qid
int64 1
194k
| question
stringlengths 46
29.5k
| answers
listlengths 2
32
| date
stringlengths 10
10
| metadata
listlengths 3
3
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
32,067 |
<p>I know that PhD is not like other degrees which ends in a span of 2-4 years.
Also, one cannot control the span of the program which entirely depends on topic and guides.</p>
<p>But I heard from some where that some universities offer PhD within 3-4 years and there is no minimum journal requirements.</p>
<p>I would like to know if such universities really exist and a comment on the university will be highly appreciated.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32068,
"author": "BiA",
"author_id": 22989,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22989",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In Europe a Phd normally last from 2 to 4 years. But to be admitted to it you must have a Master degree.\nThe American and the European system are pretty different I think. </p>\n\n<p>check this link about education in Europe: <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process</a></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32071,
"author": "Phil H",
"author_id": 12183,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12183",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In the UK, it is common to go straight from a Bachelors degree (3-4 years) to a PhD (minimum 3 years). Not many complete their PhD in 3 years, but in that time you are expected to reach independent research level and have published papers. Certainly I and my colleagues followed this path and published papers in that timescale, although some of us took a lot longer to finally finish.</p>\n\n<p>At our university, you start technically on an MPhil (Masters) course, and there is a review around 12-18 months in; if your work is on course for PhD grade (i.e. you have published or are soon to publish), you are switched to the PhD. If it is not going so well you can just finish the Masters and move on.</p>\n\n<p>The best option in the UK is to get a sponsored studentship with a company; they will pay a lot of cost of the degree (we got a bursary whichever way) and usually assist with materials, funds, direction during the course itself.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32073,
"author": "Niko",
"author_id": 23257,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23257",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In the Netherlands, PhD programs are usually salaried four-year programs (though typically requiring 3-4 journal publications to get the degree in the end). For example, good universities for engineering are located in <a href=\"http://www.tudelft.nl/en/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Delft</a> and <a href=\"https://www.tue.nl/en/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Eindhoven</a>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32086,
"author": "N. CHATURV3DI",
"author_id": 24589,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24589",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This seems to be a trick question. Are there universities which will \"give you a PhD\" in a short time? Well, yes. If you work hard enough to \"earn a PhD\" in a short time.</p>\n\n<p>That said, it is quite common in continental Europe for PhD positions to be offered for a period of 3 years. That's nice if your Masters degree has already prepared you with the relevant graduate-level concepts. You will still have to find a PhD topic and complete your investigations in the stipulated time. </p>\n\n<p>On the down side, PhD supervisors (who may even be a Postdoc or a researcher with individual grant) usually find it difficult to arrange for additional funding if you are unable to produce satisfactory results within 3 years. At good universities, and in well-funded disciplines, this is usually not a problem. But this really happens, and if you do not come from a first-world country, it may get difficult to sustain yourself.</p>\n\n<p>Publication limit? It again depends upon your field. In theoretical fields, like pure mathematics, theoretical physics, some branches of computer science, etc. it is difficult to publish, so you may get a PhD with one or two papers. But in experimental fields, it is difficult to put a number. That shouldn't bother you though, because your supervisor is usually there to help you out. </p>\n\n<p>And PhD is after all a training in becoming an individual researcher. So why bother about number of publications already? What you should worry about is, do you really want a PhD? There, your query suggests only a superficial motivation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32095,
"author": "Franck Dernoncourt",
"author_id": 452,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In France the average length of a PhD in engineering is ~3.5 years</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://rachelgliese.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/la-duree-des-theses/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Source 1</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Dans le domaine des « sciences dures », la durée moyenne des thèses\n est de 42 mois (3,5 années). Le taux d’abandon est de 5%. Le taux\n d’insertion professionnelle est de 90 %</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://matisse.ueb.eu/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Source 2</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>une durée moyenne de thèse de 41 mois</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In the US, in most places it is hard to be complete the PhD in less than 4 years.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32103,
"author": "Floris",
"author_id": 15062,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15062",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In Cambridge University in the UK it is (well, was, in the '80s) not uncommon for students to do most of the work for their PhD in 3 or 4 years - but nobody \"gives\" you a PhD, you have to work for it (quite hard), and earn it.</p>\n\n<p>A PhD, in the end, is a piece of paper that testifies you have a \"license to learn on your own\". You are expected to have developed the skills needed to be a successful researcher; while it is important to develop your ability to document your work and write coherently about it, I don't think it should be necessary to have first-author publications to graduate.</p>\n\n<p>Skeptically, one might suspect that organizations that demand publications may be more concerned about their own publication rates, than about the careers of their students (but see below)...</p>\n\n<p>Having said that - if you want to get a job as a postdoc, it is advisable to have some publications under your belt. This may be less important if you want to work in industry - not an unlikely course of action with an advanced engineering degree. And given the salary jump from student to industrial engineer, you may want to \"get it over with\" quickly. </p>\n\n<p>In summary, you need to take a look at your own career aspirations before choosing a program based on their graduation requirements. The piece of paper is just that - but whether you will have, at graduation, the demonstrated skills needed for the next step is something only you know.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/21
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32067",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7720/"
] |
32,084 |
<p>I received an acceptance from the Editor by email, but when I checked the status of my manuscript in the journal website it is "Editor Decision", even after week of receiving the email.</p>
<p>what does that mean? and should I talk to the Editor?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32085,
"author": "Phlume",
"author_id": 10414,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10414",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes. Talk to them. Hanging out fretting about it only causes yourself undue stress. I would simply write an email to them... It sounds like the \"switch\" may be a manual one on their web site? Perhaps the programmer/designer is on holiday break?</p>\n\n<p>Remember... the individual maintaining the status or entries themselves may not be the actual web master in charge of the programming and edits on the site. It's probably an entirely different department and the batch of edit tickets to the site have yet to process.</p>\n\n<p>Still, even if the individual who sent the email <strong>IS</strong> the one in charge of the web site...I'd trust the letter over the web site any day.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32087,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>If the editor emails you an acceptance, the paper is accepted. Don't worry about the website not updating.</p>\n\n<p>The acceptance email should contain instructions as to what you have to do next: presumably, make any changes suggested by the reviewers and submit a final version of your manuscript. If it doesn't, wait another week or so to see if you get an email that does have the instructions (this might be sent automatically by the management system when the editor updates it). If not, email the editor then.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/21
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32084",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24588/"
] |
32,096 |
<p>I am about to wrap up my first semester at my University. Before school had started in the summer I had developed an iOS application for the University which gained the attention of one professor, before the semester had even started he emailed me and informed me of a research position he think I'd be interested in. It turns out that I have experience in exactly what they are doing and it sounded like it would be a great fit. </p>
<p>I accepted the position, it took about a month before I met who I would be working with and how exactly I would be applying my experience. I found out that my colleague developer is a foreign graduate student who doesn't speak much English and has hardly any experience with our technologies. We setup weekly meetings to do something, nothing is ever accomplished at these "meetings". Most of the time the professor cancels the meeting due to "conflicts" an hour before they are supposed to take place</p>
<p>Overall I've got several problems with my current position:</p>
<p>No way to collaborate with my colleague due to a language barrier and no structure in our work environment </p>
<p>No clear objectives for what I should be doing with my time have been laid out, yes I've asked. I get responses back such as "Do some iOS stuff with "Bob"" Whenever I sit down to work, I really don't have an idea on what he's expecting so its hard to put in any meaningful hours.</p>
<p>Extremely low pay for what I am doing, the technologies I am working with are not simple and I am getting paid about 1/5 what I would if I was at a company. I know this is an academic position but it's hard to be motivated knowing I'm getting low pay.</p>
<p>The project I am working on seems to be some project that has been hanging around and he is just trying to produce "results" with the grant money.</p>
<p>Overall I just have no interest continuing to work with this professor. What is the best way to tell that to him?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32104,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Just tell him the way you have told us. Undergraduates quit research projects all the time. In this case the reasons you have given may help him run the project a bit better.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 61385,
"author": "Captain Emacs",
"author_id": 45857,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45857",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Alternatively, if you are interested in working in something different, do so, without necessarily giving the detailed reasons of your departure. Not everybody reacts gracefully to criticism, especially if you suspect other agendas (speak: grant money spending). Whether you want to give full disclosure of your reasons for leaving, depends heavily on the advisor and the situation. </p>\n\n<p>If you consider going for industry, anyway, now is a good time, as the market is attractive. The professor may not like it, but excellent people leave academia all the time now, you wouldn't be an exception and your step requiring no out of the ordinary justification.</p>\n\n<p>If you want to continue that work, somehow, but not under the current circumstances, then, either look for a suitable other position, or else, if you want to stay put for some reason, you will have to bite the bullet and to ask for conditions to be changed.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/21
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32096",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24612/"
] |
32,108 |
<p>I am in my first year of my master's program in computer science. I have been sitting in on one professors lab meetings whose research I am really interested in when I asked him if he was comfortable working with me on a master's thesis he gave a response which I am having trouble interpreting. He said that he felt comfortable in the sense that he felt I would do great, but he didn't feel comfortable being the sole adviser due to the number of current master's students he was already advising. He said he would be my thesis adviser if I could find a co-adviser. He is a new professor at my university and does not yet have tenure as this is his first year.</p>
<p>My question is was this a gentle way of letting me down or is it common for busy professors to suggest co-advising? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32120,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>As Peter Shor indicates, one cannot uniquely decode the professor's intent from this response. You'll have to get more information from him to be confident of his motivations.</p>\n\n<p>Let me say that taking on a coadvisor <em>could show</em> a lack of confidence in the student, but more commonly it shows an advisor's lack of confidence in her own experience or is done for a good, subject-oriented reason (i.e., to bring in specific expertise). My first PhD student -- taken on when I was not yet tenured -- was coadvised with a more senior faculty member. This was because I was nervous about myself, not about him (he was really great), but independently of my own gingerness it turned out to be a very good idea because his second adviser imparted some key technical knowledge that got used in his thesis in a very nice way. Now (I am tenured and) I have four students who are solely advised by me: I got a little older is the main difference. So I can understand this faculty member's perspective.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, at least in my field (mathematics) advising a master's student is much easier than advising a PhD student: they stay for 1/3 to 1/2 of the time and the whole experience is not as intense. Because of this, \"splitting\" a master's student is less common (and no examples spring to mind, but then again in mathematics, a master's degree is more likely to be done rather casually <em>en route</em> to greater things or as a terminal degree).</p>\n\n<p>From a neutral (read: uninformed) outsider's perspective, I would say that if you're already sitting in this guy's research group then that's pretty close to taking you on as a master's student. One thing you could try is just to organically increase your interactions without \"putting a label on it\". In other words, instead of sitting in on the group, can you actually do some work for the group? If so, you basically are this guy's master's student, and after a couple of months of work it will be much easier for all involved to call it that. If on the other hand you express an interest in doing work for his group and he tells you why you can't at the moment....then there's your answer. </p>\n\n<p>Another tack to take would be to ask the professor for a specific suggestion of who could co-advise you. Then you can take it up with that person...who of course may suggest single-handedly advising you. I think the suggestion to co-advise without a specific person in mind to do the other half of the advising shows that he is not very enthusiastic about advising you.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32163,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>We've used co-advisors in our department for several reasons:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>When the student's work crosses into two specialties -- for example, if someone wanted to study Islam in Russia -- we might have Prof. A who is a Russia specialist with no particular knowledge of religion work with Prof. B who does Islam, but predominantly in the middle-east. </li>\n<li>When Prof. A has too many advisees and needs someone to share the administrative burden. I don't think grad students realize how much of an administrative burden they can be. We have to file progress reports, grant proposals, sign off on expenditures -- not to mention letters of recommendation.</li>\n<li>When there is some doubt of Prof. A's long term plans. Whether they have eyes on becoming provost -- or maybe a transfer to another university -- sometimes either Prof. A or the department itself will proactively make sure that Prof. A's students aren't orphaned.</li>\n<li>Related to this, if Prof. A expects a sabbatical or other leave, they may proactively try to make sure that the students in the first several years of their grad work are properly mentored in their absence.</li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/22
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32108",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24617/"
] |
32,112 |
<p>This question is inspired by answers and comments to the question <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31855/should-a-postdoc-talk-about-his-depression-with-his-mentor">"Should a postdoc talk about his depression with his mentor?"</a> on this website.</p>
<p>Suppose that an applicant to a graduate program suffered from some mental health issues during the completion of his previous degrees, and that this situation had a noticeable impact on his academic performance (for example, significantly lower grades or part-time status for one or several semesters).</p>
<p>Most graduate school applications have sections dedicated to providing explanations for such special circumstances, and it is of course strongly recommended that any applicant with unusual drops in academic performance should mention something about this in the special circumstances section. Otherwise, the admission committee will be left to guess what might have happened, which is likely to decrease the odds of being admitted (indeed, it seems a consensus that the more tangible information an admission committee has about an applicant, the more confident they can be about the fact that admitting him will be a sound investment).</p>
<p>Many answers/comments to the question <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31855/should-a-postdoc-talk-about-his-depression-with-his-mentor">"Should a postdoc talk about his depression with his mentor?"</a> seem to recommend being very careful about revealing details on one's mental health conditions, given that there is still a lot of stigma attached to mental health conditions. However, in the case of PhD applications, not mentioning anything is <em>not</em> an option.</p>
<p>This then leads to the following question: If not making any mention of health issues is not an option (such as in PhD applications), how much details should one go into? To avoid stereotyping associated to any particular disease (such as depression=unreliable, learning disability=not smart) one could limit the description to "health problem", but could this lack of details be seen as suspicious and/or still a situation where the admissions committee will have to do guesswork?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32718,
"author": "Charles Stewart",
"author_id": 24914,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24914",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's not possible to give specific advice without knowing such things as legal jurisdiction and the equal-opportunity commitments of the institution behind the grad school. Be aware that, while there is growing recognition that prejudice against mental-health issues is indeed prejudice, this is a prejudice that is widely tolerated.</p>\n\n<p>Nonetheless, a request for information about \"special circumstances\" is not an invitation to feed the prejudices of the search committee. Clear, historically objective matters such as:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Suspension of studies or retaking a whole year, for whatever reason</li>\n<li>Behavioural problems that were officially sanctioned by the University, especially violations of anti-harassment rules</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>will need to be documented and the candidate needs to be ready to handle questions about why such events occurred. </p>\n\n<p>The kind of special circumstance that you should not feel particular need to bring up are </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Receiving a psychiatric diagnosis</li>\n<li>Seeking or receiving informal advice about difficulty handling stress or motivation problems</li>\n<li>Unusual causes of stress from home life, such as mental health issues, physical health problems, abusive relationships, handling infirm relatives, etc.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The fact that one of these issues could influence the decision of someone on the search committee is not sufficient reason to raise it, for the same sort of reason (bar possible absence of equal opportunities legislation) that issues concerning sexual orientation, or religious/ political beliefs: they are not in and of themselves issues in one's academic career. It may be wise to allude to these issues if they explain the former kind of event, but it is unlikely to be wise to do so in lurid terms. If someone retook a year because of a breakdown, saying that they were unable to handle the stress is reasonable, especially if it is possible to show that this was a learning experience and can now be handled in a way that will not undermine their academic career. The existence of the latter kind of issue is not ipso facto a career issue.</p>\n\n<p>Overall, I recommend not being prejudiced against oneself. Nobody lacks mental imperfections, and indeed many mental traits can be problematic in one situation but efficient in another. The advice Sheryl Sandberg gives in her <em>Leaning In</em> deals with prejudices against career women, but the point she makes in her last chapter about not handicapping oneself applies here as well.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32732,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You <strong>do not have</strong> to disclose your personal health history (including mental health) to graduate schools when you are applying -- and even while you are enrolled. </p>\n\n<p>There are occasions where you may <strong>want</strong> to. For example, if there is a semester in your undergraduate record where you did particularly poorly because of (mental) health issues, you may want to note this is in your diversity statement or special circumstances portion. However, you can be as vague as you want -- saying \"In the fall of my junior year, my health declined which led to poor performance in a number of my classes. I recovered the next semester and you can see that my senior year grades were all of the highest rank.\"</p>\n\n<p>If you have faculty writing letters of recommendation for you who know about this incident, you may want to tell them: 1) if you want them to mention it or not; 2) what language to use (\"she became depressed following a family death\" vs. \"She struggled with the additional family issues following the death of her mother\" vs. \"There was a family crisis that took her away from school that semester\", etc.etc.).</p>\n\n<p>Otherwise, your (mental) health record is your personal medical information. The professors in your department do not need to know it -- any more than they would need to know that you had HIV or were on dialysis. If you need accommodation (such as taking Wed and Fri off for dialysis, or for therapy) you may want to disclose that to some people but you should feel free to <strong>compartmentalize</strong> the information to certain people and to not disclose everything about your condition.</p>\n\n<p>For example, it is entirely appropriate to tell just your advisor, department chair or director of graduate studies -- or external to the department: your university ombudsperson, disability services officers, or associate provost or dean -- some of the details of your condition and what accommodations you need to be a successful scholar, but ask that the information not be shared with faculty members in the department. But again, this is your choice.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/22
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32112",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
32,114 |
<p>Maybe my question is naive, but:</p>
<p>If my paper was publish as open access (for example in Springer - <a href="http://www.springer.com/gp/open-access" rel="nofollow">http://www.springer.com/gp/open-access</a>), could I upload the paper in researchgate.net and similar sites?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32115,
"author": "410 gone",
"author_id": 96,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Maybe. But not necessarily. It depends on the exact terms and conditions of the open access paper: there are many different variants (Springer use more than one, as do many other publishers). It also depends on the exact terms and conditions of the site you intend to upload to.</p>\n\n<p>So there is no general answer, beyond this:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Read and understand the licence on the paper.</p></li>\n<li><p>Read and understand the terms and conditions of the site you want to upload to.</p></li>\n<li><p>Work out whether they're mutually consistent, and whether you want to accept the T&Cs of the site you want to upload to.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32116,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are uncertain, then with a truly open-access paper you can also choose to avoid the question by simply linking to the official publication page - there is often a direct PDF link, and putting that on an external webpage gives no significant difference in user experience than uploading the PDF directly.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32117,
"author": "Franck Dernoncourt",
"author_id": 452,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access\" rel=\"nofollow\">Open access</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Open access comes in two degrees: <strong>gratis</strong> open access, which is free\n online access, and <strong>libre</strong> open access, which is free online access\n plus some additional usage rights.These additional usage rights are\n often granted through the use of various specific Creative Commons\n licenses. Only libre open access is fully compliant with\n definitions of open access such as the Berlin Declaration on Open\n Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>See <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre\" rel=\"nofollow\">Gratis versus libre</a> for more ideas.</p>\n\n<p>As a result, it depends on the contract you agreed to when submitting your article to the open access journal. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/22
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32114",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10119/"
] |
32,118 |
<p>After a year of researching for my Masters project, I am writing a manuscript for publication. I have spent nearly 3 months writing it now. My advisor has read my drafts, but after nearly 4 drafts that I thought were successively better, he says that I am in still the pre-draft stage and that I don't know how to write a manuscript properly. Of course, he gives me adequate guidance and is very helpful, but I am demoralized by my own shortcomings.</p>
<p>I have a hard deadline of 3 weeks to submit my edits to my advisor, after which he has said he will finish editing for me.</p>
<p>I understand this sort of thing happens to all new writers, especially in technical writing, and I could hear tons of personal stories about how difficult his/her experience was - but in the end, pain is very personal.</p>
<p>Anyways, the purpose of this post is not just to get motivated or feel better - it is to ask for concrete advice on where and how to begin, especially given that I don't have that much time?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32119,
"author": "padawan",
"author_id": 15949,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15949",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Three months? Try two years!</p>\n\n<p>I'm trying to write a manuscript since two years.\nThis is because my advisor is a perfectionist, which makes me an extremely lucky guy (in this case, you as well).\nI have a friend whose advisor's expectations are below the average and he ended up submitting a thesis even lower quality than below the average.</p>\n\n<p>Believe me, what you go through is a perfectly normal stage, for who wants to be in academia. At least, this is what I've seen so far.</p>\n\n<p>I suggest you to do the following:</p>\n\n<p>First, write the core of your work. Not the intro, not the conclusion, not the experimental results or methodology. Just tell what your work is about and why is it precious. Tell it like you're telling it to a five-year-old.\nTry to tell it using the least number of sentences as you can. If possible, tell it in only one sentence.</p>\n\n<p>Afterwards, read. Read until you memorize it. You will realize that it sucks (unfortunately). Then, change it. Try to change your point of view.</p>\n\n<p>I have written at least thirty manuscripts if not fifty. And I have started over at least ten times. Now, I got \"OK\" from my advisor for the last version of, wait for it, <strong>introduction chapter</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>\"The most important thing is organization of the manuscript\", my advisor told me. \"It should both teach and entartain the reader.\" By entertaining, of course, he means that the reader should tell to himself \"this is good job!\" Like reading a really good novel.</p>\n\n<p>I suggest you to keep your expectations low at this stage, since your last work is still a pre-draft. In a period like three weeks, it is extremely hard to complete a work.\nBesides, if you do not rush, you will complete it in a shorter time. </p>\n\n<p>I hope I'm wrong and you publish your work.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32122,
"author": "Ana",
"author_id": 322,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/322",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is surely painful, as you're being assessed on something as intimate and self-defining as cognitive potential, and think you're not measuring up. And academia is a rather terrible environment when it comes to taking into account how this sort of thing affects productivity and happiness. But.</p>\n\n<p>The thing is, the goal is not to make the manuscript good for your supervisor, it's to make it good for a research journal. In this process, the supervisor will help. The help will come in the form of a very red, very re-written manuscript, but it will be useful. For me, the single most helpful event in academic writing (and I have taken courses on it previously and I generally like writing) was when I received my first manuscript back all in red. I looked at it sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph, and man have I learned a lot! So don't look at that deadline in three weeks as the end of the road, but as the beginning. After all, it's not as if the supervisor doesn't know your output so far. So take it exactly for what it is: feedback that's more detailed than what you have received so far. </p>\n\n<p>Other than that, it's very helpful to find similar papers, papers you thought were particularly clear, and look for hints there. Personally, I like short papers that try to drive a single point home, where the intro is short and to the point and where the discussion doesn't go too much beyond the data obtained. Such papers give up on telling you everything the authors know about a question, or even discussing all possible implications of the data, in order to keep concise. But that's just me.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32126,
"author": "Penguin_Knight",
"author_id": 6450,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6450",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Concrete advice on where and how to begin, especially given that I\n don't have that much time</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I work in biomedical science so my advices may not fully apply to you, feel free to take whatever that is useful.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Don't write too much:</strong> Most students I work with who are trying to turn their paper into a journal article tend to write too much. It's usually described as a painful process because it would feel like chopping off a lot of work from their thesis (which was done with much blood and sweat.) But the trimming and refinement need to happen because thesis format is not suitable for journal.</p>\n\n<p>Concretely, these newbie articles tend to</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Have an introduction that is overly long</li>\n<li>Contain abundance of details in the methods section, documenting the conception of the idea to every little details, with meticulous follow up of citations</li>\n<li>Justify every single decision, some of which trivial</li>\n<li>Cover too many hypotheses or fail to boil down the structure to bite-size, thinking everything in the chapter has to go into the paper</li>\n<li>Elaborate lengthily in Discussion, failing to highlight the most important aspect</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p><strong>But also don't write too little:</strong> And yet, most students tend to overlook these components:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>The paper goes into technical way too abruptly, doesn't account for the fact that some non-specialist may be reading this. And this is really an art, you'll need to see your target journal and get a sense of who are the readers, and then decide how broad to start with</p></li>\n<li><p>Fail to explain the \"so-whats\" in the Discussion</p></li>\n<li><p>Did not address the strengths and the weaknesses of the study. Or quoting weaknesses that actually can be alleviated but were not. For instance, I have a lot of students stating weaknesses like \"this is a cross-sectional study so causal inference is not feasible,\" which I tend to agree; but some may say \"in this analysis we did not adjust for income levels\" while the income level variable is actually in the data set. In those case I'd request a re-analysis. In short, if you can have done something about it, don't list it as weakness.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p><strong>General style mismatches:</strong> Sometimes the articles have nothing really wrong about it but the style just make it clunky as a journal article. For instance:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Overly sensationalizing or flooded with emotional adjectives. E.g. \"the obesity epidemic is indeed a human tragedy,\" \"our results are surprisingly encouraging.\"</p></li>\n<li><p>Mixing up facts and arguments, ending up with a lot of statements that are not backed up or statements that are accompanied with a tsunami of facts without a trace of synthesis.</p></li>\n<li><p>The objectives and the conclusion do not match. And this is very common in theses because we set off with a plan and things may fail to work in the middle and we have changed direction. In journal article, the objective statement and the conclusion need to resonate so that they read nearly like Q&A.</p></li>\n<li><p>Trying too hard to make the whole paper self-contained and complete. Common signs are including too many details that can be included in the form of citations.</p></li>\n<li><p>Calling the same concepts or things with many different names. In English composition we are often encourage to diversify our word selection but this is a big no-no in scientific writing. If the variable is \"occupational stress,\" call it so throughout. Do not use variants such as work-induced stress or even worse: work-related mental problems or job-site related depression, etc.</p></li>\n<li><p>Drafting, writing, and editing at the same time. Most of the students lost steam because they want to churn out perfect sentence from the get go. This causes the process extremely slow and painful. It's easier to do a brain dump and then come back to edit the work. On a good day you may save 50-60% of the dump, on a bad day maybe 10%, but I found it worth it because I can be more focused in either laying out ideas or perfecting the wording, separately.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>So, how to start? Before writing, read a bit. Download the \"guideline to the authors\" from the target journal and use a highlighter to indicate all stylistic requirements. Follow them to the t.</p>\n\n<p>Then, download about 3-5 articles related to your fields from that journal, and read for word-uses and syntax. Generally, when reading each paragraph, ask yourself \"Why did the authors put this information here?\"</p>\n\n<p>Now, when it comes to writing/drafting. I find it easiest to do in this sequence:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Identify 1-3 main analysis outcomes (table, graph, regression model, etc.) Paste them on a wall or a board and they will be the staple of this article.</p></li>\n<li><p>For each of these output, write about 2-4 main points or interpretations people should take away with. Imagine you're at a conference manning a poster. What would you tell the audience to focus on in each table or each graph? If one of them has overwhelming amount of talking points, you are trying to pack too much. Consider breaking the analysis output down, and trim, trim, trim. In this stage, <em>do not throw away unused outputs,</em> put them aside in a folder or a box in case you have a second thought.</p></li>\n<li><p>For each of these output, write out the methods. Remember to only contain enough information to allow readers to replicate, not too much so that the readers have to endure the whole story. For instance, reason for picking a certain concentration or threshold can be explained with a citation rather than writing it out.</p></li>\n<li><p>Now combine your selected output into the Results section. Write it in the driest style you can think of. No interpretation, grievance, celebration, defense whatsoever, just plain, hard, cold data.</p></li>\n<li><p>Break Discussion into segments A, B, C, D, and E. In A, use one paragraph to summarize what you found. In B, incorporate the talking points you generated for each of the output, so that the first paragraph makes sense. In C, compare and contrast your work with other literature and discuss the potential differences. In D, delineate the strengths and weaknesses of your study. For each weakness, discuss what you had tried to make it less a matter, or what else could have been done in future work. Finally, in part E, go slightly wider and wilder: elaborate what these results mean to your target audience and their field. You can quickly see that this section can get overwhelming if you have too many objectives. For starters, one main objective with a sub objective will be a good challenge.</p></li>\n<li><p>Write the Introduction. Focus on some \"what's known\" to bring your audience to the same page so that they can understand your work. Then, discuss what is not known or what challenges the field is facing. After that, explain how your work may help, and lastly, lay out your objectives clearly.</p></li>\n<li><p>Cut and paste the objective at the end of the paper (or use split screen so that you can see the objective section), and start writing the Conclusion. Introduce no more new information there, simply answer the objectives point by point. Make sure the objective part and the conclusion part resonate. When you feel it's good enough, you can then take out the reference objective you just pasted there (or close the split screen function.)</p></li>\n<li><p>Go back to write the abstract.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Other nitty-gritty</strong></p>\n\n<p>Don't feel bad that people are not happy with what you write. A lot of the time they do not even concretely know what's wrong with the piece. Ask for actionable suggestions and then thanks for their comments; take whatever applies to you.</p>\n\n<p>Your supervisor may not appreciate your writing quality, but will definitely appreciate your attention to details. So, make his/her life easier by following the journal's guideline tightly when it comes to formatting.</p>\n\n<p>Check if all the figures and tables are correctly indexed.</p>\n\n<p>Check if all the pronouns connect well and leave no room for misunderstanding.</p>\n\n<p>Use subtitle to introduce another layer of structure if you feel too overwhelmed.</p>\n\n<p>It's true that some papers can take years to write. But you have been working on it for more than 3 months and it is more than probable to write a decent article in 3 months. Some other users may say a paper can take years, but remember the duration is also a factor of i) how much time the person is putting in every day, ii) how much the work is being held up by co-authors, and iii) personal writing style. I myself have papers that were done in the span of 2 months to 6 years; there is pretty much no rule when it comes to time.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32133,
"author": "sasa",
