliged to test the system for certain minutes only (maybe 5 minutes). Also, we didn't use any ISP because it is only a system together with it's database and therefore can be use offline.</p>
<p>During that time we've been subjected to re-defense simply because our system is not secured.</p>
<p><strong>Question</strong>: Does hacking the system just to prove that it lacks security and therefore not safe to use, still ethical? Considering that we are on a thesis-defense and are still a learner. Our knowledge cannot be compared to a professional that is expert in system developing.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28534,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It sounds like as part of the defense, you gave the examiners access to the system for purposes of evaluating it.</p>\n\n<p>If you gave consent for them to evaluate the system, and didn't place any restrictions on what they can do with it, I don't see any problem with what they did.</p>\n\n<p>You are correct that is generally illegal to just \"hack\" into a system, but that refers to gaining <em>unauthorized</em> access to a system. That doesn't seem to be what happened here.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28537,
"author": "Nicholas",
"author_id": 1424,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1424",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It depends on whether it is a reasonable expectation that your evaluators would test your work in this way. You don't give the details of what you have created, so it is hard to assess whether the assessor's actions were reasonable.</p>\n\n<p>If you had created a database with an interface that could be accessible publicly, and that the majority of your work was on the creation and/or operation of that interface, then I think that security issues are indeed important, and an acid test of your work would be to attempt to hack in.</p>\n\n<p>However, if the majority of your work was on looking at the inter-relationships between elements of the database - i.e. you were looking for correlations between database parameters - and not on the interface, then I don't think that the security of your system warrants a hacking attempt to test its security. In this case, a lack of security is indeed a concern, and one which you might have to address in a defence, but not one which justifies an attack on the system to test it. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28539,
"author": "Nahkki",
"author_id": 18092,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18092",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Rather than discussing whether or not this is legal(which, as has been pointed out, is beyond the scope of the Academia board and would depend on your local laws) let's discuss whether it was right or expected or not.</p>\n\n<p>As mentioned by Nicholas, this, to some extent, depends on what you actually <em>did</em>. And, as I see it, this can be broken down into two categories.</p>\n\n<p>If your work involved a database that is not manipulated by outsiders at any point then attempting to 'hack' it would be inappropriate. By this I mean if the database was secondary to the research you were presenting. An example might be a database of Face images used to train or test facial recognition algorithms. In such a case the database iteself is not the product or research being presented. It should be stable and reasonably secure(depending on the data it contains of course) but should not be the focus of 'testing' or inquiry in a defense.</p>\n\n<p>However if your work involved a database that is manipulated by the user or researcher, particularly as a primary focus of the research/work then yes, 'hacking' this database is a reasonable thing for someone to try to do. If the work presented is a complete project, a proposed solution to a real world problem or in another situation where, yes, you are proposing that the system you created could be placed in the real world then attempting to 'hack' the system is not only reasonable but expected.</p>\n\n<p>Let's take a moment, though, to discuss what 'hack' might mean in this situation. You mentioned a SQL Injection. For some folks 'hacking' brings to mind serious people wearing sunglasses indoors yelling \"Hack the MAINFRAME!\" as they use telephones, bits of wire and evil to do nasty things to computers. But, especially in this particular case, this 'hacking' would have been something as innocent as entering something into a data field. In the early days of speed cameras some clever motorists found a way to do such an attack. The cameras 'read' the license plates and automatically submitted speeding tickets. Clever if unethical motorists could put a sql string on their bumper, the camera would 'read' the string and, since the string wasn't properly sanitized, it would cause nasty things like deleting the entire database. SQL Injections are something that you should <em>not</em> be confused about what there are at graduation, that you are both unsure if that's what the instructor did AND indignant that they would do so would be a signal to me that you did need to re-defend your thesis. SQL (or just plain code) injection attacks are almost laughably easy to minimize, someone being able to 'hack' your database in the few minutes you described is a serious quality concern for a graduate in computer science perhaps especially in graduate level work(you are unclear about your level at the time of this issue). </p>\n\n<p>Finally allow me to point out that all respectable software companies hire people whose job it is to attempt to hack into their own servers, software and, yes, databases. Additionally white hat hackers often attempt to hack software and environments and report it to said companies(black hat hackers will skip the reporting and go straight to exploiting.) No one wants to hear that their baby is ugly or that their code has a problem. I'm hearing a lot of indignation in your question related to that and I understand it but I'm going to respectfully advise you to both get over it and welcome such things - that is how you will become better at development. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/15
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28530",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21710/"
] |
28,545 |
<p>I've contacted a potential PhD supervisor last month and gave him my PhD proposal. about a week after that I've got a response from the professor, acknowledging the receipt of my proposal and saying that he will respond as quickly as possible. I haven't received any other response since last month and I'm getting kind of anxious.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Should I write him an email again or let him contact me first with a
reply?</p></li>
<li><p>How long does this process of proposal evaluation take?</p></li>
</ol>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28546,
"author": "enthu",
"author_id": 15723,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<h2>Don't run, Walk!</h2>\n\n<p>May be your <em>as quick as possible</em> is one month and his <em>as quick as possible</em> is two months or more (who knows?). </p>\n\n<p>Professors have their own personal/academic/career responsibilities and usually suffer from lack of time problem. Let him review your proposal and he will respond you when he is done.</p>\n\n<p>In my opinion one month is not that much that you are becoming anxious, but it maybe a good idea if you don't receive any email from him in the following weeks, send him an email and remind your proposal politely. Also, if you are going very near to the university deadlines and it is affecting your application, it may worth it to include those deadlines in your reminder too.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28547,
"author": "Matthew Leingang",
"author_id": 5701,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5701",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Many academics are flooded with email from students (undergraduate and graduate), administrators, coworkers, colleagues, editors, etc. What you've asked him to do for you takes more than two minutes and he may not have available time to do it, or the energy to set aside the available time in the near future. There are enough small things to deal with that they can can easily bury the larger things.</p>\n\n<p>If one method of communication is not effective you can, after a suitable delay, try another. A phone call or visit to office hours might bump your earlier email to the top of his mind. He may already have some preliminary feedback, or he may apologetically say that he still hasn't gotten to it, but he does plan to do it soon. Either way this can move the process towards resolution.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, you're considering this person for one of the most important roles of your academic career. If he does not show enthusiasm about working with you, you may want to consider other options.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/15
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28545",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21893/"
] |
28,548 |
<p>I'm applying for a PhD in engineering and I was asked by the advisor I have chosen to write down a short program (~10 pages) about the "research" I will conduct if I get into the PhD program.</p>
<p>The advisor provided ten choices where the future PhD program will lay. The topics are very large and well studied in the literature. Our "task" is to choose one of them, find out something "new" inside of this big sea and write it down. I did a lot of research on Scholar and downloaded more or less 20 free papers I found interesting. I collected data and results, thought a bit about the problem and found a ( maybe ) new application that fits my interests and past studies and I think it could bring some novelty in the field I'm applying. </p>
<p>Now my question is, which is the best way to format the proposal?</p>
<ol>
<li>Should I start with the context of the research, point where previous studies went and what kind of results yielded and now focus on my brand new idea?</li>
<li>Should I skip 1) and start <em>in medias res</em> with the heart of the matter?</li>
</ol>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28567,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Now my question is, which is the best way to format the proposal?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Different writers could balance these issues in different ways. The key is moderation: you have to give enough context to make your proposal understandable, but you also shouldn't go overboard (it's a terrible idea to start a research proposal by saying \"Since the dawn of history, transportation has been one of humanity's greatest challenges. The wheel and axle were a great advance...\"). If you never mention until page 5 that you even have new ideas, then readers may give up in disgust before reaching that point. On the other hand, too little context can be just as bad, since the proposal will do you no good if it's not understandable. Unfortunately, there's no universal rule to decide the right amount.</p>\n\n<p>One strategy is to look at the introductions to the research papers you've found. If your introduction is briefer or more abrupt, then it's not reasonable to expect anyone to follow it. If anything, a research statement should generally be accessible to a broader audience, and that may mean somewhat more background and explanation.</p>\n\n<p>It can also be useful to cycle between background and new material. For example: brief introduction, brief description of your new idea, longer account of context, more details on new idea.</p>\n\n<p>Given that you are writing this for a specific professor, it's worth asking him/her for more guidance. If you phrase it too generally (\"How do I do this?\") it might give a poor impression, but I think it would be safe to ask a question that shows you are seriously working on it. For example, \"I'm thinking of organizing my proposal like this: [Insert one or two paragraphs about your topic and how you plan to arrange the proposal.] Does that sound like what you had in mind? If not, I'd be happy to rethink the organization.\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28571,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Indeed, choosing the right balance of deep background, more-contemporary context, and promotion of tentative new ideas is part of the \"test\" involved in peoples' appraisals of your proposal... incidentally testing your judgement about other peoples' contexts and professional criteria.</p>\n\n<p>That is, do not belabor anything which an experienced professional would take for granted... the problem is that you may not know, with certainty, what that would be... or you may not know the audience you're addressing.</p>\n\n<p>Do <em>not</em>, in any case, imitate the pedantic and long-winded tone of a textbook, no matter how much context you may imagine is appropriate.</p>\n\n<p>Absolutely <em>do</em> get endorsement from your sponsor-professor before \"going public\", both because you don't want to (in effect) embarrass them, and because they should have a very good idea of \"the audience\" you're addressing. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/15
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28548",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21411/"
] |
28,552 |
<p>I am finishing a 3-year postdoc, and will be applying to many universities for positions, including teaching colleges and research universities. I have 4 good research letters, but none discuss my teaching. I had excellent teaching letters from my previous university where I received my PhD, but I am not as close to the professors in this university. </p>
<p>Would it be better to obtain a teaching letter of recommendation from my previous university that I know is very positive, or to obtain a potentially less positive letter from my current university?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28554,
"author": "Ben Webster",
"author_id": 13,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think it depends on what kind of job you are looking for. For research universities, I suspect you can get away with it; I actually used a teaching letter based on recitation teaching from graduate school when applying for TT positions 4 years after graduating, because for a variety of reasons, there wasn't anyone else I felt comfortable asking for one from. Honestly, I don't think job search committees put much stock in teaching letters just based on classroom observation. Any value they had has been inflated away by the fact that they are always positive, and to be honest, most mathematicians at research universities don't worry very much about teaching skill when looking at hiring, beyond not wanting to hire someone notably incompetent. If they do, they're much more likely to try to judge from your interview or from student evaluations rather than a teaching letter.</p>\n\n<p>If you're looking into more teaching focused schools, it's harder for me to say. Maybe I'll just leave that hanging and let someone else answer. </p>\n\n<p><strong>EDIT:</strong> To address the question of getting two letters, I agree with Noah. I want to be clear that this advice only applies to research universities, but I think getting two teaching letters completely gets wrong the risk/reward calculus for teaching letters. They cannot get you a job, they can only lose one for you. Probably they won't even look at teaching letters until they get to the short list, but if they do, it will be to sort out bad teachers, not to separate competent and good. By far the most important thing about a teaching letter is that it doesn't say anything bad. By getting two, you are doubling this (small) probability for absolutely zero benefit. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28557,
"author": "Henry",
"author_id": 8,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't know whether it's better, but you may have more opportunities for a teaching letter from your current institution that you realize. Especially if your postdoc is in the US, there may be someone in the department (for instance, the deputy chair in charge of undergraduate teaching, whatever the position is called) who is supposed to help arrange the writing of such letters as part of their job. You could ask this person to sit in, or ask someone to sit in, on your class and write a letter based on that and department data about your teaching.</p>\n\n<p>If you have excellent teaching letters from your PhD, you may even want to include that <em>as well as</em> a more cursory letter from your current school.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28588,
"author": "Noah Snyder",
"author_id": 25,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In your situation (where you had serious teaching experience in grad school), I would probably get a letter from your old writer, but send that person and updated list of what you've taught and your student evaluations from your postdoc. That way their letter can make it clear that your teaching continues to be strong.</p>\n\n<p>I agree with Henry's point that you're probably overestimating how hard it is to get a letter from someone at your new place. However, only consider two teaching letters <em>if and only if</em> you're applying to a job with a strong teaching focus. Don't send two teaching letters for a research-focused job.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/15
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28552",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21898/"
] |
28,562 |
<p>I'm transferring between two PhD programs, same program two different schools. I have done 4 years of study in the first school but have not (and will not) receive any degrees and I need to complete 1-2 years of study in the new school to get my PhD. Assume that the new school is more prestigious. I wrote this piece in my CV.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>2010-Expected 2016 <strong>PhD in Compute Science</strong> from New University</p>
<ul>
<li>PhD Student at Old University (2010-2014)</li>
</ul>
<p>2007-2010 <strong>MS in Computer Engineering</strong> from Another university</p>
<p>...</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, the second line is kind of small and doesn't catch eye but if someone wants to read my CV it's there. The problem is I have not been student at New University since 2010 and I don't want to say that I'm a first year student. Also since I didn't get any degree from Old University I cannot have a separate entry for it.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28563,
"author": "enthu",
"author_id": 15723,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>May this format help you:</p>\n\n<p>If \"university major\" is the university which is going to give you your degree and \"university minor\" is the one in which you have studied about four years;</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>2010 - 2016 (expected) <strong>PhD in Computer Science</strong>; university major</p>\n \n <p>[some space here] 2014 - 2016 university major</p>\n \n <p>[some space here] 2010 - 2014 university minor</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>However, I think that as you are not receiving any degree from your minor university, <em>and</em> its name is not going to be mentioned anywhere in your certificates; there is no need to bring it's name in your CV too, because you don't have any proof that you have studied there.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28564,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>The problem is I have not been student at New University since 2010 and I don't want to say that I'm a first year student. Also since I didn't get any degree from Old University I cannot have a separate entry for it.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Why does it matter whether you got a degree from Old University? There's no rule that says the education section of your CV can only be organized by degree. You just need to be clear and honest.</p>\n\n<p>What you propose doesn't seem inappropriate, but I think this might be slightly clearer:</p>\n\n<p>2014-2016 (expected) <strong>PhD in Computer Science</strong> from New University</p>\n\n<p>2010-2014 PhD student at Old University (transferred to New University)</p>\n\n<p>2007-2010 <strong>MS in Computer Engineering</strong> from Another University</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/15
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28562",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21900/"
] |
28,569 |
<p>What's the usual (North American) universities' practice on dealing with tenured professors who have been criminally charged? I've encountered two scenarios indirectly that could make some professors in some legal trouble.</p>
<p>Here the first scenario. When I was an undergraduate student, a colleague told me that his ex-girlfriend called because she discovered a stalker near her home. When he visited her to assess the situation, they bumped into the alleged stalker at the stairs of the apartment building. She asked him to call the police. He recognized that the alleged stalker was one of the professors in his department. He did not report the alleged stalker to the police because he's afraid of repercussion.</p>
<p>Fast forward a few years. Here the second scenario. One of my friends dated a tenured professor. The relation was abusive. He (the professor) hit her badly that she called the police. His mom begged my friend not to press charges because she's concerned about her son's future.</p>
<p><b>TL;DR:</b> In theory or practice, would universities fire the professor who have been criminally charged? I've asked several tenured professors casually with at least one of the scenarios. They all agreed that nothing bad would happened to those professors even if their wrongdoings were reported to the police.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28570,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Criminal acts are certainly a reason to revoke tenure. In fact, this is probably one of the most common reasons. It is <em>possible</em> to terminate the employment of a tenured professor as soon as the university learns that they have been charged with or suspected of a criminal action. (This happened at my university: it was an <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Zinkhan\">extreme case</a>.) Terminating employment because of a criminal <em>charge</em> is obviously a quite precipitous act to take: I would be surprised if a university did this in any situation except one in which they are sure that the faculty member will/would be found guilty of the charge. A tenured employee who was fired because of suspicion of criminal acts and was later found innocent of these acts would have, in many cases, a heck of a lawsuit against the university. (Untenured employees might as well...)</p>\n\n<p>The things that \"you heard\" sound a little dopey to me, honestly. Tenure offers some measure of job security. It does not confer any defense against or immunity from criminal acts. Getting convicted of domestic violence is \"something bad happening to the professor\", right? Not being able to carry out your duties because you are incarcerated is a sufficient reason to fire a tenured faculty member! In the scenario with the \"stalker\" it is so unclear what happened or what was reported to whom that I would not be comfortable commenting on it. Nevertheless, one can certainly imagine circumstances in which a tenured faculty member could be fired for stalking even without a criminal conviction. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28607,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, there have been. The case of <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/16/nyregion/former-yale-professor-gets-20-years-for-molesting-boy-he-mentored.html\">Prof. Lasaga at Yale</a> is one of the more egregious examples of malfeasance on the part of a faculty member, but also a case where the person stepped down well before being convicted (more background info <a href=\"http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxvi/11.13.98/front.html\">here</a>). I am sure that even though the language was of voluntary termination (\"stepping down\") that there was little choice for Lasaga otherwise. In lesser cases outside of the public eye, I am sure there are many professors who have also been asked to step down or to take an early retirement instead of being publicly fired. </p>\n\n<p>Tenure only means our contracts don't have end-dates or renewal dates. It doesn't mean we cannot be fired for crimes, for being indicted for a crime, for other cause, or in some cases just simply being restructured out of our jobs due to the economic needs of our university. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28624,
"author": "user2379888",
"author_id": 9365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9365",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Leon Shohet went to prison for some stuff he did with a federal grant, and U Wisc. didn't fire him; see <a href=\"http://www.wpri.org/WIInterest/Lueders8.1.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.wpri.org/WIInterest/Lueders8.1.pdf</a></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 155380,
"author": "Daniel Hatton",
"author_id": 128581,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/128581",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I though it might be instructive, for insight into how we arrived at the present situation, to look back in history to the days when European universities tried criminal charges against both faculty members and students in their own internal courts (they'd negotiated settlements with their host states, whereby the ordinary criminal courts had no jurisdiction over university members). The sentencing options available to the university courts included both imprisonment and expulsion from the university. From the case studies described by Rait (1931, <em>Life in the Medieval University</em>, Library of Alexandria), it's pretty clear that the severity of offence needed for a sentence of expulsion from the university was greater than the severity of offence needed for a sentence of imprisonment; indeed, the sentence of expulsion from the university was used mostly in cases where a student or faculty member had escaped from prison while serving time for a previous offence, or had failed to appear in court to face the charges.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/16
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28569",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
28,577 |
<p>I'm curious to hear whether there is general guidance on when and whether to submit a pre-submission inquiry to a high impact journal (field: biology). Our goal is to identify a journal that will send our paper out for review. I understand pre-submissions are best when there really is a question of appropriateness, e.g., you are submitting a software-oriented manuscript to an experimental biology journal.</p>
<p>I am less clear on whether the current situation will benefit from a pre-submission inquiry. Consulting with my PI, and other faculty on the floor, there seems to be wide disagreements about the utility of pre-submission. Some argue these inquiries are more efficient than full submissions, since formatting a paper for each journal is usually time intensive. Others say they've had pre-submissions meet strong approval, then get editorially rejected. Any general thoughts on this?</p>
<p>Edit 6.27.15.