"author_id": 24650,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24650",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To echo cagirici. THREE MONTHS IS NOTHING!!!!! I, took, over a year to finish my first manuscript. </p>\n\n<p>My biggest advice is to put the paper away for a week and revisit it after you've done some reading (and not necessarily in the area that you are writing in, but in areas surrounding that topic). I cannot emphasize enough how putting away your work for a bit of time can help clarify the process and help things become clear within your writing. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32145,
"author": "gaborous",
"author_id": 3971,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3971",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A great online course called <a href=\"http://online.stanford.edu/course/writing-in-the-sciences\" rel=\"nofollow\">\"Writing in the Sciences\"</a> is now available free of charge, and it provides really great advices. When I was writing an article recently, I just had the time to watch the first week's lectures, and it helped me a lot to finish my manuscript.</p>\n\n<p>To summary some quick tips to do a good writing:</p>\n\n<p>1- <strong>Read papers and copy</strong> (everything but the content) from the ones you like. This will give you hints on how to structure a paper, style you can have and many other things. Mimicking is a fundamental learning mechanism of humans that helped us achieve the knowledge we have, don't overlook it.</p>\n\n<p>2- <strong>Just get to write</strong>, even if you don't feel like it. A good paper is reworked several times before it's ready for publication, so just get going on your first pass, you'll enhance later.</p>\n\n<p>3- Don't try to make overly long or complicated sentences. Just try to make short sentences, and try to use simple formulations (present tense instead of past tense, standard sentence form: subject-verb-object). Also <strong>avoid jargon</strong> and initials as much as possible, this will be one less burden for your reader (even when they're specialized in the domain you're writing in).</p>\n\n<p>4- Be <strong>logical</strong> in your progression. Try to be logical and gradual from chapters to chapters (for this, generally there are common templates, like the <a href=\"http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/OHERIC\" rel=\"nofollow\">OHERIC methodology</a>: Observation/Problem introduction, Hypothesis/Your Model, Experiment/Simulations, Results/Interpretation, Conclusion/Opening) but also inside each chapter, so that the end of a chapter naturally leads to the next.</p>\n\n<p>Usually, the introduction is the hardest part and usually too much overlooked so you should really focus on this part ; the conclusion is the easiest part (just summary what problem you tackled, what you did and what you've found and potentially future avenues that could extend the findings on this problem) ; and the abstract and title are done at the very end when you already wrote the whole paper.</p>\n\n<p>5- Add lots of <strong>pertinent</strong> references. A good example is any well-developped article in Wikipedia (since this encyclopedia follows some common editorial guidelines that are just as well used in scientific publishing). For any claim you make that isn't yours, try to reference, and most importantly, your reference must be pertinent (avoid referencing an article you barely read or that isn't focusing at all on the claim you are making, ie: an article about brain's memory making an hypothesis about consciousness at the conclusion as an opening isn't fit to be referenced for any claim about consciousness since this is just speculation).</p>\n\n<p>6- <strong>Be yourself</strong>. This can be difficult if you are not comfortable in the language you're writing your article in, but if you are comfortable enough, try to keep (or create) your own writing style.</p>\n\n<p>7- I think this one is less important at first, but later if you want to be a pro: <strong>uniformize your editorial line</strong>. For example, if you use American English words in your abstract, don't use British English words suddenly in later parts. A very good listing of editorial tips can be found here:\n<a href=\"http://www.iaria.org/editorialrules.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.iaria.org/editorialrules.html</a></p>\n\n<p>8- Use a <strong>spellchecker</strong>, always.</p>\n\n<p>9- <strong>Ask other people to read your paper</strong>, and be open to feedbacks. This is crucial and the final step to make a good paper, as it is very difficult to see the big picture and the small glitches yourself. If possible, try also to get your paper read by non-specialized persons, like your relatives, they will tell you if your work is pleasant to read even if they can't grasp every technical subtletlies.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck for your paper. And remember: <strong>writing is always painful and feels unnatural for most people (including professional writers)</strong>, so don't feel out of place, just try to do your job and try to be proud of the result.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/22
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32118",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8999/"
] |
32,124 |
<p>In many cases the words <em>via</em> and <em>through</em> are interchangeable. However, is <em>via</em> viewed as acceptable to use among the academic community, typically?</p>
<p>I personally have a distaste for it, but that doesn't really mean much.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32125,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>There is nothing wrong with the word \"via,\" and in fact I personally have a weakness for it: sometimes it just feels more elegant and specific than alternatives like \"through\" or \"by means of.\" I also, however, have a weakness for a lot of somewhat archaic phrases, due to spending a lot of my childhood reading old books. </p>\n\n<p>The general principle which I think academic writing should subscribe to is Orwell's notion of \"transparent prose,\" in which the words are as clear as a window, letting one through to the ideas with minimal obstruction. Using too many unusual words, such as a lot of \"via\" and \"thus\" can be distracting, particularly for an international audience. Sometimes, though, a word is simply fit and elegant in its context, and there is no reason to avoid using it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32159,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am skeptical that the [anglophone] <em>academic community as a whole</em> has clear preferences on word choices beyond what is considered good English usage. Specific academic fields and communities of academics certainly do have preferred and deprecated word choices (and these choices are not necessarily viewed positively by the larger world: cf. \"jargon\").</p>\n\n<p>Might some particular professor like one word more than another? Of course, but that is just about the <em>ne plus ultra</em> of a question which is \"too localized\" to be useful on a site like this one. Moreover, even if she likes \"through\" better than \"via\" or vice versa: so what? Is she going to think less of your academic essay because of it? That would be most unreasonable.</p>\n\n<p>Having said all that: the words \"via\" and \"through\" are not fully synonymous: <a href=\"https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/108350/via-vs-through\">see this question on another SE site</a> for a good discussion. As the answers indicate, \"through\" is the much older word in English usage and has a much larger range of uses. The word \"via\" is much more specific: it means <strong>by way of; by the route which passes through or over (a specified place)</strong> or <strong>by means of, with the aid of</strong>. In academic writing one often wants to express that two things (concepts, ideas, problems...) can be related to each other by means of a third thing. Given that the word via has as its origin a Roman road connecting point A to point B, this usage is very appropriate for making such connections. In spoken language, \"via\" is somewhat uncommon and may perhaps be viewed as stilted or pretentious. In academic writing it is extremely common and unobtrusive (when used appropriately): the eye passes right over it. The idea that this particular word would be objectionable to an academic is especially strange to me. (There are a lot of words like this: in my academic writing I use \"thus\" and \"hence\" all the time; in nonacademic speech, not at all.)</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/22
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32124",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
32,131 |
<p>I have developed an educational software in which I make use of some copyrighted images, for example from Disney, and am now writing an article about it.</p>
<p>How should I reference or cite that those images are copyrighted? Should I put it on a footnote or just blur the images inside the article?</p>
<p>I would not like to have problems of an article rejection because of that.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32132,
"author": "efuller100",
"author_id": 24617,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24617",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would cite images using footnotes using either the MLA or APA image citation guidelines. However, there are some extra citation requirements for disney images see the walt disney terms of use web page <a href=\"http://www.waltdisney.org/terms-use\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.waltdisney.org/terms-use</a> pay particular attention to the section on fair use.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 34714,
"author": "yo'",
"author_id": 1471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1471",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The images are copyrighted. You are not allowed to put it in the article unless you obtain an explicit (and preferably written) permission by the copyright holder to use it there. If you obtained a permission to use it for research and you would like to consider it a permission to publish it in an article, you better consult a lawyer, but the odds are that you can't do that. As well, do not forget to check whether the journal's copyright transfer is not conflicting with the permission you obtain from the picture's copyright holder. You'll very likely need an exception from the Editor to be allowed to use the image.</p>\n\n<p>To see that this is an issue, remember that the usage of the famous Lenna picture led to legal complaints raised by PlayBoy who is the copyright holder. They decided to cancel the complaints, but it was just their choice. (Source: <a href=\"http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~chuck/lennapg/lenna.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~chuck/lennapg/lenna.shtml</a>)</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/22
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32131",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6144/"
] |
32,138 |
<p>I'm considering requiring a textbook that sells for $140 on Amazon. Used copies cost $95 and up. I expect about 60 students to take the course. Our students are not wealthy, and some will skip buying the book (and their academic performance will suffer) if they feel they cannot afford it. I'd like to find ways of saving my students money. </p>
<p>One idea I have is to see if it's possible to get a bulk discount and pass the savings on to students. Another idea is to set up an Amazon affiliate link and refund the kickbacks to students, although I'd probably be liable for income tax. (Of course, I'd request approval from the Provost's office before trying something that could appear to be profiting off of students.)</p>
<p>I live in the United States, the publisher is Pearson, and there does not seem to be an international edition. There is only one edition of the textbook. (For other classes, I've saved the students money by letting them use an earlier edition.) I have been unable to find a textbook of comparable quality that is significantly cheaper.</p>
<p>Has anyone tried any of the above ideas or others?</p>
<p>RESPONSES TO COMMENTS:</p>
<p><em>Why require a book?</em> I do not always require a book, but I think it is necessary for this course in order for students to learn the material.</p>
<p><em>Why not write my own book or lecture notes?</em> I have co-authored a book on a topic on which I am an expert and <a href="http://www.appinventor.org/book2" rel="nofollow noreferrer">made the book available for free online</a>. I could not do as good a job as the expensive textbook's authors in this subject matter, especially because I expect to only teach this course once.</p>
<p><em>Why not use a free online textbook?</em> I was unable to find a free book that did a good job covering the required material.</p>
<p><em>Why not encourage the students to find an illegal copy online?</em> I consider copyright legitimate and would not encourage my students to do something illegal or unethical.</p>
<p>UPDATE:</p>
<p>After I assigned the Pearson textbook, a student discovered that it was available for free online through the local public library. I immediately informed the other students of this option and let them know how to get a public library card. I will always know to check this option in the future. It had not occurred to me that a publisher would allow a popular textbook to be made available for free in this way (with no limit on the number of simultaneous viewers).</p>
<p>SECOND UPDATE:</p>
<p>I learned that <a href="https://www.acm.org/membership/membership-options" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ACM Student membership</a>, which is $19/year (with possibly lower rates in the developing world) includes access to Safari Books Online, which has a book I am requiring this semester (in the Head First series) and has many other great computer science books (typically used by developers, not as textbooks).</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32139,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>An easy thing to do that can be very helpful to your students is to put a copy of the textbook (or two or three copies) on reserve in the university library. Students can then photocopy critical sections of the book (e.g. the homework exercises.) This is particularly helpful at the start of the semester when students are waiting for copies of the book that they've ordered online to arrive. </p>\n\n<p>If you have control over the choice of the textbook, you should consider moving to a cheaper book or even an open educational resource (OER) that is completely free to students. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 42401,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 11565,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11565",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have found, by direct experience, that publishers are sometimes willing to offer steep discounts. At any rate I pulled this off once, and arranged for my students to be able to buy their book at an approximately 40% discount to what was available on Amazon or anywhere else.</p>\n\n<p>This involved the students buying their books directly by mail from a private page on the publisher's website, and this led to an ugly argument when the bookstore's manager found out about this. I ended up having to read my faculty manual closely so that I could call the manager's bluff. In the end, I (and more importantly my students) won.</p>\n\n<p>This could well work for others, and without the argument. :) But the bottom line is that publishers <em>will</em> negotiate. \"I'm <em>considering</em> requiring a textbook...\" are precisely the magic words. Just look up the contact information for the publisher's regional sales rep on the Internet, and call or e-mail them.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 42403,
"author": "Bitwise",
"author_id": 6862,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6862",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another option is to contact the authors and explain the situation. It is possible that they have a PDF version that can be used without legal issues (for example of an earlier edition or a pre-final version).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 100804,
"author": "J.R.",
"author_id": 780,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/780",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If your textbook happens to have multiple editions, you can tell the students that previous editions will work for the course. Many online sites sell older editions of a textbook at a steep discount. </p>\n\n<p>I have one course where we use the 4th edition of the book, but I have a table in the syllabus that maps the chapters of the 3rd edition to the chapters in the 4th edition. That way, if the reading assignment for the week is Chapter 7, students who are using the older edition know that they should be reading, say, Chapter 5. </p>\n\n<p>Quite often there is enough overlap of material in the older addition that a student can get by just fine. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/23
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32138",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] |
32,144 |
<p>Recently, a newly published paper in a journal cited one of our papers and managed to misspell my name in the reference list. How should I deal with this? Simply ignore this? Or should I contact the authors or publisher to mention this?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32146,
"author": "enthu",
"author_id": 15723,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You may send an email to either the publisher, editor of the journal or even the corresponding author of the paper and inform them about the misspelling. They <em>may</em> edit the misspelling.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32149,
"author": "Federico Poloni",
"author_id": 958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In addition to sending an e-mail to the journal, as suggested already, you should <strong>check the most common academic databases</strong> such as Scopus and Web of Knowledge/Science and <strong>submit corrections</strong> to them so that they pick up the citation correctly. They have a form to submit this kind of corrections automatically; it will then take a few weeks to apply them.</p>\n\n<p>People often (way <em>too</em> often, actually) rely on these databases to measure the performance of academics, so it is important that they don't miss any of your citations.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32155,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are a number of services that assign unique identifiers to authors and then associate publications with a particular author. This is particularly helpful for identifying publications of authors that have common names (“John A. Smith.”) For example, Thomson Reuters (who publish the “Web of Science” database) have “<a href=\"http://www.researchid.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ResearcherID</a>”. Another important service is <a href=\"http://orcid.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ORCID</a>. You should register yourself with these services and establish your connection to your papers. You should also decide now on one version of your name (e.g. whether to use a middle initial or full middle name) and try to stick with it through out your career.</p>\n\n<p>It may or may not be possible to get the journal to correct the spelling of your name in the online version of the paper. It certainly will not be possible to get this fixed in printed volumes that have already been distributed. That is why it is particularly important to check this information in reviewing page proofs before the paper is published.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/23
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32144",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17804/"
] |
32,160 |
<p>I was curious to find out if there were any "tells" in faculty searches that someone is going to get a formal offer before the official paperwork is received. Are candidates who are about to be hired asked to fill out extra forms or provide additional documentation that might not have been needed earlier in the process, or something similar?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32173,
"author": "410 gone",
"author_id": 96,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Positive early signs:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>you helped write the job specification;</li>\n<li>one or more of the selection panel advised you to apply for the vacancy;</li>\n<li>they take up your references;</li>\n<li>you hear through the grapevine that members of your target department have been asking around, about you, after your interview;</li>\n<li>you get an additional interview, where the main topics of discussion are pay & other benefits, when you could start, and what facilities you'd require in post.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Regarding formal paperwork,: all applicants at our place are required to show eligibility for employment, at time of interview. So there's no additional requests for paperwork between final interview and job offer.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32206,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For many searches the \"official\" paperwork is often only received very late in the game such that at the time you receive the contract nothing is left to negotiate. There will often be a very early congratulatory call saying saying we would like to make you an offer (which is not quite the same as making an offer), let's talk about salary and startup. Searches often move quickly once they decide they want to make an offer. Sometimes there is a hold up, for example, waiting for Dean's approval, but generally, I would say once a decision has been reached, they let the candidate know ASAP.</p>\n\n<p>I suggest asking at the interview when a decision will be made. You can then follow up when that date passes and sometimes find out if things are not promising.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/23
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32160",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53/"
] |
32,164 |
<p>I've attended a lot of seminars and lectures by now, and it's typical for the chair of the seminar to offer audience members a chance to ask questions of the speaker about their work after the presentation.</p>
<p>Most of the time, the questions seek clarification of some aspect of the presentation or focus on a more comprehensive understanding of the research involved.</p>
<p>However, occasionally, I've noticed that questions are purposefully designed to embarrass the speaker. Things along the lines of "That method won't work at all for what you're trying to do. Your results are completely invalid" or "So-and-so's group already did that work years ago. Did you not read their paper?"</p>
<p>Perhaps more disturbingly (I just got back from a really large conference if you can't tell), is that women seem to be more harshly criticized than men, and over trivial issues. For instance, in a few sessions I went to, female graduate students were given really hard times over their presentations while the male grad students were not. All presentations were about the same quality. I guess I'm a little shocked; I'd heard of sexism in academia but hadn't actually seen it (or noticed it) until this conference.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, I've observed that it's typically prestigious professors or researchers that are asking these ostentatious questions. I suppose they figure they have enough "fame" or whatever that their job isn't in jeopardy, and there's no easy way to really prove they're being rude or sexist.</p>
<p>I don't know what's going on here, but it seems to me that these questions, even if they do have technical merit, should be held until after the seminar, where they can be discussed privately with the researcher.</p>
<p>My question here, specifically, is what can be done to minimize these (uncomfortable for everyone) instances? My thoughts are that a session chair should remind the audience to refrain from questions that are accusatory in nature. As a presenter, I'm not sure what can be done in advance to preempt and avoid these questions. Any ideas?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32170,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Firstly, I should note that the examples you give are certainly somewhat agressively formulated (more so than would be common in my field), but not in themselves invalid questions. It is certainly \"allowed\" to be critical of the presented work, and there is nothing the session chair can or <em>should</em> do about this.</p>\n\n<p><strong>As a speaker</strong>, it always helps to think in advance what kind of \"negative\" question there could be, and prepare for them. You know that your work is very close to <em>Foo et al, 2001</em>? Good, have a backup slide that highlights your contribution over them. You think people would argue that a much simpler standard approach would have also worked instead of your super-complicated new custom method? Have a backup slide which compares the results of the two methods (you <em>did</em> test the standard method first, right?). If your answer does not convince the person asking the question, then much of what I <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29576/how-to-respond-to-the-trivialisation-of-one-s-work-and-unjustified-demands-for-a\">wrote in this related answer</a> also applies here. Specifically:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(...) try to explain calmly why you did what you did. Yes, maybe that person asking the question will disagree, but so what? The fact that your actual peer reviews are good shows that there are a non-trivial amount of researchers that actually agree with you. The person asking the question is not your supervisor, you don't need to agree with him/her specifically on your research agenda or approaches.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>As a session chair</strong>, you need to step in as soon as a question starts to become an <em>ad hominem</em> attack. That is, <em>\"I think this has been done years ago.\"</em> is still fine, while <em>\"How the heck did you even get a PhD?\"</em> isn't. Further, a session chair should interrupt a series of questions as soon as he feels that the discussion isn't of interest to the larger audience anymore. I do not think that there is much that can be done in advance. As a session chair, you typically want to foster discussions, not preemptively set out the ground rules.</p>\n\n<p>About the parts regarding <strong>sexisms</strong> and whether <strong>senior professors tend to be mean</strong>: I don't really have much to say about this. Not being a woman, I have not yet noticed any particular pattern about how females get asked questions versus males. The same is true for whether senior professors ask more critical questions - personally, I rather have the impression that fellow grad students and young postdocs or assistant professors are more likely to be extremely critical of other person's work than more senior researchers.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32172,
"author": "blankip",
"author_id": 11420,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11420",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a presenter I believe that the best advice I can give is <strong>be honest, be yourself, and be prepared</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>This goes for your presentation and any research/material surrounding your lecture. </p>\n\n<p>I have given many presentations/lectures/seminars in the field of computer science. Many of these at one point in time revolved around trade automation within direct exchange fields. </p>\n\n<p>When I first started doing this, I was in my mid 20s. The audience was 90% men, almost all of them 40+. I have to say at first I cringed when we opened things up to questions. Things were anywhere between uneasy to hostile - mainly due to my age and lack of time in the field.</p>\n\n<p>Some general tips:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Understand that some things you say people will take that as a threat to whatever their \"job\" is. Change, new technology or new data can make people fear their abilities. I once discussed a way to cut two milliseconds off an exchange execution. This technique threw out a standard industry mechanism. My boss promptly got several calls from executives at two firms wanting me fired. A year later that industry mechanism was a thing of the past.</li>\n<li>Your topic might be interesting but there is a 99.99% chance that it will have little effect on the history of mankind. You can't put off an aura of godliness and not expect a few smartass questions.</li>\n<li>Give credit where it is due. In my case I combined several theories and current technology to produce something that worked efficiently together. I did not at any point in time act like I created everything. I also (depending on audience) liked to give some shout-outs to those who helped or those whose work influenced what I did.</li>\n<li>Know your audience. I like to know who might attend my sessions. I know that people from certain groups might have certain types of questions. Also at the same time try to acknowledge this audience during your time. Often you can neutralize a harsh person by giving a strategic compliment before they have a chance to ask a question.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Quick bits on your specific questions:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>That method won't work at all for what you're trying to do. Your\n results are completely invalid</p>\n \n <p><strong>Answer:</strong> Your session should have been clear enough to answer or refute this. If it can be asked without everyone rolling their eyes then you have not done your job as a presenter getting the facts across. If someone asked me this I would calmly tell them why I disagreed (in less than a minute).</p>\n \n <p>So-and-so's group already did that work years ago. Did you not read\n their paper?</p>\n \n <p><strong>Answer:</strong> If your work is just an extension of theirs then this should be part of the presentation. And then during the presentation you would tell how yours differed (you don't have to \"compare\" the entire time) and give your additions. Again if you did not do this you have failed as a presenter and it is a valid question.</p>\n \n <p>that women seem to be more harshly criticized than men, and over trivial issues</p>\n \n <p><strong>Answer:</strong> People always judge others by how they look. This is a fact of life. I was an ex-football player. I get lots of dumb-jock looks and remarks. You can't get hung up on this. Just answer the questions and keep your opinions of their motives to yourself. (You can despise the person and still answer their question nicely)</p>\n \n <p>it's typically prestigious professors or researchers that are asking these ostentatious questions.</p>\n \n <p><strong>Answer:</strong> Be self-deprecating, make sure that others know that you don't think you are the smartest person in the world. This seems counter-intuitive but they will soon see that they just spent two hours listening to someone who doesn't think that he/she is smart, so where does that leave them?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As for the chair... People should be allowed to ask questions even if tough. I don't believe in asking certain questions behind closed doors unless the question is truly personal (which I didn't think your examples were). However, the chair should step in if the people asking the questions are keeping others from asking something or if they are just taking too long.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32175,
"author": "Moriarty",
"author_id": 8562,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8562",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A neutral way to effectively bypass the question could be to ask <em>\"may we have a chat about that in the break?</em>\". </p>\n\n<p>Those sorts of questions are often not productive to answer in front of an audience, particularly if you don't think it's a valid concern. If you have an answer on hand, then you should answer the question - but you don't want to get into an argument on stage with a well-known professor if you cannot give a concise answer.</p>\n\n<p>By doing this, you're also encouraging the audience to ask questions that are concise and clearly answerable.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32176,
"author": "BrenBarn",
"author_id": 9041,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9041",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As others have noted in the comments, there's a difference between questions that have legitimate content but an unnecessarily aggressive tone (e.g., \"Isn't it obvious that won't work for reason X, you fool?\"), and questions that are purely verbal attacks with no real substance (\"How did you even get accepted to this conference?\").</p>\n\n<p>As a speaker, the best way to respond to the first kind of question is just as if it lacked the harassing component. If you calmly address the substance of the question without getting your dander up, the questioner is the one who will look like a jerk for adopting such a confrontational stance. Of course, it's especially nice if you can cleanly dispatch their question with a concise and accurate rejoinder (e.g., \"Actually, Smith and Jones showed in a paper last year that this method works quite well\"), but if your research is sound, even a fairly garden-variety response is probably adequate (e.g., \"The jury is still out on that question, but our results show it's worth investigating further\").</p>\n\n<p>As for the second kind of question, at least in my experience it seems to often take the form of a sort of rambling rant by the questioner, directed less at the current speaker than at some whole research area or methodology. (For instance someone saying, \"But don't these kinds of studies always run up against the problem of. . .\") I have seen people come of well in responding to these kinds of questions by waiting patiently and then responding good-humoredly but pointedly with something like \"I'm not sure I caught what your actual question was.\"</p>\n\n<p>If the question really is a direct attack or a \"gotcha\" attempt (e.g., quizzing the person on one particular paper), you'll rarely be faulted for just saying something like \"Maybe we can discuss those details individually later\" (i.e., in the coffee break or whatever). I think this is the ace-in-the-hole response to many questions that try to derail the question session and turn it into a one-upmanship contest. Of course, it's best only to use it when the question really is out of bounds (or too large in scope to be answered in the question session), because if you try to deflect legitimate questions this way you'll look like you haven't done your homework.</p>\n\n<p>As an audience member, I've noticed that usually when someone asks a confrontational question, it seems to make the audience uncomfortable as well. Often other people have questions and would like to ask them before the question time is consumed by verbal posturing. So it helps to remember that, if the question is really uncalled-for, the audience is probably \"on your side\" and will not think less of you for simply deflecting it and moving on.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32185,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, a general method for softening rudely-posed questions is that the session chair can rephrase the question into a more productive form. That is, the useful and constructive content can be separated from possibly hostile tone or affect of the questioner... especially if, as the session chair can probably judge by the affect of the speaker, the speaker is flustered.</p>\n\n<p>This mediation is potentially relevant both in the cases where (apparently) the question is sheer bullying, or (apparently) the speaker is actually mistaken or ill-informed or ... and cases in-between.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32187,
"author": "Nahkki",
"author_id": 18092,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18092",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My method seems to be a bit more... devious... than the methods proposed by other answers. This is something that was handed down in a roundabout fashion from other researchers I know. No one talks about it directly but I've had one on one conversations when it comes up.</p>\n\n<p>As a presenter I try to make sure to lead the audience to what might seem like a couple of 'gotchas'. Just as I control the method and content of the presentation, I think it's important to control, to a limited extent, the questions and post-talk discussion. </p>\n\n<p>What does this mean? I <em>never</em> give a talk without a pretty good idea of the worst questions I could get about it. This requires having a group, preferably in your lab, who is willing to give you harsh, constructive feedback. This requires an advisor or supervisor who is willing to listen to your presentation and put their 'asshole' hat on and help you identify those questions. This requires being willing to be told that your baby is ugly. A lot of research groups are very positive and that's good for the most part but when it comes time to present you need honesty and a little bit of appropriate 'meanness'.</p>\n\n<p>Additionally, I typically try to lead the audience to questions during my talk. The 'jerk' questions tend to pop up when others don't have questions. By making a talk that is engaging and encourages questions in a specific vein the presenter is less likely to receive an unhelpful, insincere question. This is a bit more subtle and there's a delicate balance. A presenter should never leave pertinent information out but... there's a line right? With experience a presenter can both know what questions to expect and encourage some questions over others. </p>\n\n<p>It's a bit weird, isn't it? One would think that a 'perfect' presentation would involve precisely describing the topic in such a way that questions are unnecessary but the real world of presentations having questions, having people be engaged is beneficial.</p>\n\n<p>Of course nothing will remove the 'jerk' questions entirely. I once gave a presentation on a visual classification system. A faculty member, a well known faculty member albeit in a different subfield, raked me across the coals. Why? Because <em>\"Training data is stupid, you just need to tell the robot what a chair is. Why are you spending so much time on something stupid!\"</em> Which, for anyone who understands classification systems is... not accurate or very helpful. Sometimes you just gotta let that crotchety jerk get their poison out, say a couple of 'mhmms' and nod while finishing with a \"That's very interesting. I'd love to talk more about this with you. Why don't you email me at...\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32231,
"author": "Tomas",
"author_id": 410,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/410",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p><strong>\"That method won't work at all for what you're trying to do. Your\n results are completely invalid.\"</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Stay calm and kindly answer: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Thank you, I am very grateful for your input. Could you please be more\n specific about why you think it wouldn't work?\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This way <em>you</em> will embarrass <em>them</em> - you will show that you react like a kind person and scientist, while they weren't able to be specific enough. If they don't specify their critique, you are fine. If they do, you turned the emotional argument into rational one, and you can respond factually.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>\"So-and-so's group already did that work years ago. Did you not read\n their paper?\"</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Stay calm and kindly answer: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"We did a lot of research of the published studies, but all of them\n were inappropriate for our case because of A, B or C. But we could\n miss something, so I would be very grateful if you give me the\n reference afterwards.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This way you present several things: that you actually <em>did</em> the research, that you can accept the critics and that you are working like a scientist.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32233,
"author": "Robert Buchholz",
"author_id": 19905,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19905",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>My question here, specifically, is what can be done to minimize these (uncomfortable for everyone) instances?`</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I disagree with your premise, that one <em>should</em> do anything to minimize these instances. These questions (excluding sexist behavior) are not only legitimate, but are a useful mechanism of quality control that forces researchers to perform their research more rigorously. A bad researcher can simply ignore most other kinds of criticism of their work without negative personal impact. But they cannot do that in a public forum.</p>\n\n<p>If your research is solid, you should have no problem to defend it against any legitimate accusations, even in a public forum such as a conference. If, however, the person asking that question has a point, it is their duty as a researcher - and the real point of a conference - to point out your mistakes, so that you and others in the room can learn from it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32445,
"author": "ahamed",
"author_id": 24908,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24908",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To the person asking a malicious question regardless of his/her status depicts lack of etiquette. I think the Chair or Moderator should quickly intervene by asking to discuss the issue after the end of event so that the speaker can adequately respond in more details. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/24
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32164",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5958/"
] |
32,165 |
<p>I for one have never understood the distinction between a regular prof with a prof Emeritus/Emerita aside from the obvious fact that a Prof. Emeritus is someone who is usually fairly elderly and has spent quite a bit of time in the University.</p>
<p>I am currently spending a working with a Prof. Emeritus who is the a supervisor/advisor to my project and conducts biweekly meetings (which are really brief chats about life) and am in need to make a serious request. I feel uncomfortable because he may have a lot of other work on the side. I do not know whether has classes on the side nor am I aware of any research activities.</p>
<p>How does a professor become Prof. Emeritus (is age-status a must?) and do Prof. Emeritus usually still actively conduct research, teach classes? What is the distinction between a retired professor and a Prof. Emeritus?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32166,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>To the best of my understanding, the primary function of a professor switching to emeritus status is that it frees up a faculty slot for a new hire. Emeritus is essentially retirement without giving up affiliation. An emeritus professor can ramp down their duties, go part time, etc. In some cases they may still do some teaching and supervising, and may have office space, but I believe they are typically no longer paid and no longer expected to fulfill normal faculty duties. That said, when they are still active, their advice and participation is often still quite valued by the active faculty.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32184,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Emeritus faculty are a subset of retired faculty. At some universities, one gets the title \"professor emeritus\" practically automatically when one retires; at others, the title is a non-trivial honor. (Dean Rusk is reported to have explained \"emeritus\", at the time he retired, with the etymology: \"e\" means \"out\", and \"meritus\" means \"deserves to be\".)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 75311,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I may be mistaken (being surprised at @AndreasBlass' answer that not all retired faculty are \"emeritus/emerita\" [if gender matters]), but in the U.S. in the last 20+ years it seems that (at R1 universities, and maybe R2s) that \"emerit*\" just means \"retired\".</p>\n\n<p>The cutesy wrangle about whether the \"e(x) merit*\" means \"from merit\" or \"without merit\" will probably never go away...</p>\n\n<p>So far as I know, no emeritus faculty get any pay, although there may be some deals about benefits (health care in the U.S., ...) People may get to keep modest offices, in some cases, or be reduced to sharing with several other retirees, depending on status...</p>\n\n<p>With widely available internet, and with crumbling infrastructure at many universities, the supposed advantage of \"having an office\" is evaporating. Many people have better internet, better control of AC or heat, easier parking, nicer space, ... _at_home_ rather than at the (once-regal?) office space on campus. I have a much smaller chance of getting mugged while working at home, already. I have a thermostat! A clean refrigerator. If I had a nice, big, old-fashioned slate blackboard I'd probably have my research students come to my house instead of going to campus to meet them (and have blackboards, luckily, but no AC, parking difficulties even with paid-for reservations, and traffic...)</p>\n\n<p>Skirting faculty meetings, committee assignments, and administrative overhead is a great perk of being retired/emerit*.</p>\n\n<p>In my experience, though, retired faculty do not teach, although they may participate in seminars. On one hand, there are serious conflicts-of-interest in having people who're paid $0$ teach classes, no matter their competence. On another, ... sure, why not let people who've stopped occupying a paid faculty slot still contribute? Unclear to me the wise solution here.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/24
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32165",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20070/"
] |
32,167 |
<p>After my 10th grade I joined a polytechnic college for a specialization in Infomation Technology (Diploma in Information Technology). Now, I am in my final year of under-graduate studies (Bachelor of Technology in Information Technology), and I want to pursue my graduate studies from the United States of America.</p>
<p>One of the universities that I am applying to did not offer the option of “Diploma in Information Technology” in their online application form. After doing some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diploma#Usage" rel="nofollow">research</a> I found out that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India" rel="nofollow">India</a>, a diploma is a specific academic award usually earned in professional/vocational courses, e.g., Engineering, Pharmacy, Design, etc. In such cases, a diploma is specific in rank than a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor%27s_degree" rel="nofollow">Bachelor's degree</a> of that discipline but equivalent to general degree in that discipline, e.g., <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diploma_in_Engineering" rel="nofollow">Diploma in Engineering</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_Engineering" rel="nofollow">Electronics Engineering</a> is rated differently than <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Technology" rel="nofollow">Bachelor of Technology</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_Engineering" rel="nofollow">Electronics Engineering</a> but is equivalent to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Science" rel="nofollow">Bachelor of Science</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics" rel="nofollow">Electronics</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If so, then what is the equivalent degree of a Diploma in Information Technology in India? Is it Bachelor of Science in Information Technology?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32168,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's not \"equivalent\" to any US degree.The US educational system is sufficiently different that no such equivalent degree exists in the US. </p>\n\n<p>If an online application doesn't have your specific credentials as an option, choose \"Other\" and specify. Don't invent equivalencies.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32351,
"author": "Dr G.",
"author_id": 17698,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17698",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I expect that the diploma would be similar to a degree that you would get out of a US vocational college, or perhaps a community college. Those are associate degrees, which are below a bachelors degree - it's a two year degree that could be transferred for credits if you were pursuing a bachelors degree. </p>\n\n<p>I would suggest that you look for an Academic equivalency service that will provide you with a solution to your issue. Of course, you cannot invent equivalencies for your degree. Another option would be to call the international students affairs office at the university you hope to apply to. They may have some suggestions on what to put on the application and what your degree is equivalent to. They may even tell you to use an academic equivalency service.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/24
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32167",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24687/"
] |
32,169 |
<p>I have a professor at my university who uses content from an un-cited textbook that he has never referenced anywhere, including his green sheet (syllabus), as an additional resource. At least some slides he has used include parts of content that have been re-worded and others that are 100% the same. I noticed this by Googling for textbooks on the material we're studying in class and found that examples given in one that I found were exactly the same as what he has provided.</p>
<p>Would this technically be plagiarism? Should he be given the benefit of the doubt in this situation?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32174,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Plagiarism involves dishonesty: taking someone else's work and leading others to believe it is your own.</p>\n\n<p>In the case of unpublished teaching materials, I don't think it's assumed that all the examples, etc., a professor uses are original unless an outside source is cited. So I wouldn't strictly consider this plagiarism (though citing outside sources is definitely preferable to not citing them).</p>\n\n<p>It's possible that in your academic culture it <em>is</em> assumed that all of a professor's materials are original, in which case, the above would not apply.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32204,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Teaching is tricky:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>My university has a one-year post-doc that has a one-course teaching obligation. One of the applicants submitted the required syllabus for the course -- but except for the title, it was a 100% copy/paste of another person's syllabus (including the course description and assignments) without attribution. This <em>might</em> have been forgivable if the source was the applicant's mentor, but it wasn't. Needless to say, we didn't give the person the post-doc although this wasn't the primary reason.</li>\n<li>That all being said -- when planning classes, I think it's common to look for syllabuses to draw on. That's why many professional societies have syllabus databases. You should attempt to make the course your own, but if someone has a great cluster of readings for teaching Dunning-Kruger, I think it's well within fair use to use those sections.</li>\n<li>When teaching 100 level classes, I think it's fairly common for professors to look at intro textbooks other than the course textbook. Often these texts have course plans, etc. I don't think it's uncommon for faculty to integrate these into their lectures, but I do think if you're copy/pasting that you should at least attribute.</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32208,
"author": "Formagella",
"author_id": 24716,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24716",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Note that I'm not in the US, but in my experience generally it's never implied that all the teaching material is original. There often is a hereditary element too, or the department has common material they share. </p>\n\n<p>Also consider that the only sensitive material in most courses could be copyrighted images. There's no copyright on Newton's law. Plagiarism would be saying that you discovered Newton's law, not copying another teachers' material. </p>\n\n<p>I've noticed that some people put a password on all their PDFs and say it's because of the material they put in it which they don't want to show up in google images. \nOften, I've noticed that it's a mix of stuff they wrote with images from those PPTs you can get from the textbook minisites, given free of charge by the publishers so that teachers can use the same pictures that are also in the books. \nI haven't read the terms and conditions the publishers put on those slide shows but maybe they don't want the images to be republished without a full citation of the source, hence the practice to keep access restricted to the participants. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 44233,
"author": "MathAndCo",
"author_id": 28473,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28473",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The simple answer is no.</p>\n\n<p>Usually, courses are being taught with the same material every semester which is \"inherited\" from one lecturer to the next one and usually begins with some textbook so that's not unusual - no one assumes that it is an original material.</p>\n\n<p>More than that, if a lecturer is using exercises from some textbook in class he might also use them for homework sheets and then he would prefer not to disclose their origin in case there are also answers in the textbook.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 60871,
"author": "Benoît Kloeckner",
"author_id": 946,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As far as I understand the word, <strong>what you describe is factually <a href=\"http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/\" rel=\"nofollow\">plagiarism</a></strong>, which includes both (1) passing others words and ideas as one's own, and (2) using another's production without giving credit. In most classes, the ideas are not assumed in any way to be the lecturer's ones, so (1) does not apply; but if text from an non-cited book is copied verbatim, then (2) applies.</p>\n\n<p>Now, most academics I know do use from time to time other's material without proper referencing, and this seems <em>in practice</em> to be accepted (as shown by several other answers). I strongly oppose this habit, especially when the same lecturer blame student for copy-pasting Wikipedia in their homework: even if the situation is somewhat different, the message gets a bit confusing.</p>\n\n<p>That does not mean that lecturers can't use other's production; they just have either to get inspiration from them instead of copy-pasting, or to give credit. This applies notably, but not exclusively, to the use of images.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/24
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32169",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24688/"
] |
32,171 |
<p>I recently received my Mathematics GRE subject test score of 650 ( 48%). I know this score is miserable but in my country, I have the option to retake the GRE next year October only.</p>
<p>Assuming otherwise I have a strong profile (with achievements in other examinations in my country and some research experience ) Should I be reporting this score to universities where it is not mandatory (but highly encouraged) to submit Math subject GRE scores? I mean will this score weaken my application?</p>
<p>Before this score, I was thinking of applying to universities like Upenn, Penn State etc but feel really nervous about my admission prospects now..</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32178,
"author": "Anil Muppalla",
"author_id": 23887,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23887",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Since the admissions office receive applications in large numbers they would prefer to work the application that corresponds to the \"required list\", otherwise it would delay the process. Sending in documents, in your case a low subject score, could have an adverse effect on your application. If the application does not require a subject score, do not send a weak subject score as it will not make your application stronger.</p>\n\n<p>There is a GRE general test and subject test. As far as i know, the general test is mandatory for most programs, but the subject test is optional. </p>\n\n<p>General rule: do not send anything that is optional and does not strengthen your application. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 33036,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>@Ben Webster asked me to answer this, so I will. It's a tough one!</p>\n\n<p>The problem here is that I don't feel that PhD programs are all on the same page here, and their differences from one another are not easily visible to the outside (e.g. two departments of similar quality may well differ on the issue). Here are two different philosophies for departments that recommend but do not require the math subject GRE:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>We don't take the math subject GRE that seriously. A really good score is positive, but it is certainly not sufficient to get you admitted. We don't use poor scores to exclude candidates...but we admit that all else being equal, higher scores are better. A missing subject GRE score just means that we don't take this part of the application into account.</p></li>\n<li><p>We do take the math subject GRE seriously, and a low score is a red flag for us. However, although we will almost never want to admit a student with a poor score, we understand that sometimes really strong applicants just don't take the test. If we get a fantastic applicant who didn't manage to take the subject test, we would like to have the right to admit them anyway. Making the subject exam strictly required would call that right into question, so we won't do that. But if you are trying to best compete with the heart of the applicant pool, we advise you to take the test and do well on it.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So you see the problem. The 48 percentile score makes it quite likely that the OP is not (or not yet) a latter-day Gauss. Thus for a department with the second philosophy, he should submit his score. For a department with the first philosophy, maybe not...but there's another wrinkle.</p>\n\n<p>The OP characterizes his 48 percentile score as \"miserable\". That is a misperception beyond mere histrionics: I believe this is actually a decent score for a range of programs. (I <em>think</em> it would be fine for mine, but I am no longer on the graduate committee so can't speak so specifically.) Let's get real: the 48 percentile is on a test which is only taken by people who are seriously considering math grad school but the converse does not hold: a lot of people who are considering math grad school -- and even many that are admitted to a certain range and class of programs -- are not taking this test. Further, I have heard rather convincing rumors that many of the highest scores on this exam are attained by foreign students taking the exam under what we Americans would politely call nonstandard conditions. Apparently this is true to an extent that it does skew the results a bit, so 48 percentile is probably not below average for \"reliably honest\" scores. </p>\n\n<p>So the situation is even more confusing: I'm not quite sure, but I believe that there are US math PhD programs which fall under the first philosophy, but for which nevertheless turning in a score of 48 percentile would help, rather than hurt, the OP in terms of his placement in the pack. </p>\n\n<p>Let's bring this back to the poor OP. He has gone to all the trouble (and money) of taking the test. As a result there is information out there about the OP's math skills that most PhD programs would want to know. Whether it is in the OP's best interest for them to know it is highly unclear: it varies in a way that is a bit opaque <em>to me</em>, let alone the OP. Because his score is under 50% he thinks it is bad and thus doesn't submit it to certain schools. (And <em>maybe</em> he is right.) Isn't everyone but the Educational Testing Service losing out on this proposition? What a mess.</p>\n\n<p>For the math faculty who are reading this: I hope you now understand why I contributed in my own department's changeover from recommending the exam to requiring it. I recommend that you require it too (!). When people are taking the test, not telling us their scores, <em>and we understand why they are doing so</em>, then we are not setting things up in the best way.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 80466,
"author": "Rolazaro Azeveires",
"author_id": 8259,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8259",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Lets assume a GRE test is a good thing to show on a PhD. So almost all candidates will take one, so to show their grade.</p>\n\n<p><em>A priori</em> the distribution of grades, in percentiles, is, by definition, a uniform distribution, from 0 to 100.</p>\n\n<p>Assuming only candidates with a grade in the top half will submit it, then the graduate committee may make a <em>a posteriori</em> inference of the grade distribution of the candidates that do not show their grade. A rough first approximation is that those grades have a uniform distribution from 0 to 50. So they estimate the students not showing a grade had, on average, a grade in the 25th percentile. Or worse, they did not even dare to take the test because they assumed the grade would be lower than that.</p>\n\n<p>So you'll be better of showing a 48th grade.</p>\n\n<p>Actually everyone with more than a 25th percentile grade should show it. Now, if we plug that back in the starting reasoning, we may show by induction that any student with any vanishingly small grade should show it.</p>\n\n<p>Yes, this is mostly a joke.</p>\n\n<p>Or is it? :-)</p>\n\n<p>(not on academia, not even a math student, but considering the possibility to get back and do a unfinished degree :-)</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/24
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32171",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14934/"
] |
32,177 |
<p>I am applying to doctoral programs in the US.</p>
<p>I would like to use my master's thesis preprint as my writing sample because it was written in English and is in the field on which I intend to concentrate in my possible doctoral studies. </p>
<p>Though my advisor, who is not a native speaker too, feels it is okay for my thesis to be my writing sample, I am afraid, because I did not make the English in my thesis polished by native speakers, that using it as my writing sample would backfire. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32179,
"author": "Anil Muppalla",
"author_id": 23887,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23887",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>English language proficiency is important for any PHD candidate and a writing sample can help them. Since you mentioned the language of the pre-print not upto the mark, you could get it reviewed form someone who has strong english language. It is important to clearly and concisely state your goals and language plays an important role at that. Send in your best writing sample. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32207,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Yes. If an applicant to a doctoral program has written a master's thesis, it will be assumed that the thesis is the applicant's best work. Therefore admissions committees will expect to receive the thesis as the writing sample. If your thesis is long, you may wish to send a polished excerpt; the expected length may be field dependent.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/24
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32177",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18107/"
] |
32,181 |
<p>Some months ago, I was asked to review a paper for a computer science conference. I submitted my report about a week before the deadline, and I strongly recommended acceptance subject to a few minor corrections.</p>
<p>Just after the deadline, I was contacted by the programme committee member who originally asked me to review the paper. He sent me another reviewer's report (without a name or other identifying information) and asked for my opinion
of it. The other reviewer had recommended rejection on the grounds that an example in the paper supposedly contradicted the claim of the main theorem. I explained that the other reviewer has misunderstood the example (in fairness, the authors of the paper could have stated it more carefully), and I see that the paper was ultimately accepted.</p>
<p>I have never before seen or been asked to comment on another reviewer's report, but my field is primarily mathematics, where there is often only a single reviewer for a paper, and I have only reviewed a few computer science papers.</p>
<p>So my question is this: in fields where it is usual to have multiple reviewers, is it common to be shown and asked to comment on other reviewers' reports? </p>
<p>A secondary question would be: if it is not uncommon, does it mainly occur when reviewers take opposing positions on a paper, like in the situation I describe?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32182,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's common for conferences that use the <a href=\"http://easychair.org/\">EasyChair system</a>, for example, to show all reviews to all reviewers of a paper. Once you submit your review, you can see any of the others. With these kinds of conferences, the Program Committee (or a subset of it) often actually meets in some form, online or in person, to discuss all the papers under their scrutiny. This gives them an opportunity to figure out these kinds of problems. A good committee chair may ask one reviewer to revise their review in light of others if there was a mistake or misunderstanding.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, I've never had this happen with journal reviewing. There, it seems more common for editors to take all the reviews into consideration and make these kinds of calls for themselves. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32183,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't know about other fields, but this is a fairly common practice in computer science. Computer science has a very strong culture of significant publications in conferences, which have significantly different reviewing challenges than journal publications.</p>\n\n<p>The key problem is that conferences typically have a large number of papers that all need to be dealt with by a fixed deadline and with a single iteration of revision. This generally means that:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>You have to cast a wide net for reviewers, and are likely to be trying out a \"new\" reviewer on several papers at once, rather than iteratively.</li>\n<li>People typically commit to reviewing far in advance, when the program committee is formed, and may find themselves with less time than expected and no opportunity to ask for an extra couple of weeks to produce a review.</li>\n<li>There is no opportunity for the cycles of dialogue between reviewers and authors that happen during the journal manuscript revision process: generally there is no \"major revision\" option, just \"accept with minor revisions\" and \"reject.\"</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>All of this adds up to getting a collection of reviews with more uneven quality and less chance to work the differences through in dialogue. Outlier reviews can be problematic: a very low outlier can cause an otherwise good paper to be rejected; a very good outlier can cause the authors of a rightfully rejected paper to feel that they were robbed of a publication.</p>\n\n<p>One of the typical ways to try to deal with this (supported nicely by platforms like <a href=\"http://www.easychair.org/\">EasyChair</a>) is to ask the reviewers to look at each others' reviews and to discuss differences. This way, when there are major differences of opinion, the more careful and informed participants can influence the others to adjust their opinions, just as happened in your case. Another mechanism (less commonly practiced, due to time constraints), is to allow the authors to write a rebuttal, which the reviewers are then asked to consider and see whether it leads them to adjust their scores.</p>\n\n<p>There are other, more experimental methods as well---many computer science subfields take their conferences pretty seriously, and are constantly tinkering to try to improve them. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32192,
"author": "gnometorule",
"author_id": 4384,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4384",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This isn't exactly the same situation, but in the first round of a paper I submitted in applied math, I received a glowing and a lukewarm/slightly negative review. When it came back to me, there was also what seemed like a tie-breaker opinion pretty much only saying \"clearly worth publishing, but not in current form\" (the paper was essentially copied and pasted from a thesis chapter which that review continued to say what it looked like). As the 3rd review made no substantial other comments, someone had clearly been asked to opine on the other 2 reviews, also underlined by, in later rounds, only getting feedback from the first two (obvious because of cross-references they made). </p>\n\n<p>This gives anecdotal feedback to your question 2 - for journals, not conferences. It was a good journal in a rather dead field, in case that matters. I went to industry after and cannot provide insight into how common the above is. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32202,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is fairly common in computer science for program committee members to have a large number of papers assigned to them for review. They will often review some subset of these papers themselves and send the others to sub-reviewers. (EasyChair makes it easy to do this and to keep track of everything.) Usually, the program committee members will see all the reviews, whether from other members or from sub-reviewers. The committee will discuss the reviews and try to iron out any disagreements. In some cases, but usually fairly few cases, this may involve going back to sub-reviewers, making them aware of disagreements, and asking for their help in resolving the issues. From your question, I infer that you were a sub-reviewer for one of the program committee members. In that case, being shown other reviews and asked to comment on them is not the most common situation but it happens for a small percentage of the papers in a typical conference (well, typical among the conferences that I have some experience with). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32203,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is apparent that the standards vary between fields. In field with which I am familiar (in the Sciences) seeing and commenting on other reviews is not at all common (in fact I had not heard about the process before). Reviews typically go to an editor and is conveyed to the authors. Even in publications with open reviews where anyone can comment on the manuscript, there are specifically appointed reviewers that provide reviews that will be posted online as the manuscript is closed for further comments. this is the time when the authors get to respond and adjust their manuscript for continued consideration.</p>\n\n<p>So the procedure you describe is not common to al fields by any means.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/24
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32181",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13547/"
] |
32,190 |
<p>If I reuse unpublished work in new unpublished work, would this be considered self-plagiarism?</p>
<p>Examples would be:</p>
<ol>
<li>Use the same paragraph of text in more than one cover letter for job applications</li>
<li>Use the same unpublished results in more than one funding application</li>
</ol>
<p>I would usually say <em>better safe than sorry</em> but it just seems silly to state <em>I previously used this text/material in [unpublished work X]</em>, in contexts such as the examples I gave above.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32191,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><strong>No.</strong> Unpublished work is unpublished. It's almost as if it doesn't exist. Given that it is your work, there is no case of plagiarism. I don't even think you need to cite yourself --- what would you actually be citing? </p>\n\n<p><em>Indeed, how would you prove that you plagiarised yourself?</em></p>\n\n<p>If your unpublished work has been circulated among other authors and has been cited by them, maybe you can cite it too. But that seems a bit odd.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32195,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Self-plagiarism is attempting to pass off your own words as previously unpublished original work when they are not. If you are copying text from a work that is <em>not intended for publication</em>, then it cannot be a prior publication, and thus it cannot be self-plagiarism. Likewise, it is OK to take text from one of your rejected works if you have decided not to publish it. If the other work is not published but is also aiming for publication, however, then it would be self-plagiarism (though which of the two works would be \"original\" and which \"self-plagiarized\" could depend on the details of the progress of each toward publication).</p>\n\n<p>Many pieces of text, however, do not expect the work to be original, in which case you can <em>plagiarize</em>, but not <em>self-plagiarize</em>. Taking your example: if you create job application letters by modifying a base template, the duplication from letter to letter is perfectly ethical, because there is no expectation of originality in a job application, just for truthfulness.</p>\n\n<p>Funding applications are a funny in-between state. They do not have the same expectation of originality in text as a publication, but most funding agencies require that you not be attempting to fund the same proposed research through any other application. Thus, you would be safe to use the same preliminary work text as part of pitching two different ideas (though it will probably need to be customized for context in any case). Pitching closely related ideas, however, even with different text, would typically be a violation of the funding agency rules. Since there is a decent chance that some of the same people will see both proposals, it's a fast track to rejection and burning bridges with funders. Don't do it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32214,
"author": "Octopus",
"author_id": 23990,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23990",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Yes, technically you CAN plagiarize yourself.</strong></p>\n\n<p>According to this page on the <a href=\"http://lusu.co.uk/services/advice-support/plagiarism/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Lancaster University</a>'s page, for example, they say: \"Duplication of your own work:It is possible to plagiarise yourself by directly copying a section from a previous essay you have written and submitting it as part of your new essay.\"</p>\n\n<p>You need to check the student policies of the school you attend, most likely there is a clause that specifically forbids you from handing in two separate essays that share sections containing the same work.</p>\n\n<p>I'm not sure if this is really what you are asking though, because you make it sound more like you will be paraphrasing previous work within a new context, which I believe would be acceptable use.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/24
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32190",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033/"
] |
32,209 |
<p>I was alleged in scientific misconduct in form of authorship abuse. More details are in my previous questions</p>
<p><a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21710/how-to-respond-to-allegations-of-misconduct-in-authorship-dispute">How to respond to allegations of misconduct in authorship dispute?</a></p>
<p><a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20631/should-i-put-my-supervisor-as-coauthor-of-a-paper">Should I put my supervisor as coauthor of a paper?</a></p>
<p>The good news is that the investigations have ended in the inquiry stage (the dean have informed me by email). </p>
<p>There are several probable reasons why they have stopped:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The article was indeed done with different methodology, which had nothing to do with the approach described in the grant application.</p></li>
<li><p>At the interview I have revealed several facts of abuse, namely I was ordered to work on the projects not connected to my funding project.</p></li>
<li><p>They are afraid I could become a whistleblower.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>After receiving the confirmation from the dean, I immediately informed the editor of the journal. Unfortunately, the editor rejected the manuscript, stating that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is useful information for us, but the question before the journal is not one of personal scientific misconduct, but rather whether the authorship on the paper is the correct one, and whether we should proceed with the external review process, which may lead to its eventual acceptance and publication. </p>
<p>Based on the information available, we have decided not to go further with the review of your manuscript. There are still significant concerns being raised about whether the manuscript should have been submitted with its current authorship, and we do not believe there is any clear path to removing these concerns. The scientific reviews we have received are mixed and would place the manuscript in an unclear position regarding acceptance or rejection based on its content. These two factors together give us sufficient cause to issue a rejection. Because the manuscript did not reach the publication stage, no other action is necessary, and we would like to also consider the case closed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My questions are: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Should I try to resubmit the manuscript as is into some other journal; should I redo all the calculations, reanalyze, and rewrite it first; or should I just abandon it?</p></li>
<li><p>I have another manuscript, for which my ex-supervisor sent me an email stating that "he assumed that I was going to publish it by my myself", in spite of the fact that he supported me. This seems to be the evidence that he resigns his authorship. Should I try to publish it also?</p></li>
<li><p>Can they reopen the misconduct case if they would like to do that?</p></li>
</ol>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32212,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ol>\n<li><p>You should probably continue trying to publish it. Presumably the results will be useful to somebody, and it will help your career.</p></li>\n<li><p>Probably, but you should ask for explicit permission.</p></li>\n<li><p>Surely this depends on your institution's policy. Ask the dean.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>If I were in your place, I would seek to repair relationships and maximize the number of publications.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32220,
"author": "gnometorule",
"author_id": 4384,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4384",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you would like an academic future, you should ask these questions your (former?) PI, and do your best to make up. </p>\n\n<p>Some answers to related earlier questions you asked gave you advice that saw this only from a David taking on Goliath perspective, and wrote what I felt would only further egg you on. With additional information added in the newer questions, however, you really found yourself in the extremely rare case of your PI taking action against you at your own school. It is time to stop acting on guesses and interpretations, with some Internet forum feedback. You need to get a clear answer from that PI, ideally in writing: for 1 and 2, ask if this means he agrees you can go ahead and submit the 2 papers under your single-authored name? </p>\n\n<p>However, that isn't what I would do. 2, at least, could be read as a conciliatory outreach by your PI: I assume you want to publish this by yourself? (...but do tell me that no, you would like to go together). </p>\n\n<p>Even if that is not true, publishing something (anything) with your PI now matters more than a publication by yourself. You write they are \"afraid\" of you. They are not. Whistleblowers (if you even could blow a whistle) are a nuisance and embarrassment, rarely more; and in the cases in industry I know of (a friend was a fairly high profile one in banking), they eventually only come back to bite the whistler. It may take years and seem differently; but they eventually do. </p>\n\n<p>Justly or not, the whole incident reflects poorly on all participants (a petty adviser; and a student setting off a petty adviser). For an academic future, in all cases I am familiar with you <em>need</em> your adviser's support. You had a falling out; you should try to mend it. The situation will not help the PI to recruit in the near future; and how are you going to get recommendations that matter? You both have an interest in making up: that is what you should focus on. It may be hard, it may be impossible; but it doesn't seem that you have tried, or tried hard enough. It's your life and future, and phyrric victories and a single publication don't matter in the big scheme. </p>\n\n<p>If you really just want to know if you can ignore all this, and publish alone based on that email and the result of the proceedings: I find it risky, but not very so as there is no way your PI is going through with another case...at least it's extremely unlikely. But I don't think that's what will serve you best. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/24
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32209",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24717/"
] |
32,222 |
<p>I am applying to math graduate programs, have a list of schools of different range, but I am so worried about being accepted to a grad school, that am considering to apply to 20 schools. </p>
<p>My undergraduate institution is one of the top schools in math, #1 or #2 in several math fields. </p>
<p>My worry is that I messed up grades of some important classes, also totally messed up my gre sub, since I didn't prepare for it at all. But I do have lots of research experience in fields related to applied math (I want to do applied math, now I am pure math major).</p>
<p>Should I apply to 20 or there is no point in applying to so many, maybe just 15? I also don't want to disturb my rec letter writers so much.