I'd like to specifically highlight bitwise' comment below as that has proven to be the most useful advice. In the last 9 months I've submitted multiple articles not fulfilling the exact formatting requirements, length limits, supplement guidelines, and even figure guidelines, and this has not seemed to affect whether we get reviewed. One paper is currently under review at <em>Molecular Cell</em> that is 4000 characters over limit and has a wildly incorrectly formatted supplement, and 1 figure over the limit.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28903,
"author": "Bitwise",
"author_id": 6862,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6862",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I have never found a pre-submission inquiry to be useful, and was always advised against it. The main argument is that it does not increase your chances of acceptance and just adds another hurdle to pass. Additionally, assuming you use a reference manager the difference in formatting between journals is usually minimal (or you can ignore some of the rules on your first submission).</p>\n\n<p>However, I always submitted to journals that I know and read before, so I knew that the topic is generally appropriate. I would only consider a pre-submission inquiry if I am not sure whether the general topic is appropriate for the journal.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28920,
"author": "penelope",
"author_id": 4249,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4249",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I do not know about your field (I'm in Computer Science), but from my recent attempts in submitting, I have found one situation where pre-submission is <em>required</em> by some journals: <strong>submission of a survey or overview article</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Some examples:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Authors interested in submitting overview articles are <strong>required to consult first with the Editor-in-Chief (EiC)</strong> of their Transactions of choice before <strong>submitting a white paper proposal</strong>. White papers are limited to 2-pages and should motivate the topic, justify the proposal, and include a list of relevant bibliography including any available tutorial or overview articles related to the subject matter. (...) White paper proposals should be submitted directly to the EiC.</p>\n \n <p><sub><sup>(taken from <a href=\"http://www.signalprocessingsociety.org/publications/overview-articles/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">IEEE Transactions on Image Processing</a>)</sup></sub></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Also:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Individuals <strong>interested in submitting a survey/tutorial</strong> article (not part of a Special Issue) <strong>should submit a white paper</strong> outlining the content of the proposed article <strong>to the Area Editor for Feature Articles</strong> (refer to the Editorial page) via the Manuscript Central Web submission system. A white paper is usually no more than five (5) pages long</p>\n \n <p><sub><sup>(taken from <a href=\"http://www.signalprocessingsociety.org/publications/periodicals/spm/spm-author-info/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">IEEE Signal Processing Magazine</a>)</sup></sub></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Additionally, when we were considering where to submit (and, in which order, in case of rejection) (among 2-3 journals with the appropriate topic) , we <em>opted for the journal pre-submission first</em>, since, well, in a real review process, the paper can always get rejected. Pre-submission allows a chance of getting some kind of response sooner -- if it is a reject, we can re-submit sooner, and if it is an accept, it is a good sign even tho we know the reviewing is a standalone process.</p>\n\n<p>One last point my supervisors pointed out: <em>even if it is a journal that you read, and you think your submission fits the topic -- the \"journal\" might not think so, so it is a good thing to check how the EiC and the Editorial Board \"breathes\"</em> (e.g. my subfield has a hard time getting rid of reputation as using very slow methods, because they were slow in the past but have gotten much more efficient lately, so there is sometimes difficulties publishing in main-stream, general, non-subfield-specific venues).</p>\n\n<p>So, <strong>bottom line</strong>: while the first part of my answer is dealing with a specific case, I think the second part is applicable generally. Yes, it is possible to get rejected by the reviewers after the EiC accepts your pre-submission, but it is also possible to speed up the process in case of rejection. Ultimately, it is yours and your supervisors decision as which approach is best and most efficient for you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 107584,
"author": "ikashnitsky",
"author_id": 38524,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38524",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>An interesting opinion <a href=\"https://www.editage.com/insights/how-are-pre-submission-inquiries-handled-by-journals\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">here</a> by Dr. Leslie Citrome, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical Practice. </p>\n\n<p><strong>TLDR:</strong> a pre-submission never hurts the author. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 107589,
"author": "James S.",
"author_id": 17927,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17927",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've sent query letters almost every time I've submitted to a journal. Especially if you've never submitted to a journal, it is a good way to make sure that it's potentially a good fit. For example, one journal wrote me back to say they had no reviewers in my subject area and suggesting I find a different journal. So that probably saved several months of them trying to find a reviewer, and I was able to submit somewhere else instead. Another journal wrote back a snarky remark, I submitted anyway, and they wrote back a scathing review. So if the reply to the query isn't so positive, maybe better not to submit. A third wrote back really positively, and I submitted and that piece is now published. So in my experience it does not hurt, and sometimes it can prevent submitting something to some place that is clearly wrong for your piece.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/16
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28577",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14719/"
] |
28,579 |
<p>By reviewing <a href="https://www.google.com/search?&q=mba%20syllabus" rel="nofollow">syllabus of a MBA course</a>, and its entry requirements such as some years of industry job experience; it comes to mind that these type of management courses are designed only for the people seeking jobs in industry and studying management sciences does not have any positive impact on a person's career aiming to do research.</p>
<p>In my opinion, having knowledge of management, will help researchers in many aspects; such as if they are managing a laboratory, by having management knowledge, they will better manage their labs and be more effective in their scientific contracts, managing human resources, etc. Also, having project management knowledge may help the students or people in academia better organize their projects, whether academic or industry projects.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How does studying management short-time courses or degrees help a researcher?</p></li>
<li><p>How does these type of courses help research students improve their effectiveness in academia?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Please focus your answers specifically on MBA, project-management courses and short time classes or workshops on management sciences.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28592,
"author": "Edward Ames",
"author_id": 12475,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12475",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some of the management methodologies (e.g. PMP - Project Management Professional) have a strong process (think of it like an algorithm) for defining a vague task. </p>\n\n<p>Most research problems are, by definition, vague. No one has ever done it before, and so no one knows exactly how to do it. This leads to common problems like poorly defined scope, shifting requirements, and poor time-management. Some of those things are actually desired; they are what give unexpectedly great research. It's just you don't know when you are doing great research or just screwing around. It's actually quite fast and easy to generate a basic list of requirements, scope, and timelines. That way you know when you are done and can publish. It doesn't mean that you can't go further, only that you now know that you did what you initially wanted to do.</p>\n\n<p>In other words, business management techniques are not a perfect fit for academic work because they assume more clearly defined tasks and shorter time-frames. Nevertheless, you can steal those techniques to give you some imprecise measures of what you want. They are good, formalized ways of defining weird research tasks.</p>\n\n<p>Compare and contrast software development methodologies like Rational-Unified-Process vs. Agile. The RUP is a very document-heavy, very formalized thing; meanwhile, Agile / SCRUM has virtually no documents. Also check out the Project-Management-Professional body of knowledge.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28613,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It clearly depends on what kind of future research you want to do but a lot of MBA content will not be relevant to anyone who will manage a non-profit lab, although it might help with the business of running a lab (e.g., a for-profit lab).</p>\n\n<p>Here are just some examples:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>business environment: Here you are going to learn about international trade, competition, etc. and how those impact competitiveness of a company. I don't see how this will help you run a lab unless your lab is operating in competition with other labs for customers (or other constrained resources).</li>\n<li>accounting: Here you will learn about <em>creative</em> ways to maximize your organization's profit leveraging tax law. I believe most labs are non-profit and, thus, I do not think creative accounting is an important skill (but I might be wrong here).</li>\n<li>business law: Here you will learn national and international laws which can impact trade. You would naturally learn about contracts, negligence, and other related topics. This might help you understand what makes a valid contract or what the impact is of leaking private data but I am not sure it will help you much other than avoiding being tricked when someone says 'I will fund you if you just sign here.'</li>\n<li>human resource management: Here you will learn about how human resources add to a company's profitability and how to plan for them. The focus will generally be more strategic in nature and could help you do some strategic planning. One such issue is 'employer branding' and clearly you do want people to <em>want</em> to come to work for you. This might help you but as you are smaller, the benefit will be smaller.</li>\n<li>finance: Like other modules, the focus here will be on strategy. How do different funding sources, and different balances between sources, impact profitability by minimizing your cost of capital. Non-profits have a much more limited choice in their sources of capital so this will be of very limited use for you.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Normally, MBA programs do include a thesis which includes research. This clearly can tell someone if they want to do more research and it will give them some research skills.</p>\n\n<p>Now, there is (hopefully) going to be a change in the way the student thinks. That is, students should think more strategically. This skill (strategic thinking) should give you a benefit in most things you do in life by encouraging you to think more long-term.</p>\n\n<p>All this said, if you want to start a for-profit venture which focuses on research (selling your output) then, yes, an MBA would be quite helpful. However, you should not think an MBA is about managing people better. It is about that but it is much more about how to maximize your profits through maximizing your revenue, minimizing your expenses.</p>\n\n<p>If someone is going to run an academic lab, I would encourage them not to take an entire MBA (unless they really want to think like business people) but rather take a class on a subject where they want to be stronger (e.g., human resource management).</p>\n\n<p><strong>EDIT:</strong> I think Edward's answer is good but to go a bit further about project management courses, this might actually help a researcher, especially if that research is managing a team.</p>\n\n<p>In project management courses, you would learn about different topics than an MBA. For example:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Feasibility studies</li>\n<li>Planning, organizing, controlling (general management issues)</li>\n<li>Reporting progress on your project</li>\n<li>Risk management</li>\n<li>Change management</li>\n<li>Leadership, motivation, human resource management</li>\n<li>Several others</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Because most research is a project (has a start date and an end date, has resources including people and money, etc.) this could be much more suitable (than an MBA) to someone leading a lab. I would recommend starting with a single project management class (which will generally give you an overview of each topic) then, if you want to really dig into more detail, consider getting a master in project management or perhaps an industry certification like <a href=\"http://www.pmi.org/Certification/Project-Management-Professional-PMP.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow\">PMP</a>.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/16
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28579",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723/"
] |
28,581 |
<p>I have worked hard for my master thesis project to build a system that uses an already existing algorithm, just in a mobile setting, which hasn't been done before. Because the algorithm is complex, it required a client-server infrastructure. Now, as I said most, of my efforts until now went into building the system of already existing components rather than contributing to knowledge.</p>
<p>Now my question is, how can I use my system and efforts to go more in the direction of a scientific contribution? The problem is if I, for example, simulate data loss over the network, I could have done that without even building the system. So I somehow want to include my real system in the experiment rather than doing a simulation. What would be a good approach that justifies also the construction of my real system?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28592,
"author": "Edward Ames",
"author_id": 12475,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12475",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some of the management methodologies (e.g. PMP - Project Management Professional) have a strong process (think of it like an algorithm) for defining a vague task. </p>\n\n<p>Most research problems are, by definition, vague. No one has ever done it before, and so no one knows exactly how to do it. This leads to common problems like poorly defined scope, shifting requirements, and poor time-management. Some of those things are actually desired; they are what give unexpectedly great research. It's just you don't know when you are doing great research or just screwing around. It's actually quite fast and easy to generate a basic list of requirements, scope, and timelines. That way you know when you are done and can publish. It doesn't mean that you can't go further, only that you now know that you did what you initially wanted to do.</p>\n\n<p>In other words, business management techniques are not a perfect fit for academic work because they assume more clearly defined tasks and shorter time-frames. Nevertheless, you can steal those techniques to give you some imprecise measures of what you want. They are good, formalized ways of defining weird research tasks.</p>\n\n<p>Compare and contrast software development methodologies like Rational-Unified-Process vs. Agile. The RUP is a very document-heavy, very formalized thing; meanwhile, Agile / SCRUM has virtually no documents. Also check out the Project-Management-Professional body of knowledge.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28613,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It clearly depends on what kind of future research you want to do but a lot of MBA content will not be relevant to anyone who will manage a non-profit lab, although it might help with the business of running a lab (e.g., a for-profit lab).</p>\n\n<p>Here are just some examples:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>business environment: Here you are going to learn about international trade, competition, etc. and how those impact competitiveness of a company. I don't see how this will help you run a lab unless your lab is operating in competition with other labs for customers (or other constrained resources).</li>\n<li>accounting: Here you will learn about <em>creative</em> ways to maximize your organization's profit leveraging tax law. I believe most labs are non-profit and, thus, I do not think creative accounting is an important skill (but I might be wrong here).</li>\n<li>business law: Here you will learn national and international laws which can impact trade. You would naturally learn about contracts, negligence, and other related topics. This might help you understand what makes a valid contract or what the impact is of leaking private data but I am not sure it will help you much other than avoiding being tricked when someone says 'I will fund you if you just sign here.'</li>\n<li>human resource management: Here you will learn about how human resources add to a company's profitability and how to plan for them. The focus will generally be more strategic in nature and could help you do some strategic planning. One such issue is 'employer branding' and clearly you do want people to <em>want</em> to come to work for you. This might help you but as you are smaller, the benefit will be smaller.</li>\n<li>finance: Like other modules, the focus here will be on strategy. How do different funding sources, and different balances between sources, impact profitability by minimizing your cost of capital. Non-profits have a much more limited choice in their sources of capital so this will be of very limited use for you.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Normally, MBA programs do include a thesis which includes research. This clearly can tell someone if they want to do more research and it will give them some research skills.</p>\n\n<p>Now, there is (hopefully) going to be a change in the way the student thinks. That is, students should think more strategically. This skill (strategic thinking) should give you a benefit in most things you do in life by encouraging you to think more long-term.</p>\n\n<p>All this said, if you want to start a for-profit venture which focuses on research (selling your output) then, yes, an MBA would be quite helpful. However, you should not think an MBA is about managing people better. It is about that but it is much more about how to maximize your profits through maximizing your revenue, minimizing your expenses.</p>\n\n<p>If someone is going to run an academic lab, I would encourage them not to take an entire MBA (unless they really want to think like business people) but rather take a class on a subject where they want to be stronger (e.g., human resource management).</p>\n\n<p><strong>EDIT:</strong> I think Edward's answer is good but to go a bit further about project management courses, this might actually help a researcher, especially if that research is managing a team.</p>\n\n<p>In project management courses, you would learn about different topics than an MBA. For example:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Feasibility studies</li>\n<li>Planning, organizing, controlling (general management issues)</li>\n<li>Reporting progress on your project</li>\n<li>Risk management</li>\n<li>Change management</li>\n<li>Leadership, motivation, human resource management</li>\n<li>Several others</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Because most research is a project (has a start date and an end date, has resources including people and money, etc.) this could be much more suitable (than an MBA) to someone leading a lab. I would recommend starting with a single project management class (which will generally give you an overview of each topic) then, if you want to really dig into more detail, consider getting a master in project management or perhaps an industry certification like <a href=\"http://www.pmi.org/Certification/Project-Management-Professional-PMP.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow\">PMP</a>.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/16
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28581",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20063/"
] |
28,583 |
<p>I have a question about submission elsewhere and journal's "consent" of paper withdrawing.</p>
<p>Recently I have withdrawn a paper of mine from a journal, which I want to submit elsewhere. Since I knew that the journal had received my email (by read receipt device) on withdrawing the paper and since I am just in the stage of being notified that the paper has been accepted for publication, the problem is: In order to submit the paper elsewhere, do I have to wait for the journal to consent to the withdrawal? </p>
<p>I am looking for some ethical advice.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28585,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In general, yes, if by consent you mean you have written to say you wish to withdraw the paper for further review. Doing so, is in my mind and field, not something you should do light-heartedly. Waiting for a reply is also a good strategy, or etiquette, since you then know that the paper has been formally withdrawn (usually a click away in electronic submission systems). It is better to be 100% clear on what is going on. A return receipt in an E-mail is to me not sufficient and it can also be considered a bit arrogant.</p>\n\n<p>In a request, you may want to add a few words to describe the reason why you wish to do so although it is your right. It all boils down to being courteous to the journal editors and reviewers, depending on how much work they have put into the journal paper.</p>\n\n<p>Some authors seem to do this systematically just to get a sense of whether the manuscript will stand and to see if they can send it to a \"better\" journal. Such behaviour is of course not good etiquette and a slap in the face to those who do a fair amount of unpaid work on a manuscript.</p>\n\n<p>requests for withdrawal should be easy and if you do not get a reply within, say, a couple of weeks, I think a reminder can be sent without hesitation. You may then also state that you will go along with the submission to another journal.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28586,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I'd recommend waiting a week or two to see whether you get a response to your withdrawal. At this stage it can't be urgent to resubmit immediately, and having their reply would guarantee that they are aware that you have withdrawn the paper. (By contrast, I don't think an e-mail read receipt means much. For all you know, an administrative assistant opened the e-mail and then mistakenly deleted it without realizing what it said.) I wouldn't go so far as to say you are required to wait for a response, but better safe than sorry.</p>\n\n<p>I think you've got a much bigger issue to worry about, though, and that's why you withdrew the paper after acceptance. At least in mathematics, withdrawing an accepted paper is extremely unusual. To a first approximation, it typically means there's something seriously wrong with either the paper or the journal. You can certainly do it, but given the effort that has gone into handling and refereeing the paper, you will cause offense if you don't have a very good reason.</p>\n\n<p>If you inadvertently submitted the paper to a junk or predatory journal, then you don't need to worry about causing offense. (Offending the editors of predatory journals is not a bad thing.) In that case, withdrawing the paper is certainly the right decision.</p>\n\n<p>If you dreadfully screwed up in your choice of journal, for example by submitting a brilliant breakthrough to a respectable but not impressive journal without realizing how good the paper was, then you should apologize profusely for wasting everyone's time. Hopefully they'll understand that it was a genuine mistake on your part, and they'll sympathize with the awkward position you are in and give their blessing to resubmitting elsewhere.</p>\n\n<p>If the paper is seriously flawed, then that's a respectable reason to withdraw it. You might look bad for having submitted it, but then again, the referee didn't find the mistake either. But this isn't a compelling reason to submit elsewhere soon: if you don't check whether the original journal is willing to publish the revised paper, then it looks like the changes were just an excuse to withdraw the paper.</p>\n\n<p>Under normal circumstances, it will cause offense if people think you are withdrawing an accepted paper just to try your luck at a more prestigious journal. In particular, this is a dangerous impression to leave if you ever hope to submit to this journal again. As an editor, I would certainly not be happy to see a new submission from an author who had previously withdrawn an accepted paper without a compelling excuse.</p>\n\n<p>All this gives you another reason to move slowly and wait for a reply. If you have a good reason for withdrawal, then it's worth making sure you have communicated it clearly. In any case, you are doing something rather unusual and serious, and it's best not to give the impression you are treating it lightly or casually.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28611,
"author": "Name",
"author_id": 12871,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12871",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, one should wait to get the permission.</p>\n\n<p>Edited:\nJournal's editors may have spent significant time and energy to contact potential referees. The same for the referees. So it seems unfair to withdraw the paper without a permission. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/16
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28583",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18107/"
] |
28,594 |
<p>A colleague and friend has been approached by another institution (a state university in the U.S.) seeking to fill a position. My friend, who is putting a package together, has asked me to review his teaching statement. Evidently, <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8893/which-topics-should-be-covered-in-a-teaching-statement/9001#comment16033_9001">this was a good idea</a>. </p>
<p>I read the statement, and, quite frankly, I wasn't too impressed. He and I are quite candid with each other, so I'm not too worried about what might otherwise be a delicate issue: me telling him how much it needs to be polished. </p>
<p>That said, I'll admit: I have very little experience with teaching statements (either writing them, or reading them). I'm not usually on faculty hiring committees; I don't want to give him bad advice out of ignorance. </p>
<p>My questions are:</p>
<p>1) What is an ideal length? (So far, I've narrowed it down to <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14180/will-anybody-actually-read-your-research-and-teaching-statements/14193#14193">half a page is too little, and three pages is too much</a>.) Would a single page be considered too thin?</p>
<p>2) How detailed should it be? My friend talked about different courses he has taught, even mentioning one course by its catalog number. I initially thought that generalities would be better. In other words, instead of saying something along the lines of:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Teaching styles should be adaptable, based on the student demographics in the class. For example, in my Intro to Programming course at Urbandale College, I taught had mostly freshman, but the Programming Languages course I taught at Westerville University, CSCI 352, was a more advanced course with juniors and seniors...</p>
</blockquote>
<p>my gut instinct tells me it would be better to say something more general, such as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Teaching styles should be adaptable, based on the student demographics in the class. For example, I've taught some courses with mostly freshman, and other more advanced courses with juniors and seniors... </p>
</blockquote>
<p>but perhaps I'd be dishing out out some bad advice if I recommended a more general wording; maybe applicants are expected to weave such details into their teaching statements.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28603,
"author": "Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen",
"author_id": 11257,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11257",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A teaching statement should go into your personal experiences and ideas about teaching. But the included details need to be relevant to someone who is interested in your teaching experience and teaching philosophy.</p>\n\n<p>For instance, I would venture that:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Mentioning the course number is probably not interesting.</p></li>\n<li><p>Mentioning that the freshman course was called \"Intro to Programming\" is interesting.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28621,
"author": "Kimball",
"author_id": 19607,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19607",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>My answer comes from Mathematics, but probably it's quite similar. </p>\n\n<p>1) 1-2 pages is pretty typical.</p>\n\n<p>2) My general advice is to include details and concrete examples where possible (though course numbers are not necessary). One problem with just being general is such statements feel very generic, and lack any real content in the sense that they don't distinguish you, in the same way many political speeches turn out.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/16
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28594",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/780/"
] |
28,610 |
<p>Several professors, including my former advisor and a senior member of my research community, have been encouraging me to apply for a faculty job. I am torn about it mostly because I am 40 years old. Leaving a job in a research lab to start as an assistant professor would in a way seem like a starting all over again. </p>
<p>I believe that my pre-PhD experience leading projects would lessen the learning curve that new tenured track faculty goes through. On the other hand, I am not sure if there would a be a stigma associated with my age. I would have gone for an academic position ten years ago in a heartbeat, for the research, freedom, and teaching. But I had personal reasons for not being able to pursue PhD sooner. </p>
<p>Is it too late to do it now? Would the low academic rank to age ratio make my job harder, leading to possibly being prejudiced that I must not be successful to still be at the lowest branches?</p>
<p>There are several threads here asking about pursing PhD later in life, but I do not recall any of them addressing starting an academic carrier.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28616,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I would say it depends. In the following <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23613/are-old-35-faculty-candidates-discriminated-against-all-over-the-world\">question</a>, JeffE resoundingly stated that age does not play into the decision whether to appoint somebody for an academic position. Yet, ETH Zurich (one of the world's premiere institutions in the technical sciences) even <a href=\"http://www.facultyaffairs.ethz.ch/facultypositions/index_EN\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">publicly states that they will rather not hire an assistant professor older than 35</a> (see the information box on the right).</p>\n\n<p>Pragmatically, you may be a bit out of the norm. This may give you a small edge in some cases, and may be a small disadvantage in others. For every academic that is concerned about your age, there will be another one that values your industrial experience. I would say, if age is the only thing holding you back, then go and apply for assistant professor positions.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Leaving a job in a research lab to start as an associate professor would in a way seem like a starting all over again.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Assistant professor isn't the same as associate professor. Both are not the same as \"starting all over\". In practice, in most places I have seen, professors on all levels are able to work quite independently, so none should be seen as an entry-level job. Assistant professor may be entry-level in terms of professorships, but it is actually a quite senior position in the wider context of academia.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 66037,
"author": "DesdeCuando",
"author_id": 42332,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/42332",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As an assistant professor, you would have four constituencies: undergrads, graduate students, your department's tenured and \"sure thing\" pre-tenured faculty, and the school's administration.</p>\n\n<p>Undergrads want to know what's going to be on the test. If your age isn't going to be on the test, they won't notice it. To them, a professor is a professor is an old person. Just be prepared and predictable and they'll be happy. Being 40 might command more respect than being 30, and should mean fewer crushes to fend off. I consider it a plus for this group.</p>\n\n<p>Grad students want you not to be insane. \"Dear Lord, please allow that my advisor be not changeable like the wind, be not stubborn like the glaciers, and be not crazy, and be not on drugs. Also I would be grateful if you could manage that she not work me like an indentured servant, please, and thank you.\" They'll judge you by your recent publications, your connections and intelligence. </p>\n\n<p>Some or all of the faculty will be writing reviews of you and your research program in three or four years. For that reason, you should talk to them about theirs. For real. They can judge your acuity better on home turf than when adrift in a sea of unfamiliar words and ideas, and they'll be flattered. If you came in as a 23-year-old wiz-kid, there might be some resentment or envy. If you are pleasant and dedicated to your career, irrelevant factors like your age will not undermine your prospects with your new colleagues. </p>\n\n<p>Presidents and Deans want to hear only good things about you. The Dean will be told of any difficulties you experience, and could possibly alert the President, so don't have any. They might not even know your age, and I can't think of a reason they'd care about it. Help the department move up the prestige ladder and they wouldn't mind if you were 60.</p>\n\n<p>Age could be an issue when you apply for jobs. They'll assume you were 18 when you started undergrad, regardless of when you graduated. If you graduated late, you could put the year you graduated instead of the years of attendance. Your age might be off-putting for the hiring committee before they meet you. If they get over it and invite you to interview with them, you'll have your CV, references, and many chances to make a good impression. You haven't been playing mahjong for the last few years. As long as you \"read\" like you're of the tribe, your age will not be a negative in academia.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/17
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28610",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19732/"
] |
28,615 |
<p>I have written one paper on mathematics and submitted it to 5 journals concurrently. Four of them accepted the paper and one asked to send the paper in their required format.</p>
<p>The paper contains one theorem and two applications. There was two argument gaps in the proof of the theorem. Only one journal caught that.</p>
<p>I have communicated with that journal and updated the paper throughout as below:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Changed the proof of the theorem entirely ,i.e. an alternative proof is provided, there is no similarity between the two proofs of the theorem.</p></li>
<li><p>Remove one of the applications and add a new application of that theorem.</p></li>
<li><p>Changed the way of applying of the theorem for the other application i.e firstly there was case distinction for the application, but later I removed the case distinction.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>this paper is published in that journal and I have transferred the copyright agreement form to them and withdrawn the paper from other journals stating personal reasons. I am an amateur mathematician and I'm not pursuing any Phd degree.</p>
<p>Now my question is that what are the impacts may fall on the published paper in that journal as I have withdrawn all other manuscripts and they don't have the copy right agreement also, so is there any chances to claim the published article by them or they can force the editor of the journal which published the paper to retract the paper ? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28618,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Whatever you do in the future: do not submit the same manuscript to multiple (not even two) journals. </p>\n\n<p>If you have managed to get the manuscript accepted in one journal you need to immediately withdraw <em>all</em> others. You state you have given \"personal reasons\" whereas in reality you should have provided a serious excuse to the journals for wasting their time.</p>\n\n<p>If you have withdrawn all other manuscripts there should not be any further impact on the one accepted for publication. You should learn from the experience and perhaps acquaint yourself better with the publication process so as to avoid mistakes such as these again. If repeated, it may affect you adversely by gaining a bad reputation or possibly being \"banned\" from certain journals by their editors. So most negative impacts, if any, will fall on you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 104554,
"author": "bers",
"author_id": 35764,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/35764",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, a related question is <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28086/how-is-it-in-my-best-interest-not-to-submit-a-paper-to-two-journals-simultaneous\">How is it in my best interest not to submit a paper to two journals simultaneously?</a></p>\n\n<p>Second, if any <strong>double publication</strong> occurs, you are screwed. I would agree that since the other journals do not have a signed copyright agreement from you, they should not be allowed to publish the paper, even though they accepted it for publication. However, this <em>has</em> happened in the past, and it led to the duplicate submission being retracted:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The two corresponding authors of the two published articles claimed that the problem arose from a mistake: the Scholarly Journal of Biological Science had asked for a publication fee that the authors could not pay. Believing that the journal would therefore return their manuscript, they submitted the manuscript to our journal. [...] We therefore decided to retract the article from our journal on the grounds of duplicate publication, informed the Editor of Scholarly Journal of Biological Science of the situation, told the authors about our decision to retract the article, and—considering their actions—reported the misconduct to their institutions.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(Journal runs retraction, editorial over duplicate submission of pathology paper, <a href=\"https://retractionwatch.com/2015/02/17/journal-runs-retraction-editorial-duplicate-submission/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://retractionwatch.com/2015/02/17/journal-runs-retraction-editorial-duplicate-submission/</a>)</p>\n\n<p>In some cases, both papers are retracted, which I feel should be the standard for double submissions.\n<a href=\"https://retractionwatch.com/2013/06/18/double-submission-leads-to-retraction-of-probability-paper-and-a-publishing-ban/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://retractionwatch.com/2013/06/18/double-submission-leads-to-retraction-of-probability-paper-and-a-publishing-ban/</a></p>\n\n<p>So keep your fingers crossed that all the other journals honor your withdrawal \"for personal reasons\".</p>\n\n<p>Third, assuming no double publication will ever take place, the issue of <strong>double submission</strong>: they still can take action against you, and maybe your paper. It certainly depends (well, not so much - see below) on what you the journals asked you during submission and what you told them.</p>\n\n<p>Many journals nowadays expect an implicit or explicit confirmation by the author(s) that their work not been submitted (well, meaning it is not under consideration) elsewhere at the same time. Some expect you to include that confirmation in the cover letter and/or the manuscript, and if you did not add it there, you <em>may</em> be fine. But some may also have a mandatory checkbox in the submission system; some may have it in their author instructions or ethical guidelines, which you implicitly accept by submitting your manuscript. Either way, chances are very high that at least one of your five journals has such a requirement, which you failed to adhere to.</p>\n\n<p>Thus, assuming you have made any such false statement, you may be in danger of being banned from these journals - this has happened in the past:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>One week after it was published, the editors of journal B contacted our journal stating that this work, with the exact same title, authors and content, had been submitted to journal B and, after receiving an acceptance letter, the author withdrew the paper, informing them that it had been accepted by a different journal.</p>\n \n <p>When the editor of journal B asked the author for an explanation, the author did not provide a satisfactory response. Journal B, in consultation with their editorial board, banned the author from submitting to the journal in the future.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(COPE case 17-20, ongoing; from <a href=\"https://publicationethics.org/case/consequence-dual-submission\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://publicationethics.org/case/consequence-dual-submission</a>)</p>\n\n<p>[While you see some going back and forth about submission dates in the above link: these are very often printed in the published paper, so any editor of your four other journals will be able to determine that you submitted concurrently.]</p>\n\n<p>Also, an expression of concern might be published next to your published paper:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The Forum agreed this is still a case of duplicate submission and that there has been possible misconduct on the part of the authors. Although there is only one copy of the paper in the literature, the Forum advised the editor to consider publishing an expression of concern to alert readers to this.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(COPE case 12-30, ongoing; from <a href=\"https://publicationethics.org/case/retraction-first-article-case-duplicate-publication\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://publicationethics.org/case/retraction-first-article-case-duplicate-publication</a>)</p>\n\n<p>(very similar: COPE case 15-40; <a href=\"https://publicationethics.org/case/duplicate-publication-and-removal-article\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://publicationethics.org/case/duplicate-publication-and-removal-article</a>)</p>\n\n<p>I have yet to find a case of a singly-published paper being retracted for dual submission, although I would not be surprised if that happened, given that both papers of a dual publication can be retracted (see above). However, one of the links above (I would have to find that passage again) says that retractions should be made to correct the literature, not to punish\" - and if there is no literature correction to be made on the grounds of double publications, my guess is that your paper is safe.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/17
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28615",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21936/"
] |
28,617 |
<p>Recently I came across a job posting for a (mathematics) tenure-track position that asks for both graduate and undergraduate transcripts to be submitted. While this is the first time I've had anyone ask to see my undergraduate transcript for such a position, from a <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11577/up-until-which-application-level-should-one-keep-supplying-a-bachelors-transcrip/11589#11589">previous question</a> here, it appears to not quite be unheard of. </p>
<p>What I haven't seen addressed is the question of why, generally, would a hiring committee ask for undergraduate transcripts? Are they really going to judge my application based on an errant C in a course unrelated to my field, or do they simply want proof that I have the degree from University X that I claim to have obtained? </p>
<p>The reason for my question is that I am hoping to gain insight into any issues that might appear in my own transcript in order to address them in the cover letter.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28619,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I had to submit undergraduate and graduate transcripts to several schools each time I applied for jobs in mathematics. I believe the main reason is simply to allow the school to verify that you really have the credentials you claim. </p>\n\n<p>There have been examples where faculty and administrators were caught claiming credentials that they did not possess, so schools are more cautious about such things now. The same is true for background checks - many schools now run a background check before they make an official job offer. </p>\n\n<p>At my institution, when we have a mathematics job search we don't really look at the grades on the transcripts. The cover letter, reference letters, teaching statement, and research statement are scrutinized, but the transcripts just get a cursory glance to make sure the person has the right coursework (e.g. if we want to hire someone in a specific subfield, we might check that they have coursework in that subfield). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28638,
"author": "Donna",