I am not thinking about the money I have to spend on the application process</p>
<p>Thank you :)</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32237,
"author": "user18244",
"author_id": 18244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18244",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Just my opinion: Do you really need to apply to 20 schools? I think it is very hard to be focused when applying to many schools. You also have to spend lots of money, and more importantly, you have to find referees willing to write 20 recommendation letters! </p>\n\n<p>I have read many articles and most of them suggest 6-8 school: 3 reach schools, 2 match schools, and 2 safe schools and that seems reasonable.</p>\n\n<p>20 seems to be too much and a waste of your time and money. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32238,
"author": "socrateslopes",
"author_id": 24709,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24709",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are worried about being accepted narrowing your choices would be better than enlarging them. Focus on the ones you think will be more successful.\nDespite you messed up some grades your researching experience should be taken into account.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I also don't want to disturb my rec letter writers so much</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You'll definitely disturb they by applying to 20 schools.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32222",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22877/"
] |
32,225 |
<p>Alice (for argument's sake) is a postdoc in maths in an Australian University, but did her PhD in Europe. She is making two applications for funding. The first is to funding scheme A in her home country, the second is to funding scheme B in Australia. Scheme A is less prestigious and is worth less money than Scheme B. Alice's preferences are obvious: she prefers B to A, and A to whatever her next best option is.</p>
<p>Applications for Scheme A are due in November, the outcome is declared in April, the position begins in October. Applications for Scheme B are due in March, and the outcome is declared in November, the position begins in January. The application to Scheme A must be declared in the application to Scheme B. And, should Alice be accepted by Scheme A, she would have to notify Scheme B before they have made a decision on her application. </p>
<p>Question: Suppose Alice is offered Scheme A, how does she indicate this to Scheme B without prejudicing the outcome? Assume that Alice is willing to resign from Scheme A, say after six months or a year. Assume further that Alice stands a reasonable chance in both schemes. There is no guidance online about how this situation is resolved by the funding body for Scheme B.</p>
<p>TL;DR: What does one do if one receives a less prestigious offer while waiting for a decision on a more prestigious one?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32269,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Alice should tell scheme B something like \"I have won competition A, which shows that I am very well qualified for B.\"</p>\n\n<p>I do not see how winning A can be all that bad for Alice unless A requires her to commit to stay for some period. In any case, I think she should remember how fortunate she is to have A.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32294,
"author": "derelict",
"author_id": 14547,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Alice might consider using a \"decision tree\" to help her resolve the best route to take. </p>\n\n<p>The following resources will aide Alice in making informed decision based on her odds of being accepted (within reason) to B, the risk of rejecting A and not being accepted to B, how much she values the prestige (and pay) of B, and any other relevant factors Alice considers important. </p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~spage/ONLINECOURSE/R4Decision.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~spage/ONLINECOURSE/R4Decision.pdf</a>\n<a href=\"http://www.mindtools.com/dectree.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.mindtools.com/dectree.html</a>\n<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_tree#Advantages_and_disadvantages\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_tree#Advantages_and_disadvantages</a></p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32225",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24728/"
] |
32,227 |
<p>My UG university have awarded me a scholarship for master's degree ( I'm an international student ) the scholarship pays for all expenses of the master's degree for the whole duration of the study.</p>
<p>I would like to know if this raises my chances to get accepted for a masters program ? Does being a "risk free" student gives me more leeway?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32242,
"author": "CephBirk",
"author_id": 24711,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24711",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It may depend upon what field you are in, but in biology in the USA most universities I know would be much more interested in a student if they brought their own funding!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32252,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In the science and engineering fields in the US, where nearly all graduate students are supported by teaching or research assistantships (TA/RA), academic departments have to decide whether an applicant is adequately prepared to be a successful student in the program and whether the student can do the TA/RA job. When the student comes with their own funding, that second question doesn't have to be answered.</p>\n\n<p>In my department (mathematics) it's quite common to have an applicant whose academic preparation is good but whose English isn't good enough that the student could be successful as a TA. We would typically admit the student without offering the student an assistantship. Most applicants that are offered admission without an assistantship don't enter the program. However, if the same applicant came to us with their own funding, we'd admit the student. So, having your own funding might help. </p>\n\n<p>There are some costs associated with having a student even if the student has their own funding for tuition and living expenses. Supervising a graduate student takes faculty time, and some faculty are only interested in supervising PhD students and less willing to work with MS students. </p>\n\n<p>Also in the lab sciences and engineering students need access to research facilities, equipment, and supplies to conduct their research. Students who are funded as RA's under a grant also come with grant funding to cover these costs. Depending on your area of study, you might have to convince the department (or perhaps an individual faculty member) that you would be able to contribute enough to the research activity to justify these expenses. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32227",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24731/"
] |
32,235 |
<p>I was flagged for plagiarism on a programming assignment. We get 3 submissions a day for the ~3 weeks that the project is open. I finished my project in about 1 week, but on one of those days I used my friend's computer to submit my assignment to the autograder (so I really got 4 submissions in one day). The undergraduate Honor Council at my college found me guilty of cheating on the assignment, and I'll have to report to another Honor Council with 5 professors evaluating my case and asking me questions to determine my ultimate punishment.</p>
<p>In all honestly, I just submitted on my friend's account to see if it would work (I was curious if they checked on submitting on peoples' accounts who weren't in the class). I still had ~2 weeks worth of submissions when I submitted my project for the final time, so I don't really think I had an unfair advantage over my peers.</p>
<p>Is this really a serious offense? The undergraduate council recommended to the official council that I get a 0 on the project (I actually got 100 on it), which would put me at a <= C- in the class (which is failing) given how heavily weighted this assignment was, but this seems rather ridiculous given it was all my code.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32236,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>What you did, in my opinion, doesn't deserve more punishment than a frown. Your problem now is convincing them that that is exactly what happened. It should be easy to see that the code is all yours, and that you had plenty of extra time. It would speak in your favour if the submission you did with your friend's computer was the same as one done with your account.</p>\n\n<p>Keep a cool head and explain things clearly.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32259,
"author": "FreakyDan",
"author_id": 24544,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24544",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Be ready to explain your code and prove it is yours. It was submitted from two accounts, the council knows it was from the same author, but they don't know who the author is yet. At my school the students are questioned about the code and how it works.</p>\n\n<p>Explain to them what you did was dumb and that you did not benefit from it. Technically, you found a loophole in their system that could give you an unfair advantage. If possible bring the assignment sheet with due dates, and the dates/times of each submission. Have evidence that you didn't do that for fraudulent reasons, and that if submitted the next day it would still be on time.</p>\n\n<p>And as Davidmh said, it is very important to be polite and calm. No one has ever gotten a warning from a police officer after being disrespectful to them. They may very well have not dealt with a situation like this before, and are treating it with a guilty until proven innocent approach. Treat it as a court case and professionally present your evidence and make your case as to why you didn't benefit and that you didn't plagiarize.</p>\n\n<p>Lastly, learn from this. I have painfully learned like you that following your curiosity without either notice or consent from those in charge can end badly. People just see the outcome, with no knowledge of if the intent was malicious, and sadly most the time people assume the worst.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32270,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Given that the student Honor Council has already found you guilty of cheating, maintaining that what you did was simply out of curiosity does not seem like a good strategy. I don't find that explanation so convincing myself: your \"curiosity\" got you an unfair advantage in the grading of the assignment. Your position that this advantage was not relevant to the final outcome is really not the point: many if not most students who cheat on assignments and exams could have reached the same outcome honestly if only they had been more patient (and honest!). If you were really \"just curious\", you could have asked about it, and you certainly could have submitted only the allowed total number of submissions in a single day.</p>\n\n<p>The real question is whether you deserve the punishment you've thus far been given, of a 0 on the entire assignment. Generally, when students don't follow all the rules of an assignment, they can reasonably expect to be penalized for it in some way, but the penalty need not be the entire value of the assignment. I think your position should be that you agree that you did not follow the rules and that you did this out of a combination of curiosity and stupidity. You can make a reasonable case that you did not violate any fundamental principles of the assignment: all the work you turned in was your own, and you got it 100% correct well before the final deadline. So all in all you did more good work than bad. You did exhibit poor judgment and agree that some penalty is reasonable. </p>\n\n<p>I would suggest that you ask to be given the score that you got on the last attempt <em>before</em> you submitted on your friend's computer. This score is undeniably legit, and giving you that score for the assignment seems like a nice compromise between giving no penalty for breaking the rules and ruining your entire course grade.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, all this is to answer your question \"Is this really a serious offense?\" (TL,DR: probably not <em>too</em> serious, but you did do something wrong.) What I suggested above is really more a suggestion for what I think a just outcome of the faculty deliberation would be. Depending upon how your system works, you may or may not have the opportunity to suggest a punishment. As others have said, your real strategy here is to remain calm, explain all the facts as clearly as possible, accept that what you did is wrong and convey the impression that you are nevertheless a good student overall. What they decide is really up to them.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32302,
"author": "Jack Aidley",
"author_id": 5614,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5614",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You knew what the rules were (3 submissions a day) and you knowingly violated those rules (by making 4 submissions in a day). This gives them a slam-dunk justification for giving you 0 on the assignment. If this happens your response needs to recognise that you are in the wrong and accept the consequences of your actions.</p>\n\n<p>It does seem on the harsh side however. To convince the council to favour you, I would suggest that you must first convince them that you (a) accept you did something wrong and (b) won't do it again. Once you've done this you may be able to achieve leniency by arguing that these were your submissions and they are of the highest standard.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32306,
"author": "Trylks",
"author_id": 7571,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7571",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This does not seem to be a case of plagiarism but identity theft (or \"surrogation\").</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In all honestly, I just submitted on my friend's account to see if it would work (I was curious if they checked on submitting on peoples' accounts who weren't in the class)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Sure it's all your code, your programming skills may be unpaired, but you are going to be taught a lesson on ethics, protocols and behaviour. Be prepared. This is the result of curiosity, now you learn that and its consequences.</p>\n\n<p>It's really not about the qualification or your skills, it's about sending a message about what is misconduct and the tolerance to that. Basically, you are questioning the rules (I can have 4 submissions in one day and that doesn't make a difference) and they won't like that.</p>\n\n<p>I don't think a 0 in that project is too harsh. For the reference, real plagiarism in my university would imply a 0 in the whole course and waiting for 2 years to be able to take it again. This is not real plagiarism, hence just a 0 seems reasonable to me.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32365,
"author": "Verena Haunschmid",
"author_id": 20504,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20504",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I was a tutor once for a couple of years and I had students like you who tried to push the boundaries, doing things that were forbidden and trying to make excuses similar to yours... Your excuse seems really poor, I'm not sure if they will believe it or even care, as others have pointed out, you could have:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>asked whether it would work</li>\n<li>upload something from your friend's account that is not your code</li>\n<li>upload it on a day where you did not already have 3 submissions</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Honestly, did you even think about what you where doing?</p>\n\n<p>I don't mean to be offensive, I want to believe that you didn't mean to cheat or get an advantage, but from the position of a tutor/teacher, such behaviour is annoying. It means more work for them (5 professors have to deal with your case!) because of something that you think is not serious at all.\n I would probably give you 50% of the points you had on your last legitimate submission.</p>\n\n<p>What I suggest you to do is to apologize (mean it!), say how stupid and unthoughtful that was and kindly ask to get the points you had on your last legitimate submission. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32235",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24741/"
] |
32,246 |
<p>Recently I wrote a course paper on a subject connecting my major to my current major. In the background section, I listed quite a bit of essential information I think is information that is readily available, and which I can confirm through many years of life and work experience, but which my instructor knows nothing about. The instructor has accused me of not providing references for this information.</p>
<p>Do I need to fill my paper with citations to people who wrote books saying the same thing? How do I know where to draw the line between what gets a reference and what does not?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32248,
"author": "J. Zimmerman",
"author_id": 7921,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7921",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>The standard rule of thumb in this situation is not whether the information is readily available, but whether it is common knowledge.</strong> If the majority of people on the street (or beginners in your field) will know the information, then you probably don't need to cite a source for that information. However, if it is information specific to your subspecialty, you do need to cite a source, even when this is 'common knowledge' to you and others in your sub-specialty. The rest of the world--and in this case, your instructor--do not simply know this information, and thus you need to provide them a way to evaluate the validity of your claims. </p>\n\n<p>Where this really gets tricky is when you are writing for a specialty audience. You do not need to provide a source for background information that your audience already knows and has known since beginning their studies. For example, I would not expect to need to provide a definition of, or citation for, third spacing to an audience of healthcare professionals, but if my audience may include other disciplines then I need to address this because third spacing can mean more than one thing. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32249,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here is the general principle for citations: anything that is not considered \"elementary knowledge\" to the community <em>reading</em> the paper must have a citation.\nThis means that different communities need citations for different things.\nFor example, when I write for a biology community, I often end up including citations to basic computer science textbooks, to give a grounding for things that are simple undergraduate information in my background, but that would be highly unintuitive to an experimental biologist. The reverse applies as well, for a biologist writing to a computer science audience.</p>\n\n<p>Something that you know through experience <strong>definitely</strong> needs to be backed up with citation. One of the critical values of the scientific method is that it lets us separate statements supportable by facts from myths based on cognitive biases. We humans are very, very bad at learning from experience, in the sense that we draw many conclusions that are simply not true. Folklore is full of these types of experience-grounded myths, some of which turn out to be true (willow bark does help with pain: that's the basis for aspirin), and some of which turn out to be false (mercury turns out to be terrible as a medicine).</p>\n\n<p>If you can find things backing up your experience in reliable literature, you can cite them. If not, perhaps you have a good subject for study, if you can figure out how to design an appropriate experiment...</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32246",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/"
] |
32,250 |
<p>I find most articles through EBSCO and similar search tools, then export the BibTeX details to my own <code>bibliography.bib</code> file. Recently, I found some BibTeX files with a strange author field, containing not just the name of a person, but also of a research lab or a college. E.g.:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Author = {White, R. R. and West College Child Development Laboratory}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When compiled in APA format, it looks very odd:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>White, R. R. and Laboratory, W. C. C. D.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Are there situations in which it is correct to place such lab or school details directly in the author field? If not, where do I need to relocate this information to?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32251,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>What does the article itself look like if you pull it up from the journal itself? You should probably adjust your record of it to match whatever the article actually says. This could be a problem with the machine parsing of the original document, or the journal may have accepted the \"authorship\" of the lab as a convention in that field.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32253,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have seen labs signing papers in cases of very big collaborations. If that is how it is cited in the journal, you should adjust your bib file <a href=\"http://timmurphy.org/2011/02/15/using-an-organisation-name-as-an-author-in-bibtex/\" rel=\"nofollow\">like so</a> (thanks to Federico Poloni for the fix):</p>\n\n<pre><code>Author = \"White, R. R. and {West College Child Development Laboratory}\"\n</code></pre>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32250",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/"
] |
32,255 |
<p>I have a discussion with my mate about how to reference with the Harvard referencing style.</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z8KQv.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
<p>I would say it is wrong to do the referencing like in the picture below. </p>
<p>My suggestion was that the footnotes was to explantion of synonyms or something like that and all references should be in the end of the paper work, so the reader have all the references in one or two pages, so it's easier to get an overview of all references.</p>
<p>Am I totally wrong?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32283,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Footnotes are quite common in the humanities, and less so in science and engineering. Putting a reference in the footnotes <em>can</em> happen, according to the specific paper and citation style you are using. For example, the <em>Chicago Manual of Style</em> can use <a href=\"http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">either footnotes or parenthetical references</a>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32293,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As your question is directly about Harvard referencing, I believe all Harvard referencing uses in-text citations. <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parenthetical_referencing\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wikipedia</a> supports this understanding.</p>\n\n<p>Yes, you can use footnotes but they are used for clarification or comments, they are not used for referencing as the image in the question has done [therefore the author has cited improperly].</p>\n\n<p>There are several sub-types of Harvard but ALL of them that I am familiar with are in-text, not based on footnotes (except as noted above).</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32255",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
32,256 |
<p>I'm applying to a BS/MS program and I'm gathering recommendations. I'm an international student from China and I was transferred to my current college last year.</p>
<p>Two weeks ago, I went to see my professor during his office hours to ask if he could write me a recommendation letter. He agreed and told me to email him.</p>
<p>I sent my request a week later and it was just a general email asking for recommendation (without mentioning when I'd visited him). </p>
<p>I still haven't got a response from that professor. It's possible that the professor didn't recognize me in the email, since I sent that only one week after going to his office.</p>
<p>Should I leave him a reminder in a follow-up email? Or should I do so in person? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32257,
"author": "user18244",
"author_id": 18244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18244",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My experience was that professors tend to take long time to write recommendations and many of them just forget that you requested one. I would send him an email then visit him a few days later if he doesn't reply. You need to give many warnings and reminders or otherwise you will not get it. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32264,
"author": "Franck Dernoncourt",
"author_id": 452,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I would send an email along these lines (taken from <a href=\"https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-etiquette-for-sending-reminder-emails-to-professors-writing-recommendations-for-you/answer/Cindy-Au-1\">Cindy Au on Quora</a>):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Dear Professor [Professor's name], </p>\n \n <p>The deadline for submitting letter of recommendation for [name of\n program/ fellowship] is quickly approaching. I would like to\n inquire if there is still any document I can supply to make your\n writing easier in addition to what we discussed during office hours 2 weeks ago. </p>\n \n <p>I understand that this is a very hectic time in the school year and\n thus can't thank you enough for your time and support. </p>\n \n <p>Respectfully yours,</p>\n \n <p>[Your name + ideally a link to some website containing your photo]</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32280,
"author": "user3510681",
"author_id": 24764,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24764",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here is a useful hack for emails in academia:</p>\n\n<p>Email your professor with a subject line about his research. Pick something about their research that intrigues you and ask a pointed question. </p>\n\n<p>Then remind them you are also waiting for their response regarding writing a letter of recommendation. The professor may have decision paralysis when weighing other tasks they have against writing a letter. They may not have even closely read your request. They may have thought about getting to it later, but later may never be. Try this solution as it will get them to read your email. It's better if you do a bit of research regarding their work to make it sincere. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37202,
"author": "S. Diaxo",
"author_id": 28110,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28110",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here is a useful and ethical problem free hack for emails in academia or any place where emails are used a lot:</p>\n\n<p>Send your email at the right time - Not after dinner time so that next day when the person you are trying to contact opens the email in the morning and yours is under 1000 other emails... So I would say send it around the time where workday starts or around lunch. Then the chances of your email being in the top 10 and visible are much higher.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32256",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24755/"
] |
32,260 |
<p>Having recently finished my PhD, I have now secured funding to act as PI on a project.</p>
<p>I continue to work alongside my former PhD supervisor, with the old supervisor listed as a collaborator on the new project.</p>
<p>The former supervisor frequently refers to me as <em>their</em> 'postdoctoral fellow'. <strong>Question 1: Is this appropriate, given that I am the PI on the new project?</strong> The former supervisor is certainly in a higher position than I (Professor, whereas I am indeed a postdoc), but I feel that I should not be considered 'their' worker.</p>
<p>The current project requires me to use equipment owned by the former supervisor, and we closely collaborate on a lot of work. I value the impact my former supervisor has had on my career so far, and would hope to continue to work with them in the future. <strong>Question 2: How can I best make clear (respectfully) that they are now a colleague?</strong></p>
<p>(UK based)</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32263,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Working with former advisors can result in unexpected issues as you clearly point out. The reasons can be a question of (bad) traditions or just not reflecting on the new position to which you have arrived. The \"once a PhD student, always a PhD student\" is a common syndrome.</p>\n\n<p>What appears to make your situation worse is the fact that you depend on your former advisor even though you are now a PI. I have a colleague who went through the same thing. Sadly things did not improve until he left and that was with a large bang. Clearly the resolution depends on the personality of your advisor and an answer is therefore slightly difficult to pin down.</p>\n\n<p>Communication is always good and so if your former advisor is sensible and has a reputation as being so then a short to the point discussion should suffice where you can state your obvious gratitude to the former advisor for supporting the application and providing facilities in the collaboration but that you want to be appreciated as a peer, albeit perhaps inexperienced, but not a student. That is the simple way in a good situation.</p>\n\n<p>Now if you know your former advisor is less susceptible to good two-way communication, then the problem is more difficult. You should know your environment by now and should probably know of other peers to whom you can talk and ask for additional advice concerning the situation. I would see this as the second port of call. In the worst case, the problem might not be possible to remove until you remove yourself and then it is an endurance test. </p>\n\n<p>Since you have finished your PhD and still opted to seek funding with your advisor I suspect reality to be located away from the last scenario. Finding colleagues, with insight into the actual conditions to talk things over and seek advice is the best step forward you can take.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32284,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>The former supervisor frequently refers to me as <em>their</em> 'postdoctoral fellow'. Question 1: Is this appropriate, given that I am the PI on the new project? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I have never encountered a \"postdoctoral fellow\" that does not have a supervisor. But my experience is far from global. As <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postdoctoral_research\">this article on postdoctoral research says</a>, \"Depending on the type of appointment, postdoctoral researchers may work independently or under the supervision of a principal investigator.\" Later it says \"In the US, a postdoctoral scholar is an individual holding a doctoral degree who is engaged in mentored research and/or scholarly training for the purpose of acquiring the professional skills needed to pursue a career path of his or her choosing.\" </p>\n\n<p>If you are the PI on your project then yes, I suppose that must mean that you do not have a formal supervisor. However you can still have a <strong>mentor</strong>...and you should. Your former PhD advisor's description of you as \"theirs\" need not imply that they view themselves as your boss; it may only mean that they are affiliated with you and are taking a role of mentoring you, as seems to be the case here. </p>\n\n<p>Let me also say that in that this person who is formally associated with the grant is your former PhD advisor and in that he owns (you say) the equipment that you are using both give him more oversight than some other independent researcher would expect. If I borrow my friend's car that does not make her my boss, but it does give her some supervisory role over my use of the car. A senior academic who owns equipment you are using <em>should</em> have some supervisory role in your work.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Question 2: How can I best make clear (respectfully) that they are now a colleague?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I don't see what behavior of the supervisor indicates that he does not view you as a colleague. I have a postdoc, and I view her as a colleague: a junior one, in which I have some supervisory role, but still a colleague: I have some projects she is not involved in, she has some projects I am not involved in except to hear her talk about them, and there are some projects we do together. If she decided tomorrow that she only wanted to work on her own projects alone, that would in my view be suboptimal for both of us, but it would be her right. </p>\n\n<p>In some fields postdocs are treated rather differently: they are the highest level of workers for the PI professor. But since you are a PI, that is not your situation. </p>\n\n<p>Having a senior colleague who can mentor you is extremely valuable. I continue to mentor my PhD students after they get the PhD -- well, so far I have one, but soon two more -- but this mentorship is limited by my time and energy. Any mentor should be guiding his/her mentees towards greater mastery, independence and autonomy. Gradually the influence of mentors wanes: when I was an untenured assistant professor I had a research mentor and a teaching mentor; as a tenured associate professor I have no formal mentors anymore....which is a shame, since to paraphrase Yoda, <em>much to learn, I still have</em>. But my work is still evaluated by more senior people -- that is a ubiquitous phenomenon in academia -- so it is still important for me to maintain good relationships with senior colleagues. Unless people are literally telling me what to do, I tend to let it slide when people treat me with less \"seniority\" than I think I have. </p>\n\n<p>I am a little worried that you may have your eye on the wrong problem. You have a one year position: what happens next year? That's the key question, and your future relationship with your advisor is a key part of the answer. You don't need to kowtow or be subservient to him: on the contrary, you're the PI, so when it comes to the work itself you get to call the shots (and you should). But you are still looking for a lot of help from your supervisor -- help landing the best possible future job, if nothing else. So trying to insist \"You're not my mentor; I am fully independent from you\" in a one-year position seems really to be a strategic mistake to me. Instead you should apply yourself and show your former PhD supervisor how much stronger and more capable you have become, and then they can write you an excellent recommendation because all of your post-PhD growth and maturation took place before his eyes. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32260",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1357/"
] |
32,262 |
<p>My postdoc finished 9 months ago. My former supervisor has asked me to submit an abstract on my work to a conference next year. </p>
<p>No-one intends that I will attend the conference. My ex-supervisor has an invited talk there, and basically wants current and former group members to also submit contributed talks that can also be presented if the main authors don’t show up. </p>
<p>The supervisor essentially wants to be able to give three or four talks for the cost of one attendee. I don’t really feel this is right. On the other hand I also want to remain on good terms with them, as they are a reference on my current job applications, and we are also still working on papers together.</p>
<p>Should I refuse to submit an abstract? Or just bite the bullet and write something?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32266,
"author": "Franck Dernoncourt",
"author_id": 452,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would say it is right: I have never seen any conference put a cap on the number of talks a speaker can give, and it's quite commonplace that the speaker is not the primary author.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32268,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I think it can be acceptable if and only if it is clearly communicated in the submission that the former supervisor is the intended presenter. Deliberately misrepresenting who will present at the conference is dishonest. If in doubt, contact someone at the conference.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32262",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24759/"
] |
32,271 |
<p>I’m finishing my first paper, and am struggling with the citations a bit. </p>
<p>I have used a particular implementation of an algorithm.
The citation of those who thought of this particular variation and implementation of the algorithm is clear, but should I also include the creators of the original idea, and not just the implementation that I use? </p>
<p>In the case of genetic algorithms, seems like a tower where quite a lot of people have worked on (see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia</a> for a short history), and it isn’t really clear who put the first or most important stone. Most people cite the work of J. Holland who popularized it, but that also doesn’t really feel right, since I wouldn’t give credit to all the others. On the other hand I don’t want to spend half a page repeating the history of the idea, citing 15 papers or so.</p>
<p>Some options that crossed my mind:</p>
<ol>
<li>Is it enough to refer to the name of the idea (of which the detailed history is quite accessible such in the example)? </li>
<li>A huge list of citations [5,6,7,8,...,20]. </li>
<li>Referring to a source that has a nice overview of the history.</li>
</ol>
<p>What would you advise?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32273,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>To cite a body of work large enough to have generated textbooks or comprehensive review papers, you should cite a good recent textbook or comprehensive review paper.\nYou may not need to, however, depending on why and how you are using the algorithm.\nThe key is to provide the reader with everything they need to know about why you chose that algorithm and the significance of the choice.</p>\n\n<p>In this case, if your work is focused on genetic algorithms and/or their applications, then you should position it within the comprehensive space of genetic algorithms work. You would then cite both the textbook/review sources and the more specific \"nearby\" pieces to compare it to.</p>\n\n<p>In the other hand, if your work is focused on an application, it's its more just about needing some tool and you happened to find genetic algorithms promising, then you don't need the comprehensive references because that's not the point. Instead,\nif you chose Algorithm X for particular reasons, then you should explain why you didn't pick competitor Algorithms Y, Z, and W (citing each). If you just chose Algorithm X because you thought that probably any algorithm would likely do, then be clear about that fact and don't worry about positioning it within a larger field, because honestly you haven't.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32281,
"author": "Piotr Migdal",
"author_id": 49,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For a general reference I usually cite two papers: original/influential and a review paper. </p>\n\n<p>In the case where the idea is relatively well-known and there is no single original paper, a review paper or textbook should suffice.</p>\n\n<p>Unless you talk specifically about history of a discovery, or trying to put things in a historical context, there is no need for historical reviews.</p>\n\n<p>In the case of doubt think about the reader. (Or imagine that you are a reader, new to this topic.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 40984,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Assuming you are writing an article for an audience that knows what a genetic algorithm is (at least, anyone in CS and related fields), it is not so important to explain what it is, as much as the implementation details. In your shoes, I would cite the paper of the implementation.</p>\n\n<p>If there is a risk of readers not knowing what a genetic algorithm is, or you are using advanced details that are not common knowledge, I think it is best to add a modern textbook, or whichever explanation you think is clearest.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 156253,
"author": "jerlich",
"author_id": 62052,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62052",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Just to add a little to the other answers (which are good): <strong>don't worry about it!</strong></p>\n<p>As long as you cite at least one relevant source (the one you directly used) you have a lot of leeway as to which historical papers to cite. I like to do a couple things:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Think about who might review your paper and cite them. You can even recommend them as a reviewer.</li>\n<li>Cite an often overlooked, but good quality paper. If a paper already has hundreds of citations, it doesn't need any more. But maybe there is a nice paper with a similar result that only has a handful of citations. The authors of the less cited paper will appreciate it.</li>\n<li>Cite open source citations. If I have a choice people of citing a paper in a paywalled journal or an open-access journal, I will cite the open-access one, and I will cite papers from a nonprofit publisher (like <a href=\"https://plos.org\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">PLOS</a> or <a href=\"https://elifesciences.org\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">eLife</a>) if I can.</li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32271",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24490/"
] |
32,274 |
<p>I am a recently PhD graduate student in computer science. </p>
<p>In the last months, I wrote a paper about an aspect of my thesis, with the collaboration of my former supervisor.
We found a call for papers for a <strong>"special section"</strong> of an important journal, that is a section focused on the data set we are exploiting.
The submission deadline was set to the end of November 2014, but surprisingly we just discovered that it has been <strong>post-poned</strong> to the end of March 2015. So a <strong>4 months delay</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>Our paper is ready and I don't know what to do with the submission.</strong> </p>
<p>I would prefer to submit it now to the <strong>"normal"</strong> track of the journal, to move on to new projects and close this. But my former supervisor thinks that it's better to wait and submit it to the March 2015 "special section", because he says we will have more likelihood to get it accepted, even if this will make our paper more outdated.</p>
<p>What should I do?</p>
<p><strong>Submit it to the "normal" track now with less chances to get it published, or wait 4 months and submit it (more outdated) to the easier "special section"?</strong></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32276,
"author": "Geoff Hutchison",
"author_id": 21869,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21869",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><strong>There's another alternative. You can submit to the special issue early.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Usually journals don't have \"easier\" submission to a special issue or section. Most journals try to have the same review and editing criteria for such contributions as they do for other articles. (Consider that having different criteria makes it harder for them to process and track such articles.) I can attest - I had a manuscript that was asked for significant revision and it didn't make the \"special issue\" by the time we'd revised it.</p>\n\n<p>But you can submit the article and ask for inclusion in the special issue and explain that you have the manuscript done now. They will probably send it for review, etc. but it won't be published until the remainder of the special section is finished as well.</p>\n\n<p>I've done this. It gets the paper off your desk and lets you move on to other things.</p>\n\n<p>What are the pros and cons?:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Pro</strong>: Usually a special section or special issue gets added attention and publicity. I haven't seen analysis, but one would hope that articles in this section or issue would have more readers and potentially more citations than in a normal issue.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Con</strong>: You will have to wait for the special issue to finalize, while if you submit to the \"regular\" journal, publication will probably happen sooner. On the other hand, if the journal publishes accepted articles before publication, or you can put the manuscript on a pre-print server, there's little downside.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Personally, I'd submit early, indicate in the submission letter (and online forms) that the article is for the special section and be done with it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32278,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would strongly recommend choosing the special issue unless you are studying something time sensitive due to competition (e.g., you have a known competitor who might publish tomorrow) or emergence (e.g. an ongoing natural disaster).</p>\n\n<p>First, depending on how the journal works, you might not actually have any delay in publication. Check and see whether the journal has a \"just accepted\" or \"online first\" section. If so, then your article will not have to wait for a special issue package to become available and citable. Instead, special issue articles will become available asynchronously as they are processed, and then packaged later.</p>\n\n<p>Second, special issues, while they are reviewed no less tightly, have a specified audience that improves your chance of acceptance. You can much more readily pass the \"audience interest\" bar that many high-profile journals apply, since somebody else has already made the case that work in this area is of broad interest. Also, because reviewers are picked with expertise in the subject, you are less likely to get a bad match with a reviewer who knows little of your subject.</p>\n\n<p>Third, you are likely to have a higher long-term impact from the publication, as it is grouped in a package with others like it, where it will be easier for people to discover or seek it out.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, in most fields, four months is just not a long time. Finish your paper now, send it to the journal special issue before the deadline, and move on with your work.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32274",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8234/"
] |
32,275 |
<p>Grad school application starts now along with all the anxieties associated with it. </p>
<p>One of the question I ask myself and repeatedly get asked by my peers is that what would the profs think when the transcript and resume reveals that they are just an average student (i.e. 3.3 GPA, at minimum of grad school acceptance requirement).</p>
<p>Of course, the top factor here is that we are being evaluated by people who are exceptionally talented and likely the top students back in their days. And plus we may have built an amicable relationship over a long period, no one wants to appear like a useless person. Lastly, there may exist a significant time period between when an application is sent out to when the letter is received, during this time I find a lot of students will question whether the profs are still open writing the letter for them.</p>
<p>What if a professor doesn't like what he sees in the transcript, or feel that the resume does not reflect any exceptional talent, what would a prof usually do in this case?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32277,
"author": "Geoff Hutchison",
"author_id": 21869,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21869",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><strong>If you want to go to graduate school and think you will be successful, you should apply. Let the admissions committee decide your package.</strong></p>\n\n<p>I've written plenty of recommendation letters for more \"average\" students and I suspect most other faculty have too.</p>\n\n<p>The only time I turn down a recommendation letter is if the student really did poorly (e.g., sub-3.0 GPA) in my classes. Then I gently suggest students find another letter-writer. This has only happened once.</p>\n\n<p>Plenty of average students go to grad school and most of them get Ph.D.s. The degree is not necessarily an indication of exceptional brilliance. There are brilliant Ph.D. recipients, and there are less stellar Ph.D. recipients. Instead, the Ph.D. indicates a number of factors, including the ability to do independent research, a great deal of learning and advancement beyond a master's or bachelor's degree, and a <strong><em>huge</em></strong> amount of perseverance.</p>\n\n<p>So I will write a letter appropriate to the student. I will indicate the grade they received in my class, or the research work they did in my group (e.g., \"top third\" or \"top half of the graduating majors\").</p>\n\n<p>In terms of writing the recommendation letter, I try to stress positive points, but I am also honest to the admissions committee.</p>\n\n<p>On the other side, the admissions committee knows how to read recommendation letters. There are <em>many</em> graduate programs, and not all programs expect the truly top students. So they can translate your application package into an evaluation of how likely you are to succeed in their program.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32279,