"author_id": 21950,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21950",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think they ask for two main reasons:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Course requirements vary from university to university, and this will give them a good understanding of how well your formal education background aligns with what their own program offers. i.e. did your core requirements match their own? Will you have vastly different expectations of the students in their program from when you went to college?<br>\nIt will also give them a good idea of what your GPA in your transcript really means. For example, if you took all advanced classes, and even dabbled in some upper-level courses in other subjects which were not required, your GPA may not be as high as someone who took all the easiest courses and very few advanced ones. Also, some people have GPA's which are deceiving, i.e. they took many 'easy' classes in yoga and theater to even out C's in their major. This makes their over-all GPA seem acceptable, but their GPA in their major is low. This could be a red flag, for the hiring team, (not only is the candidate ill suited in this field, they are cunning)! This leads to point #2:</p></li>\n<li><p>You may be expected to teach some of those courses/subjects you took in undergrad/grad school. They need to know that you have taken similar courses before and that you received acceptable grades in them. Usually a department already has a general idea of what courses they want the person in this position to teach. They need to know if that will be a problem, i.e. if you got a C in every Calculus class you ever took, and they are specifically looking for someone to teach that, you may not fit the bill in that regards. But, if they really like your other skills, they might just end up having you teach a different subject, such as complex analysis, etc. I do not think it would immediately disqualify you as a candidate.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>However, I would not be discouraged by a few low marks in your transcripts, if overall you have good ones that outweigh those. Everyone has been through a time in their studies when they had a professor who they just could not learn from, or get a handle on their testing style... or had a semester when something personal interfered with their studies. The most important point is to provide correct transcripts, and please know that the people reading them are human, are educators, and have seen it all already! Personally, I do not think a person's transcripts will be the main factor in the decision making process. But it is additional information that allows the job search committee to understand the candidate's educational background better.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/17
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28617",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8633/"
] |
28,620 |
<p>Recently, I applied for an advertised post-doctoral position with a researcher in an well-known institution.</p>
<p>After two weeks of not getting a reply, I sent him a reminder, and he replied </p>
<p>"Oh, thanks for getting in touch again, I hadn't seen your previous email. Can we have a chat on Skype tomorrow at X?"</p>
<p>He never showed up for the chat, and has not contacted me since.</p>
<p>Would it be sensible to approach him again, or shall I write it off as a lost cause?</p>
<p>Perhaps it would it be a bad idea anyway to work with someone who lacks the professional skills to keep up with email contact, and stick to commitments?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28636,
"author": "DavideChicco.it",
"author_id": 379,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/379",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I suggest you to give <strong>a phone call</strong>. \nInternational phone calls have become very cheap nowadays, you could use for example Skype, MegaVoip or Google Voice.</p>\n\n<p>Obviously you have to be very polite, don't become angry or upset. \nExplain clearly the situation and ask about news.</p>\n\n<p>G-Luck!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 30188,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>If this is a high-profile researcher, they are likely quite overcommitted and may have indeed legitimately accidentally missed connections. When dealing with somebody like this, you also need assume that you need to be the one taking the initiative in contact until you've have an established working relationship.</p>\n\n<p>But it also might be that they are uninterested, and either too polite, conflict averse, or culturally trained such that they are unwilling to express their lack of interest directly.</p>\n\n<p>How to tell the difference? I personally tend to follow the maxim: <a href=\"http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ian_Fleming#Goldfinger_.281959.29\">\"Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.\"</a> After the third failure to connect (or whatever number you set as your threshold), then it doesn't really matter whether they're flaky or evasive: it's not productive to pursue the connection any further without some sort of positive encouragement from the other side.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/17
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28620",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20011/"
] |
28,626 |
<p>While writing my thesis (computer science), I was wondering how detailed citations have to be.</p>
<p>Let's assume I want to cite an article of a conference and have full information on author, editor, title, year, booktitle, subtitle, eventtitle, volume, location, DOI, ISBN, arXiv ID, ... you get the point.</p>
<p><strong>Do I actually provide every piece of information in the citation or are some left out? Does any style guide (like IEEE, APA, MLA) address this topic?</strong></p>
<p>Similar questions [1] cover only URLs, but my question is more general.</p>
<p>[1] <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/include-url-for-journal-and-conference-articles-in-dissertation-bibliography-d">Should I include a DOI/website URL for a publication in dissertation bibliography?</a></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28627,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The goal of the citation text (as opposed to citing in general) is to make it as easy as possible for your readers to find the works you cite. It cannot hurt to include as much information as you have. You are using a bibliography/citation management system like <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Zotero</a> or <a href=\"http://www.bibtex.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">BibTeX</a>, right? So, once you've put this into your database, the formatting and typing out of all the relevant information should be automated. If there are constraints or unwanted information, the formatting package should eliminate them from the text it produces making your document compliant with the standards of your publishing venue.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28628,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are style guides for <a href=\"http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieeecitationref.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">IEEE</a>, <a href=\"http://www.apastyle.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">APA</a>, and <a href=\"http://www.mla.org/style_faq1\" rel=\"nofollow\">MLS (also known as MLA)</a>, although IEEE style is slightly different from the others in that it is based on the <a href=\"http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Chicago</a> style guide. Many publishers provide information in their online citation downloads that are not required for the citation. In these cases you do not include the extra information. This seems a bit strange given that this extra information could be helpful, put most journals stick rigidly to their style guidelines and do not want extra information.</p>\n\n<p>I think the most obvious example of excluding useful information is related to issue numbers and <a href=\"http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/10/how-to-determine-whether-a-periodical-is-paginated-by-issue.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">APA sytle</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Per APA Style, when formatting periodical references (which include journals, magazines, and newsletters), include the issue number (immediately following the volume number in parentheses) when the periodical is paginated by issue (i.e., begins each issue with page 1). Otherwise, include only the volume number</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It is often easier to find an article on a publisher's website if you have the issue number, even if the journal is paginated continuously. That said, journals that stick to APA style will remove issue numbers if you include them.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28629,
"author": "BrianH",
"author_id": 6787,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6787",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Generally the citation styles for your field, and thus for your thesis, will dictate this. The <a href=\"https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)</a> website is a nice and popular resource to refer to what the most possible information would be desired for APA, MLA, Chicago, and Turabian - but you ultimately should refer to the exact, up-to-date published version of the style guide itself. </p>\n\n<p>As an example, for APA when citing a Journal or Conference paper/article, you would at most provide (formatting stripped): </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of\n article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages.\n <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyyy\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://dx.doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyyy</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If something doesn't have a DOI, the style guides say how to cite each type of resource. A book might be cited by ISBN, and if there is no DOI you might cite the arXiv in place of the DOI website - but you are never citing all of these things! </p>\n\n<p><em>Cite only that which the style guide says you should</em>, in keeping with the common tradition of papers in your field - no more, and no less. </p>\n\n<p>When using reference management tools they often help do this for you, but they do not absolve the author of responsibility for ensuring that the citation matches the appropriate style of their field and that the data and style is followed accurately.</p>\n\n<h2>When You Don't Know Your Style</h2>\n\n<p>If you are unsure of what style applies to your field, a search for \"{field name} style\" can be helpful, but the Purdue OWL site linked above also provides further guidance on their <a href=\"https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/585/2/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Complete Discipline Listing</a>. If you are unsure an adviser or your department office can provide further verification, and checking in with the department (whether that be the department office, chair, or secretary) is often a helpful technique.</p>\n\n<h2>Special Case: IEEE</h2>\n\n<p>I would note that the IEEE is somewhat of a special case (and is very common in computer, engineering, and various technology fields) in that there is a <a href=\"http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieeecitationref.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">IEEE Citation Reference</a> and <a href=\"http://www.ieee.org/documents/style_manual.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">IEEE Editorial Style Manual</a>. However, they both specify that when the guides don't provide a specific answer to your question that you should consult the Chicago style guides. Thus the IEEE style may be considered a specialized version of Chicago style.</p>\n\n<p>So in the case of this style you should first consult the IEEE guides, and if and only if they do not provide sufficient guidance you can consult the far more comprehensive Chicago guides.</p>\n\n<h2>Summation</h2>\n\n<p>So in conclusion: if you have 100 fields of information available, you don't include them all in the citation - just the ones that your field's style says you should. Any good style guide (all the ones I've had to read) gives rules of precedence and fall-back plans when certain information is unobtainable, with the information requested varying by the source being cited itself. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/17
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28626",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21942/"
] |
28,631 |
<p>I work as an assistant at a university in Australia. I joined the team consisting of my current advisor and his two PhD students. The other group members are men and they have a co-worker-like relationship with him. At first it was good, my advisor was very helpful (I have worked there about ten months and I published two papers with him, both in journals with a high impact factor). But when we started to get to know each other better, it unfortunately changed. I am a young woman and am afraid that he wants me to become romantically involved with him.</p>
<p>I try to keep this relationship work-only, as it’s the most healthy way, in my opinion, but sometimes my advisor seems to think differently. Here are some of the things that have made me think my advisor wants a romantic relationship with me:</p>
<ul>
<li>He comes to my room very often with no research-related reason and wants to talk, talk, talk about everything but work. </li>
<li>Once, when I was busy working, he came to my room and asked if he could take a photo of me. I felt ashamed and did know what to say and then finally, he took the photo. </li>
<li>Sometimes I think he is mad at me that I want to keep this relationship work-only, and then does not answer my emails about our research. </li>
<li>He is very careful with all this, says those things only when we're together. A while ago I heard that his PhD student suggested to him that he spends too much time with me. He laughed and said it's not his business, and that we are working hard on some novel research method. </li>
</ul>
<p>My advisor has powerful connections here at the university and I'm afraid no one is able to do anything about it. I’m only interested in having a professional relationship with him. However, I’m afraid that if I don’t agree to be his “very close friend,” he will try to kick me out of the university. </p>
<p>I can not move to a different city because of some family issues and can not change my advisor since he is the only person at the university who works on the research I’m interested in. What can I do?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28642,
"author": "MrMeritology",
"author_id": 17564,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17564",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Preliminaries</strong>: \nYou are in a tough spot and I don't think that any course of action is ideal or without risk. If you can accept this \"messiness\" and commit to a reasonable course of action, you'll probably come out OK. It's also important to understand that you can't control or determine his reactions, and you can't be responsible for his feelings, as long as you act responsibly and ethically.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Call a meeting, set the agenda</strong></p>\n\n<p>First, I suggest that you schedule a meeting with him to discuss your working relationship. If it were me, I'd speak plainly and directly, without any tone or implication of blame or distress. I suggest that you make these two points:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>\"I just want to confirm that our relationship is about work only. I am completely focused on my research career, and that is the basis for our relationship. I'm not here for friendship or anything else.\"</p></li>\n<li><p>\"I'd like to make changes in specific behavior patterns. In these requests, I may be different than other PhD students, but I'm clear about what I need and what I'm comfortable with.\" Then list the behaviors you'd like to see changed (e.g. no \"pop-in\" meetings with non-work discussions).</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p><strong>Having a successful meeting</strong></p>\n\n<p>Schedule this meeting. Don't improvise. Don't combine it with any other meeting or topic. Allow for enough time (an hour is sufficient, though you may only need 5 minutes. By scheduling an hour, you are avoiding time pressure for everyone involved) without pressure to complete sooner or worries about starting on time. Plan what you are going to say ahead of time, and even rehearse it, by yourself or with a friend. If you think it's necessary, have an ally with you at the meeting -- a woman friend, anyone you respect in any role in the University, or even someone from the outside. Just say, \"This may be a difficult conversation, and having X here to support us gives me more confidence.\"</p>\n\n<p>Also, if you can imagine that you are asking for something innocuous -- e.g. changing the seating arrangement at a seminar, adding vegetarian options at a department meeting, etc. -- it will help you and it will help him immensely.</p>\n\n<p>You <em>don't</em> need to ask him how he feels about you, to discuss the past or what he was or was not thinking or intending at the past, or any of that. You also don't need to explain how you feel (even though it would be justified). Talking about your feelings in this setting is almost never effective to change behavior.</p>\n\n<p>You don't need to ask him if he's \"OK\" with your requests, or what he might want as an alternative. There are no alternatives. What he wants beyond your requests is irrelevant.</p>\n\n<p>Also, if he brings up <strong><em>any</em></strong> other subject, no matter how related or how reasonable, you say: \"I'm not here to discuss that.\"</p>\n\n<p>If you haven't picked up on this already: <em>you need to be the dominant person in this interaction</em>. Not flamboyantly or even demonstrably. Just set the agenda, run the conversation, and lead to the conclusion.</p>\n\n<p>Yes, you will be nervous. Yes, you might feel uncomfortable. Yes, you might be seeking his approval and affirmation during this meeting. Let go of all of that. All that matters is that you have this conversation -- short, to-the-point, and direct -- and get to the conclusion you are aiming for.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, if he wants to talk about <strong><em>his</em></strong> needs or experience in the relationship, do that in a separate meeting. Be firm.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Be prepared to set boundaries</strong></p>\n\n<p>Regardless how the meeting goes, it's likely that he'll continue some or all of the behaviors, if only out of habit or faint hope. For each setting and behavior, be prepared to set a boundary -- saying 'no', disengaging, leaving the room, reminding him that you are not 'OK' with this, or what ever you believe will be effective. Not to put him down, but imagine that you are training a dog to not bark or to not jump on visitors. It's just behavioral conditioning.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>If you do all this in a way that doesn't publicly embarrass him or privately make him \"the Bad Guy\", it's unlikely that he will kick you out of the department or university. There's a chance that he might do something bad toward you (many women have experienced negative consequences in similar circumstances), but the odds are lower by taking this path.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Many of the other answers and comments have expressed the view that this direct approach is \"incredibly risky\" or \"likely to backfire\" and have suggested more subtle or indirect approaches, including being as \"nice\" as possible during the process to avoid negative reactions.</p>\n\n<p>My answer reflects my personal and professional values and also my work history (many decades in high tech industry). I'm not naive about power or politics in university departments or research labs.</p>\n\n<p>I believe that it's very valuable and proper for less powerful people to stand up to people in power on issues such as morality, ethics, and even suggestions on fixing problems in the organization (e.g. workload imbalance). 'Standing up\" helps the organization as a whole and can be part of a culture change in the organization.</p>\n\n<p>Any professional relationship like this merits a one hour face-to-face meeting if the meeting is about improving the working relationship. Just because the topic might be uncomfortable to one or both doesn't change that. (Such a meeting need not be a \"trial\" or \"attack\" as some people have described it.)</p>\n\n<p>One problem I have with indirect/subtle approaches in this setting is that they do not adequately empower OP, implying that she needs to be deferential to her adviser in this matter. I believe that, in the matter of relationship integrity, no one has to be deferential to anyone else. We all have the right (and duty) to stand up for ourselves.</p>\n\n<p>Last, <em>I don't assume that the adviser is a harasser or that he is doing anything that he considers inappropriate</em>. It all may be very innocent and even well-intentioned on his part. If he is well-intentioned, then he'll probably receive these direct communications positively, shift his behavior, and all will be well. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28649,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>On top of @MrMeritology's answer and its comments, I suggest you to draft a plan B just in case nothing gets better after the meeting. Since he's powerful connections, a formal complaint will just land you in a more difficult spot. Such a complaint may not make him to feel sorry about what he's done. Instead, he may desert you afterwards and leave you with no academic career and with no job.</p>\n\n<h2>Plan B: Get Out of the lab</h2>\n\n<p>If you choose to work at the same university, you may consider switching fields <em>and</em> advisor altogether. (I know it's almost impossible, but it's worth considering.)</p>\n\n<p>If your field of study can lead you to a non-academic career in the same city, make some meaningful connections. The people you know may be happy to help you to land a job in the industry. The jobs in the industry may not be related directly to your academic studies or research work, but some transferable skills may not highly desirable in the industry.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28656,
"author": "inckka",