"author": "user3510681",
"author_id": 24764,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24764",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have written letters for average students as well, but I consider a few things before doing so. I believe it is easier for me to determine who I will write a letter for or not because I coordinate a tutoring program and have a working relationship with the students. </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Did this student make a significant impact on campus? </li>\n<li>Did this student contribute something tangible to the program? </li>\n<li>Did this student apply training properly? </li>\n<li>Did this student maintain their curiosity? </li>\n</ol>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/25
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32275",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20070/"
] |
32,288 |
<p>I am a first-year international master student in a US statistics department. I am offered a 10-hour teaching assistant appointment next semester. I am considering taking it. I have no idea how to weight the benefit and cost of the appointment. </p>
<p>Background information:</p>
<ol>
<li>I plan to apply PhD next fall.</li>
<li>I plan to take 14-credit course next semester. </li>
</ol>
<p>Costs (that I can come up with):</p>
<ol>
<li>Potential overload</li>
</ol>
<p>Benefits:</p>
<ol>
<li>Improve my English skills</li>
<li>Half-coverage of tuition and salary (important to life yet trivial to PhD application)</li>
</ol>
<p>What are the other cost and benefit of taking a TA appointment? In particular, how would TA experience affect PhD application?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32290,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Usually people take TAs because they need the money. If you want to get a teaching job in the future it may help to show that you have teaching experience (keep records of what you did and how well it worked.) </p>\n\n<p>If you do not need the money, I think you should use the time to improve your research and grades instead.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32292,
"author": "jonhurlock",
"author_id": 12464,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12464",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Being a TA has helped throughout my Ph.D. I would highly recommend becoming a TA for the following reasons.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>You get paid.</li>\n<li>You learn teaching skills</li>\n<li>You strengthen your knowledge.</li>\n<li>It's good for the C.V.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>First and foremost you need to fund your life and studies. Although being a TA might not offer the greatest of pay and may take a lot of time. It does seem to pay reasonably well for the amount of effort you have to put in.</p>\n\n<p>Secondly but possibly one of the most underrated things about being a TA. You learn to communicate, and you learn to communicate and learn how to teach. </p>\n\n<p>By communicate, I don't mean just how to improve your English, but how to engage with students. Teaching skills are great, and if you want to go into academia or wish to go in a role where you have to explain concepts to others this will come in handy.</p>\n\n<p>OK, you're teaching at undergrad level. So you may think you know everything. You may actually be surprised that some undergrads may ask some really advanced level questions. Also you may find yourself recapping on some content which you just swept over in your own undergraduate degree. Recovering content, you could find you have a better understanding of it.</p>\n\n<p>Since being a TA. I have had several offers to teach in academic and commercial organisations, and have become a visiting lecturer at another institution based on some of my TA activities.</p>\n\n<p>In terms of cons:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Time</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Teaching, marking etc takes time. You may only be teaching for an hour of time, but actually its 4 hours worth of work. From preparing slides, teaching, marking coursework, meetings about students progress with academic staff etc.</p>\n\n<p>I would suggest you give it a go, its only 10 hours after all. If you find it's too much you can always say that it's too much and you will be unable to continue being a TA as you feel your studies are suffering.</p>\n\n<p>Best of luck and I hope this has been of some help.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 49355,
"author": "JoErNanO",
"author_id": 23602,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23602",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another point which can be added to your pros list is that by teaching you are effectively <em>giving back to the community</em>. Consider that somewhere sometime someone invested some of their time to teach <em>you</em>. You now have the chance to do the same for the future generations. This is an argument that somewhat holds for all teaching duties in general, be it for assistantships or full time professorships. </p>\n\n<p>Personally I'm not at a teaching level yet. Nevertheless I always consider <code>giving back</code> in the pros list when I am asked to supervise interns.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 49358,
"author": "Chan-Ho Suh",
"author_id": 10340,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10340",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm seeing some misleading comments about the time commitment and feel this warrants more than a comment, so here it is:</p>\n\n<p>\"just 10 hours per week\" is misleading. Often times professors are told to make sure they don't exceed the <em>total</em> number of hours for the term, so in order to save hours for midterm and final exam grading, they will reduce the actual number of hours in a non-exam week. This means as TA you will be spending a lot of time grading precisely during the times when you yourself will be taking exams!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 49359,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In many departments, including mine, when you apply for a postdoctoral position, you'll have to provide a reference letter about your teaching. And the people making the hiring decisions pay attention to those letters, not just to the letters about research. So you'd better have done some teaching. And if your first teaching assignment didn't go well, you should try again and do better.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 49362,
"author": "aparente001",
"author_id": 32436,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32436",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Ten hours a week is not bad, you know! Most TAships are 20 hours a week.</p>\n\n<p>It can give you some balance in your life, and having it offered to you is an honor.</p>\n\n<p>Being a teaching assistant is a very common thing; I have never seen this be what makes or breaks a grad student.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32288",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6962/"
] |
32,289 |
<p>I'm looking at faculty ads for computer science in the UK and noticed that the average salary range seems to be significantly lower compared to the US. Typically, a starting Lecturer ( = Assistent Professor) can expect an <a href="http://www.indeed.co.uk/Lecturer-in-Computer-Science-jobs" rel="noreferrer">annual salary in the range of only 35k - 42k GPD which is in the range of 55k - 66k USD.</a> </p>
<p>On the other hand, if I look at the academic job market in the US, then this would be considered an average PostDoc salary at best, whereas the lower limit for computer science assistant professors seems to be around 80k. Considering that faculty gets this amount for 9 months in the US rather than 12 as in the UK and taking into account the higher income tax rates of the UK, this gap becomes significantly big. </p>
<p>Does the UK system include certain perks that the US system does not have that I'm missing here? </p>
<p>Are there other ways that UK faculty can make up for this quite significant gap? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32301,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>You are trying to compare a US salary to a UK salary using the current exchange rate. I do not think this is particularly relevant. Even if you are willing to ignore differences between the UK and US in terms of work/life balance, teaching load, and job security, you probably want to compare the quality of life that a salary buys you and not what would happen if you converted it to USD. The starting salary for a CS lecturer/assistant professor, when converted to USD, is much lower for a UK academic than a US academic, but there are differences between the value of a US and UK salary.</p>\n\n<p>While you say the UK tax rate is higher, that is a huge over simplification. Two random online tax calculators I used gave a US income tax of 24% on an 80,000 USD salary and a UK income tax of 25% on a 42,000 GBP salary. This ignores US state (and possibly city) income tax. The UK VAT of 20% is much higher than typical US sales taxes, but not everything is subject to VAT/sales tax. Even if you can accurately calculate an average total tax liability, you still need to account for purchasing power. </p>\n\n<p>I have work in both the US and UK in comparable cites (not NYC/London) and tend to think that the value of my UK salary is a little lower than value of my US salary. It is worth noting that UK salaries are much more consistent across fields. This means that I make the same as a CS lecturer in the UK, but that in the US I would probably be making 10% less than a CS assistant professor. My guess is that for CS there is a substantial, maybe 15%, hit in quality of life that an academic salary buys.</p>\n\n<p>In the US your starting salary is often your salary until you get tenure/promotion while in the UK you get a larger salary every year. There is a performance based pay raise, that essentially everyone gets, which is generally about 2.5%. This means the gap between the US and UK values gets smaller every year and after 6 years, when one is preparing to be promoted, the gap is pretty small. Further, UK salaries also have a cost of living adjustment. For the past few years this has been about 0.5-2% and less than the inflation, but it wouldn't surprise me if the union negotiates a big salary bump, maybe 10%, in the next few years. This would really close the gap.</p>\n\n<p>It is also worth noting that a US assistant professor is not directly equivalent to a UK lecturer. I think a US assistant professor is often a few years ahead in terms of productivity and experience.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 63398,
"author": "AsstProfUS",
"author_id": 49210,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49210",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It also depends largely on your discipline. Computer science is likely to make far more (especially starting out) than say history or languages, here in the U.S anyway. The STEM disciplines are doing very well right now but my experience (and among other junior faculty colleagues across the country) is that $80K is well above average starting salary. If you are making $80 starting out, be very happy about it- you are one of the lucky few. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 63403,
"author": "JenB",
"author_id": 26776,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26776",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Comparing salaries internationally based on currency conversion is never meaningful because it ignores differences in cost of living, tax rates and so on. I have always found it more productive to compare salaries based on ratio to average full time earnings when I am considering moving countries. That is, I assume the local economy is such that someone who is working full time can afford decent housing and lifestyle. This is not always true (London!) but is reasonable because a city would usually collapse if people couldn't live there with a job.</p>\n\n<p>Using the tried and true method of a quick google search, I couldn't find individual earnings, but US average household income was 41 355 USD and UK was 27 029 USD in the same unstated year <a href=\"http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/\">OECD report</a>. Based on your estimate of UK salary at 60k USD, that is about 2.2 times average household income, which is actually higher than the 1.9 ratio for your figure for US.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 72326,
"author": "Ashutosh Rana",
"author_id": 57601,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57601",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Salaries (of any job - not just academic) are usually due to a number of reasons - \n1) The demand for that job\n2) the number of applicants\n3) The value that the employer puts to that job / person\n4) How much the employer can afford (sometimes but not always related to 3 above) \n5) What the employer can get away with</p>\n\n<p>In case of UK, I think (5) plays a more prominent role than the other 4 reasons. The annual salary for lecturers tends to start at £ 31,000 with very low increments. After taxes, and contributions to insurance etc, this yields around £ 1800 per month, which admittedly is a pretty miserly sum when one considers that at least half of this is spent on rent.</p>\n\n<p><strong>1) Demand for a lecturers job -</strong> is fairly moderate / low. There tend to be a few jobs advertised - but most of them are the result of disgruntled lecturers leaving. Very few jobs are being created due to additional departments or growing numbers of students. Unlike countries like China and India where going to college is the norm for people of all classes (and hence people save for college since the child is a toddler), it is not so in UK. Education is not a priority for the average UK citizen. This simply lowers the number of students further.</p>\n\n<p><strong>2) Number of applicants -</strong> \nActually, due to the above stated reason, there are a rather limited number of British citizens available for faculty positions. However, this tends to be compensated by educated people from EU, and sometimes from Asia. While British teachers consider it their right to be paid fair wages, and demand them, this is not always so for their EU and Asian counterparts. The result supports reason (5).</p>\n\n<p><strong>3) The value that the employer puts to that job / person</strong> \nIs quiet high. Education is a big business in the UK and lecturers are among the most important cogs in this apparatus. However, one always needs to assert this importance to prove it in the UK (not just in academic, but in many other professions too except perhaps for banking, financial services, real estate and politics). \nStudent feedback is taken regularly and published openly (however, only around 20-30% students actually respond to these official surveys thus limiting the visibility of good lecturers in the larger scope of education)</p>\n\n<p><strong>4) How much the employer can afford -</strong> \nUnlike many other sectors where employers genuinely cannot afford to pay more, universities are not so. They earn rather well, and the fees paid by EU/UK as well as overseas students tend to be to the tune of £ 8,000-£ 11,000 annually in an ordinary university. At UCL and Cass, it is even higher and to the tune of £ 15,000-18,000. </p>\n\n<p>These tuition fees cannot be directly compared to tuition fees in USA and other countries as actual classroom lecture hours in the UK in most universities are lower than their counterparts in USA - as low as 12-16 hours per week for a Masters level course, and just 20 hours for under graduates per student per week.</p>\n\n<p>Also, Universities tend to pay far lower rates for rents, gas and electricity than their business house counterparts.</p>\n\n<p><strong>5) What the employer can get away with-</strong>\nSadly (for lecturers - and hence students, as good lecturers tend to leave) and happily (for deans, and upper level management), universities in UK have been able to get away with low salaries. The fact that the lowest median wage in the UK is even lower makes it that much easier for universities to escape scot free. The fact that the number of British students attending classes in UK is so low, means that this is not an issue to the British voter currently. You will recollect that none of the campaigns last year said that they would try to improve the education system for British people.</p>\n\n<p>And hence, UK faculty salaries are so low. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 73177,
"author": "Mira1983",
"author_id": 58452,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58452",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me give you some first hand insights from someone who did her PostDoc and a PhD in the US respectively Europe and then got hired as a computer science Lecturer three years ago in the London area. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Short Answer:</strong> <em>The academic salaries in the UK are in no way competitive to salaries in the US even when considering only the 9 months US salaries. In some disciplines (e.g. computer science) a US PostDoc salary enables a better lifestyle than a UK Lecturer salary.</em></p>\n\n<p><strong>The Long Version</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>Salary scales are evil</strong>. In my opinion, the main reason for the low UK salaries is the \"salary scale\" system, which is the same for <em>all</em> public universities. Yep, that's right: <em>It won't matter if you have snatched an offer from Imperial/Oxford/Cambridge or, for example, from a much lesser ranked institutions such as the London Metropolitan University, you will roughly earn between 38k-45k GBP a year as a starting Lecturer.</em></p>\n\n<p>It also does not matter if you are based in a less popular area where you can rent a two bedroom house for as little as 600 GBP a month or in central London where you will have troubles finding a room in a shared flat for the same price. \n(I am not exaggerating, feel free to check the data. To be fair, the London universities offer a \"London allowance\" in addition to the base salary which adds 2k-3k per year amounting to maybe around 100 GBP extra per month after deductions - note that these allowances were fixed back in the 90s and are rarely increased ever since.)</p>\n\n<p>Why am I saying that salary scales are evil? The problem is that some of the more reputable institutions would be able (and maybe even willing) to offer their staff higher compensation. But having salary scales essentially requires the scale adjustments to match the amount that is affordable for even the least endowed institution. </p>\n\n<p>In my case, taking up the Lecturer (Uk) job after doing a PostDoc (US) means that I'm struggling to even afford the lifestyle that I had as a PostDoc. <strong>Compared to a US assistant professor it feels that I am earning 50% less.</strong> Again, this is not an exaggeration and a simply calculation by checking the <a href=\"https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/times-higher-education-pay-survey-2015/2019360.article\">UK academic salary data</a> and factoring in the cost of living. [My university is frequently ranked among the top ones for computer science in the UK thus for others this might be even worse.]</p>\n\n<p>The projection of \"closing the gap between UK and US salaries\" due to the union's salary negotiations as outlined in the accepted answer by @StrongBad is wishful thinking: Last year's increase was 1% and this year the so called improved offer amounts to 1.1%. <a href=\"https://www.ucu.org.uk/he2016\">Strike actions</a> by the union had no effect whatsoever. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Recommendation:</strong><br>\nStay clear of the UK academic market especially when looking for an entry level position. The situation is slightly better for higher ranked positions such as Reader or (Full) Professor. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32289",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24769/"
] |
32,295 |
<p>I recently started my PhD and now try to find a convenient software for managing my literature research. What I want it to be able to do is:</p>
<ul>
<li>Let me highlight PDFs</li>
<li>Add notes to PDFs</li>
<li>Add tags to my literature</li>
<li>(as a bonus:) load methadata and create bibtex files</li>
</ul>
<p>I personally really like Mendeley as it does pretty much exactly that. At my institute we have a strict open source policy though, which excludes Mendeley. Is there an open source alternative to Mendeley, which runs under Linux Gnome? </p>
<p>Thanks for your input. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32301,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>You are trying to compare a US salary to a UK salary using the current exchange rate. I do not think this is particularly relevant. Even if you are willing to ignore differences between the UK and US in terms of work/life balance, teaching load, and job security, you probably want to compare the quality of life that a salary buys you and not what would happen if you converted it to USD. The starting salary for a CS lecturer/assistant professor, when converted to USD, is much lower for a UK academic than a US academic, but there are differences between the value of a US and UK salary.</p>\n\n<p>While you say the UK tax rate is higher, that is a huge over simplification. Two random online tax calculators I used gave a US income tax of 24% on an 80,000 USD salary and a UK income tax of 25% on a 42,000 GBP salary. This ignores US state (and possibly city) income tax. The UK VAT of 20% is much higher than typical US sales taxes, but not everything is subject to VAT/sales tax. Even if you can accurately calculate an average total tax liability, you still need to account for purchasing power. </p>\n\n<p>I have work in both the US and UK in comparable cites (not NYC/London) and tend to think that the value of my UK salary is a little lower than value of my US salary. It is worth noting that UK salaries are much more consistent across fields. This means that I make the same as a CS lecturer in the UK, but that in the US I would probably be making 10% less than a CS assistant professor. My guess is that for CS there is a substantial, maybe 15%, hit in quality of life that an academic salary buys.</p>\n\n<p>In the US your starting salary is often your salary until you get tenure/promotion while in the UK you get a larger salary every year. There is a performance based pay raise, that essentially everyone gets, which is generally about 2.5%. This means the gap between the US and UK values gets smaller every year and after 6 years, when one is preparing to be promoted, the gap is pretty small. Further, UK salaries also have a cost of living adjustment. For the past few years this has been about 0.5-2% and less than the inflation, but it wouldn't surprise me if the union negotiates a big salary bump, maybe 10%, in the next few years. This would really close the gap.</p>\n\n<p>It is also worth noting that a US assistant professor is not directly equivalent to a UK lecturer. I think a US assistant professor is often a few years ahead in terms of productivity and experience.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 63398,
"author": "AsstProfUS",
"author_id": 49210,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49210",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It also depends largely on your discipline. Computer science is likely to make far more (especially starting out) than say history or languages, here in the U.S anyway. The STEM disciplines are doing very well right now but my experience (and among other junior faculty colleagues across the country) is that $80K is well above average starting salary. If you are making $80 starting out, be very happy about it- you are one of the lucky few. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 63403,
"author": "JenB",
"author_id": 26776,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26776",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Comparing salaries internationally based on currency conversion is never meaningful because it ignores differences in cost of living, tax rates and so on. I have always found it more productive to compare salaries based on ratio to average full time earnings when I am considering moving countries. That is, I assume the local economy is such that someone who is working full time can afford decent housing and lifestyle. This is not always true (London!) but is reasonable because a city would usually collapse if people couldn't live there with a job.</p>\n\n<p>Using the tried and true method of a quick google search, I couldn't find individual earnings, but US average household income was 41 355 USD and UK was 27 029 USD in the same unstated year <a href=\"http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/\">OECD report</a>. Based on your estimate of UK salary at 60k USD, that is about 2.2 times average household income, which is actually higher than the 1.9 ratio for your figure for US.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 72326,
"author": "Ashutosh Rana",
"author_id": 57601,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57601",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Salaries (of any job - not just academic) are usually due to a number of reasons - \n1) The demand for that job\n2) the number of applicants\n3) The value that the employer puts to that job / person\n4) How much the employer can afford (sometimes but not always related to 3 above) \n5) What the employer can get away with</p>\n\n<p>In case of UK, I think (5) plays a more prominent role than the other 4 reasons. The annual salary for lecturers tends to start at £ 31,000 with very low increments. After taxes, and contributions to insurance etc, this yields around £ 1800 per month, which admittedly is a pretty miserly sum when one considers that at least half of this is spent on rent.</p>\n\n<p><strong>1) Demand for a lecturers job -</strong> is fairly moderate / low. There tend to be a few jobs advertised - but most of them are the result of disgruntled lecturers leaving. Very few jobs are being created due to additional departments or growing numbers of students. Unlike countries like China and India where going to college is the norm for people of all classes (and hence people save for college since the child is a toddler), it is not so in UK. Education is not a priority for the average UK citizen. This simply lowers the number of students further.</p>\n\n<p><strong>2) Number of applicants -</strong> \nActually, due to the above stated reason, there are a rather limited number of British citizens available for faculty positions. However, this tends to be compensated by educated people from EU, and sometimes from Asia. While British teachers consider it their right to be paid fair wages, and demand them, this is not always so for their EU and Asian counterparts. The result supports reason (5).</p>\n\n<p><strong>3) The value that the employer puts to that job / person</strong> \nIs quiet high. Education is a big business in the UK and lecturers are among the most important cogs in this apparatus. However, one always needs to assert this importance to prove it in the UK (not just in academic, but in many other professions too except perhaps for banking, financial services, real estate and politics). \nStudent feedback is taken regularly and published openly (however, only around 20-30% students actually respond to these official surveys thus limiting the visibility of good lecturers in the larger scope of education)</p>\n\n<p><strong>4) How much the employer can afford -</strong> \nUnlike many other sectors where employers genuinely cannot afford to pay more, universities are not so. They earn rather well, and the fees paid by EU/UK as well as overseas students tend to be to the tune of £ 8,000-£ 11,000 annually in an ordinary university. At UCL and Cass, it is even higher and to the tune of £ 15,000-18,000. </p>\n\n<p>These tuition fees cannot be directly compared to tuition fees in USA and other countries as actual classroom lecture hours in the UK in most universities are lower than their counterparts in USA - as low as 12-16 hours per week for a Masters level course, and just 20 hours for under graduates per student per week.</p>\n\n<p>Also, Universities tend to pay far lower rates for rents, gas and electricity than their business house counterparts.</p>\n\n<p><strong>5) What the employer can get away with-</strong>\nSadly (for lecturers - and hence students, as good lecturers tend to leave) and happily (for deans, and upper level management), universities in UK have been able to get away with low salaries. The fact that the lowest median wage in the UK is even lower makes it that much easier for universities to escape scot free. The fact that the number of British students attending classes in UK is so low, means that this is not an issue to the British voter currently. You will recollect that none of the campaigns last year said that they would try to improve the education system for British people.</p>\n\n<p>And hence, UK faculty salaries are so low. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 73177,
"author": "Mira1983",
"author_id": 58452,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58452",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me give you some first hand insights from someone who did her PostDoc and a PhD in the US respectively Europe and then got hired as a computer science Lecturer three years ago in the London area. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Short Answer:</strong> <em>The academic salaries in the UK are in no way competitive to salaries in the US even when considering only the 9 months US salaries. In some disciplines (e.g. computer science) a US PostDoc salary enables a better lifestyle than a UK Lecturer salary.</em></p>\n\n<p><strong>The Long Version</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>Salary scales are evil</strong>. In my opinion, the main reason for the low UK salaries is the \"salary scale\" system, which is the same for <em>all</em> public universities. Yep, that's right: <em>It won't matter if you have snatched an offer from Imperial/Oxford/Cambridge or, for example, from a much lesser ranked institutions such as the London Metropolitan University, you will roughly earn between 38k-45k GBP a year as a starting Lecturer.</em></p>\n\n<p>It also does not matter if you are based in a less popular area where you can rent a two bedroom house for as little as 600 GBP a month or in central London where you will have troubles finding a room in a shared flat for the same price. \n(I am not exaggerating, feel free to check the data. To be fair, the London universities offer a \"London allowance\" in addition to the base salary which adds 2k-3k per year amounting to maybe around 100 GBP extra per month after deductions - note that these allowances were fixed back in the 90s and are rarely increased ever since.)</p>\n\n<p>Why am I saying that salary scales are evil? The problem is that some of the more reputable institutions would be able (and maybe even willing) to offer their staff higher compensation. But having salary scales essentially requires the scale adjustments to match the amount that is affordable for even the least endowed institution. </p>\n\n<p>In my case, taking up the Lecturer (Uk) job after doing a PostDoc (US) means that I'm struggling to even afford the lifestyle that I had as a PostDoc. <strong>Compared to a US assistant professor it feels that I am earning 50% less.</strong> Again, this is not an exaggeration and a simply calculation by checking the <a href=\"https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/times-higher-education-pay-survey-2015/2019360.article\">UK academic salary data</a> and factoring in the cost of living. [My university is frequently ranked among the top ones for computer science in the UK thus for others this might be even worse.]</p>\n\n<p>The projection of \"closing the gap between UK and US salaries\" due to the union's salary negotiations as outlined in the accepted answer by @StrongBad is wishful thinking: Last year's increase was 1% and this year the so called improved offer amounts to 1.1%. <a href=\"https://www.ucu.org.uk/he2016\">Strike actions</a> by the union had no effect whatsoever. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Recommendation:</strong><br>\nStay clear of the UK academic market especially when looking for an entry level position. The situation is slightly better for higher ranked positions such as Reader or (Full) Professor. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32295",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11487/"
] |
32,298 |
<p>Are there any issues or concerns a with student giving lecturers Christmas cards? I am apprehensive that the religious connotations of Christmas might offend some card recipient(s). However, if the card is appropriate and professional I can't imagine why it would raise concerns. I wanted to gather the opinions of others in the same position as my possible card recipient(s).</p>
<p><em>Is it appropriate for students to give university lecturers Christmas cards?</em></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32299,
"author": "Bob Brown",
"author_id": 16183,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16183",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Don't do it. First, as mentioned in the comments, not everyone is a Christian. Second, <em>your</em> religion is none of the lecturer's business (unless you're in seminary or something.) Third, your professors are not your friends, at least mostly; they're your professors. Finally, it could be perceived as an attempt to curry favor.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32305,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The religious connotations of word \"Christmas\" can be confusing and depend on the region. My UK university has Christmas and Easter vacations while most US universities now call these winter and spring vacations. In the US, a Christmas card implies a religious celebration while a holiday card is secular. In the UK, a Christmas card that says \"Merry Christmas\" would be seen as secular and the same as a US card saying \"Happy Holidays\". There are of course religious Christmas cards in the UK.</p>\n\n<p>The level of appropriateness (or inappropriateness) of a Christmas card depends on the level of religiousness and the recipient. While I would not say giving a secular holiday card is inappropriate, it is pretty rare. I teach probably 500 students a year and I receive on average of 1 holiday card a year from my students.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32314,
"author": "gerrit",
"author_id": 1033,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In my opinion, it is appropriate, but I would get one card and sign it together with your peers.</p>\n\n<p>Others have pointed out that it's culturally dependent. That's surely true. In some countries one will see nativity scenes throughout towns and villages. Personally, I think all other public decorations I remember seeing are pagan, and I'd speculate pagan celebrations (\"Christmas\" trees, Santa Claus/Father Christmas, lights, etc.) should rather offend Christians than irreligious people.</p>\n\n<p>However, there might be an issue if the lecturer always gets cards from some people but not from others. Therefore, I would recommend to get one card together with your peers, and all sign it together. That mostly eliminates the problem of favouritism.</p>\n\n<p>(Personally, I would not be offended <em>at all</em> by receiving a religious Christmas card at Christmas, a Jewish card at Hanukkah, an Islamic card at Eid, etc. It would make a delightful collection above my desk!)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32342,
"author": "Jessica B",
"author_id": 20036,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20036",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have never heard anything saying there are issues, and on a quick search I wasn't able it find anything. Based on my own experience I would think there aren't any major issues in the UK with this (with regard to @dirkk's comment, I think this is again a cultural thing, and giving (suitable) cards to those you know more formally is not considered inappropriate. I think that how common this is is changing rapidly though, and could be very sensitive to respective ages etc).</p>\n\n<p>I think though you are wise to consider whether it's a good idea or not. As you mention, overly familial expressions would be bad. If you're also someone who includes a Christmas letter, that would also be best avoided here, I would say (usually). You should thing about how it will be viewed. Handing over a card along with an assessed project might be different to giving one to a lecturer who will never be marking your work/has no way of identifying it. You might also want to consider the effect of giving one to all/only some lecturers, or if you're the only person doing so.</p>\n\n<p>I take it the question primarily refers to current lecturers, but it is possible the question could be asked about past lecturers, who you might have developed a closer relationship with. In that case, one point to remember might be whether you are likely to be asking them for a reference any time soon.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 50000,
"author": "vonbrand",
"author_id": 38135,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38135",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Giving someone a christmas (or other celebration, i.e., birthday) card is a (somewhat) personal matter, so that will depend strongly on the personal relation to the lecturer, and also on \"general environment\". E.g., here some departments insist on strictly \"professional\" (distant) relations between students and lecturers, others are much more relaxed and friendly. This will probably also vary for undergraduates/graduates, a lecturer you know well (e.g. have been a TA for several terms) and more so between you and e.g. your thesis advisor).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 50006,
"author": "Peadar",
"author_id": 24761,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24761",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would be more concerned about the ethical aspect of this than the religious one. The lecturer is grading your work, so I would suggest that if you do send them a card to leave it until after you have received your grade for the module.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 57533,
"author": "10100111001",
"author_id": 34112,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34112",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'd say it depends on how well you know the lecturer. Have you talked to him/her in a more personal manner?</p>\n\n<p>But in the end: if the country where the University lies does celebrate \"Christmas\", then I see nothing wrong with a \"Christmas Card\". Highly-educated people (such as professors or lecturers in the academic domain), usually know something about the culture and what holidays are celebrated (and in what way (commercial/religious)). If it is a tradition to give/send/receive postcards for some holiday they should not be offended by it at least. </p>\n\n<p>A \"long story short\": When in Rome, do as the Romans.\nYes, there are some left-wing \"liberalists\" who do not like common sense, but hey that's their problem as I see it :)</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32298",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14302/"
] |
32,300 |
<p>How should one cite previous work of his own? If one paper relies on previous work that author already did I suppose that paper should be cited. Given that one paper is a continuation of the one before should the papers that are cited there as previous work be cited as-well? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32303,
"author": "Maarten Buis",
"author_id": 14471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14471",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>If I take your question literally, then this would be my answer:</p>\n\n<p>I citation serves two purposes:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>You avoid that you take credit for work by others, and thus avoid plagiarism. This point also applies to your own work published somewhere else.</li>\n<li>It can act like an \"external appendix\" (e.g. the interested reader can read the proof in...).</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So, if you make a statement in your current article that relies on findings in your previous articles, then you should cite yourself. If your previous articles contain information you would otherwise have put in an (web)appendix, then you can cite yourself. Otherwise, you should not cite yourself.</p>\n\n<p>However, I suspect you want to know how far back you should go when writing the section \"previous research\". Here the answer is it depends on what is considered normal in your (sub-)discipline. At the very least I would look at that section from the perspective of a reader: Can they understand how you want to place your article within the research that has been done in this area? Discussing the creation of the computer is typically not necessary to achieve that goal...</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32304,
"author": "SlySherZ",
"author_id": 24790,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24790",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your previous work already cites the papers it's based on, so just citing your own paper is implicitly citing the other ones.</p>\n\n<p>I think NO, you don't need to cite them all, just the last.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32307,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A paper should be largely self-contained in its citations. Cite everything that is directly needed to understand the context of the <em>current</em> paper. This will typically mean that there are many citations shared between papers, but that is OK.</p>\n\n<p>Let me illustrate by means of three examples. Let's say that you have already written paper A, which presents a method for making widgets. A year later, you write paper B, building on the work.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Case 1: Paper B is about a <em>better</em> method for making widgets:</strong> In this case, you need to give the context for addressing the widget-making problem. You should not assume that the reader has read paper A, so the citations of paper B should likely be nearly identical, with the addition of paper A. The only missing will be citations that were supporting the method in paper A but that do not apply to paper B (e.g., an analytical technique used for one but not the other).</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Case 2: Paper B is about applications of widgets:</strong> In this case, you need to keep the citations supporting why anybody should care about widgets, but can drop all of the citations on alternate ways of making widgets. It is enough to say, \"we make the widgets using the method in [cite]\", if the paper isn't about making them.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Case 3: Paper B is about using the same method to make gizmos instead of widgets:</strong> In this case, you can drop all of the citations motivating care about widgets, since this is about gizmos instead. You will still need citations to compare this method to alternate methods of making gizmos (which might be the same citations as for widgets, depending).</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Thus, you may see that the number of shared citations depends on the type of relationship between the papers, because ultimately it boils down to making sure the reader doesn't have to look up another paper in order to find the critical pieces of related work for the one that they are currently reading.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32300",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23753/"
] |
32,310 |
<p>I’m applying for a postdoctoral role in the UK, and I am asked to have ’bibliographic search skills’. I’m sort of at a loss as to what that means, specifically – does anyone know? I’m assuming it doesn’t just mean ‘can read a bibliography’. I have a Ph.D., so I’m sort of embarrassed not to know what this means, but there you go. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32303,
"author": "Maarten Buis",
"author_id": 14471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14471",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>If I take your question literally, then this would be my answer:</p>\n\n<p>I citation serves two purposes:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>You avoid that you take credit for work by others, and thus avoid plagiarism. This point also applies to your own work published somewhere else.</li>\n<li>It can act like an \"external appendix\" (e.g. the interested reader can read the proof in...).</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So, if you make a statement in your current article that relies on findings in your previous articles, then you should cite yourself. If your previous articles contain information you would otherwise have put in an (web)appendix, then you can cite yourself. Otherwise, you should not cite yourself.</p>\n\n<p>However, I suspect you want to know how far back you should go when writing the section \"previous research\". Here the answer is it depends on what is considered normal in your (sub-)discipline. At the very least I would look at that section from the perspective of a reader: Can they understand how you want to place your article within the research that has been done in this area? Discussing the creation of the computer is typically not necessary to achieve that goal...</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32304,
"author": "SlySherZ",
"author_id": 24790,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24790",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your previous work already cites the papers it's based on, so just citing your own paper is implicitly citing the other ones.</p>\n\n<p>I think NO, you don't need to cite them all, just the last.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32307,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A paper should be largely self-contained in its citations. Cite everything that is directly needed to understand the context of the <em>current</em> paper. This will typically mean that there are many citations shared between papers, but that is OK.</p>\n\n<p>Let me illustrate by means of three examples. Let's say that you have already written paper A, which presents a method for making widgets. A year later, you write paper B, building on the work.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Case 1: Paper B is about a <em>better</em> method for making widgets:</strong> In this case, you need to give the context for addressing the widget-making problem. You should not assume that the reader has read paper A, so the citations of paper B should likely be nearly identical, with the addition of paper A. The only missing will be citations that were supporting the method in paper A but that do not apply to paper B (e.g., an analytical technique used for one but not the other).</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Case 2: Paper B is about applications of widgets:</strong> In this case, you need to keep the citations supporting why anybody should care about widgets, but can drop all of the citations on alternate ways of making widgets. It is enough to say, \"we make the widgets using the method in [cite]\", if the paper isn't about making them.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Case 3: Paper B is about using the same method to make gizmos instead of widgets:</strong> In this case, you can drop all of the citations motivating care about widgets, since this is about gizmos instead. You will still need citations to compare this method to alternate methods of making gizmos (which might be the same citations as for widgets, depending).</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Thus, you may see that the number of shared citations depends on the type of relationship between the papers, because ultimately it boils down to making sure the reader doesn't have to look up another paper in order to find the critical pieces of related work for the one that they are currently reading.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32310",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24794/"
] |
32,315 |
<p>I submitted my paper to one of Springer’s journals seven months ago. One month ago I received a letter from the editor-in-chief:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Following a review of the manuscript by the editorial
board, we have regretfully decided not to consider this work for
publication. We thank you for your interest in our journal and...</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I wrote the journal an e-mail and asked for the review mentioned in the letter, but received no answer. I also wrote to the editor himself (to his personal e-mail), and asked the fair question: “why the editorial board decided not to consider the work?”, but my question was ignored. I have been waiting for one month for the answer.</p>
<p>What can I do in this case? Note that I only want to know the reasons for the rejection.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32316,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>\"Following a review of the manuscript by the editorial board, we have regretfully decided not to consider this work for publication. We thank you for your interest in our journal and...\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This sounds like an editorial (\"desk\") reject more than anything else. Hence, there typically is no formal, written review that the editor could forward to you. It is just that the handling editor and/or the Editor-in-Chief have decided that the paper is either of low enough quality, or so clearly out of scope, that running it through the full-blown peer-review process would be a waste of reviewer time. While this is of course a harsh judgement for your submission, the editors are entirely allowed to do this - there is no formal \"obligation\" that any submission will have to be peer-reviewed before it can be rejected.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>What can I do in this case? Note that the only thing I want is to know reasons for the rejection.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Realistically, not much. Of course it would be nice if the editors at least gave you some informal pointers why your submission was desk-rejected, e.g., \"I am sorry but your submission is out of scope for this journal\", but maybe if your request was combative enough, the editor decided that she/he rather did not want to get into an argument with you about this. Anyway, I doubt that there is an obligation on the editor's side to always fully justify each rejection. At the end of the day, acceptance of papers is always a discretionary decision by the Editor-in-Chief, and not something you can formally object to.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32339,
"author": "Patricia Shanahan",
"author_id": 10220,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10220",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It does not seem likely that you will get an answer from the journal. The next best thing would be to look among those you know, or those to whom you can get introductions, for people who have had papers published in the journal. Ideally, find at least one experienced professor who is a co-author of a student-written paper in the journal.</p>\n\n<p>Someone who has published in a journal has some understanding of the criteria it applies, including topics and quality requirements. A professor co-author may have guided graduate students through the process of writing a paper the journal will accept.</p>\n\n<p>Ask each of them for their opinion of your paper as a potential submission to the journal. If they all indicate the same or similar problems, that is almost certainly the reason for rejection.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32386,
"author": "Martin Argerami",
"author_id": 542,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/542",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Although 6 months is definitely too long, here is a possible timeline that may cause legit delays in the processing. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>The paper is received by the editorial system, and it might get some time to get to the corresponding editor.</p></li>\n<li><p>Maybe the journal offers the manuscripts to the editors, and it takes some time until and editor picks it up. </p></li>\n<li><p>Sometimes the editor is not sure about what to do with the manuscript, so it sends it to some colleagues for an informal assessment, asking them whether they think the paper should be reviewed. </p></li>\n<li><p>After getting mixed answers at the previous stage, the manuscript has to wait to the next editorial board meeting for the decision to be made. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I don't think this explains easily a six month delay, but it does show that desk rejections are not necessarily immediate. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32315",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24800/"
] |
32,317 |
<blockquote>
<p><strong>IMPORTANT:</strong> The allegation of gang-rape in the <em>Rolling Stone</em> article that formed the basis for this question has been retracted; later evidence on the matter shows that <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/12/everything-we-know-uva-rape-case.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the allegation that gang-rape occurred at the fraternity was false</a>. Other similar events have since been alleged at other universities: <a href="http://www.kwtx.com/content/news/Waco--16-defendants-added-to-lawsuit-over-2016-BU-frat-party-rape-474908383.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Baylor</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yale-dke-frat-brothers-allegations-of-sexual-assault-2018-2" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Yale</a> and <a href="https://badgerherald.com/news/2018/02/04/saturday-night-sexual-assault-reported-at-unknown-fraternity/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wisconsin</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rolling Stone <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119" rel="nofollow noreferrer">recently reported</a> a horrific preplanned gang rape at a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia, with the victim's "friends" telling her afterward not to report the crime, on the theory that "She's gonna be the girl who cried 'rape,' and we'll never be allowed into any frat party again."</p>
<p>Under pressure, the university has belatedly decided to suspend fraternity events until January. This seems pathetically inadequate to me, but what can a university actually do in this situation that will have a significant and lasting effect on a firmly entrenched rape culture? Are there cases where other schools have done something more effectual? Supposing for the sake of argument that they were willing to completely disassociate themselves from one frat, or from the frat system as a whole, would it do any good? I assume that the frats own their houses, and the schools can't actually shut them down.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32319,
"author": "blankip",
"author_id": 11420,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11420",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I had friends at a very popular fraternity at a major college (and later served on a discipline board). This fraternity had a series of violations. Mainly underage drinking, poor grades, and complaints from girls (nothing even close to rape). So just a series of dumbass fraternity guys acting like dumbass fraternity guys. Seriously what do you expect when putting 20-200 guys between 18-22 in the same housing. </p>\n\n<p>For these smaller infractions the school will warn both the local charter and the fraternity national headquarters. Each school has its own rules. So I can't say that one violation at one school is handled the same as another. Also when I say a school has rules I am being very liberal. <strong>[A school will have an advisory/disciplinary committee that will basically do whatever it wants]</strong></p>\n\n<p>A school may have outlined several examples of violations (hazing, drinking, grades...) and then their punishment for those. But I have first hand seen how hazing has turned into - boys will be boys - because someone on the committee went to school with one of the boy's fathers. Or another dad makes a big contribution right after he got in trouble. </p>\n\n<p>So a school may do pretty much whatever it wants from putting a fraternity/sorority on probation, from expelling members of that fraternity, from taking the charter away from the fraternity. And it doesn't matter if the house is off campus or not. In the case I mentioned above, the fraternity owned a house about a half mile off campus. The university read the boys the riot act, said they were closed, or they could leave the school. </p>\n\n<p>I have first hand seen both good and bad things happen using the school system as reinforcement. </p>\n\n<p>Good</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>School can act much faster than our court system</li>\n<li>School can make people \"testify\" (based on most honor codes)</li>\n<li>School usually has some reasonably smart people making decisions</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Bad</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>It is easy to cover things up. I had a friend get assaulted on campus. The campus police did next to nothing and it didn't get reported as an assault to the actual police because the university was worried about their crime stats. Friend found out nothing was happening, so reported to the police... case was too cold by then to get much traction.</li>\n<li>One influential person can taint any committee. Several times I was told to vote a certain way (or I wouldn't be on said committee in future). Let it be known after I refused once that 3 committee spots were cut including mine - and then 3 months later 5 committee spots were opened.</li>\n<li>Once things hit the press a school will do damage control not get to the bottom of what was actually happening. See the Duke lacrosse team as a perfect example. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Answer in short: The school will threaten to kick out any students that don't abide by their rules. So even if a \"fraternity\" isn't nationally chartered and doesn't have any direct correlation with the school the school can still have said fraternity disbanded or the members face expulsion. This threat happens all the time but is hardly ever enacted on. The students really have no discourse except for talking to the press (which in some schools can lead to expulsion).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32323,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As it turns out, <a href=\"http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/2/2/148.short\">membership in fraternities is not, in general, strongly correlated with rape</a>. Rather, it appears that a large percentage of sexual assault is committed by a <a href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11991158\">very small fraction of men who are deliberate predators</a>, who tend to seek out environments where their behavior is enabled by people either turn a blind eye to their behavior or who are not willing to intervene in a problematic situation. Some fraternities provide such environments, but many non-fraternity social environments do so as well.</p>\n\n<p>Rape is committed <a href=\"https://rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-offenders\">mostly against women who know their attacker</a> and who may even be intimate with them willingly under other circumstances (men are raped as well, but at <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#United_States\">much lower percentages than women</a>). One of the major recommended interventions for a college is thus to <a href=\"http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ792548.pdf\">educate students, especially other men, on how to intervene in situations that are likely to be a prelude to rape</a>. This is one example of <a href=\"https://www.rainn.org/public-policy/campus-safety\">a broad spectrum of recommended prevention and mitigation policies</a>, which appear to be both effective in reducing the incidence of rape and reducing the damage that compounds to rape victims in an unsupportive campus culture.</p>\n\n<p>None of these interventions are particularly difficult or expensive. The main challenges in implementing them are resistance from people who have some stake in keeping aspects of their campus culture from changing, or who are worried about potential image problems.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 104545,
"author": "Ben",
"author_id": 87026,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/87026",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Now that the reported rape at the University of Virginia has been <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">thoroughly discredited</a> and exposed as serious journalistic misconduct, I think it is worth adding a new answer to this question that reflects that updated information.</p>\n\n<p>The OP has suggested that the university’s action in suspending the fraternity, after receiving public pressure, was “pathetically inadequate”. We now know that the allegation made against the fraternity was false, and they were the victims of a smear campaign. The university has <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/business/media/rape-uva-rolling-stone-frat.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">settled a defamation claim by the fraternity</a> for $1.65 million in damages, and there have also been other legal settlements from the magazine and the writer of this rape hoax. The legal settlements are minimal given the extreme misconduct and bigotry of the university and the magazine.</p>\n\n<p>In view of these developments, I submit that the lesson to be learned in these cases is not to grab the pitchforks and rouse the town-folk due to unconfirmed (and farcically implausible) allegations levelled against socially unpopular groups. People with the scientific training of academics should have the integrity to reject this kind of “trial by media” that proceeds without regard to evidence and due process. Much of the academic community disgraced itself with this witch-hunt against a group of innocent men. This is unfortunately typical of the rampant anti-male bigotry of modern academia.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32317",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
32,320 |
<p>I was born in Ukraine and when I immigrated to the United States at a young age my middle name was translated phonetically. In Eastern Slavic cultures, our middle names aren't quite the same as middle names in the United States. It's not simply an "alternative name" for me. Our middle names are patronymic. They are our father's names. I do not consider my middle name to be the same as the traditional middle name used in the United States.</p>
<p>I am currently applying to graduate programs and I have decided to leave my middle name out. The name is long and unpronounceable by most. On top of it being my father's name, it has a suffix ending "-evich" tacked on at the end. This makes it 11 characters long and it usually gets truncated to fewer characters when seen in my undergraduate university's system. This bothers me and I would just rather then not have the patronymic middle name in my records at all.</p>
<p><em>Are there specific reasons I should include my middle name on my graduate school applications?</em></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32321,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I recommend that you do not include your middle name because it will be inconvenient to get people to spell it correctly. In American academic culture, most people will respect whatever name you wish to go by (assuming they are able to pronounce it).</p>\n\n<p>I routinely omit different parts of my legal name for different purposes and it has never caused me any problems.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32322,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here is how I handle these things:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>I publish papers with just my first and last name - no middle name or initial.</p></li>\n<li><p>My vita and website use just my first and last name. </p></li>\n<li><p>When I fill out \"official\" forms, like employment paperwork and tax forms, I use the full name that is on my passport and driver's license. This helps to avoid any confusion when these forms are compared with each other. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>For a school application, I would use the same name that is on your government ID. But this is just for the centralized records. Nobody in the academic department is likely to care (or even notice) if you just go by your first name and last name in public life. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32324,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I sympathize with your problem: I have two middle names, and databases don't tend to believe in that. Rather than fight the system or pick one, I typically omit my middle names except when explicitly required by the government (e.g., dealing with customs and immigration).</p>\n\n<p>When you are applying for an academic position (grad school, postdoc, faculty, industrial research, etc), generally what the institution really cares about is simply that you are uniquely identifiable. In other words, the exact name you use isn't all that important as long as it clearly connects to a real person and doesn't indicate any intention to deceive.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 50002,
"author": "vonbrand",
"author_id": 38135,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38135",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For <em>legal</em> issues (application to school, work, passport, ...) you have to give your full name, and be consistent with it. Transliteration can be tricky here...\nFor informal contact, a nickname will do ;)\nFor publications, pick one and be consistent. There are people who publish under their middle name, or initial and middle name, others use full first and middle name, I use first name and middle initial. Whatever you pick, use it consistently. It is frustrating to see some J. Doe, John D. Doe, Jack Doe, J.D. Doe, John Demetrius Doe publishing in your field and not being able to tell if they are the same or different people.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32320",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23583/"
] |
32,327 |
<p>Is it standard for graduate students to give their advisors gifts around Christmas, like chocolates or bottles of wine? What about other important people, such as their thesis committee members, or department secretaries?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32321,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I recommend that you do not include your middle name because it will be inconvenient to get people to spell it correctly. In American academic culture, most people will respect whatever name you wish to go by (assuming they are able to pronounce it).</p>\n\n<p>I routinely omit different parts of my legal name for different purposes and it has never caused me any problems.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32322,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here is how I handle these things:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>I publish papers with just my first and last name - no middle name or initial.</p></li>\n<li><p>My vita and website use just my first and last name. </p></li>\n<li><p>When I fill out \"official\" forms, like employment paperwork and tax forms, I use the full name that is on my passport and driver's license. This helps to avoid any confusion when these forms are compared with each other. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>For a school application, I would use the same name that is on your government ID. But this is just for the centralized records. Nobody in the academic department is likely to care (or even notice) if you just go by your first name and last name in public life. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32324,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I sympathize with your problem: I have two middle names, and databases don't tend to believe in that. Rather than fight the system or pick one, I typically omit my middle names except when explicitly required by the government (e.g., dealing with customs and immigration).</p>\n\n<p>When you are applying for an academic position (grad school, postdoc, faculty, industrial research, etc), generally what the institution really cares about is simply that you are uniquely identifiable. In other words, the exact name you use isn't all that important as long as it clearly connects to a real person and doesn't indicate any intention to deceive.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 50002,
"author": "vonbrand",
"author_id": 38135,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38135",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For <em>legal</em> issues (application to school, work, passport, ...) you have to give your full name, and be consistent with it. Transliteration can be tricky here...\nFor informal contact, a nickname will do ;)\nFor publications, pick one and be consistent. There are people who publish under their middle name, or initial and middle name, others use full first and middle name, I use first name and middle initial. Whatever you pick, use it consistently. It is frustrating to see some J. Doe, John D. Doe, Jack Doe, J.D. Doe, John Demetrius Doe publishing in your field and not being able to tell if they are the same or different people.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32327",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24384/"
] |
32,331 |
<p>I am currently in the second year of a four year Computer Science MSCi program in the UK. </p>
<p>I would like to know how credible is an application for a PHD in Computational Fluid Dynamics, from an MSCi in Computer Science?</p>
<p>I understand that these courses are usually delivered by engineering, physics, or maths departments, but does the computational aspect stand me in good stead?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32332,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you have had no basic physics courses, no fluid dynamics/mechanics courses, and no courses in PDEs, you're probably going have a hard time with your application. You might be able to work on things that contribute to solving problems in CFD like linear and non-linear solvers, but your background is lacking when it comes to application for a PhD in an engineering, physics, or mathematics department. You might be better off finding an advisor in a CS program who does interdisciplinary work related to fluids and get in with them. Guys like Ron Fedkiw in CS at UCLA and Martin Berzins at in CS at Utah are Maths PhDs in CS departments working on CFD problems. Working with someone like one of them might give you the time and space to pick up the fluids and PDEs through coursework or reading and working problems while you target some of the more CS-ish problems in their projects. </p>\n\n<p>In the end, it can work out, but I think you'll have a hard time with a frontal assault on an engineering PhD program application. You're going to have to be more targeted in your approach.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32350,
"author": "Michiel",
"author_id": 20048,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20048",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If at the moment you didn't take any courses in physics and fluid mechanics yet then I think your chances are close to zero.</p>\n\n<p>However, you mentioned that you still have 2 years to go on your MSc program. In that case you still have 2 years to 'reshape' yourself for such a position. I would approach this endeavor in 3 steps:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Talk to professors with (open) PhD positions in CFD and ask them what courses they think are prerequisite for the positions that they have. Also ask what courses would be desirable/helpful.</li>\n<li>Take ALL of the prerequisite courses they mentioned and as many of the desirable ones as possible. Either take them as electives for your current program or just on top of it. This might seem like a lot of work, and it probably is, but if you are serious about the PhD in CFD then this will actually help in your application process, because it shows that you are committed. </li>\n<li>In many MSc programs you will have some big project at the end. If that is the case for you as well, make it a CFD project for a professor with PhD projects available. Give it your all and you might be able to 'network' your way into one of his/her positions.</li>\n</ol>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/26
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32331",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24820/"
] |
32,333 |
<p>I was reading <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32164/what-to-do-about-questions-that-are-designed-to-embarrass-the-speaker">this question</a> about famous people asking rude questions in talks, and it reminded me of a situation which happened at the end of my academic career. I would really like some advice on how I should have handled it.</p>
<p>I was giving a short talk at a conference and at the end the session chair asked for questions or comments. An eminent Belgian professor said "I really think you should look at X from 197y" and, since I <em>had</em> looked at X, I began to reply, and then the professor interrupted my reply with </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"That wasn't a question. That was a comment."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I was speechless. This is Treppenwitz as it was several years ago, but what would have been a good comeback?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32334,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The question's title does not reveal the status of the obstructionist questioner, and this status matters enormously. Lower-status people behaving this way could not <em>\"get away with it\"</em>. High-status people often can.</p>\n\n<p>Given all the implicit primate-interaction and other presumption in anyone's behaving like that, in particular <em>denying response</em>, this should be treated like bad drivers on the highway, specifically, potentially more <em>reactive</em> than the indifferent bad weather or bad luck of various sorts. Namely, any substantial response, especially any expression of annoyance or umbrage, will incur a cost that makes whatever satisfaction one had hoped-for too expensive.</p>\n\n<p>Instead, a dumb-happy-innocent smile and \"thanks for your comment... then\", to avoid <em>engagement</em>, is wise.</p>\n\n<p>Sure, this amounts to a sort of impersonal bullying, but you yourself could not likely change the outcome. It'd require the intervention of someone of comparable status, blah-blah-blah.</p>\n\n<p>So, in summary, no, such \"comments\" are not productive, are status-reiterating, ... and do create a generally stifling status-conscious atmosphere. Not that most human scenarios aren't status-conscious... :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32354,
"author": "Zekko",
"author_id": 24831,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24831",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would tell him to accept the consequences of his comments or keep them to himself. Then, reply to his comment. If he has a legitimate concern that hadn't occurred to me, I would thank him for his input and take it into consideration (these are awkward moments, but I always learn so much from them). If, however, he attacks my findings and I am truly certain his attack is unfounded, I would tell him why I think it's unfounded.</p>\n\n<p>Academia is about discovering the truth; status should <em>never</em> get in the way of that. If academia weren't allowed to speak their mind, how would we ever discover the truth?</p>\n\n<p>That said, I think everyone has their own opinion on how to deal with these situations where you're unreasonably backed into a corner by someone with higher status than yourself.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32364,
"author": "Kate Gregory",
"author_id": 12693,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12693",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Since you had looked at X, a reply saying so is appropriate. There are two ways this could go:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>you should look at X</li>\n<li>in fact I have, and -</li>\n<li>that wasn't a question, it was a comment</li>\n<li>thankyou for your comment, which was founded on the invalid assumption I hadn't looked at X. [Grin. Adjust body language so you are no longer speaking to questioner but to entire audience.] Speaking of X, when I looked at it I found... </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>this approach takes the \"it's my stage, buddy\" position - you don't need permission from an audience member to do anything. It also puts the questioner down a peg, which might be a dangerous thing to do.</p>\n\n<p>Alternatively:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>you should look at X</li>\n<li>in fact I have, and -</li>\n<li>that wasn't a question, it was a comment</li>\n<li>I see. Well, since I have looked at X, it turns out to be a rather nonconstructive comment. Do you have a question?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This is somewhat ruder and gives up the opportunity to talk about X, but might result in useful dialog should that be your aim.</p>\n\n<p>Depending on the audience reaction to the rude questioner (and make no mistake, telling you what to read as though there was some sort of supervisor/student relationship, interrupting and correcting you, and not playing along with the unspoken rules of Q&A after a talk are all rude, and probably designed to show the commenter's superiority to you) you could also just roll your eyes or sigh and move on to another question as quickly as possible, optionally thanking the commenter first in a bored, polite voice. This is a good choice only if you can clearly tell that most of the audience doesn't see the commenter as superior to you or the comment as a \"telling blow\" on you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32366,
"author": "Steve Jessop",
"author_id": 11440,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11440",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ul>\n<li>The chair asked for questions <em>or comments</em>.</li>\n<li>Your title is about being prevented from answering a question, but the eminent Prof was correct in one thing. It was a statement, not a question.</li>\n<li>The eminent Prof acted as if there's a right to make a comment <em>without you responding to it</em>. Since your response made the remark look obtuse (saying you should look at something you've already looked at), it seems likely that interrupting you was a ploy to avoid embarrassment.</li>\n<li>It's really up to the chair whether you should respond to comments or not, but usually if the speaker thinks they have a useful response then they should make it. So typically the audience has no right to make comments without allowing a response.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So, any further response you make to the interruption should bear in mind that the Prof is quite likely only interrupting you to avoid looking silly:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>You could treat it as a heckle. If you have a useful remark on the applicability (or otherwise) of X, then ignore the interruption and continue making it. An audience member raised X, you're talking about X: that's what the questions and comments part of your talk is supposed to be for. Remember it's not the eminent Prof that decides who's allowed to speak, it's the chair. So you can speak unless the chair interrupts.</li>\n<li>If you're just defending yourself against an accusation of ignoring X when you didn't, then state that X was considered and move on to the next question/comment.</li>\n<li>If you want to put down the eminent Prof (perhaps because you're at the end of your academic career anyway), then you could try some cutting remark before continuing: \"This isn't an answer, it's a response to your comment\", \"Yes, but your comment is so wrong it risks misleading listeners\", \"Your mother\", etc.</li>\n<li>You could make the point in a much more friendly way, that you're determined to speak about X: \"I agree with you, X is relevant and interesting because...\" or \"I thought the same thing, but it turns out X isn't applicable because...\"</li>\n</ul>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>I've just realised that the eminent professor was quite possibly referring to an anecdote concerning Paul Dirac:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/review-the-strangest-man-by-graham-farmelo/article4289494/\">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/review-the-strangest-man-by-graham-farmelo/article4289494/</a></p>\n\n<p>Dirac's incident was the other way around. An audience member said that he didn't understand an equation given by Dirac in a lecture. Dirac gave no response, and when prompted to answer the question it was Dirac who said, \"that was not a question, it was a comment\".</p>\n\n<p>Therefore, it's possible that your eminent professor intended to come across more funny and less controlling than he actually did. Still wouldn't excuse him trying to prevent you speaking, of course.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32385,
"author": "Trevor Wilson",
"author_id": 8937,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8937",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>\"Yes, and I'd like to respond to your comment by saying ....\"</p>\n\n<p>I'd avoid sarcasm, put-downs, or anything that could be described as a \"good comeback.\"</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/27
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32333",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5842/"
] |
32,337 |
<p>Several small related questions about how to present oneself in a faculty application, and in particular the cover letter:</p>
<p>Should it end by saying something, like "I am waiting for your call" or "I will follow up by phone or email"? I have seen the latter recommended, but for me it seems somehow annoying. </p>
<p>Should the cover letter contain qualifications and skills like highly-motivated, fast learner, etc?</p>
<p>Some recommend mentioning potential members of the department that the applicant can work with in a faculty application. Is this a good idea? If Dr. A is working on topic T, and I want to work on topic T, then should I say that I would like to collaborate with Dr. A, and if so, how? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32340,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>(1) For the cover letter, should it end by saying something,</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In my experience (~10 years on hiring committees, starting my second year as hiring committee chair), almost nobody will read your cover letter. If you have something to say about your research, say it in your research statement. If you have something to say about your teaching, say it in your teaching statement. If you have something to say about your personal life, don't.</p>\n\n<p>If the department doesn't acknowledge receipt (typically by email), it's reasonable to call or email the department to double-check. But \"waiting for your call\" is unreasonably optimistic. Each department you're applying to probably gets hundreds of applications for each faculty position.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(2) Should the cover letter contain qualifications and skills like highly-motivated, fast learner etc?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>Absolutely not!</strong> \"Motivated\" and \"fast learner\" are neither skills nor qualifications; they're useless boilerplate. <em>Of course</em> you're motivated and a fast learner; otherwise, you wouldn't have a PhD and a publication record consistent with a tenure-track faculty position. Your actual skills and qualifications should be apparent from your CV, your research and teaching statements, and your recommendation letters. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(3) Some recommends to mention potential drs from the department that the applicant can work with. Is this a good idea? If Dr. A is working on topic T, and I want to work on topic T, then should I say that I would like to collaborate with Dr. A? If yes, what is a good way to say it?!</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Don't just say it; make a convincing case. Just dropping a few names into your research statement will be written off immediately as meaningless boilerplate. If your research goals really do converge with Dr. A's research interests, that should be obvious from your larger research narrative, and it should be easy for you to draw specific, technical, and credible connections between your interests and Dr. A's. <strong>Do not fake it. We can tell.</strong></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(4) For the research statement, should I use \"I\" or \"we\" for joint papers, assuming that I was the first author?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>\"We\" or \"my coauthors and I\"; using \"I\" for joint work is dishonest. But this is a relatively minor issue.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32363,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>JeffE has given an excellent answer, but I want to give a slightly differing viewpoint on the purpose of the cover letter, which will address items (1) and (2) in the question. It will take a few paragraphs to motivate the answer; the summary is <strong>\"Use the cover letter as an opportunity to show you are genuinely interested in the school.\"</strong></p>\n\n<p>Two important caveats: I am writing this from the perspective of \"non-elite\" U.S. schools. These schools often have a more teaching-oriented mission, and are often located in more remote locations. I am also writing from the perspective of mathematics, where even at such schools there will be a few hundred applications for each advertised position, and certainly over a hundred \"qualified\" applications even for a relatively specialized job ad. Things are very different in other fields where there may be a lack of applicants in a given subfield. </p>\n\n<p>These non-elite, regional schools have a few common issues during job searches:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Candidates may have applied to the school only as a \"safety net\", without really wanting to have a job there. In math, when I was in graduate school, I saw some people who applied to 100 jobs (!) in the same search. </p></li>\n<li><p>Candidates who are only familiar with larger, research-intensive schools may have unrealistic expectations about salary, teaching load, amenities, etc. </p></li>\n<li><p>Candidates may come for an interview, but turn down the job offer because they get a better offer somewhere else. </p></li>\n<li><p>Candidates may leave more frequently than expected to find a \"better\" school. Of course some turnover is natural and expected, but if the turnover rate is too high for too long then there may be a lack of experienced faculty. Some candidates may stay, but hate the area (e.g. if it is very rural) and wish there were somewhere else (e.g. in a larger city, or closer to the coast).</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>How does this relate to your cover letter? You can (and should, in my opinion) use the cover letter as an opportunity to address points like these:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Make it clear that you really do want to work at the school (e.g. by not having a boilerplate cover letter, by bringing up experience at similar schools, or by otherwise establishing a connection). </p></li>\n<li><p>Avoid any <em>faux pas</em> in which you treat a non-elite school like elite schools (e.g. talking only about research in your cover letter).</p></li>\n<li><p>If possible and reasonable, for remotely-located schools, establish why you would be happy to be at the school. Perhaps it is near some of your family. Perhaps you have lived in a rural area before. Maybe they have some sort of outdoor activity that you enjoy. </p></li>\n<li><p>Don't say anything that signals you view the position just as a stepping stone. You can always apply someone else, of course, but in your application you should have a plan for what you can do if you stay at the school for some time. </p></li>\n<li><p>Remember that even if the search committee only skims the cover letter, the packets for the finalists will often be read by the whole department, and by the dean. At that stage, there are only a few candidates, and every aspect of the packet is subject to scrutiny. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>From those bullets, you can guess my answers to (1) and (2). </p>\n\n<p><strong>For (1)</strong>, you shouldn't say anything like that. Those types of statements go in a cover letter for a business job, not an academic job. When we have 400 applications for one position, we will not call every applicant to say we received their package. And, while you can call the committee, you can imagine the workload if all 400 applicants did so. (For math, with the advent of mathjobs.org, this is less important anyway.)</p>\n\n<p><strong>For (2)</strong>, qualifications like \"fast learner\" are meaningless. But you should think about the \"extra qualifications\" I mentioned above: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Why in particular did you apply to the school, besides the obvious fact that they have a job ad? What can you contribute in particular to the department? </p></li>\n<li><p>Are there any special reasons you'd like to work in that location?</p></li>\n<li><p>What are your professional goals for the next 5-10 years, and how do they fit into the mission of the school you are applying to? For example, some applicants are keen on developing online courses, or are interested in various sorts of service. These things would be less relevant to a tenure-track position at a research school, and might even be red flags there, but service and teaching are much more important at non-research schools. </p></li>\n<li><p>This is a more difficult choice, but if you have a spouse who is also looking for a job, you need to decide whether to mention it in your cover letter or not. </p></li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/27
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32337",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24823/"
] |
32,353 |
<p>Is a letter of recommendation from an employer required to be on the official letter head of the company? </p>
<p>Also is it okay if I give the recommender's personal email?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32361,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Nothing in particular is <em>required</em> for a company letter of recommendation. Pretty much any established company will have some sort of letterhead, though, and your recommender using it will feel more \"professional.\" Likewise with corporate vs. personal email addresses.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 34856,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Regarding personal vs corporate email, I would strongly recommend using the corporate one. If nothing else, because it gives some assurance that the person on the other side is who he claims to be. Would you take this seriously?</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I am recommended by the President of the USA, you can find him at [email protected]</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Also, consider that in industry, LoR in many countries are just brief cold objective statements:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>mihir S worked for Company.inc from 2003 to 2014 in the position of Junior Developer.</p>\n<p>Yours trully,</p>\n<p>Mr CEO</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>But an academic letter is expected to present you as an excellent candidate. Make sure the head of the company understands the difference and is happy providing a <em>strong</em> letter.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/27
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32353",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24833/"
] |
32,355 |
<p>Sometimes I struggle in choosing notations for a mathematical paper. There are probably no explicit rules, but unwritten conventions. In a discussion, is it proper to use different typographical variants of the same letter to denote different variables?</p>
<p>For example, is it acceptable to use an italic K (), an upright K (K), a blackletter K () and a calligraphic K () for four different variables in one section? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32357,
"author": "Wrzlprmft",
"author_id": 7734,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7734",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, it is acceptable and I have done so in publications myself.</p>\n\n<p>However, you should not use these variants randomly but follow some system, e.g., you could use a calligraphic K do denote the set that contains K₁, K₂, K₃, … and a blackletter K do denote some transformation of that set. You should also check whether there are some generally accepted conventions in your field (and follow them), e.g., in some fields, vectors are indicated by using upright boldface letters while the corresponding normal italic letters are used for their components.</p>\n\n<p>(In general, I prefer to use one typographic variant for symbols representing similar structures, e.g., lowercase italic letters for natural numbers, lowercase greek letters for real numbers, uppercase italic letters for countable sets of natural numbers, calligraphic uppercase letters for uncountable collections of natural numbers, etc.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32358,
"author": "Lazzaro Campeotti",
"author_id": 15454,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15454",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Just an opinion: I think four variants of the same letter in one section is probably too much. In particular, I think (non-bolded) upright letters don’t work well for typesetting mathematics.</p>\n\n<p>Also you say ”for four different variables”; this suggests that maybe you want to denote four of the <em>same kind of thing</em> in four different variants. (If I'm wrong, ignore the rest.) That is definitely to be avoided. As @Wrzlprmft says, the variant should reflect the <em>kind</em> of object you’re talking about, and related objects of different kinds should be denoted by the different variants of the same letter. The first example that comes to mind is a Lie group <em>G</em> and its Lie algebra (blackletter g). </p>\n\n<p>Here’s an apposite quote from Littlewood’s Miscellany, via Milne: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>It is said of Jordan's writings that if he had 4 things on the same footing (as <em>a, b, c, d</em> ) they would appear as <em>a</em>, <em>M<sub>3</sub>'</em>, ε<sub>2</sub>, ∏\"<sub>1,2</sub>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Bad Jordan!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32362,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Enhancing on some of the other answers: while this is OK, and I have done this and worse in extremis (one of my papers is known as \"the one with the four types of arrow\"), <strong>your paper will be difficult to read</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>You need to be aware of the fact that many readers will have a hard time tracking the differences between symbols. I recommend:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Doing everything in your power notationally to avoid this situation in the first place</li>\n<li>If you must, first choose things that are easy to tell apart: e.g. capital vs. lowercase vs. mathcal. Upright vs. italic or symbol vs. symbol-bar are much harder to tell apart at a glance.</li>\n<li><strong>Most important, in any symbol-heavy paper, include a \"cheat sheet\" table up front that gives the definitions of all important symbols or symbol-classes</strong></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 38352,
"author": "E.P.",
"author_id": 820,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/820",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One thing to keep in mind is that readers may want to work through some of your derivations while they read it, using pen and a separate piece of paper. Bold symbols can be handwritten using doublestruck letters, and calligraphic letters are generally fine, but distinguishing between italic and upright Ks in handwritten notes is a killer and it is likely to discourage exactly the sort of attentive reader that you want to really read your paper in depth.</p>\n\n<p>This suggests, then, the rule of thumb that if you can consistently use those symbols in handwritten notes you will generally be fine. What symbols did you use when you developed the material? That is a good starting point, and beware of trying to cram extra concepts onto the same symbols <em>after</em> you've moved off the pen-and-paper and onto the computer screen.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 38362,
"author": "Federico Poloni",
"author_id": 958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In mathematics, <strong>the typeface says what your variable is</strong>. It is like writing <code>pCounter</code> in a computer program to make clear that the variable holds a pointer.</p>\n\n<p>For instance, one of the many common notations in linear algebra is that capital letters like <code>$A$</code> represent matrices, lowercase letters like <code>$a$</code> represent vectors, Greek letters such as <code>$\\alpha$</code> represent scalars, script letters such as <code>$\\mathcal{A}$</code> represent subspaces. </p>\n\n<p>The actual letter that you use often is a \"default letter\" for that kind of mathematical object: for instance, <code>$D$</code> often represents a diagonal matrix, <code>$H$</code> a Hermitian one, and so on.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, the choice isn't always obvious, and often notations for different fields clash (for instance, you may want to use <code>$\\delta_{ij}$</code> as the Kronecker delta, but <code>$\\delta$</code> as the prototypical calculus \"small positive number\").</p>\n\n<p>Using the same letter in different typefaces is often reserved for <strong>related quantities</strong>: for instance, you could call <code>$d$</code> a vector, <code>$D$</code> the diagonal matrix with diagonal entries <code>$d$</code>, and <code>$\\mathcal{D}$</code> its spanned subspace (just the first example that crossed my mind). Or vectors and their containing subspaces: <code>$u\\in \\mathcal{U}$</code>, <code>$v\\in\\mathcal{V}$</code>.</p>\n\n<p>If you use the same letters for different things, I assume that they are either \"default letters\" or related quantities. Otherwise, you are just making life harder for your readers.</p>\n\n<p>TL;DR: <strong>It depends on what your variables represent</strong>.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/27