"author_id": 21964,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21964",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>All the answers are fine. However all of them are related to the answerer’s personality and I assume the questioner can't replicate that exact personalities or some answers suggest to do something that the questioner doesn't want to perform like, skipping, changing field or research.</p>\n\n<p>From my point of view, this question is a common among most employed women. However as per my experience, if you take any step to get confront the advisor by discussing about this problem directory would make him mad. Also even if you follow the professional protocol to follow this issue, the situation would cost even your career as you said. However the end result is based on person to person.</p>\n\n<p>There could be lot of ways to solve this. \nHowever in here I'm suggesting an one method to <strong>neutrally stabilize</strong> the situation. however this method is framed with some criteria. </p>\n\n<p>Tips to neutrally stabilize the situation: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>What if an annoying car seller tries to sell a car and calls you all the day? Without complain to any law authorities or whatever, the easiest thing that you could do is to show him what you currently own and you don't prefer a new one.</p></li>\n<li><p>If you got a partner or just a boy friend, this can be solved very easily. Or if you are currently not up to any relationship just ask some help from a close male friend. (For now lets call this guy as your partner)</p></li>\n<li><p>Safest play would be to show up some basic personal stuff over your social media, FB, instagram in very neutral manner. Like the dinner's you both gone out, etc.</p></li>\n<li><p>Or ask your partner to take a visit at university, or you could introduce him to the advisor.</p></li>\n<li><p>When the advisor is around, Ask your partner to pick-up you after work. </p></li>\n<li><p>Also if you could show up a photo of your partner's or of your both on your working desk, noticeable wallet or on pendant would be another good idea.</p></li>\n<li><p>When the advisor is talking about non-work related personal stuff, you could respond to those topics like , \"as my boy friend says like this, like that\"\nHe will indirectly know that you value your personal stuff.</p></li>\n<li><p>Let him know that you are not your own and there are people around you to support, protect.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>My suggestion is to continue work with him as usual and eventually you could indirectly let him know that if he's up to a such a relationship, that you are not available and you are occupied. </p>\n\n<p>Also he will eventually know that he doesn't have any chance and retreat without any hate. However this depends on the person's personality.\nExpect the good side.</p>\n\n<p>Good Luck!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28657,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't know if a meeting at which you \"set the agenda\" would be particularly helpful at this stage. It might make him feel \"attacked\", put him on the defensive, and he may retaliate against you in response. (I'm not suggesting that he would try to get you kicked out of the university or the department; there are many, many other small and large ways an advisor can make things difficult for a student. You already suggested that when he's mad at you, he deliberately ignores you emails, for example.)</p>\n\n<p>I strongly disagree with the advice to flaunt a (real or fake) relationship, to let your advisor know you're unavailable. I've seen people try this, and in my experience, when applied to someone who does not respect boundaries, the outcome is often that then he starts asking you a whole lot of very uncomfortable questions about your boyfriend and the relationship. </p>\n\n<p>Also, he's probably doing this because he enjoys it (flirting, the chase, whatever), not because he wants an actual committed relationship. So I'm not convinced that he would be dissuaded by your unavailability.</p>\n\n<p>Instead, I suggest you start using a variation on the following phrase to respond when he does something that makes you uncomfortable:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I don't want this. This makes me really uncomfortable.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As in, </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I don't want you to take my photo. Please don't ask again, it makes me really uncomfortable.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>or</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I don't want to talk about my personal life with you. It makes me really uncomfortable.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>etc.</p>\n\n<p>And, if he persists in whatever is making you uncomfortable,</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I need to go (get a cup of coffee/make a phone call/talk to another student before he leaves for the day/make some photocopies/etc.)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>then remove yourself from the situation.</p>\n\n<p>I recommend practicing saying these words on your own, until they feel natural. This will help you feel less flustered when a situation comes up.</p>\n\n<p>I also concur with StrongBad's suggestion:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I would suggest the OP writes down every time she tells the advisor he made her feel uncomfortable. She should also keep track of times he makes her feel uncomfortable in which she was uncomfortable telling him he made her feel uncomfortable. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>and I would add, also make a note of who else (if anyone) was there at the time.</p>\n\n<p>This will help in two ways:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>You'll be able to tell if the situation is getting better or worse with time.</li>\n<li>If you do need to escalate at some point, you'll have some documentation.</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28658,
"author": "Tara B",
"author_id": 5955,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5955",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Whatever you do, please ignore the advice given by some people here to demonstrate your 'unavailability' to your advisor by talking about having a boyfriend, or having your boyfriend or some male friend come and pick you up from work.</p>\n\n<p>You don't need any 'excuse' to be uninterested in having anything more than a professional relationship with your advisor, and to imply that the main reason you are uninterested is because you have a boyfriend might suggest that you would be open to the idea of a romantic relationship with him if you were 'available'.</p>\n\n<p>On the whole, I agree with most of ff524's answer, although I personally would be very uncomfortable with telling someone that they were making me feel uncomfortable, so I would be unlikely to use the suggested phrase. What I would do is simply say 'No' to requests such as taking a photo of you. You don't need to give any justification for denying an odd request.</p>\n\n<p>You may need to address the issue directly with your advisor, just because it's going to keep making you feel uncomfortable, and most likely have a negative effect on your working relationship. I don't know the best way to go about this, but your university probably has some kind of counselling service that could help.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28662,
"author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX",
"author_id": 725,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'd like to add a few varied points, and I assume that although not explicitly stated in the answer, the OP gave the usual more-and-less subtle hints but they did not work. </p>\n\n<p>The basic idea is to first arrive at a point that allows a calm decision how to go on, and that also allows you to get in the emotional/mental state of freedom that allows you to tackle the problem e.g. by the meeting @MrMeritology suggests. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>One very practical step that may help to avoid/reduce the stressful situations: Can you move into another office where more people work (or have some fellow student move into your office) and thus basically limit the possibilities for him to catch you alone?<br>\nOn the one hand, others already suggested that this would mean witnesses. On the other hand, it may make him behave. </p></li>\n<li><p>I fully agree with the say lots of plain \"no\"s advise by @ff24. I'd go for the shortest and plainest \"No\" And guess follow up questions (\"Why?\") would best be answered by \"That's none of your business.\" - possibly re-enforcing \"The answer is no, and that has to be enough\".<br>\nI think super-clear boundaries are required here. </p></li>\n<li><p>Maybe you can excercise/train these situations with some friends?</p></li>\n<li><p>Somehow I think it likely that the problem cannot be solved with less drastic measures than the meeting (+ paper/electronic trail) MrMeritology suggests. I guess it would be good to prepare yourseld emotionally for that. </p></li>\n<li><p>You state that for personal reasons you cannot move away. However, there may be other points where you can gain independence in the sense that you are less vulnerable to the attacks you fear, and more on equal terms for the totally sensible demand you have. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>E.g., if you are financially dependent on a work contract in his lab, it may be good to put together some savings that will make you independent (in that they'd allow you to bridge the time till you find something else to earn your living) either have a second job, or speak with your family about support in case of need, or do some superhard saving, or have someone trustworthy who'd give you a job immediately in case of need.</li>\n<li>Get yourself connected with colleagues (from your as well as from other groups).\n<ul>\n<li>Is the PhD student who spoke about him spending too much time with you trustworthy so you can talk to him about the problems? - this may be a valuable ally. </li>\n<li>Colleagues who <em>know</em> you (e.g. know that you are not starting rumours to discredit the supervisor without any base for that but that instead you are harrassed) are most valuable: in the example, they are your best insurance against him starting rumours about you. </li>\n<li>Also they can help you with the emotional stress you're subject to. </li>\n<li>Knowing the local conditions, they may come up with solutions/help we cannot think of.</li>\n<li>And last but not least, being connected with other groups may also open other plan Bs, i.e. changing your research area in case you arrive at the conclusion that the situation is emotionally/personally unbearable and changing to another topic is the lesser evil (I'd actually suggest that there may be other interesting research topics). </li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Get emotionally as independent as possible. Maybe family/friends can help you to get there. If you are religiously affiliated, such help may also be available as pastoral/spiritual care (obviously depending on denomination and personal relationship), or you can look for a professional coach.<br>\nThis is not a nice-to-have, but a basic requirement for the actions suggested: you'll need it to say NO, for the meeting, it is what allows your self-esteem to survive in the future if you decide to leave the lab, but also if you decide to stay. </li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28672,
"author": "UmNyobe",
"author_id": 12196,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12196",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am not convinced that he wants a romantic relationship with you. Rather he is boosting his ego by flirting with you and actually enjoys flirting with you. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Your response need to be adequate to the situation. You should respond to amateurism by professionalism</strong> </p>\n\n<p>I think calling a general meeting of an hour to set things straight can backfire, because it will sound like a trial to almost anybody. And in a trial, the defendant defends itself.</p>\n\n<p>Rather, you need to cool him down over an extended period of time. Try not to over-think. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>He comes to my room very often with no research-related reason and\n wants to talk, talk, talk about everything but work.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Delay.</strong> You are in the middle of something important, and he needs to know that. Just tell him that you need to round up with what you are currently doing and that you are willing to go full gossip at the coffee break. </li>\n<li><strong>Set boundaries.</strong> You haven't said what he is talking about. It is mostly about you? Then when it cross boundary you just say it is personal. Don't break under any \"Oh come on\" pressure tactic. </li>\n<li><strong>Be a good listener.</strong> It may surprise you, but you also have the power to direct the <strong>conversation</strong> to a subject of your liking. By listening well to what he said you can go deeper in a harmless topic, one which doesn't make you feel uncomfortable. </li>\n<li><strong>Stop the break when your mug is empty, excuse yourself and go back to work</strong>. It is important that all this chitchat happens far from your desk. Desk = work, coffee machine = small talk of at most x minutes. </li>\n<li><strong>Invite other staff to the break talk</strong>. Don't do it systematically, but sometimes drop by someone's else desk and invite him\\her too. It will obviously annoy the shit out of your advisor. Note: At least this works for me. That's where he will show his true color. Either he will invite you offsite, an invite that you can decline, or tell you not to invite other people. That's all you need to hit the ethic institution at your university. </li>\n</ol>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Once, when I was busy working, he came to my room and asked if he\n could take a photo of me. I felt ashamed and did know that to say and\n finally, he took the photo.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I am sure the first thing which came to your mind was \"Why?\". You should probably tell what's in your mind. </p>\n\n<p><code>Why do you need a photo? It is for the lab website, or a publication? Can we do that at the break or later? Thanks</code></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Sometimes I think he is mad at me that I want to keep this\n relationship work-only, and then does not answer my emails about our\n research.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Again we don't have much information about the context. But I will advise you to read <a href=\"http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0671027034\" rel=\"noreferrer\">How To Win Friends And Influence People</a>. Don't get turned off by the title. It is not a guide to become a manipulative asshole. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Remember that there is politics at the lab and the office. The other lab members are gradually building resentment towards you for your \"preferential treatment\". You need to take this in account as well</strong>. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28673,
"author": "Jim Conant",
"author_id": 9464,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9464",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Asking to take your photo is truly creepy. I would consider talking to the person or office at your university responsible for sexual harassment charges. Typically universities have a very clear process for dealing with such situations, and it may be that he has done this before. You can discuss with their office how to proceed. They might have some good ideas, and they typically won't act in a way that you are uncomfortable with, if you are worried about repercussions.</p>\n\n<p>Also, I wanted to echo other people's discomfort with the \"call a meeting\" proposal. This strikes me as incredibly risky. I think it's better to get the appropriate office on your side. </p>\n\n<p><em>Edit:</em> A couple more ideas: \n1) invite someone from HR to give a presentation on workplace ethics (including sexual harassment) to the lab. [Somewhat risky as it might embarrass him in front of the rest of the lab. Perhaps it can be arranged for it to seem like coincidence, not having been arranged by you.]\n2) if there a campus pamphlet about this issue, you could leave it in his mailbox, perhaps with appropriate passages highlighted. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28700,
"author": "Concerned_Citizen",
"author_id": 21995,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21995",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, if this advisor has any stalker-like tendencies (insufficient information here to determine that conclusively, but my hackles have been raised by several things in the original question), bringing up another romantic relationship, real or ruse, will NOT make this person leave you alone and resume a more professional relationship. I know this goes against all the tropes of feminist empowerment, but you need to be prepared to lose this job and your \"career\" in order to protect your personal safety. No career is worth sacrificing that. Only the young and foolish live with such absolutes in their mind that their career will be permanently destroyed by one individual within an academic ivory tower or cloistered business community. Those who are hardworking and talented can generally find a new path to success. I know this from personal experience.</p>\n\n<p>With that said, I agree that you need to clear the air in a manner like MrMeritology and Tara B have suggested: openly discuss the matter in a non-threatening but direct manner, and meet any further incursions beyond the boundaries of your comfort zone with firm, unambiguous answers of \"No\". I also believe ANY discussion of this matter with the advisor needs to be documented, and not just via written memos. If this person is merely socially inept or a garden-variety amateur stalker, a paper trail may be enough to damn him if he should mount a personal attack, as such people aren't often very good liars. If he is vindictive/manipulative in his daily dealings with people, you may be dealing with a person with sociopathic tendencies, and they are usually VERY convincing liars. I recommend the use of recording media, audio and/or video. People can play off the written word as being exaggerated, misinterpreted, or lacking context, but recordings which include inflection and tone (audio) and/or body language (video) are much harder to shrug off. I know that some may raise concerns about privacy and wiretapping laws, but unless you need to escalate and share such recordings with the appropriate authority, such concerns are trivial, in my opinion.</p>\n\n<p>As I have gathered from the question, the advisor only engages in this behavior when he is alone with you, so no witnesses and we are left with a he said/she said situation. In such situations, a recording device becomes as close to an objective witness as you can get. If you take the route of recording the uncomfortable encounters or meetings to discuss this issue, make sure to get as clean a recording as possible, never share with this person that you have made or are making such recordings (though please keep a close friend or family member in the loop about this situation), and ONLY use such recordings with the AUTHORITIES (Academic, Civil, Criminal) as a last resort, to ensure your personal safety and to protect yourself from liability should he try to retaliate.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, I cannot overemphasize enough: if any tactic you take does not work after a few weeks/months, you need to reexamine the importance of this particular career path versus your personal emotional well-being and safety and determine which is more important. That may not be what you want to hear, and I hope I am over-reacting to the situation, but what you are describing has a fifty-fifty chance of being more than a harmless flirtation by a socially-inept academic. The only way to figure that one out is to take the bull by the horns and politely confront the advisor and his behavior, as has been suggested by others.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28745,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think there are five possible ways of dealing with this situation. I think each has been addressed in separate answers, but no answer contrasts between the different approaches. It seems you could (1) contact the person or department responsible for dealing with claims of sexual harassment, (2) have a conversation with the supervisor about his past behaviour, (3) mention to the supervisor whenever he makes you feel uncomfortable in the future, (4) change your behaviour in a way that makes him harass you less, (5) ignore it.</p>\n\n<p><em>1. Contact the person or department responsible for dealing with claims of sexual harassment</em></p>\n\n<p>While I think this is the best way to deal with sexual harassment, it puts considerable burden on the victim and puts the victim at further risk of harassment and retribution. The reason I think this is the best way to deal with harassment, is that if the university does not know about the harassment, they cannot change anything. The more harassment cases the university has to deal with, the more likely they will require supervisors to behave properly and provide support mechanisms to victims. The problem with this approach is universities tend to try and protect themselves and not their employees and students. If you do not have any documentation or evidence of the harassment it becomes a case of he-said/she-said and the university may initially ignore your claims and force you to sue the university.</p>\n\n<p><em>2. Have a conversation with the supervisor about his past behaviour</em></p>\n\n<p>I see no advantage of this course of action, despite the answer being highly voted. It is in essence alerting the supervisor to his behaviour and drawing a \"line in the sand\". If he doesn't change his behaviour, then you have to escalate to reporting him to his superiors. If he cross the line and you do not report him, and as I mentioned reporting him puts you at risk, he will have effectively called your bluff and may feel even more empowered to harass you. The best case scenario for this approach is that he didn't realize you felt harassed and the conversation makes him change his behaviour. I think this, however, can be achieved with approach 3.</p>\n\n<p><em>3. Mention to the supervisor whenever he makes you feel uncomfortable in the future</em></p>\n\n<p>By telling the supervisor whenever he makes you feel harassed/uncomfortable that his behaviour is inappropriate, this alerts him to change his behaviour. I would suggest to also email him afterwards to make it clear that you are documenting his behaviour. If he is unaware that his behaviour is unacceptable, then you will have accomplished the same thing as approach 2. If he continues to misbehave, you will be collecting evidence for if/when you decide to take approach 1. Most importantly, by not drawing the line in the sand, it will never appear that you are backing down.</p>\n\n<p><em>4. Change your behaviour in a way that makes him harass you less</em></p>\n\n<p>I don't particularly like this approach as it puts all the burden on the victim. If he is harassing you because of the clothes you wear, the company you keep, or your beliefs, changing them may make him stop harassing you. While this is the most non-confrontational approach, and puts you at the least risk of retaliation, it requires the an unreasonable sacrifice by the victim. If you are willing to make that sacrifice, the approach can work.</p>\n\n<p><em>5. Ignore it</em></p>\n\n<p>This again is a solution, but requires the victim to make an unreasonable sacrifice.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28815,
"author": "Ellen Spertus",
"author_id": 269,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think a lot of advice that people are giving is unwise. While I am sure they wish to be helpful, I am not sure they are qualified. I have been active in the women in technology community for 25 years, which does not give me all of the answers but does make me more aware of what can go wrong than some of the other respondents may be.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>You need a support group of women in your field. In computer\nscience, there is a great email list, Systers, whose members\nfrequently solicit and give advice <em>based on experience, not just\ntheories</em>. Find something like this in your field. Ask someone to\npost anonymously for you, since it would be unwise to let your\nidentity be known.</li>\n<li>Second, as others have said, document everything.</li>\n<li>Find out if your school has an ombudsperson, graduate women advisor, equal opportunity officer, or the Australian equivalent. (I'm American.) Such people can often give useful advice.</li>\n<li><p>Try to build ties with other graduate students and faculty in your department. You may need allies. The other faculty will know your advisor's history and how best to deal with him. Tenured faculty will be more able to help than untenured or adjunct faculty. While female faculty are your natural allies, don't overlook male faculty, especially ones with large numbers of female students who have not had problems with him.</p></li>\n<li><p>I do not recommend confrontation. Backing someone into a corner is dangerous; allowing someone to save face is safer. I think it's fine to ask why if he asks to take your photograph, but I wouldn't sit him down and demand that he stop treating you inappropriately. Prepare remarks that you can say if needed, such as:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\"I'd prefer that the office door be open.\" (If asked why, say because you'd feel more comfortable.)</li>\n<li>\"The women's center advises female students not to socialize with their advisor without other students present, since someone might get the wrong idea.\"</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28948,
"author": "msouth",
"author_id": 12746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12746",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I really think @espertus 's answer should be the top voted. In addition to what she says, I would say this:</p>\n\n<p>Consult with a lawyer (at least an initial consultation). I'm not sure I would trust whatever your institution provides to you as a student (free onsite legal counsel or whatever), because they might be under pressure to encourage people to not make waves (although that question might be worth researching in parallel).</p>\n\n<p>Research law firms in your area. See if there are any that have particular expertise or experience in academia. Don't think about the price--you're just going to ask them if they will give you a free consultation to find out whether you need representation and what you should be doing in case you do.</p>\n\n<p>Find out:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>What specific behavior crosses a legal line </li>\n<li>What kind of\ndocumentation constitutes legal proof of those lines having been\ncrossed.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Perhaps you could find out similar things about the university's ethics code without making a formal complaint. Just ask what behavior, exactly, crosses the line, and what documentation is required to prove that this behavior has taken place. You can say you \"know someone\" who is in a difficult situation and scared of retaliation (you don't have to tell them that you are the person).</p>\n\n<p>You do not have to initiate legal proceedings or lodge a formal complaint or anything--I just think you need to, as soon as possible, start collecting the kind of documentation that a lawyer has told you will carry weight in court, <strong>just in case it ever comes to that</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>I am guessing from this discussion that you are an attractive, intelligent woman in a technical field. That is going to generate (sometimes intense) interest in you from many men in your field. I'm not saying this as anything other than an observed fact--a reality that you need to be aware of. These men are going to be all over the spectrum--really a two dimensional \"spectrum\", where you have an axis of social awkwardness where people sincerely don't know that what they are doing constitutes an inappropriate advance (yes, some of us really are that clueless), and an axis of just plain evil where there are some people that deliberately use their positions of power to take advantage of people.</p>\n\n<p>In addition to the fact that people will be attracted to you, some will be threatened by you because you're a woman with rival superpowers that they associate with their manhood (pathetically sad, I know, but true). Some will be neither attracted nor threatened themselves, but jealous of the attention paid to you by those who are attracted.</p>\n\n<p>Subject to consulting with a network of women (I'm referring again to espertus ' <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28631/how-to-deal-with-an-advisor-who-wants-a-friendlier-relationship-with-me-than-i/28815#28815\">advice</a>) to see if anything I suggest below makes sense or matches their experience, it seems to me that you need to make sure that you recognize a few facts:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Your working relationship has already been damaged. It's not that you're worried you might damage the relationship. Your advisor's actions have damaged it. You are looking to mitigate that damage. It is not possible to avoid it. The reason I'm saying this is that you might be afraid to take any action lest you \"break something\". I don't think you will make good decisions if you have \"fear of messing up the relationship\" topmost in your mind. You <em>have</em> a messed up relationship now, you are trying to salvage what you can of it without making it worse.</li>\n<li>You need to be your own best defender and advocate. You are in school to learn. It is unfortunate that you are also having to learn this. But you are likely to need it in situations after school (again, check with knowledgeable tech women before believing me, but I believe women in tech widely experience this). Right now, start learning how you intelligently defend yourself in apparently impossible situations where someone else has all the power. Note how espertus balances the fact that you have an absolute right not to be victimized with the fact that anything you do that looks like an attack to your advisor could be dangerous to you. That does highlight how difficult your situation is, but if this were an easy situation, you'd already have figured it out. </li>\n<li>Because of point 1 and some of point 2, you need to manage your own expectations. You are probably not going to find a magical solution that simply lets you get everything you should be able to (professionally given academic guidance) from your advisor and nothing you shouldn't (unwanted advances). Quit even thinking about there being a perfect way out and figure out what makes the most sense for you in your situation.</li>\n<li><p>Even though it is not your fault, and you should not be the one that has to change your behavior to accommodate his bad behavior, I think you have to look at ways to manipulate space and time in such a way that your advisor simply has fewer opportunities to do the bad things he is doing. Change either the hours that you are there or the place where you work. This is not optimal, but the combination of his position of power and bad actions have created a sub optimal situation that you need some kind of practical response to. Consider whether there might be a way to arrange your schedule or workspace to make it really hard for him to \"casually drop by\".</p></li>\n<li><p>Lastly, I'm really, really hesitant to suggest this, but it seems possible to me that your co-advisees, <em>if you know they can be trusted</em>, could be natural allies. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>A while ago I heard that his PhD student suggested to him that he\n spends too much time with me. He laughed and said it's not his\n business, and that we are working hard on some novel research method.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Do you know this student? Were they possibly trying to helpfully intervene on your behalf or were they jealous of the time?</p>\n\n<p>Although you are natural competitors for your advisor's time, you are also natural allies in that it's best for all of you if the advisor is as professional as possible.</p>\n\n<p>Are you working on similar enough things that it would make sense for you to have a study group of some sort with the other advisees? I'm guessing that it's an every-man-for-himself-trying-to-outshine-the-others kind of environment, but if it's not, developing a closer working relationship with them might give you allies in this other battle. And, unlike the \"get a fake boyfriend\" suggestion, having a good relationship with these people actually makes real sense since they are in your field and people you could gain advantage from being able to network with later.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I wish I had better suggestions. Possibly if you look for solutions that emphasize only the things you both agree on. You both want your academic work to be successful. So, if you need to make excuses not to spend time in pointless (to you) chit-chat, make every excuse be about your work. \"I don't want to be rude [note: this is true! It would be so much easier if he wasn't making you do this], but I need to get back to working on the miniaturized earthworm defibrillator test results [also true! You do need to get to work on those! And, theoretically, something he agrees you should be doing.].\"</p>\n\n<p>Another strategy in the same vein--if he is forcing you to have conversations, you work to force the conversation back to work. He has decided he is going to be in your space. You decide that you are going to use that to your advantage by picking his brains about your project. Have a list of questions ready at all times, on your phone or in your desk or on a whiteboard. \"That reminds me, I wanted to ask you about X.\"</p>\n\n<p>Maybe time tracking software could be of use. There is stuff out there that lets you click something saying you're working on task 1, then if you switch to task 2, you select that task and it starts tracking your time as applying to that (people like lawyers or freelancers will use these to know who to bill for what amount of time when they have multiple projects going). Have actual tasks that apply to your project, and an array of non-project stuff: \"at gym\", \"eating\", \"water cooler talk\". Don't even mention it, just start tracking all your time like that and looking at the results. Once you have a good body of data from a couple of weeks, you can set goals of reducing your \"water cooler talk\" time--strictly because you want to increase your productivity--and then use that as a way to say you need to get back to work or you will miss your target [again--a real target, that is really about your project. No pretense to maintain, simply an effort to get more work done].</p>\n\n<p>Let me re-emphasize the fact that you should not have to do this. I am not suggesting that bad things are happening because you aren't being assertive enough. It is not your fault that he is making you come up with these strategies. But I think it will be best for you, in both the short term as as a precedent that you set for yourself for the future, that you always assert whatever control you can, even when the power structure in a relationship is highly asymmetrical.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 40945,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 31196,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31196",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is a terrible situation. </p>\n\n<p>My first suggestion is change your supervisor. You don't need to explain why. Find someone in the department whose research is interesting to you (yes, it might not be as interesting as what you work in right now but I am sure there is something that is interesting). Start attending their group meetings. I don't think it worths the mental energy to sustain a long term professional relationship with your current advisor.</p>\n\n<p>My second suggestion would be to find a senior female faculty member in your department that you can trust and discuss the problem with her.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 40952,
"author": "Yasha",
"author_id": 28181,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28181",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Firstly, I want to say how sorry I am that you're dealing with this. This behavior is absolutely inappropriate, and it's hard for me to believe that your adviser doesn't already know that he's crossing the lines.</p>\n\n<p>There's plenty of advice here about whether you should take a formal or informal approach, and I'm not really going to weigh in on that. Instead, before you do anything, what I <em>would</em> do is check to see whether your university has an official Ombudsman's Office. This should be an office whose sole purpose is to advocate for the rights of students and workers and to investigate complaints.</p>\n\n<p>I think it's worth discussing, confidentially, with someone in that office before you make any attempts to discuss this with the professor. Tell them your situation, and ask for their advice. That way, you've got a clear record of engagement with the school if things really do hit the fan.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 60289,
"author": "Captain Emacs",
"author_id": 45857,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45857",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My condolences for a very unpleasant and difficult situation. A few extra hints that may add to what has been already said and they are comparatively low risk.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>body language, attitude and physical interactions matter. Their effect may even be more powerful than any words that would be exchanged. So, for instance, if someone gets too friendly, position chairs and tables in a way that makes it difficult for him to come too close. Sometimes, if people are (perhaps culturally, but also for other reasons) coming too close for comfort, there is a way of jutting out the leg in an oblique fashion to generate some distance (you have to practice that so it doesn't look like an invitation). There are implied rules of entering someone else's space, and if we create an additional cost (in terms of cognitive steps) to invade this space, it creates a subliminal discouragement to do so.</p></li>\n<li><p>Interact blandly and boringly. Some women may have an extraordinarily radiating aura that many men cannot withstand - I have known women like that, and they kept complaining about inappropriate advances by men which I am fully convinced were not invited by them (i.e. were not frivolously provoked); in one of the cases, I also happened to know one of the guys who complained about her and how she would toy with men (which was patently untrue - it was a fundamental misunderstanding on the side of the guy). If you would work in show business, you would, of course, capitalise on such a charisma. But, alas, you are a scientist, so it doesn't do you any good. But since that means that it is not your capital, either, you can play yourself down, be boring, wear boring clothes, forgo any adornment. Keep these for your free time. Note that I am not implying at all that you are inappropriately dressed or behave inappropriately, but by being deliberately uninteresting and bland you may counteract your over-effective charisma (if that is behind it).</p></li>\n<li><p>In company with your supervisor, discuss and talk without enthusiasm, just blandly and neutrally, but competently (after all, you want to keep your scientific reputation).</p></li>\n<li><p>When you are asked to be photographed, you can request that you do not wish your photo to be taken, because in today's time there is no way to control where the photo circulates. You may make the point that you do not furthermore wish to add another datapoint to existing face recognition algorithms (assuming you do not have a spate of photos on Facebook or elsewhere already). Or else, you say that you do not like yourself on photographs and do not like photos to be taken from you except for special family functions (or whatever plausible exception holds for you).</p></li>\n<li><p>Note that in the supervisor, there are many aspects that may play a role in parallel - the feeling of superiority, but also the belief that he may ultimately win you over against your resistance; unfortunately, it is not infrequent that man-women interactions operate exactly like that and for many men genuine disinterest/reluctance is not easily discernible from a purely tactical hold-off. Since any open declaration of disinterest from your side in the present case will force his hand and may put him into the corner (which is the reason that you should also follow the earlier advice on building alliances), turning yourself from a desirable to a bland personality with an unattractive appearance (only outwardly and temporarily, until you are through) may make him lose interest which is more effective and less damaging than trying to actively hold him off. I know cases where this has worked. If he should remark why you do not wear nice clothes anymore etc. you just say that in your current phase you have far too much to do to care about them. </p></li>\n<li><p>Will adapting your personality ruin your quality of life? Yes, it will, but only temporarily and, given the constraints you have, it might give you a reasonable chance of getting through it with limited damage without compromising too much on the other constraints of yours. You need, for this, to be prepared for a long-haul, as this routine will take time to establish.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/17
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28631",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21946/"
] |
28,633 |
<p>My English is not perfect, moreover I am not familiar with the exact phrases for a topic of research or a technical term in the literature</p>
<p>I have some ideas or projects done, if I knew the exact word for the topic to which my idea belongs I could search better and find more appropriate resources and write better papers</p>
<p>For example suppose I have done an image processing projects which detects damages of an equipment in a manufacture, I thought its belong to the fault detection area but then I found the <strong>fault detection</strong> could be something more general or a different area ..... and <strong>defect detection</strong> is more close to the topic</p>
<p>As you see I need a website where I can mention what I have done or what is my idea and get the research area where I can find the proper resources</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28639,
"author": "Alex Mitrevski",
"author_id": 21951,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21951",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't think you can find a place where someone will tell you what you need to search for, i.e. you have to know what you want to find in order to find it. If you are not familiar with the terminology of your field, I suggest reading a couple of standard textbooks; while reading them, you will encounter most of the terms that are relevant to the field.</p>\n\n<p>You should also keep in mind that many fields (fault detection being one of them) are quite broad, so you usually have to spend some time refining your search keywords in order to find what you are looking for.</p>\n\n<p>Anyway, the bottom line is that you have to master the terminology before reading and writing papers.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28641,
"author": "mhwombat",
"author_id": 10529,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10529",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>As Aleksandar says, you do need to learn the terminology in order to search effectively for articles. And in fact, you'll need to know the terminology in order to <em>understand</em> those articles. When I'm exploring a new subject area, I don't start with the journal articles; I start with books, web tutorials, etc., to get the basics.</p>\n\n<p>For learning the terminology, I also suggest reading the relevant articles in Wikipedia or Scholarpedia. They will also have links to journal articles; get hold of <em>those</em> articles and see what keywords they use. Anytime you find a useful article, note the keywords, and what journal it's in. This will help you find other useful articles, and places where you might submit your own articles in future.</p>\n\n<p>Also, your college librarian may be able to help you figure out some of the keywords to use. They usually know a little about a wide variety of topics, at least enough to have some ideas of what search terms might be useful. If you set up an appointment, they may be able to spend some time with you, helping you find some sample articles and working with you to figure out a good search strategy.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/17
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28633",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21885/"
] |
28,640 |
<p>I recently reviewed a manuscript for a journal I didn't know very well, but which was indexed on Pubmed and Scopus and seemed to be legitimate. In my review, I recommended rejection based on what I considered to be substantial flaws in methodology, data analysis, and interpretation. In addition, I had ethical concerns about the manuscript, including suspicions of self-plagiarism and possible copyright infringement. It seemed that the authors had inappropriately reused text, data, and figures from an article that they had previously published in another journal. I detailed all of these concerns in my report to the editor. </p>
<p>After an automated response from the editor acknowledging receipt of my review, I heard nothing from the journal for 3-4 months. Out of curiosity, I looked online and was surprised to find that the manuscript was already in print! In fact, it had been published less than 2 months after I submitted my review, and the published version is essentially identical to the draft version I reviewed.</p>
<p>I have since made multiple attempts to contact the editor, but have received no response. To be clear, I certainly understand that the editorial team may not agree with my review, but I have been quite disappointed to have received no response to address the scientific and ethical issues I raised. If nothing else, in my experience (and I realize this may be a niche-specific expectation) an editor for any reputable journal will keep reviewers apprised of the editorial progress of manuscripts they have reviewed. </p>
<p>Some readers have asked whether this is an online open-access journal with article processing charges, but instead it is a subscription-based journal. Thus, the journal and publisher are not eligible for inclusion on Beall's List (scholarlyoa.com).</p>
<p>Are there any other steps I can or should take? Anyhow, if I continue to be ignored by the editor, I am considering sharing this information with the editorial board of the journal that published the original paper (the one that I think may have been self-plagiarized).</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28644,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There may not be much you can do about the scientific issues. A profoundly wrong paper should be retracted, and a correction should be issued for anything serious that's objectively wrong and correctable. However, the problems you've identified (poor methodology and interpretation) may not definitively fall into these categories, depending on what exactly you mean. There's no ethical reason why a journal can't have low standards or publish controversial papers. The primary risk is that their reputation will suffer if they publish foolish papers.</p>\n\n<p>It would indeed by unethical if they claim to be a peer-reviewed journal but aren't taking the review process seriously at all, and that sounds like what's going on here. However, it would be difficult to prove based on an outsider's view of one case. I imagine that if pressed, the editor would claim he/she evaluated the paper and your review and decided the paper was more credible. It would be hard to prove that there was an ethical problem, rather than just poor scientific judgment on the part of the editor.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, the allegations of copyright infringement and self-plagiarism are ethical issues that transcend journal standards or policies. That might be a good place to begin, and perhaps more will come out during the investigation.</p>\n\n<p>Here are some thoughts:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Your proposal to share this information with the editorial board of the previous journal sounds like a good idea. I'd contact the publisher directly as well as the editorial board.</p></li>\n<li><p>There may be an ethics committee in a relevant professional or learned society. They could conduct an impartial investigation, which might lead to public censure or a retraction.</p></li>\n<li><p>You could report these papers to the authors' funding agency, if any.</p></li>\n<li><p>You could report these papers to the authors' employers.</p></li>\n<li><p>You could publicize your experience on the web.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Among these possibilities, #1 and #2 seem most likely to make a difference regarding the journal, #3 and #4 might lead somewhere with the authors but wouldn't address the problematic nature of the journal, and #5 could be a valuable public service but is unlikely to change much by itself.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 185557,