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32355",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24832/"
] |
32,367 |
<p>One of the main criticism against arXiv is that while there is some basic filtering, but there is no scientific review of the papers. I wonder whether adding a comment section has already being discussed publicly and why as of now arXiv does not have a comment section.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32368,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ul>\n<li>Comment systems cost money to develop and moderate.</li>\n<li>Some people may not want their preprint commented on.</li>\n<li>You can comment by submitting your own preprint.</li>\n<li>Third-party sites provide this service.</li>\n<li>Journals do not not have comment sections on their websites.</li>\n<li>I doubt many people are asking for a comment section.</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32389,
"author": "Akka Demic",
"author_id": 23986,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23986",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is no need for a comment section. The authors have provided their contact information, so you can email them directly with any feedback you have for them.</p>\n\n<p>PLOS has comments, though: <a href=\"http://www.plosone.org/static/commentGuidelines\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.plosone.org/static/commentGuidelines</a>.</p>\n\n<p>When they're used, they don't generate much discussion, so maybe arXiv has guessed right about the user demand for them. <a href=\"http://www.plosone.org/article/comments/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0105948\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.plosone.org/article/comments/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0105948</a></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 72457,
"author": "Franck Dernoncourt",
"author_id": 452,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.nature.com/news/arxiv-preprint-server-plans-multimillion-dollar-overhaul-1.20181\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://www.nature.com/news/arxiv-preprint-server-plans-multimillion-dollar-overhaul-1.20181</a> (published on 29 June 2016) has some interesting statistics on whether users want a comment section:</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/qot8k.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/qot8k.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\" /></a></p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>When asked whether arXiv should embark on more transformational\nchanges, respondents gave mixed answers. In particular, some questions\nfocused on whether it should develop into a social forum that allows\nscientists to comment on papers or leave ratings. A few social-media\nsites have already been built around the repository for just such\npurposes — such as SciRate and Arxiv Sanity Preserver — and some argue\nthat the site itself should begin to incorporate such functionalities.\n“ArXiv should be more dynamic — allowing readers to filter the wheat\nfrom the chaff,” says Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a quantum chemist at Harvard\nUniversity in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But one-third of respondents\nsaid that this wasn’t important or that arXiv shouldn’t be doing it.\nOnly 34% voted in favour of such changes.</p>\n<p>That response points to a tension between researchers who want to see\nthe site incorporate aspects of open review, and those who want it to\nstick to its core mission of allowing rapid exchange of scholarly\npapers, says Rieger. There were hints of a generational divide, with\nthose aged under 30 more in favour of allowing comments. But even\nthose who wanted a more social site said that they were keen to avoid\na commenting free-for-all, Rieger adds.</p>\n<p>“The message was more or less ‘stay focused on the basic dissemination\ntask, and don’t get distracted by getting overextended or going\ncommercial’,” says Paul Ginsparg, a physicist at Cornell University\nwho launched arXiv in 1991 as a pre-World-Wide-Web-era bulletin board.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Interestingly, <a href=\"https://www.biorxiv.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">bioRxiv</a> does have a comment section, e.g. from <a href=\"https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/332825v2\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/332825v2</a>:</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/W67xV.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/W67xV.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\" /></a></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 72463,
"author": "Jessica B",
"author_id": 20036,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20036",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The idea of adding comments in some form (not 'on the arXiv' directly) has had some public discussion. See Tim Gower's blog post <a href=\"https://gowers.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/why-ive-also-joined-the-good-guys/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Why I've also joined the good guys</a>. Sadly I've seen very little of the idea since, so I don't know what the current state-of-play is.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/27
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32367",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452/"
] |
32,369 |
<p><em>When during the application process should a candidate say that their spouse is also looking for a job?</em> </p>
<p>The issue of academic spouses who want to find employment close enough to live together is colloquially called the "two body problem", and it is a perpetual challenge for job applicants. </p>
<p>The italicized question came up in <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32074/16122">a recent comment thread</a> on this site, and I realized there is no post on Academia.SE about it. So I am making one.</p>
<p>I have seen many answers to the question, which usually fall between two extremes:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Don't mention your spouse in any way until you have a job offer, then bring up the question of a job for your spouse. Sometimes the advice even recommends taking off wedding rings during interviews. </p></li>
<li><p>Mention the spouse immediately in your application cover letter.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Each has its advantages and disadvantages, certainly, depending on the specific circumstances of the applicant and school being applied to.</p>
<p>Because many people, like me, have a perspective limited by their own life experience and the schools they have worked at, I expect that there should be many different answers to the question, expressing different perspectives. I think that collection of answers would provide an extremely useful resource for job applicants.</p>
<p>In the thread I linked, another user left a comment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>... I'd particularly be interested in seeing answers supported by data, as there seem to be a wide range of opinions, each supported by apparently convincing logical reasons and/or anecdotes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don't want to limit answers here to ones based on data, but answers that do include broad data would be particularly welcome. </p>
<p>This kind of question has also been <a href="https://mathoverflow.net/questions/5424/how-does-one-handle-two-body-job-searches">asked on MathOverflow</a>.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32370,
"author": "Geoff Hutchison",
"author_id": 21869,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21869",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>I'd mention it during an on-campus interview.</strong></p>\n\n<p>In my department, we don't factor \"the two-body problem\" into an initial evaluation (i.e., do we bring someone for an on-campus interview). So it's up to you about mentioning it in a cover letter or not. I don't think I have <strong><em>ever</em></strong> read that in a cover letter in chemistry, though.</p>\n\n<p>During an on-campus interview, sometimes it comes up, and sometimes it does not. Keep in mind that usually, the department cannot ask. We <em>prefer</em> if it comes up, so that we can work on solving the problem at the same time we make an offer.</p>\n\n<p>When we decide about who gets an offer, the two-body problem doesn't factor into the decision at all.</p>\n\n<p>Why? Well, for one, we want the best person we can get. For another, almost <em>all</em> of our candidates have a two-body problem of some sort. Sometimes, it's another academic job. In other cases, the spouse is a doctor, or a lawyer, or another scientist or ...</p>\n\n<p>Suffice to say, once we make an offer, we're trying to do the best to get the candidate to come, and that includes making sure a significant other would be happy here.</p>\n\n<p>I'll be honest. We're much happier if we know there's a two-body problem (of any type) <em>before</em> we make the offer (i.e. during the on-campus interview), so that we can start working on finding another position. As I said, we want you to come. Sometimes, we don't find out until after we extend the offer, but that just makes our job more difficult because we have much less time.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32382,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If your partner is looking for a job in some non academic field, then the university might be able to help out by giving you information about employment opportunities for the area and even offering the services of a career counselor, but it's unlikely that the university can do anything directly to ensure that your partner gets a job. </p>\n\n<p>So I'll assume that you are talking about a situation in which your partner is looking for an academic position or perhaps you're in a situation where you and your partner would like to share a single position. </p>\n\n<p>Many universities have spousal hiring policies that lay out what the university is willing to do in these situations. The most generous of these policies provide money to help create a position for the trailing spouse in the same academic department or in another academic department. This can be a huge win for that other department if the position wasn't otherwise going to exist. Thus there is some incentive to hire in this situation. Other policies are much more vague and aren't much more than an assurance that the spouse will be considered for some kind of employment. You should check to see if the university has such a policy and decide for yourself whether the policy is flexible enough to deal with your situation. </p>\n\n<p>If there is no spousal hiring policy then this may be because the university simply isn't interested in hiring couples or it may be because these situations are handled on a case by case basis. </p>\n\n<p>My advice is that if you would be unwilling to accept a position unless your spouse is hired then I would reveal the information early in the process whether or not the university has a policy. It's true that you might be passed over because of this, but if neither party is willing to give this up, there's no point in playing the game. If the university is willing to deal with this, then they'll have plenty of time to respond by e.g. interviewing the spouse. On the other hand, if you wait until after an offer has been made to you, then you'll either be told \"no\", or the process of negotiating the spousal hire will start late and take a long time to complete. </p>\n\n<p>If you would be willing (or might be willing only if you have no other offers) to take a position without your spouse being hired, then you might withhold this information until an on-campus interview or even until you've received an offer. This eliminates the risk that you'll be passed over because of your interest in a spousal hire. Realize that when you do finally reveal the information and ask to negotiate a spousal hire you'll be asking for a lot, and it's likely that the university will take a tough position in negotiating all aspect of your hiring. In many cases there will be other qualified applicants for the position, so it's pretty easy for the university to just say \"no\" and tell you to take their offer or leave it on the table. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32383,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've been at both a small-liberal arts as well as a research I university. I would not mention it at either at any stage until an offer. The reason for this is this: provosts usually only give departments one slot at a time -- asking for a spousal hire requires getting an additional slot from the provost -- i.e., a lot of lobbying work and justification for the position. In order to commit to this, we have to be 100% sure that you are the person we want (and that we or another department wants your spouse) in order to make that effort. </p>\n\n<p>We really won't know that we want to make that effort until after we've met you for the on-campus visit. Often a candidate just 'clicks' and we are then fully committed to getting them whatever they need to be happy on campus. But until then, the top ranked candidates are just sheets of paper and the knowledge that resources for additional faculty slots are very tight may be enough to push you off the bottom of the short-list. This is of course unfair and discriminatory, which is why it's illegal (in the USA) for us as the hiring body to ask you whether or not you have a spouse.</p>\n\n<p>The one case where I would mention it is if you and your spouse are applying to the university at the same time in different departments/searches or at a different ranked search. In that case, there's really no hiding it and it's not necessarily a zero sum game. In addition, small liberal arts colleges know that their flexibility with spouses (and general higher quality of family life) is a selling point to married couples, so you may have more flexibility with them. </p>\n\n<p>Nota bene: The same goes for any other requests you might have -- for example, that you'd want a teaching release the first year, that you have a disability, that you will need maternity leave, or that you won't touch a salary less than US$150,000, etc. etc. Make all these requests after you've been made the offer. Especially in the case of protected categories (pregnancy/disability), they cannot withdraw the offer without exposing themselves legally.</p>\n\n<p><strong>tl;dr</strong>: Don't mention you have a spouse until the department has committed to you as the top candidate and is willing to go to bat for the additional resources that will make you a happy scholar.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/27
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32369",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122/"
] |
32,371 |
<p>Several advices for job application, recommend to mention faculty that have similar interests and can be future collaborators. What is the best way to do that?</p>
<ul>
<li>I have worked on topic T and I would like collaborate with with Dr. A</li>
<li>I believe that my work can extend the work of Dr. A</li>
</ul>
<p>And do making such connection is valid for all schools, or can have exceptions in small departments? My concern here, is that specifying some names, may have some negative effects. Since Dr. A, could be leading a research on specific topic or teaching course C, and is not willing to allow other new faculty to compete with him. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32373,
"author": "Kate Gregory",
"author_id": 12693,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12693",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Imagine for a moment that Dr A doesn't want any help and would see you as competition. Would leaving off your knowledge of and interest in T help prevent Dr A from suggesting they hire someone else? I doubt it. </p>\n\n<p>Now imagine that you include mention of topic T but don't mention Dr A. Perhaps they will think \"this applicant doesn't even realize we have a world expert on T here already!\"</p>\n\n<p>Suggesting you can help Dr A may be a bit presumptive. But saying that you love topic T and are already working on it, and that the presence of Dr A in the department is one of the reasons you want to come to this group? That sounds very positive to me.</p>\n\n<p>Is there a reason you aren't contacting these Dr As directly and saying \"I'm thinking of applying to your department because I'm so excited about topic T; do you have any advice for me?\" That seems like a good use of your time if the number of Dr As is reasonably small.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32374,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If your work is closely related to the work of Professor A in the department, that should obvious from your research statement. The committee will likely give much more weight to research you have already done and describe in your statement then they will give to plans for future research. </p>\n\n<p>So the first step is to make sure that you write the research statement in a way that directly shows how what you have done is related to Professor A.</p>\n\n<p>Once that is done, you can also mention Professor A in your cover letter, and indicate that your research statement shows how your work is related. The committee can interpret that mention however they like. They may ignore it, they may view it as a sign that you would fit into the department, they may ask Professor A to look at your research statement and give an opinion. </p>\n\n<p>If you can follow that advice, it can't hurt you to mention someone who you can work with. But only do that if there really is a clear relationship between your work and theirs. I have seen some job applications where the applicant claims they could work with someone, but there is no evidence on their vita or research statement that they can. </p>\n\n<p>For example, they may have studied one subfield of a general field, and mention someone who works in a completely different subfield. In that case, it is not clear that the two could work together easily, and the claim in the cover letter comes off as exaggerated.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/27
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32371",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24823/"
] |
32,377 |
<p>I just found out one of my grad school electronic applications is having problem with a third party letter service company. So I have to ask the letter writers themselves to upload the recommendation letters. The deadline is the first day after returning from Thanksgiving so I am thinking to email them today (Thanksgiving) would that be inappropriate? (But if I do, of course I will say Happy Thanksgiving but sorry to bother you....etc)</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32379,
"author": "Dave Clarke",
"author_id": 643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Asking is always possible.<br>\nExpecting any response or action ... well, that, as they say, is another story. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32381,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Today is the only potentially problematic day. You can mail them today or Friday without harm since either way they will have the whole weekend and Monday to respond. They are all inclined to be charitable towards you, so I don't think it matters whether you do it today or tomorrow.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/27
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32377",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24855/"
] |
32,394 |
<p>There are some general questions on this site about judging the reputability of journals in general: </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/101/how-do-you-judge-the-quality-of-a-journal">How do you judge the quality of a journal?</a> and </li>
<li><a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2158/how-to-identify-predatory-publishers-journals">How to identify predatory publishers/journals</a></li>
</ul>
<p>I am interested in answers specific to mathematics, that may not have been raised in the other questions.</p>
<p>I received the following email from the "American Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics" ten days after submitting a paper online. How can I tell whether this is a reputable journal? In general, how can I tell whether a mathematics journal is reputable? </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dear Authors,</p>
<p>On behalf of the Chief Editor of the “American Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics” we are happy to inform you that your article entitled ‘A possible approach proof to proof the Riemann Hypothesis” is accepted for publication in (Jan-June 2015).</p>
<p>Please send DD/Cheque for US $ 250.00 payable to ‘ Vijay Kumar Jha ‘ to our address.</p>
<p>Our address:
Vijay Kumar Jha
Managing Editor
c\o. ACADEMIC RESEARCH JOURNALS (INDIA)</p>
<p>4383/4A, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002</p>
<p>(M) 08826561892</p>
<p>We thank you very much for your contribution and encourage you to continue submitting your future.</p>
<p>Yours sincerely, </p>
</blockquote>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32400,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The publisher of this particular journal, \"Academic Research Journals\", appears on a widely cited list of \"predatory publishers\" who publish open access journals with very low standards and charge authors to publish. You probably don't want a publication in this journal. </p>\n\n<p>See Beall's list at:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/\">http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/</a></p>\n\n<p>Also follow the link from the list to the criteria that Beall used to compile the list. New predatory publishers pop up every week, so you really need to consider these issues in evaluating a new journal. </p>\n\n<p>As ff524 has pointed out in the comments, there are actually two web sites using the name \"Academic Research Journals\" The web site of academicresearchjournals.com could easily be confused with the other academicresearchjournals.org. Whoever put together the .com web site used \"Academic Research Journals (India)\" rather than \"Academic Research Journals\" in some places but not others. This certainly looks like a copycat operation. </p>\n\n<p>In any case, the journal mentioned by the original poster has the appearance of one of these predatory journals and should be avoided for that reason. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32403,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>For academic mathematicians, it's not so hard to avoid predatory journals. We have a sense of the journals that we \"typically\" publish in, and the journals we \"aspire\" to publish in, and we stick mostly to these journals. For journals we don't know yet, we can ask colleagues to get their opinion. One (possibly unfortunate) goal of publishing in academia is to build a vita and maintain/advance your career, and it doesn't help as much to publish in a journal that none of your colleagues or supervisors has heard about. </p>\n\n<p>For people who don't have that kind of professional experience, there are several easier questions you can ask. The better answer to each of these is \"Yes\". <strong>On their own, none of these questions indicates that a journal is necessarily reputable or nonreputable.</strong> But, if the journal gets a \"No\" answer to many of them, then I would be very hesitant to submit a paper. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Does the journal publish with no cost to the author? Reputable mathematics journals almost never charge fees for publication. Some very good journals offer an open-access model as an option, but it is almost never the default at the moment. </p></li>\n<li><p>Is the journal indexed by MathSciNet and/or Zentralblatt MATH? These sites aim to be very comprehensive for mathematics journals. Being indexed is not really a sign of quality, but not being indexed is a red flag. </p></li>\n<li><p>Is the journal ranked on the <a href=\"http://www.austms.org.au/Rankings/AustMS_final_ranked.html\">Australian Mathematical Society Ranking</a>? Even C-rated journals can be OK, but if a journal is completely omitted I would take that as a reason to be cautious.</p></li>\n<li><p>Is the journal either published by a well-known publisher, or affiliated with a university or mathematical society? Most reputable math journals fall into these categories, but not all. Some journals run by professional publishers are still not very reputable, of course. </p></li>\n<li><p>Does the journal have a professional looking website? Grammatical errors or parts of the website that seem to be entirely missing are a cause for concern. </p></li>\n<li><p>Does the journal have a long history of publication (say, at least 20 years)? Most predatory journals are very young; most math journals are relatively old. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The \"American Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics\" has a \"No\" answer to all of these questions. If they really did have a 10-day turn around between receiving a paper and accepting it, as described in comments, I am even more skeptical of the quality of the journal - that is an almost absurdly fast turn around time for a mathematics journal. I would not pay them anything to publish a paper of mine, nor would I recommend it to anyone else.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, you <em>can</em> publish in a predatory journal, just as you <em>can</em> publish in a for-hire press. But if you are an amateur or \"outsider\" looking to publish in a math journal, you are likely doing it to get a sort of \"seal of approval\" on your paper. Journals that mathematicians view as unreputable will not give your paper that kind of recognition among mathematicians, just as degrees from unreputable colleges are unlikely to impress others. </p>\n\n<p>If your goal is just to disseminate your mathematical work, and you don't require peer review, you can often use arXiv.org instead. Depending on the area, you may need to have a professional \"sponsor\", but the arXiv will keep your paper available for free for the indefinite future in a way that is widely accessible to the public.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/28
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32394",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24870/"
] |
32,397 |
<p>For the last many days, I have a question in mind related with the editorial decision of accepting or rejecting the manuscript after peer-review:</p>
<p>Few days back I got a review report from a very reputed mathematics journal in which reviewer 1 had given some good points and suggestions to further improve the paper while reviewer 2 had given some points and rejected my manuscript.
Although, its not tough to revise the paper as per the suggestions of reviewer 2.
I would like to know why editor has given me chance to revise the manuscript while reviewer 2 has rejected it. I asked this question because in the past I had bad experience of rejection despite of getting acceptance from one of the reviewers.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32398,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It is up to the editor whether to accept or reject. The reviewers only make recommendations. Even if the reviewers give positive recommendations, the editor can decide to reject a paper. </p>\n\n<p>If both reviewers give negative recommendations, it is much less likely for the editor to accept a paper. If there is a mix of opinions the editor has to make a judgment, subject to whatever internal procedures the journal has in place. It seems like, this time, the decision was favorable for you. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32399,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To make sure I understand: you submitted a manuscript and got two referee reports. One of them was favorable (?) but the other one recommended rejection. Nevertheless you have been given the opportunity to revise the paper. I hope I got that right.</p>\n\n<p>From the sound of it, the editor sees more merit in your paper than the second reviewer. I agree that when one review is positive and one is negative, rejection is the most common outcome. (I think the extent to which this happens is positively correlated with the reputation of the journal. Most of the journals I submit to are roughly in the \"very good\" range, and in that range they can and most often do only accept papers with uniformly positive feedback from reviewers.) However, that need not <em>necessarily</em> be the case: most frequent referees know of at least one example of a paper that appears notwithstanding the fact that they recommended rejection. </p>\n\n<p>I would be wary of making changes that are (i) time-consuming and (ii) you do not agree actually improve the paper, because it is still by no means assured that the paper will be accepted by this journal in the end. However, if you agree with the suggestions and think the journal is very reputable: sure, make the changes, resubmit and hope for the best. Sometimes you catch a break: enjoy it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32417,
"author": "Raphael",
"author_id": 1419,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1419",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some venues have a more fine-grained scale. For instance, I have seen \"weak\" and \"strong\" accepts/rejects. \nA \"strong accept\" may cancel out a \"weak reject\" and then some, especially if there are few submissions with stellar reviews.</p>\n\n<p>Even if this is not made explicit in the \"recommendation\" field, the editor may very well have inspected (the language in) the reviews in full and put them in relation themselves.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32422,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The decision on a manuscript is usually based on more than one review, often two. As an editor you are faced with many different view from reviewers. Often reviews point in the same direction and may be differ by one providing a major revision and one a minor. But, it is no unheard of that one reviewer can suggest rejection while the other a direct accept. </p>\n\n<p>In all cases, the editor should evaluate the reviews and arrive at some well-balanced decision for how the author should use the reviews to improve the manuscript (in addition, cases where MS are accepted without revisions are very, very rare; direct rejections are of course not so uncommon). If reviewers arrive at widely different recommendations and there are no obvious ways in which the editor can see how to reconcile the differing opinions, requesting an additional review by a third reviewer should be the solution. It is in this process where your question can appear because the way in which an editor values reviews depends on the scientific content, for one, but also on considerations such as the integrity of the journal and the publisher. Often such considerations lead to rejections rather than acceptance. </p>\n\n<p>Accepting papers that have received more negative reviews can usually occur because the editor believes, for example, that the revisions suggested are not as severe as the reviewer indicated by suggesting (in your case) rejection, or, that the reviewer is off in the judgement as a whole. I have for example, seen rejection suggestions that are based more on antagonism than scientific reasons.</p>\n\n<p>In the end reviewers make suggestions, editors (hopefully) provides an educated and insightful \"verdict\" that you need to adhere to in your revisions.</p>\n\n<p><em>ad endum</em>: When you receive more \"extreme\" negative reviews, you should ask yourself: is this because I am not very clear in some way? The answer is often yes!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32427,
"author": "If you do not know- just GIS",
"author_id": 17209,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17209",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I had the exact same item happen recently in quite a well renowned journal. One very strong review, one very weak review. Accept and decline. The editor acted as a referee and said he felt the reject review was over \"petty\" and moved the paper forward with minor edits. I think it was good practice by the editor as he clearly read both reviews and then made the call. This is essentially their job. I think in other cases the editor may have gone with the reject if he felt it was the more robust review. I would say it is just the way it falls sometimes. I would say your goal under revisions is to move the \"reject\" reviewer to a position of indifferent. Make them at least not block the progress of the paper.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32429,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Assuming the editor is not an expert in the paper's subject matter, he/she will defer to the referees regarding correctness and importance. However, the referees do not necessarily have a clear understanding of the journal's standards. Sometimes the standards change over time (a low-quality journal may be gradually improving, or a high-quality journal may not be able to attract quite as high a caliber of papers as it did a few decades ago), and the referees may not be up to date on these changes. The standards may not be the same in all areas: sometimes a journal manages to attract excellent papers in one niche but doesn't want to restrict its coverage to just that area and is therefore willing to accept somewhat weaker papers on other topics if necessary. Sometimes a journal is not so well known and the referees simply don't understand what it's looking for. Sometimes a journal is famous enough to have mythical standards attributed to it that would be completely unworkable in practice. And sometimes referees are just out of line with the rest of the field in terms of their personal standards: some people are consistently harsher or more lenient than other referees, and the editor may know this.</p>\n\n<p>In principle the journal's public description and private instructions to referees can help alleviate these issues by establishing standards. However, it's difficult to write clear and unambiguous standards. Past examples give far more information than any description of reasonable length, and the editors will be more familiar with those examples than just about anyone else.</p>\n\n<p>The net effect is that although the referee's recommendations are very useful and often followed, the editor's decision is made in a broader context that is not necessarily fully visible to the referees or the author.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 100922,
"author": "Allure",
"author_id": 84834,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/84834",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There're a lot of possible reasons. Some possibilities:</p>\n\n<p>1) <em>The reject review(s) are weak while the accept review(s) are strong</em>. I once had a paper were one reviewer said \"this paper is clearly wrong, if we accept this methodology one can prove anything, reject\" without elaborating. The paper also had three other reviewers who all took the paper seriously and gave suggestions for improvements. At this point it's either trust the word of the first reviewer (bringing in secondary factors like seniority, publication record ...) or ignore the first review. I think most people will think the latter is more reasonable.</p>\n\n<p>2) <em>The reasons for rejection are not fatal</em>. This is the most common reason. In the above example, suppose the first reviewer had gone into why the methodology is clearly wrong, and provided good reasons for it. In that case the paper is fatally flawed, and so rejection is obvious. On the other hand if the flaws can be corrected, then revision might be better. This comes down to the judgment of the editor, and different editors will react differently.</p>\n\n<p>3) <em>The journal lacks papers</em>. The ugly side, but does happen. If the journal is having trouble filling its issues then it might be more inclined to send your paper for revision than reject outright. Conversely if the journal is receiving way more submissions than it needs, it might incline towards rejection. This is also when biases can play a role. For example, a journal could be trying to expand its author market to [X country]. If you're from X, then they might incline towards revision.</p>\n\n<p>4) <em>The editor had received confidential information</em>. This usually leads to the second possibility (when the editor rejects even though reviewers recommend accept), but it's possible it leads to acceptance. There are two main sources for this: the \"confidential comments to editor\" box when writing a review, and the \"please explain why you are declining to review\" box.</p>\n\n<p>5) <em>The reviewer(s) might have a history of recommending rejection</em> (or vice versa). Editors can see a reviewer's history of recommendations. If the reviewer has been recommending reject for most papers (including those that were accepted and went on to generate lots of citations), then the editor might put less weight on the review.</p>\n\n<p>Ultimately, the job of the editor is to decide whether or not to accept the paper, and it's a judgment call. Just like different reviewers might have different opinions on a paper, different editors can also reach different conclusions. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 150008,
"author": "user124904",
"author_id": 124904,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/124904",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I had a quite similar situation: the paper was accepted after one negative review and two positive. </p>\n\n<p>At the beginning there were only two referees. The negative one was shallow and gave a negative opinion stating that he did not see the aim of the paper since there was previous literature in the subject. The second one was more robust; he suggested reconsideration following revision and indicated some points that could be improved.</p>\n\n<p>The editor gave me the chance to respond to the reviewers and then he asked the opinion of a third referee at the second round of review. At this stage the the third referee gave a positive opinion and well founded and the paper was accepted. </p>\n\n<p>I concur with comments above, editors usually takes more seriously the most solid and well founded opinion, whether positive or negative. Sometimes they give the author the chance to respond.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/28
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32397",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/897/"
] |
32,405 |
<p>I noticed that a few research centres and university departments provide a multi-year <strong>strategic plan</strong> document on their websites.
For example, <a href="http://www.iit.it/images/stories/scientific_plan/iit-strategic-plan-2012-2014.pdf" rel="nofollow">IIT (Italian Institute of Technology)</a> and <a href="http://www-cs.stanford.edu/info/strategic_plan" rel="nofollow">Stanford Computer Science Department</a>.</p>
<p>The plan usually describes the main goals and purpose of the institution, both in science and in research management.</p>
<p><strong>Why do they actually do it?</strong></p>
<p>Is it just a way professors and researchers try to predict their future?
Or is it a solid way to show their future scientific directions to the world?</p>
<p>What happens if the strategic plan is not respected by scientists and events during the following years?</p>
<p>And why so many institutes actually don't do it?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32419,
"author": "Maarten Buis",
"author_id": 14471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14471",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Writing plans can be useful for a department to come together and find common goals. Putting them in writing and publishing them is way for a department and its faculty to commit to those plans. Evaluating a couple of years later to see whether the plans were actually implemented, can be good way to evaluate the last couple of years. Not implementing the plans is not necessarily bad, unpredictable things always happen. The plan can however be a good way to structure that discussion (why did we not meet our objectives? What did we do instead? Is that equally good or better than our original plan, or did we make a mistake?)</p>\n\n<p>As a tool such plans can play a positive role. They can also go horribly wrong. If it is seen by the faculty as a bureaucratic waste of time, than writing it will be a waste of time. Nobody will then feel committed by that plan. Evaluating it will also be just a waste of time because nobody felt bound by that plan anyhow so what is there to evaluate. Worse, such plans can lead to lots of unproductive fights between faculty and rip a department appart.</p>\n\n<p>So there are good reasons why some departments do it, and there are also good reasons why other departments avoid doing it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32425,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another reason may be funding at a large scale. Governments sometimes have plans to strengthen the research in a certain area (ex. biosciences). By making an institution-wide plan, you can make a very strong case for the funding agency and possibly secure a large amount of money. The time scale is also important. If you have money guaranteed for seven years, you can buy expensive equipment and hire experts knowing that you will not have to let them go after a year, for example.</p>\n\n<p>In the particular case of Stanford I imagine their main target is private investment. The aim of the plan is then showing off a strong commitment to their objectives.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/28
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32405",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/379/"
] |
32,415 |
<p>I recently attended a lecture where the speaker used piece of software to interactively poll the audience and display the results. The particular solution was <a href="https://www.turningtechnologies.com/response-solutions/responseware">ResponseWare</a>. What other solutions are available? Worth the money (if paid)? Pros and cons? </p>
<p>Please note, that I'm not interested in top 5 results of Google search.. I'd be more interested to hear personal experiences with specific software, both as a presenter or audience.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32424,
"author": "Ian",
"author_id": 22000,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22000",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The <a href=\"http://software-carpentry.org\">Software Carpentry</a> instructors do lots of presentations where they need/expect rapid, interactive feedback. They (especially Greg Wilson) have lots of experience of different ways of doing this. Note that <a href=\"http://software-carpentry.org/workshops/operations.html#feedback\">their current method, that works extremely well, is to use different coloured sticky notes</a>.</p>\n\n<p>I haven't seen a technical solution that worked better; most are considerably worse. However, this is only practical for yes/no or multiple choice polls.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32426,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The organizers of a workshop I recently attended used <a href=\"http://socrative.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Socrative</a> to help drive discussion by letting attendees choose among topics that had been introduced during the first half of the session. I found it pretty effective, and since it is HTML5/JS driven, it doesn't need an app or download. You can access the site from any Internet-enabled device and watch the answers come in in real time.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/28
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32415",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/203/"
] |
32,416 |
<p>I recently attended a lecture where the speaker used piece of software to add interactive results to poll audience. As a presenter and/or audience - what is your opinion on added value of such exercise? Worth the hassle?</p>
<p>What are the benefits? What problems can it get you into? </p>
<p>In my particular case for example - you could answer via smartphone (app or website) or laptop (website), both of these had to of course be connected to Internet. So automatically - the poll excluded all those who didn't have this option.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32418,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>When you say \"lecture\", I'm not sure whether you're talking about a one-shot talk (e.g., a conference presentation, an invited seminar), or about an ongoing series in a class.</p>\n\n<p>While I personally have not taught this way, I know that there has been a lot of experimentation with having students answer questions during lectures with software in the way that you describe. There, the idea is to have the students actually working problem as part of the lecture---essentially, a hybrid between normal and <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom\">flipped classroom</a>. In at least some cases, this seems to work very well.</p>\n\n<p>For a one-shot talk, on the other hand, I have a hard time coming up with non-contrived scenarios where I think this would be worth it. Why would anybody be willing to install some random app for just one talk, and won't you lose time to getting them set up with it? What could you gain from an online poll that you couldn't get through a quick show of hands? Once people have switched their attention from you to their screens, aren't you just encouraging them to check out and read their email / browse the web? To me at least, the negatives seem to far outweigh the benefits.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32433,
"author": "BrenBarn",
"author_id": 9041,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9041",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I agree with jakebeal that it matters a lot whether you're doing this for one isolated lecture or as part of a class.</p>\n\n<p>As I see it, the main advantage of this is as a pedagogical tool. It's most useful when you're teaching a class, because then you can give small \"quiz\" questions as interactive polls, and from the pattern of student responses you can get an idea of whether they're understanding the material. I used this technique in a class I taught and found it quite useful. If most of the class was quickly getting the right answer, I knew I could move ahead speedily; if many students got the answer wrong, I could slow down to go over stuff more slowly.</p>\n\n<p>I think these advantages are much reduced in a single-lecture situation. For one thing, at least in my experience, the proportion of standalone lectures that are pedagogical in nature is fairly small. Second, for pedagogical standalone lectures, you typically have a preplanned talk that you're going to give, with little room to adjust the pace based on audience responses. For a class, you can use results from a poll one day to plan and adjust what you talk about at the next class session, but there's no way to do that if the entire thing is just one lecture. Finally, to get at your main question, I just don't think it's worth the hassle for a single lecture. People have to install an app or go to a website. If technical difficulties prevent them from doing so, you have to either use up precious time from your single lecture, or ignore the problems, which makes the poll results less representative. For a class, it can make sense to spend the time resolving technical issues because the polling mechanism can be used again and again over a period of weeks; for a single lecture, any time spent dealing with that is just cutting into the substance of the talk.</p>\n\n<p>If the talk is not pedagogical, I think there's little point to these polls. You don't really <em>need</em> audience feedback (at least not until after the talk) if you're not trying to teach them something and make sure they understand it as you go along.</p>\n\n<p>I personally used the iClicker device and software, because that was provided by the institution where I was teaching. This is nice because it doesn't require anyone to install anything or look at a screen; they just use the device, which is like a remote control, to respond to polls you show in your slides. Again, though, in a single-lecture setting, it's unlikely to be worth it to pass out iClickers for everyone and then collect them at the end. The only way I could see this being practical is if your talk, although standalone, was one of many such talks at a conference or something, and the conference provided the iClicker or other poll infrastructure. Then the economies of scale could make sense, because people could participate in polls across many talks. For this to be worth it, though, you'd have to have substantial interest from the speakers, or else they might not bother to include polls in their talks.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/28
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32416",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/203/"
] |
32,421 |
<p>A colleague of mine enjoys using philosophical questions to undermine ideas that are different to his own and to derail discussions that are not in his favour. At first I thought he was offering genuine perspectives, but overtime I realised he was just being defensive and finding enjoyment out of disrupting discussions. </p>
<p>To give you some examples, here are some of his frequent techniques: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>The you-can’t-know-for-sure: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The evidence may seem to be true but it could be wrong, and we can never know that for sure. You can only believe in evidence. Therefore, making claims about anything, with or without evidence, is meaningless.