"author": "Deipatrous",
"author_id": 119911,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/119911",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This happens. A lot. You can continue to try to do the right thing, but it may end up earning you a reputation as a trouble maker which may come back to bite you in the back side.</p>\n<p>I have said this before, and despite downvotes I will say it again: if an influential author gets rubbish published despite clear reviews pointing out the problems, you will often find that author and editor are beer buddies at "the conferences".</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/17
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28640",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21952/"
] |
28,646 |
<p>I have written a review article with a target journal in mind. The content focuses on a particular technique in biology, and in the paper I propose a data analysis approach to be used for future studies. To help explain the intuition behind the technique, I have produced some straight-forward simulated data, organized into a a handful of figures. The experimental results are not particularly novel, but they are most valuable to illustrate a point -- how different quantitative methods compare to each other.</p>
<p>How would you suggest I write a review that includes primary (but not novel) results, in the framework of a review? My current organization is an extended introduction > short methods > results > discussion and future perspectives. A trivial matter could be to move the methods to the end, but I wonder if having discrete results and discussion sections is appropriate.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 29696,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Does the journal dictate a specific format? Usually this is not the case for review papers, but sometime bio journals are very particular.</p>\n\n<p>If not, you could organize the paper along the natural lines of the flow of ideas, rather than trying to fit it onto a Procrustian bed of methods/results\nIntroduction --> Review of Technique ---> Explanation of Need for Analysis Problem --> Proposal of New Analysis Method --> Verification on Simulated Data --> Discussions and Future</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 51670,
"author": "amw",
"author_id": 38691,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38691",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have seen examples of the type of paper you're writing, but it's not a very common format. Most likely, the journal is going to dictate what you need to do. That said, my decision in this situation would depend on how much your simulated data contribute to the overall manuscript. </p>\n\n<p>For instance, if your example is included solely as a sort of cartoon illustration, then very little or no explanation of how it was generated would be necessary. This does not seem to be the case with your example though.</p>\n\n<p>An alternative approach would be to give a bare minimum description of how the data were generated in the same paragraph where you describe or expound on the theoretical point you're illustrating. Whether or not this makes for a clunky paragraph depends mostly on how much information you think you need to convey.</p>\n\n<p>One final thought: if the simulated data are enough to develop into a separate methods manuscript, you might want to go that route, and leave your review article a standard synthesis of previous work. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/18
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28646",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
28,665 |
<p>As a graduate student, I am relatively new to my community. From my point of view, the best approach to get to know new people is randomly walking around and start conversations (with anyone, no matter what age or known/unknown). But is that appropriate at academic conferences? How do established researchers think about that? </p>
<p>I am asking because in my previous conference visits, I often felt that people are annoyed or not interested when I just walked up and started a conversation. What would be better approaches for getting to know the community?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28666,
"author": "Piotr Migdal",
"author_id": 49,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, it is appropriate to walk to random people at a conference.\n(At least I do it often; all in all, conferences are to learn new people / network in the same field.)</p>\n\n<p>Of course, you cannot expect everyone wanting to talk with you: there are personal preferences, some people are waiting to discuss with someone else (or just want to rest from talking :)), some want to \"climb\" and are more interested in talking with superiors, sometimes the conversations do not \"clicks\" for them.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28667,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In general, this is perfectly appropriate behavior at a conference.</p>\n\n<p>However, people differ. Not everybody wants to small-talk with people they do not know. Some people see no \"value\" in talking to younger students (clearly, this is a short-sighted view). As such, you should not take it personally if somebody does not want to talk to you. Maybe it is in fact them, and not you.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, it also depends a bit on (a) what the person you are chatting up is currently doing, and (b) what you actually say after starting to talk. Most people will be annoyed when you interrupt them while doing something else. Also, clearly, most people will have little interest in talking to you when what you say isn't very interesting.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28668,
"author": "postdoc4J7",
"author_id": 21952,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21952",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If the conference is quite small, then accosting random strangers is probably appropriate. For larger conferences, I'd recommend a more targeted approach: have a specific question or reason why you're interested in talking with this person.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28679,
"author": "Kate Gregory",
"author_id": 12693,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12693",
"pm_score": 8,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Absolutely. It helps, though, to be a little context sensitive. </p>\n\n<p>If you've just come from an amazing presentation and want to talk about it to someone else, then \"did you just hear that great talk by/about X?\" is a good way to start the conversation, better than just \"Hello\" or \"Great conference, eh?\"</p>\n\n<p>If you know who the person is (they're speaking, you recognize them, etc), then greeting them (\"Hi Kate,\" or \"good morning, Dr. Gregory,\" according to your industry norms) and introducing yourself with context (\"I'm Susan, I really enjoyed your book\") is a fine first sentence but please, <em>have a second sentence ready.</em> After the person says \"thankyou, that's very kind,\" what will happen next? A question is good here - perhaps there's something you've always wanted to ask - or you could go back to your opener for a complete stranger, \"did you just hear that great talk by/about X?\" </p>\n\n<p>Never open with something negative - \"were you in that stinker of a session? Wasn't it the most boring thing ever?\" - is right up there with the friend of mine who asked someone at a wedding \"who is that obnoxious fat woman in the flowered dress and why is she even here?\" only to be told \"that's my mother.\" </p>\n\n<p>My biggest problem with conference conversations is when someone wants to have a conversation with me but doesn't actually have anything to say. That puts all the conversational effort on me and it's hard work. Should you find yourself in this situation, have a selection of questions you can ask:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>is this your first time at [this conference]? (don't ask an industry luminary, or a speaker, this question)</li>\n<li>are you enjoying the conference so far?</li>\n<li>what is your favourite talk so far? (not good the morning of Day 1)</li>\n<li>is there a particular session you're really looking forward to?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It's a little trickier to ask questions outside the scope of the conference, like \"where are you from\" or \"where do you work?\" because they often contain assumptions - you might assume someone is a student who has graduated, or is a prof when they aren't yet, or is in a lab when they are not, and it's possible to offend someone. So don't lead off with these. Often, stating your own circumstances is a way to prompt the other person to respond in kind: \"I flew here from just outside Toronto. You?\" or \"I'm doing/finishing a Ph.D/postdoc/intership at ABC. You?\" though again be careful if the person thinks you should know this thing about them, or if it's on their badge. You usually want to get a paragraph or two into conversation before discussing \"real life\" rather than the conference.</p>\n\n<p>Well chosen questions not only move the conversation along, they can meet your other goals. Maybe you'll decide to attend a session you hadn't planned to. Maybe you'll learn about a great book or other resource related to something you enjoyed. Maybe you'll be invited to something, or exchange business cards, or al those other benefits of networking at conferences. None of those things can happen if you just say \"hi\" and leave it at that, the other person says \"hi\" and then the two of you stand there awkwardly, wondering why you're not having a conversation.</p>\n\n<p>I read and enjoyed a book called <a href=\"http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0062295349\">How to Work a Room</a> that emphasizes knowing what you want from encounters like this. Are you trying to find a job? Hire someone? Learn more about something? Tell people what you've discovered? For every want you bring to that conference, someone else brings the matching one and if you two find each other you will both be happy - but only if you tell them what you're looking for and what you have to offer. This is a skill you can learn, and marching up to strangers and saying \"hi\" is only the first step.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28691,
"author": "Phil Miller",
"author_id": 21987,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21987",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If anyone you know is also attending the conference, and has been there or otherwise interacted with the community before, ask them to introduce you to some other attendees. My advisor makes a point of doing this for new students at one of our biggest annual conferences, so that we recognize the big names of the field in person, and so that they have some idea who we are if we interact with them later on.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28732,
"author": "CherylJosie",
"author_id": 22014,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22014",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The prior answers are fine as far as they go, but maybe address substance as well as form? You are putting yourself out there for a reason and it is not for the small talk or facial recognition. You are there to network and protect your future or you would just soak up the academic content of the presentations and go back to planning your first IPO. This is a total package we are discussing.</p>\n\n<p>Before approaching anyone, know what are you asking for and what you have to offer in return? When starting a career you are beginning a long-haul cold-calling sales job and the product is you. Times are tough and new grad working cash register to make ends meet (or even abandoning a career) has become a sick cliche now that technical jobs can be instantly exported to the lowest bidder overseas regardless of which continent you happen to be standing on.</p>\n\n<p>Your opening salvo is a crowbar to get your foot in the door. Your crowbar will be seen as such so keep it friendly and subtle. Be prepared with a business card and a thirty-second speech, or a C.V. (and maybe a thesis) on a USB stick for a good prospect, or a short discussion of your interests and the potential business venture you are considering, or the current football score if all else fails. You want them to have a good impression of your professionalism and you want them to relate their own experiences to yours.</p>\n\n<p>Professional conferences can be fun but not like the more casual atmosphere college students experience on campus, not even at an academic conference on campus. Professional decorum is mandatory (even in Silicon Valley).</p>\n\n<p>As you work the room, track your performance mentally in real time, or better yet, also in a notebook offline, and hone your networking tactics and strategy based on your results. If you are not paying attention you could repeat the same mistakes forever. For best results you want people to like, respect, and maybe fear you as a potential competitor a little in order to capture their attention, and what you want them to remember about you is how they can benefit from knowing you.</p>\n\n<p>In this modern era of the revolving door through government and rampant legal corruption of politics with corporate money, the 'little guy' is a splat waiting to happen (even in academia). Be aware that powerful hidden forces are moving through the room. The higher up the ladder those you reach out to, the more powerful those forces, and they might not have your welfare at heart. Think Hollywood drama on steroids without the fiction.</p>\n\n<p>The way people respond is highly dependent upon your personal appearance. This affects everyone regardless of sex or attractiveness. If your appearance has built-in clash due to poor sense of image, you will not be taken seriously no matter how good your pitch is or how much your clothes cost. Think frumpy little old lady in bright red lipstick and flowered hat with a bow versus sleek professional model. Tart yourself up appropriately and people will respond better to you. Your investment will pay off as you avoid wasting money on apparel that hang in your closet forever unused.</p>\n\n<p>You can buy your way into a professional look with an image consultant, but you can also learn it for free from books. In this discipline people are classified by 'season' (spring, summer, fall, winter) according to bone structure, geometry, coloring, and personality etc. It is purely an abstract concept that has nothing to do with the weather but rather how people as products of nature tend to reflect the traits found in nature. Everyone has a unique set of colors, textures, shapes, patterns, and style that 'harmonize' with their body and personality. For example, a 'spring' has small symmetrical geometrical patters such as circles squares and triangles with small bone structure versus a 'fall' that has large irregular shapes and a strong bone structure and both tend toward greens and yellows as opposed to reds and blues. Image consultants are trained to recognize such characteristics and advise you on how to take advantage of your personal attributes.</p>\n\n<p>If you develop a personal interest in someone, well, be careful. It could be the best time of your life or it could ruin you. Be sure you know the risks you are taking, and why, before committing yourself. Times change. Tomorrow your suspended sentence for drunk driving her home might force you out of your profession and your nude pictures on the Internet could ruin your life forever.</p>\n\n<p>I know of no one who got anywhere without some rough patches. Dare to be bold and maybe it will pay off. Happy hunting.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28762,
"author": "Tom Au",
"author_id": 755,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/755",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's appropriate, although you have to be a bit careful about how you go about it.</p>\n\n<p>If you're junior, one way is to walk up to more senior people and let <em>them</em> start talking to you (instead of you to them).</p>\n\n<p>Another point is \"not to change the subject.\" So if everyone is talking about the subject matter, you might not want to talk about the conference, and vice-versa.</p>\n\n<p>Basically, you want to be a good \"audience\" until you are accepted into the group. Then you can start worrying about being a good \"talker,\" or about what to say.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28774,
"author": "Joe",
"author_id": 12346,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12346",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you're trying to meet people, one good approach is to go to the poster session and talk to poster authors. Assuming it's a good conference for your specialization, you will likely find some posters that are interesting: then you can strike up a conversation with the poster author. You can also talk to other people looking at the same poster, if they look interested in one you're also interested in.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28810,
"author": "J.R.",
"author_id": 780,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/780",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As most of the others have said, talking to new faces is not only appropriate, it should even be encouraged. After all, that's one of the main reasons for holding and attending conferences: to network, mingle, and meet new people. </p>\n\n<p>However, you said that people you've talked to seem \"annoyed,\" which made me wonder if something else is at work here. I've never been to a conference that discouraged people from meeting new acquaintances or exchanging business cards, so why would you be having trouble?</p>\n\n<p>Remember, there's a right way and a wrong way to do just about anything. Timing is key. I don't start conversations with \"random\" people, but I do initiate plenty of conversations with people I haven't met before. The difference is subtle; I left out the word \"random,\" because \"random\" could mean I'm not being receptive to when it's a good time or place to start a conversation, and when it might not be. </p>\n\n<p>For example, one good place to start a cold turkey conversation with a stranger is at a conference lunch. I often start conversations when I'm sitting at one of those round tables that seat about 10. Look for a table that doesn't have people who seem to be from the same university already engaged in a lively conversation. Instead, find a quieter table where people are just staring silently at the centerpiece. </p>\n\n<p>Another thing that should be said – this may not apply to you, but it may apply to someone in your same situation – is to practice good hygiene. Even the most amiable social butterflies at the conference may give you the cold shoulder if you have bad breath or body odor. (Take advantage of the vendors in the exhibit hall who are passing out mints for conference swag.)</p>\n\n<p>Practice good manners as well. Make a good first impression. Be positive, curious, polite, and friendly; don't come across as someone lonely in the field seeking a mentor. I'm not sure why you put this quote in your question:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>I am not famous so there is no value for others in getting to know me</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>but it's not a very positive attitude for starting a conversation. (It also devalues the work of anyone at the conference who isn't famous – which is probably about 90% of the conferencegoers). </p>\n\n<p>Lastly, manage your expectations. Don't expect every conversation to go into a lot of depth. Some people may have other things on their mind. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/18
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28665",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20063/"
] |
28,670 |
<p>I am teaching a new class next term and I need to choose a text book (or create a reading list) for it. The class is a hands on introduction to programming with <a href="http://www.mathworks.com">MATLAB</a>. A quick search of my library's catalogue returns nearly 300 titles, 100 of which are on-line books. When you are creating a new class from scratch how do you go about choose the text book?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28724,
"author": "Penguin_Knight",
"author_id": 6450,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6450",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>These are some criteria I usually use:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Published within last 5-10 years, preferably in 2nd edition or beyond: This ensures the materials are reasonably up-to-date and major errors had been cleaned up.</p></li>\n<li><p>Have physical and e-book versions: To tailor different types of readers.</p></li>\n<li><p>The e-book version should be freely available through the institute's subscription: This is to lower the barrier for acquiring the book.</p></li>\n<li><p>The titles have been commonly adopted by other syllabi: Perform a search using your course title or subject plus \"syllabus\" and \"filetype:pdf\" or \"filetype:doc\" will get some nice results. Sift through them and get some ideas.</p></li>\n<li><p>For software book, I would also check if the publishers provide all codes and data sets online. In additions, I'd make sure the book's examples use the software with the same version that my institute has or the students have.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Some other thoughts:</p>\n\n<p>From my experience in teaching statistical software, I found that books are really not that popular. Online workshops and support websites seem to be a lot more welcomed by the students. If you can identify any of online resources, I'd at least suggest that as a secondary option.</p>\n\n<p>I elaborate to students in the first class on why I chose this particular title. When I teach a class with very diverse backgrounds I also suggest some secondary books that are more specific to their interests. For instance, if I have medical and veterinarian students in my class, I may pick one software book on medical data analysis and another one on analyzing zoological/ecological data, etc.</p>\n\n<p>Another thing I do to show that I am serious about the text: I often put footnotes on my notes or slides pointing students to the relevant section if they'd like to learn more and try that particular analysis/function.</p>\n\n<p>Once you have found a few candidates, read the forewords. All else equal, I often prefer books that were written with a syllabus in mind. The authors usually explain that in the forewords.</p>\n\n<p>Isolate the \"must learn\" techniques in your syllabus and make sure they are all included in the chosen text. That would make sure the texts and your teaching are coherent, and lower the chance of getting evaluation comments like \"the text has nothing related to what was covered in the class.\"</p>\n\n<p>One format that always thrills me is inclusion of self-assessments and case studies. Even I don't end up using those titles, I often borrow the case studies to make all the codes that I teach relevant to the contents.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28725,
"author": "Bob Brown",
"author_id": 16183,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16183",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Start with the learning outcomes, which should have been defined when the course was approved. Write a rough time line of how you would approach those learning outcomes, <em>i.e.</em> in what order would you teach things. Then begin checking the tables of contents of books that look most promising.</p>\n\n<p>See Penguin_Knight's criteria, request evaluation copies of the three that look most promising, and pick one.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28758,
"author": "LucasY",
"author_id": 17573,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17573",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Listed textbooks from other syllabus may be useful... Always check what other Prof.s have been using...</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/18
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28670",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929/"
] |
28,671 |
<p>Many universities have adopted open access policies, giving their employees an incentive to make their scholarly articles freely available online.</p>
<p>To enforce this policy, universities should ideally keep track of the research output of their employees, and remind them to upload their papers if they are not freely available yet.</p>
<p>This is a rather time-consuming task: I wonder whether there are tools to facilitate or automate this process.</p>
<p>Such tools could perform some of the following tasks:</p>
<ul>
<li>Track the published papers and match their authors with the employees list (probably using some bibliometric platform like <a href="http://www.crossref.org" rel="noreferrer">crossref.org</a>)</li>
<li>Locate freely available versions of these papers</li>
<li>Run a repository where the papers can be uploaded (there are plenty of tools available for this task)</li>
<li>Manage waiver requests from researchers who want to opt out of the policy</li>
<li>Provide statistics about the publication practices within the institution</li>
</ul>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28685,
"author": "Cape Code",
"author_id": 10643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I hope you checked with the library of your institution, since these are the people who are typically involved in that sort of things.</p>\n\n<p>There are softwares to create institution repository of articles (often pre-prints) to allow free access and comply with most government funding regulation. There are probably many options, but one of these softwares is called <a href=\"http://help-infoscience.epfl.ch/about\" rel=\"nofollow\">infoscience</a> and is used by institutions like the CERN in Geneva.</p>\n\n<p>This system allows researchers to have an up-to-date, automatically populated publication list with links to the downloadable documents, enables keyword search, run stats, etc. It is useful as well if you are writing an annual report of your group/department, etc. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28697,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'd go for a simpler approach. Just ask the researchers to fill in a simple online form whenever they publish an article. Make it extremely simple: just the DOI (or alternative citation if not available) and a checkbox if it is open access with a link to it. Don't make it take more than a minute to submit.</p>\n\n<p>As a compensation, you can, for example, provide Natbib files free to download and a nice list of OA articles, so other researchers can find easy to cite and find your articles.</p>\n\n<p>It is not much work if everybody does their part, and you just need to make it easy enough and worth to do it. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 34651,
"author": "Aubrey",
"author_id": 26682,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26682",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Building on Cape Code answer, what you seek for is an <em>institutional repository</em>. There are many, but it depends by the single institution. You should ask yours. </p>\n\n<p>Software used are often <a href=\"http://www.dspace.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">DSpace</a> and <a href=\"http://www.eprints.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Eprints</a> (but there are others): these systems let users upload pre-prints and other documents; release them with Creative Commons licenses, use DOIs (sometime provided by the very same institutional repository); provide digital preservation, provide statistics, etc. </p>\n\n<p>The <em>open access</em> movement has a strong component in librarians, who in the last decades built protocols and best practices. </p>\n\n<p>Every institution is different and offers different services. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/18
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28671",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21974/"
] |
28,675 |
<p>Background: I am a junior university staff member, and I will teach an introductory course in linear algebra for the first time in a few months.</p>
<p>I see that many teachers devote time to writing lecture notes. To me, this looks odd. Whatever I can write will not be half as good as a well-written textbook. so my first choice would be looking for a good book, recommend it to the students, and stick with it as much as possible for my lectures. "Everyone writes their own notes" looks like a model in which there is a lot of needless duplication of work.</p>
<p><strong>Why do people write detailed lecture notes for basic courses? What is the advantage with respect to following closely a textbook?</strong></p>
<p>Are the two approaches really alternative, or am I misunderstanding the role of lecture notes? Should I do both?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 28680,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>As someone who's tried to do both, there are some very valid reasons to prepare \"formal\" lecture notes.</p>\n\n<p>The primary reason why you'd want to create your own notes is that for many courses, a single good text is not available, and as a result, the instructor has to cobble together material from a number of different sources to produce a coherent set of lecture notes—or recommend that students work with multiple source texts. (Given the out-of-control nature of textbook prices, the latter alternative is unlikely to work out well.)</p>\n\n<p>If you have a single-text class, it may not be necessary to provide students an additional set of notes, provided your lectures stick to the main text material. However, if you bring in alternative or additional topics into your lectures, you may want to include notes for those topics, and refer students to the textbook for places where you follow the \"standard\" outline.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28684,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As you are teaching linear algebra, I will use it as an example. Gilbert Strang teaches/taught linear algebra at MIT. He also wrote the textbook <em>Introduction to Linear Algebra</em>. You might expect the course to follow along perfectly with the textbook. If you look at the syllabus from <a href=\"http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra-spring-2010/readings/\">when Strang was teaching the course</a> or <a href=\"http://web.mit.edu/18.06/www/Fall14/course_info_syll_F14.pdf\">now</a> what you will see is there are significant deviations. It goes section: 3.6, 8.2, 4.1-4.4, 8.5, 5.2-5.3, 6.1-6.2, 6.6, 8.3, 6.3.</p>\n\n<p>If the author of the textbook cannot even happily follow his own ordering of the topic, it is not surprising that many teachers feel the need to create their own notes that go in the order and cover the material in the depth that they want. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28686,
"author": "Wrzlprmft",
"author_id": 7734,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7734",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><sup>I have no experience with preparing a whole course, so I will leave this aspect to others.</sup></p>\n\n<p>The vast majority, if not all, textbooks originated from lecture notes, usually from professors who held that course repeatedly and refined their notes over the years (often this is stated in the introduction of the textbook). Now, you might argue that these textbooks already exist¹ and there is no point in repeating this process as somebody already has done the work.</p>\n\n<p>However, if everybody acted this way, there would not be any didactical improvement or adaption to current needs – which is very important for the future of science, as otherwise each new generation of scientists would take longer to reach the ever progressing forefront of knowledge. Just take a look at very old linear-algebra books: They are much more focussed on calculating stuff (which has become less important nowadays), have a more clumsy notation and leave out certain concepts that are considered relevant today. If some people in the past had not chosen to create their own lecture notes, which eventually turned into textbooks, you would probably have been learning linear algebra as taught in these books.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, if everybody wrote textbooks, we would drown in them.</p>\n\n<p>So, going only from this point of view: If you have a textbook you are perfectly happy with, stick to it. If, however, you have a didactical style and approach different from all existing textbooks, you might as well try it – and perhaps write a new textbook one day and advance the didactics of linear algebra.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><sup>\n¹ and in the case of linear algebra: tons of them\n</sup></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28688,
"author": "Senex",
"author_id": 13547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13547",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Students often prefer lecture notes, for several reasons. They don't have to pay the cost of a textbook, and they don't have to worry about keeping a textbook in good condition for resale. This means that they are much more likely to be willing to make notes, highlights, underlinings etc on the notes themselves during the lectures. Providing printed lecture notes and letting them make notes on them creates a good balance: students are not frantically copying down everything without having time to think; nor are they likely to slip into a passive listening mode. </p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, having a PDF of the notes available for download is useful for those students (and lecturers) who prefer notes in electronic format for searching etc.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28698,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have written lecture notes for a couple of courses, and in one of those cases I assigned a textbook as well. Here are some of my reasons.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>For a course in which I have some flexibility as to the content, I may find that no single textbook includes all the material I want to teach. Asking students to buy three or four books is rather obnoxious, especially if for some of them I will only be referring to a few pages. When I write lecture notes, I can include exactly the material that I want to include in the course.</p></li>\n<li><p>Even when I am generally following a textbook, I often find places where I want to go off on a tangent, or discuss additional related material, or maybe just cover the same material with a different treatment. I feel like me teaching a class should add value beyond the student reading the textbook, and one way to do that is to tell students how I personally think about and understand the material in question. It can be helpful for the student to have that in writing. In part this is probably arrogance, but I really do feel I have insights to offer that are not contained, or not as well expressed, in even the most \"well-written\" textbook.</p></li>\n<li><p>If I am going to need fairly detailed and precise notes to lecture, I might as well type them - they'll be neater, easier to read, and I can refer to them next time I teach the course. If I'm going to that trouble, I might as well make them available to the students. </p></li>\n<li><p>I find that writing lecture notes for an audience other than myself is a really effective way to teach myself material, and understand it at a deeper level. It very often leads me to new insights on something that I thought I understood. </p></li>\n<li><p>Written lecture notes that are posted on a website can be helpful to anyone in the world, not just the students in my course. I've been able to answer questions on MathOverflow and Math.SE by pointing people at my lecture notes.</p></li>\n<li><p>For high-level courses (especially graduate topics courses), there may not be <em>any</em> textbook on the relevant material - I am assembling it from the research literature. But in order to use material from a research paper in a course, I usually have to rewrite a lot of it - filling in background and omitted details, and so on. So it becomes lecture notes.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28729,
"author": "Aaron Hall",
"author_id": 9518,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9518",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've taught many segments of the basic business curriculum. I did not write up lectures in advance. I used the textbook as an outline, and I delivered an extemporaneous interactive discussion of the entire material in the text. This involved lots of definitions, examples, and diagrams of relationships (all of which I would require the students to recall and/or recreate on exams). I merely kept track of each section's progress, and informed them that they were responsible for everything in the book (as much as I tried to ensure I would cover all exam material, I didn't want to guarantee it, and I did want them to read the books they had paid so much for.)</p>\n\n<p>This style worked well for me, but it seems not to be the tack most professors take. </p>\n\n<p>There would have been benefits to writing up notes for lectures. It would</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>force me to review all of the material more carefully prior to the lecture</li>\n<li>provide an outline for material I knew would be justifiably testable</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The downsides were that it would :</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>increase time required for preparation of materials</li>\n<li>likely reduce the material covered, because it was my goal to cover the entire text (which we did successfully)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I actually even did find time to cover extra material outside the text. For example, we covered Michael Porter's Five Forces in the Marketing course (which I expected them to recreate for the final, having reviewed it nearly half a dozen times in class). </p>\n\n<p>Perhaps you could do the same. It may depend on the materials you have to teach with (especially the textbook.) But you need to review your expectations with your department chair. It may be that they require a textbook that is impossible to follow as the order for your class, for whatever reason. It may be that you'll need to take notes to ensure that you cover any prerequisite materials, and in the correct order, because you'll be teaching linear algebra.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28780,
"author": "Flounderer",
"author_id": 5842,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5842",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here are some other advantages from my point of view:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Writing lecture notes enables you to communicate to the students exactly what is examinable. Most textbooks are bloated with irrelevant material. See any first year textbook in economics or statistics, for example. That thing doesn't <em>need</em> to have 500 pages and colour pictures and a $150 price tag.</p></li>\n<li><p>Writing lecture notes gives you valuable practice at academic writing and presenting your thoughts in a coherent manner. When you first try to write papers, it is tempting to try to intimidate the reader. Writing lecture notes helps to break this habit.</p></li>\n<li><p>Good lecture notes might be used or cited by others if you put them on your website. This can be a good way of advertising yourself.</p></li>\n<li><p>If you happen to teach the course again, going through the pain of writing lecture notes the first time you teach it will make it much easier to teach it in subsequent years, because you will be teaching from your own notes and you know exactly what you are doing.</p></li>\n<li><p>Students will be very happy if they find a mistake in your notes! So you get an army of free proofreaders.</p></li>\n<li><p>In an ideal world, your notes might be so good that you can one day publish them in book form. This has never happened to me.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28782,
"author": "dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten",
"author_id": 440,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/440",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I want to address just one point from the question. You write</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Whatever I can write will not be half as good as a well-written textbook.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>and I have to say that while I can't write a better presentation than the text on everything or even many thing, its a rare semester course where there isn't <em>some</em> sections of the course for which I can prepare a better presentation for the students in front of me than the writer has.</p>\n\n<p>If I use Halliday and Resnick, I can present a terser and more insightful version of one section here and another one there. If instead I use Feynman, I may have to address some sections in more detail for the students at my small state school than the great man used for his at CalTech.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>And as the other have said the exercise of preparing notes refreshes and clarifies the material. </p>\n\n<p>I'm a lazy man, and whenever the presentation in the book seems to be appropriate to my students (or nearly so), I simple re-express the books methods with only minor changes in emphasis, and adjustment to agree with the demos that I am actually going to do rather than the ones that I would want if I had the prep-room of my dreams.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28805,
"author": "Ryan",
"author_id": 19685,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19685",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This answer only involves the field of Computer Science, so other fields may not have the same benefits. </p>\n\n<p>I wrote my own beginning C.S. course (programming) lecture notes (<a href=\"https://www.dropbox.com/s/yc2tshnap8j8xec/lecturenotes.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">link</a>). The benefits that I found are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Not requiring a textbook. The textbooks in C.S. are very large and there are quite a few of them, so students/readers may not know which one to pick.</li>\n<li>Not requiring a computer. Students/readers may not have current access to a computer (or any access), so they need to be viable for them too.</li>\n<li>Plenty of examples. Success in programming is possible only through many examples, and not much of the theoretical aspects of programming. Therefore, my notes have many examples to get the concept across. </li>\n<li>Learning the material from a different perspective than the one you originally had. </li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28811,
"author": "luk",
"author_id": 22070,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22070",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>When I was a student, I hated professors not choosing a textbook and only giving (very often badly written) lecture notes. I think following a single textbook, suggesting optionally one or two more, plus some extra material here and there, is very convenient for the students since a good book is coherent, tested, well written and edited, with useful pictures, and often evolved through several years of lectures. You might lose some diversity, but you gain simplicity and coherence (and a more pleasant formatting). The best students will anyway look for additional texts on their own, either during the course or afterwards. Of course additional or very specific or innovative material can require lecture notes. \nIn my experience, lecture notes are often good for the teacher; not always for the student.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 28851,
"author": "Steven Gubkin",
"author_id": 12612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12612",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think many people write their own lecture notes because they want to present the subject as it is living in their own mind, not as someone else presents it. You can really only ever try to convey your own perspective, and even in mathematics, this can be significantly different from anyone else's.</p>\n\n<p>As a very small example, if you look at most linear algebra texts at how the formula for multiplying matrices is presented, you will find one of two tactics:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>It is just a definition, and you had better get used to it</p></li>\n<li><p>Matrix multiplication is defined the way it is so it corresponds to composition of linear functions. The proof of this is a computation which may involve a few too many summation signs for beginning students to follow fully.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>My own perspective on the issue is the following: </p>\n\n<p>a. I introduce matrices as record keeping devices for linear maps: the columns tell you where the basis vectors go</p>\n\n<p>b. I spend time thinking about covectors, (i.e. a matrix which is just a row), and how applying a row vector to a vector is the same as taking a dot product with the transpose of the covector.</p>\n\n<p>c. Realize that for a matrix M, M_{ij} = e_j^\\top M e_i, since by definition Me_i is the i^{th} row, and e_j^\\top of a vector just selects the j^{th} column.</p>\n\n<p>d. So to find the (AB)_{ij} we just need to compute e_j^\\top AB e_i = (e_j^\\top A)(B e_i), which is the j^{th} row of A dotted with the i^{th} column of B. This is the standard formula, but it has been \"chunked\" in such a way that it makes it understandable (at least to me!).</p>\n\n<p>This sequence a - d really represents thinking about a matrix as representing a bilinear form, and it is through this lens that the formula for matrix multiplication makes the most sense to me. You do not have to mention this to the students at this stage to make the sequence a-d understandable and memorable.</p>\n\n<p>I find that this kind of thing occurs constantly. When I read a textbook, I usually find that I have no idea what is going on, and I have to develop some sort of narrative structure which makes sense of it. This becomes my understanding of the material. If I am teaching something, I must teach my perspective. So I often end up writing lecture notes.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 118644,
"author": "Eridanis",
"author_id": 45439,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45439",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a student I loved lecturers who made formal notes.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>It contained everything we needed to know</li>\n<li>No buying expensive books or waiting for the library</li>\n<li>No flipping chapters between multiple text books</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>And it was easier to understand, since it matched his teaching style and you could ask him to explain (since he wrote it).</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/09/18
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28675",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958/"
] |
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