The human senses and the human mind are limited and fallible, and to say that an idea is more correct than another is just your opinion based on a fallible experience.</p>
</blockquote></li>
<li><p>Disagrees with the definition, or shifts to a different definition, or question the meaningfulness of definitions and language in general:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I define X as something different to how you defined X, and according to what I think of X, I am right. You can think of X how you want but it doesn’t matter to me.
</p>
<p>“X” only means X because humans defined “X” to be X. But “X” is just a subjective idea that doesn’t exist in reality. Therefore, anything you say about X, your ideas are on based on something non-objective and arguable.</p>
</blockquote></li>
<li><p>All things are just perspectives:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To say that I’m inconsistent with my argument or to say that I’m wrong is just a perspective. There are many perspectives and just because from one perspective I’m a certain way, doesn’t mean I really am.</p>
</blockquote></li>
</ol>
<p>I usually enjoy genuine philosophical perspectives in all discussions, but this colleague never offers his philosophical ideas at the beginning of talks and never mentions them when we agree with him, but only throws them out selectively against ideas during the middle of discussions. The worst is that he speaks them with a triumphant and condescending tone of voice over everyone else as if he is so clever. </p>
<p><strong>Question:</strong> When he uses these types of philosophical questions as a way to undermine someone’s idea or to derail a discussion, what is an appropriate way to interfere with his remark in a way that doesn’t confront him, protects the other person from appearing to have being undermined or devalued, and restores the direction discussion to what it was before?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32423,
"author": "user3079666",
"author_id": 11719,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11719",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would first like to note that you can twist ideas fairly easily if you read Orwell’s <em>1984,</em> you may want to read it, you will see the similarities.</p>\n\n<p>Now, not confronting him is not easily done, have you found others that share the same opinion on him? if so, go in as a group and get the approval of the vast majority, then you won’t have to worry about confronting him.</p>\n\n<p>Showing that the speaker is being undermined should also probably not worry you, this is a ridiculous form of undermining and it is to shame the interrupter, not the speaker.</p>\n\n<p>Finally you have two choices for counter-measures:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Demand that he gives an alternative that cannot be challenged in the same way, that is independent of human interpretation in any possible way, and is solid and concrete.</p></li>\n<li><p>Challenge his own proposals in the same way, if he challenges the name of an unknown variable, challenge the name of a number, claim that you define 2+2 to be five, and that five for you is written as 4, i.e. you call 4 <em>five.</em></p></li>\n<li><p>As far as the “You can't know for sure” policy, tell him that the same applies to anything he says, and if you constantly reject ideas due to that he should reject his own ideas and accept that there are no answers, solutions, or actions for that matter.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Unless there is some superior who can take care of this issue, there is no way to deal with him in a kind manner (I’m not telling anyone to be rude), you should be harsh, but make sure you have the majority on your side.</p>\n\n<p>Also note, if you check out debating groups, people who study debating and practice it on ridiculous matters as a hobby, you will find out how to counter any junk he uses, I’m sure there are books on this too (there is one by Schopenhauer too).</p>\n\n<p>Again, the most important thing is to be sure the others are on your side, just to be safe and make sure you don’t get into bad trouble, and try to divide the confrontation between multiple people so he can’t cause trouble to just one.</p>\n\n<p>Hope I helped, there is not much clarity in such issues and there are no definitive answers either, as he would suggest, but that’s why we have to choose based on suggestions and speculations, otherwise nothing happens.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32428,
"author": "410 gone",
"author_id": 96,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Is this colleague really an academic? How on earth did he get a job in academia? How does he manage to retain it? He sounds like a teenage boy from your description of his style of arguing.</p>\n\n<p>He's a troll, so best ignored. He also sounds like he's realised he's way out of his depth, and this is bluster to cover it up.</p>\n\n<p>Formulate a single sentence that lets him know he's been heard, but that it was irrelevant, and that you've already moved on. Use it. Vary it, but keep it short, and always end with an invitation to the interrupted speaker to carry on where they left off. The troll should get the message that he's been sidelined, and troll elsewhere.</p>\n\n<p>\"I don't think we need to surrender to nihilism just yet, do we? [turn back to the interrupted speaker] Now, as you were saying ...\"</p>\n\n<p>Then just exclude him from discussions in the future. Take your fellow discussants to another room, away from the troll, if you have to.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32435,
"author": "Wrzlprmft",
"author_id": 7734,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7734",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32428/7734\">EnergyNumbers already correctly noted</a>, this is trolling and if ignoring that guy or dismissing him with a single statement is an option, that’s probably the best way. However, given his acceptance in the group or similar, this may not always be possible. Also, the fact that this guy actually manages to derail discussions indicates that he has some support or people are falling for his “arguments”. Under these conditions, it may be an option to outwit him with short arguments that hopefully derail <em>his</em> approach and the continue.</p>\n\n<p>Your examples share some common approaches (some more, some less):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>They are true to some extent.</li>\n<li>They are irrelevant to the discussion at hand.</li>\n<li>They attack the fundaments of science or discourse.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Thus, a general short reply could start with of briefly acknowlegding the truth of his statement, if applicable (“Yes, but …”; “Indeed, however …”). If you can come up with a good argument quickly, use it; otherwise you can resort to the undeniable success of using abstractions, science, probabilistic statements, etc, in short: “<a href=\"http://xkcd.com/54/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Science – it works, bitch.</a>” (and probably also pays both your bills). As a last resort, “so what?” seems to be a valid response to all of your examples.</p>\n\n<p>Some examples:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><blockquote>\n <p>The evidence may seems to be true but it could be wrong and you can’t know that for sure. You can only believe in evidence. Therefore to make claims about anything with or without evidence is meaningless.<br>\n — And that’s why all claims we make are not absolute but implicitly probabilistic.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Alternative, more aggressive answer:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>And fortunately, so is your claim. Where were we?</p>\n</blockquote></li>\n<li><blockquote>\n <p>The human senses and the human mind are limited and fallible, and to say that an idea is more correct than another idea is just your opinion based on a fallible experience.<br>\n — Indeed, however, as opinions are all we have, we have to stick with them; moreover, since as I just tried to argue, I have reasons to consider my opinion an informed and substantiated one.</p>\n</blockquote></li>\n<li><blockquote>\n <p>I define X as something different to how you defined X, and according to what I think of X, I am right. You can think of X how you want but it doesn’t matter to me.<br>\n — Fortunately, reality does not care about what words we use to desribe it.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(Note, that his last sentence is also a good hook for ignoring him outright.)</p></li>\n<li><blockquote>\n <p>“X” only means X because humans defined “X” to be X. But “X” is just a subjective idea that doesn’t exist in reality. Therefore, anything you say about X, your ideas are on based on something non-objective and arguable.<br>\n – True, but on the other hand, humans have faired pretty well with using the concept of X [alternatively: defining X as ”X”], so I stick with that.</p>\n</blockquote></li>\n<li><blockquote>\n <p>To say that I’m inconsistent with my argument or to say that I’m wrong is just a perspective. There are many perspectives and just because from one perspective I’m a certain way, doesn’t mean I really am.<br>\n – True, but as I just tried to argue, my perspective is well-founded and thus there are increased chances that you are really wrong.</p>\n</blockquote></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>A final note: It looks as if this guy operates by attacking one’s philosophical foundations and his continued doing so indicates that he does indeed succeed on some people. Thus it may also help to inforce your philosophical foundations and not let him shake them a single bit. Relatedly, it might probably help to answer to him in a self-concious manner.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32437,
"author": "Gerold Broser",
"author_id": 24901,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24901",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is a technique - I don't know its \"official\" name or whether it even has one - I call \"Freeze\":</p>\n\n<p>If somebody talks to you and you are not interested in the topic or don't want to listen too long don't give him/her \nreinforcing reactions, neither positive nor negative.</p>\n\n<p>Look, almost stare, at him/her without any movement of any part of your body. Not even the slightest nodding, no movement of any muscle of your face (apart from the natural blinking of your eyes), no playing with the pen in your fingers, no looking at your watch or your mobile, no ... you get the point. Keep freezed all the time looking/staring at the speaker. I he/she stops (such an unusual [not-]reaction is irritating) and asks: \"What's the matter (with you)?\", or the like, simply answer with a neutral voice: \"Nothing. I'm just listening.\". Nothing less, nothing more. Freeze again immediately after that! Until the next question, which gets exactly the same answer...and the next...and the next...and...ad infinitum.</p>\n\n<p>Normally it doesn't take too long until he/she ends speaking (because of not getting ANY reaction). If he/she ends keep the \"freeze\" (this is hard, I know, silence becomes uncomfortable after just a few seconds...keep it anyway):</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>either until the former speaker reacts with \"What do you think?\", or the like. Answer \"Thank you for your contribution\". Switch to somebody or something else without any further word to the speaker. </li>\n<li>or after a time that is much more than the comfortable few seconds. Say \"Thank you for your contribution\". Switch to somebody or something else without any further word to the speaker.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I tried this many times and it worked almost every time. I tried this once with a person who knew this. We were in the same training where we got taught exactly this technique. It even worked with her.</p>\n\n<p>It works best if you prepare yourself in advance, since not reacting to a person who speaks to you personally is hard for people who are socialized normally. Practicing with a person of your confidence helps a lot.</p>\n\n<p>I admit, it works best with just one speaker and one listener. In a group all of the listeners must be prepared (ideally trained) and strong enough to stick to the \"freeze\" behaviour up to the very end. I have no experience whether this works reliably under such circumstances. I'd say it's worth trying. It can't become worse, can it?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32440,
"author": "Ornello",
"author_id": 23374,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23374",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is typical academic evasiveness. I would simply ignore this weasel or see to it that he does not get a chance to get a word in. Or perhaps, say how astonished you are to hear this.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32471,
"author": "capybaralet",
"author_id": 24924,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24924",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would say something like:</p>\n\n<p>\"I really don't think that is relevant for the purposes of the current conversation. I think we can all agree on _________.\" Where you fill in the blank with an assumption/axiom/principle that is strong enough to invalidate their relativistic perspective on this topic, and weak enough to be very commonly accepted. </p>\n\n<p>If it is a values question, it might be time to play the Nazi card. It is old and worn, but it works. (EDIT: I think maybe people are misinterpreting this. What I mean is pointing out that relativism doesn't leave one any space to condemn Nazism.)</p>\n\n<p>It also might be necessary to expand on what you think the purpose of the conversation is, inviting discussion. As Davidmh commented, the context is crucially important. If they are interrupting the conversation that you were having with the third party, then you really don't need to consider their goals wrt the conversation (unless something forces you to, like them having power over you). However, if they have been a participant/observer to the conversation so far, then it is important to identify with the third party what you consider to be the mutually understood assumptions at play in the conversation so far, with the idea of reaffirming your commitment to them for the duration of the conversation, or possibly making some insignificant concession(s) to relativism to satisfy the challenger. </p>\n\n<p>A side comment:</p>\n\n<p>You seem to be ascribing a conscious deliberateness to their actions that borders on malice. I'm hesitant to view it that way based on the evidence you've presented, although of course you know better. </p>\n\n<p>These are all extreme relativist arguments that are difficult or impossible to refute logically, and they can provide valuable perspectives in some contexts (IMO). But my impression is that alarmingly many people genuinely believe their practical applicability to be greater than it truly is (one reason being that it allows them to avoid confronting challenges to their worldview). </p>\n\n<p>What evidence do you have that this person actually views what they are doing as simply disruptive and not contributive? </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32478,
"author": "Legendre17",
"author_id": 24935,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24935",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've actually been on both sides of what you're describing, so I think a proper answer is highly dependent on the context; it's even possible that your colleague is making a valid point. As an example, his complaints about the uncertainty of evidence might be because he thinks you're taking some results for granted when you shouldn't. Indeed, as a physicist working in biology, I've had to adapt to the fact that in fields like biology or psychology, even 'established' results can be questionable on many different levels. He may be trying to undermine an idea because he thinks it's wrong, not because it's not his own. Your question suggests that you've convinced yourself that this is not true, that your colleague is just trying to be defensive and annoying. However, if I were you, I'd first make sure other people (your supervisor, for example) agree with this assessment.</p>\n\n<p>Other answers have given good ideas for how to react to your colleague's behavior, but I think the way in which you should react again depends a lot on context. If this is a talk, unless you're either the speaker or the host, there's nothing you can or should do about it. If you are the speaker or the host, you can invoke time limitations and suggest to discuss the issue later, in private. And remember that you're under no obligation to spend time discussing with this person if you think it's a waste of time.</p>\n\n<p>If this is a group meeting, I think it's a good idea to talk to your supervisor about it, see if (s)he agrees with you, and what (s)he suggests you do. Chances are your supervisor has more experience with this than you, and (s)he also has a lot more power to stop your colleague's behavior.</p>\n\n<p>Sometimes the solution may be to just talk to your colleague: <em>e.g.,</em> go with his definitions and see where they lead. In the best case, one of you will convince the other and you'll learn something. In the worst case, you will get some insight into the cause of his stubbornness. I think it's a lot more likely that he's just confused about something than that he is actively trying to attack anyone.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32482,
"author": "Akka Demic",
"author_id": 23986,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23986",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n<p>The you-can’t-know-for-sure:</p>\n<p>The evidence may seem to be true but it could be wrong and you can’t know that for sure. You can only believe in evidence. Therefore to make claims about anything with or without evidence is meaningless.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Remind the colleague that science doesn't claim to know anything for sure, only to have pruned the world of hypotheses that are inconsistent with the evidence. The point is a <em>strawman</em>. Nobody claims to have access to the truth.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Disagrees with the definition, or shifts to a different definition, or question the meaningfulness of definitions and language in general:</p>\n<p>I define X as something different to how you defined X, and according to what I think of X, I am right. You can think of X how you want but it doesn’t matter to me.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Agree to definitions at the outset. Don't argue about definitions. Decide on precise terms and operational definitions or invent a new term just for the sake of communication. His point is moot if they simply insert their own definition for a word that you have used in a different sense. Basically, you could say to him, "True, but that's not what we're talking about."</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>All things are just perspectives:</p>\n<p>To say that I’m inconsistent with my argument or to say that I’m wrong is just a perspective. There are many perspectives and just because from one perspective I’m a certain way, doesn’t mean I really am.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Is being a "perspective" a negative thing? It seems that he is implying that perspectives are less valuable. Perspectives can be consistent with evidence (i.e. the perspective that plate tectonics explain the broad geological features of the Earth), or inconsistent with the evidence (i.e. the perspective that the Earth has always been as it is today). Deeming a position a "perspective" doesn't save it from scientific scrutiny.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>But, more important, this person's arguments do not seem worth spending any time or attention on. If the arguments are actually presented in the way you have described, he is not interested in following the evidence and logic to arrive at a well supported conclusion. Ignore this guy. Focus on productive conversation, not distractions like this.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32487,
"author": "Akka Demic",
"author_id": 23986,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23986",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Is this guy really a peer? How did he get a job? He sounds immature.</p>\n\n<p>Ignore the fool. Sounds like he's overcompensating for incompetence.</p>\n\n<p>Tell him that you've heard him and that you don't care.</p>\n\n<p>For example, just say, \"Okay.\", and then go back to the rest of your discussion.</p>\n\n<p>Don't invite him to any more gatherings. Move away from him, if necessary.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/28
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32421",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24884/"
] |
32,430 |
<p>I am a PhD student from India studying in the UK and I have been diagnosed with Hepatitis B during my recent visit to India. The sad part is that it is a recurrence of the disease as I contracted it before my PhD and had to delay my PhD for a few months in the beginning. </p>
<p>Now that I have been diagnosed with it again, I'm afraid of telling my supervisor and sponsors about it as I feel they might cancel the funding as I have such a recurrent problem. </p>
<p>I say this because my project is funded by a German company who are a stickler for time and want me to finish my work on time as there have been enough delays. </p>
<p>I also took 2 months off in the summer to work on a separate research project outside of my PhD to build experience. It was not taken nicely by the company but I went anyway as I had a very good first year viva and report. I took it with the thought that I would make up the time by working extra once I get back and my supervisor supported me in this regard. Plus, UK PhD students are allowed 6-8 weeks off during their PhD for holidays and I haven't taken any time off since except to visit India for a conference, which has led to my predicament. </p>
<p>I feel completely lost and I do not know what to do.</p>
<p>What I exactly want to know is, If its normal for PhD students to take time off for illnesses? Can sponsors withdraw funding in that event? How does it affect the time of the PhD?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32934,
"author": "Michael Nixon",
"author_id": 24875,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24875",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm at Simon Fraser University in Canada, but I've recently been dealing with this issue as I'm involved with our grad student association, so I wanted to respond to your question. If you don't change your registration status in any way, your semesters will almost certainly count against you in every way imaginable -- everyone thinks you're making progress and there is nothing to say otherwise. You should look into your university's 'on leave' policy, as that will be the formal mechanism that allows other allowances to take place. Here, leave for medical reasons will require going through your supervisor (and in turn, a faculty committee), but is essentially always granted, so I hope that works the same where you are.</p>\n\n<p>Unfortunately, funding entities likely have their own, probably very specific, rules, so it's unlikely any general advice would cover them.</p>\n\n<p>Ultimately, I highly recommend taking formal leave (i.e. changing your registration status), because various negative effects will likely accrue otherwise. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32942,
"author": "Ian",
"author_id": 22000,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22000",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm at a UK university. In my institution, which almost certainly doesn't have the same regulations as all, there are two distinct issues.</p>\n\n<p>First, the university regulations around PhD candidature. Here, you can suspend your studies which \"stops the clock\" on your PhD with absolutely no come-back (formally). There is a maximum length of time for this (from memory, a total of 18 months) after which it becomes a \"fitness to study\" matter. But initially I would <em>always</em> recommend that a student suspends until they are well enough to continue.</p>\n\n<p>Second, the issues around the funding for your PhD. There are (at least) two possibilities here, and you'll need to carefully read your contract/offer letter to see which applies to you. In the first case, the company is paying the university in general, or your supervisor in particular, for the research. In this case it is <strong>their</strong> responsibility to get the work done on time, <strong>not yours</strong>. The university and its staff has to work within its own regulations regarding sick leave. I would be astonished if those regulations could force you to work whilst seriously ill. [I would not be at all astonished if some within the university would try to make you work when ill, outwith the regulations]</p>\n\n<p>In the second case, you are (possibly partially) directly funded by the company. In that case the contract may have clauses about \"funding subject to suitable progress\". However, as commenters have mentioned, that again has to be judged within UK employment law. Here it is more complex, but I would expect that sick leave regulations would again apply as normal.</p>\n\n<p>Bottom line: I would recommend to tell your supervisor and graduate school as soon as possible, to suspend your studies until able to work again, and to contact your union / student union / student support people if there is any trouble about this.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32944,
"author": "nivag",
"author_id": 14115,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14115",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You may be interest to see university of Manchester's <a href=\"http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=7440\" rel=\"nofollow\">sick leave policy</a> for PhD students.</p>\n\n<p>I suspect the main points will be similar for other UK institutions, although details may vary.</p>\n\n<p>Relevant points are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>You may suspend you studies due to sickness for a maximum of 12 months throughout your studies.</li>\n<li>For industry funded PhDs payment of stipend will depend on regulations of funder, so you may not get paid sick leave.</li>\n<li>You must get a medical certificate to certify you are ill.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Personally I would just tell you supervisor that you are ill and explain the situation to them.</p>\n\n<p>However, if you are not comfortable telling them immediately other people you could contact are your student union welfare rep/graduate school rep or most places also have a student advice centre or similar. These should be able to tell you/find out the specific regulations for you institution and assist you if your supervisor is awkward.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/28
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32430",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24896/"
] |
32,441 |
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiranjeevi" rel="noreferrer">Chiranjeevi</a> was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Andhra University. He is an actor, so how did he earn an honorary degree if he has not contributed anything to education?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32443,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The \"degree\" part of \"honorary degree\" is largely irrelevant. Honorary degrees are simply honors bestowed by a university, and they are considered degrees just because degrees are what universities hand out: a degree is the one distinction not available elsewhere in society. Honorary degrees do not necessarily have anything to do with study or recognize any scholarly accomplishments, even in the loosest sense. (This is true both historically and today. There has never been any strong connection between honorary degrees and scholarship.) Scholars can be awarded honorary degrees, but so can anyone else.</p>\n\n<p>In particular, politicians, donors, and celebrities are sometimes honored by universities for entirely non-academic reasons. For example, in the United States a university typically awards an honorary degree to the primary speaker at its graduation ceremony, who is chosen for fame and speaking skills. The speaker might be a distinguished scholar or might have no scholarly credentials whatsoever, but an honorary degree will be awarded either way.</p>\n\n<p>There's nothing wrong with this, and there's no reason why universities should restrict their honors to scholars. The only strange part is calling the honor a degree, but in practice people who care about such things know it's not a real degree. Honorary degree recipients occasionally take the degree part too seriously (by bragging about it or insisting on being called \"doctor\"), but that just serves to make them look foolish.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 123322,
"author": "Ooker",
"author_id": 14341,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14341",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To explain it in a linguistic perspective, in the beginning there is only one meaning in the word \"degree\": an award for something you deserve. By calling the tribute to a non-scholar a degree as well, <strong>the word has a different meaning</strong>, and it becomes a polysemy. The difference between two meanings is large enough for the insiders to distinguish a honors degree with a real one, but small enough for the outsiders to be unable to make that distinction. </p>\n\n<p>So by making a simple word become a polysemy, the university can gain more benefit without violating any ethic. In other word, this is a way to dance around what is right or wrong by applying knowledge in linguistics and psychology.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/29
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32441",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24906/"
] |
32,447 |
<p>I'm doing a PhD in Economics, a 3-year program. I am required to do 4 coursework and receive a grade of B+. The thing is I didn't meet the grade requirement of all four courses, although I didn't fail the courses. I have a very good research proposal (in my opinion). I've got all the data on hand. I have discussed about this with my supervisor and he said I might get terminated; it depends on the research committee after I defend my proposal. I think it would be very unfair if I've got a justifiable proposal but still got terminated because I didn't meet the coursework requirement. The university regulation does not say clearly what would happen if someone fails the coursework requirement. </p>
<p>So, I was wondering if there is anyone out there who is/was in my position. Did you get terminated from the school?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32448,
"author": "Compass",
"author_id": 22013,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22013",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em>Story time!</em></p>\n\n<p>At one point in my past life, I was in a graduate program for a certain subject which has nothing to do with computers. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I was not cut out for such work. I ended up missing the cut severely on two courses, and was told I was withdrawn from that graduate program. So, that was it. Just one day, I stopped going to classes, and I was no longer a graduate student.</p>\n\n<p>So, yes, if you don't meet grade requirements, you can get terminated in some programs. This is a very real outcome that you need to consider, if you've been told it is a possible outcome.</p>\n\n<p>Depending on your grade layout, you may get by, you might not. If you needed a B+ in 4 classes and ended up getting a B or a B- in a single class, I don't think the research committee would be out to kick you out. If, however, your performance was sub-par based on their requirements repeatedly, such as a pair of Cs, they may be wary as to keeping you on board if their requirements were B+s.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, <strong>you should probably talk to your adviser about how to proceed.</strong> If the research committee is willing to work on a case by case basis, you might be able to work something out. Either way, your end performance has to be stellar from now on, as anything you do poorly will make it harder to support your case.</p>\n\n<p>Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that no one here can guarantee success. You should, at the very least, consider what will happen if you are terminated from the program, as a safety measure.</p>\n\n<p><em>Epilogue - I ended up getting a Master's in Computer Science and found a happy career.</em></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32450,
"author": "410 gone",
"author_id": 96,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Yes, it happens. And it has to be this way.</p>\n\n<p>We've had students who do not do sufficiently well in the coursework, but do so well in other regards that they are allowed to continue on to their Phd: the research committee is there to weigh up the positive and negative signs, within the regulations set out for them. Occasionally, we have students who pass the coursework and then struggle with self-guided research. So now we have two gateways: the coursework, and then a year later an upgrade report and seminar, which is their formal transition from an MPhil programme to a DPhil programme.</p>\n\n<p>A department may not get many opportunities to formally remove a failing student. This will vary by institution and discipline, but it can be the case that there are not many opportunities within the trajectory of a single PhD to terminate cleanly and indisputably.</p>\n\n<p>We never like to do it. It's the worst thing we can do. Apart from the alternative, when the alternative is letting a candidate go forwards into a drawn-out and ultimately unsuccessful attempt at completing the PhD. This is exacerbated if they might make increasing demands on staff, and/or might become increasingly disruptive to other students.</p>\n\n<p>If the supply of good potential candidates is greater than the number of available places; or there are financial penalties when students fail later rather than earlier in the process; then the imperative to filter out weak candidates becomes stronger.</p>\n\n<p>Coursework, research proposals, upgrade seminars and upgrade reports, are some of the small selection of tools we have to help us identify weak candidates. Writing a PhD thesis is indeed completely different to doing coursework. And there are candidates that excel at coursework, but could not write a doctoral thesis; and maybe there are candidates where the reverse is true. Nevertheless, the coursework gives us an opportunity to assess a candidate's skills and domain knowledge.</p>\n\n<p>So that's why a justifiable proposal is not in and of itself sufficient (even when it's a self-funded candidate). If successful coursework is specified as a <em>requirement</em>, then the regulation doesn't need to say what happens if a student fails the coursework: if any requirement isn't met, then the candidacy doesn't have a right to proceed - that's the essence of a requirement. There might be alternatives to some requirements: these should be in the regulations somewhere. Your supervisors, or the faculty's graduate tutor, or the university's graduate school, should be able to advise.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32459,
"author": "DSAK",
"author_id": 7720,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7720",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Universities will impose some minimum course work (credit) requirement on the students. For example: in my institute I need to take 2 course work and a seminar with a CGPA of 6.0. This rule is strict. Suppose, a student gets CGPA less than 6, he/she should take an extra course and make up for the CGPA 6.0.</p>\n\n<p>In my institute, course credits cannot be compensated by research proposal or a conference/Journal paper.</p>\n\n<p>What I suggest you is, go to acad section of your university and meet Dean/registrar (acad). There will be a committee in every university to take care of all such type of problems. Explain your problem and I hope it gets solved.\nAll the very best.</p>\n\n<p>Even if it doesn't get solved, don't worry. This is not the end of the road. PhD is not life.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32462,
"author": "Bob Brown",
"author_id": 16183,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16183",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I almost didn't compose an answer because others have covered almost all the ground, but I do have this to add:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I think it would be very unfair...</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If you <strike>whine</strike> complain about fairness, it will work against you. You presumably knew the requirements going in, and you didn't meet them.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The university regulation does not say clearly what would happen</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If you try to \"lawyer\" the regulations, it will work against you. Others have already explained that \"requirement\" means <em>requirement.</em></p>\n\n<p>Talk to your proposed supervisor, ask what, if anything, you can do to remedy the situation, and <em>do what the supervisor says.</em> They are giving you a chance to redeem yourself; don't blow it.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/29
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32447",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
32,472 |
<p>I am studying applied math. My bachelor's thesis is coming up next semester and I've got a dilemma.</p>
<p>I was originally planning to do a standard project (most of them seem very soft to be honest) and then take an extra course (I got permission to take a PHD level course in information theory) or two simultaneously.</p>
<p>But then a project involving a fairly novel part of control theory popped up, novel enough that it might be possible to get something interesting published from the project. It seemed like a fairly interesting problem and the possibility of co-authoring a paper at this stage is very appealing as I have an eye on a PHD after my masters degree.</p>
<p>Control theory itself doesn't interest me that much, but the tangential mathematical subjects do (optimization, algorithms, information theory, etc). The problem is that it's probably going to be a lot more time consuming than a normal project and I don't know if I'd benefit more from it than just taking another course in an area I'm actually interested in.</p>
<p>I'm nervous it's going to be a stressful spring without much to show for it if we don't manage to get any interesting results at all. On the other hand, I suppose any research experience is positive even if it's not in my main interest area.</p>
<p>So, the question is: for a PhD application, should I complete a research-based thesis tangentially related to areas of interest, or normal thesis focused on my areas of interest plus additional courses in my areas of interest?</p>
<p>(edit: I'd probably drop a PDE course in favor of this project)</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35266,
"author": "Mojtaba Ebrahimi",
"author_id": 27391,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27391",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a senior phd student, I always recommend bachelor students to have some flavor of research in their thesis rather than doing a pure implementation work. Any research work requires some level of implementation and this gives the student good chance to find out which parts are more favorable and then he/she can easily decide to go to industry or continue academic carrier.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 41709,
"author": "agentplaid",
"author_id": 31792,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31792",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If your plans to pursue a PhD eventually are serious, I would definitely recommend the research-based option. You'll see this advice in many other places, but acquiring a PhD is very much the process of learning how to do research and proving that you can indeed do it. Even if the project is not directly in an area that you're very interested in, you'll have the opportunity to start practicing your research skills. The prospect of a publication is also something to keep in mind; an entering PhD student who has already published is viewed as already having proved to some degree that they're capable of quality research, and I've never met a faculty member anywhere who didn't appreciate that.</p>\n\n<p>You're exactly right in that the research experience will be valuable to you even if you do not end up with a publication. Why? Primarily, if you do good work you've given your faculty collaborators some very good material to put in the reference letters you're going to want them to write when you apply to PhD programs. In fact, in your position I'd probably be thinking more about coming out of the experience with a strong reference than a publication.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/29
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32472",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15048/"
] |
32,484 |
<p>I'm sitting here with my friend, who is in the process of applying to graduate school. She's come across a prompt that looks like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you are a member of a community that has historically been underrepresented in higher education and would like to tell us how this particular perspective adds to the value you will contribute to the diverse learning community we strive to create, please do so here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My friend is a female, Latin American, previously financially-burdened immigrant, so there is certainly some diversity to speak of, but she's having trouble coming up with how this can answer the prompt. To her, she's never really considered it a struggle, but more of a challenge. She's never let it get her down, so she sees no reason to complain about it in an essay. She believes you should be judged based on your past and present performance, not your national origin, ethnicity, financial status, etc.</p>
<p>How do you even respond to a prompt like that? Also, why do universities ask you to speak about your diversity in the first place? What are they looking for?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32485,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, indeed, there are many ways that this discussion could get off-track...</p>\n\n<p>The specific, relevant point is that many universities have certain pots of money ear-marked for whatever-it-is that \"diversity\" refers to, and \"traditionally under-represented groups\"' members are the only eligible competitors for any part of that money.</p>\n\n<p>(The discussion of the sense of this is of course the elephant-in-the-room, but is irrelevant to the already-earmarked funds.)</p>\n\n<p>That is, at this point, being a woman in a STEM field (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math), or of ethnic origin other than northwestern European..., or... opens certain money-pots to both the department and to the individual.</p>\n\n<p>It is true that one might easily find reason to not go down that path, ... but I note that many people will presume that one has done so if one had the chance, and all that that might entail.</p>\n\n<p>Honestly, if I were in that situation, <em>and</em> did <em>not</em> have severe need, I'd skip it, just to be able I'd skipped it. But maybe nobody'd listen...</p>\n\n<p>I can clarify further, if this is to-the-point for the questioner. I've been involved with such stuff for a long time...</p>\n\n<p>Edit: to clarify, for example, my department did not create the literal \"diversity statement\" component of the application, it was created somewhere in the central administration. That is, although we have tried to avoid traditional biases (e.g., ideas how \"how a mathematician <em>looks</em>\", and such, often included male-gender-correlated attributes that, arguably, have nothing to do with mathematics), we did not <em>formalize</em> any part of such discussion. We've tried to be unbiased for far longer than this recent appearance of overt statements about \"diversity\", not for any immediate tangible reward from higher-ups, but for more idealistic reasons. Having central administration throw a little money at the situation doesn't really change much.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32491,
"author": "410 gone",
"author_id": 96,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It seems to me that it would be prudent to start from the assumption that the words in the question have been chosen carefully, after some deliberation; and so she should answer the question put, as it is asked.</p>\n\n<p>The quote you've given does not ask for complaints. It doesn't speak of judging her by national origin, ethnicity or financial status. It doesn't ask her to talk of struggle. So those things would only go in the answer if they give a particular perspective that adds to the value she would contribute to the diverse learning community they strive to create.</p>\n\n<p>They want to know how her status as a member of a historically-under-represented community adds to the value she would contribute. In your answer, you've already given three aspects of that. I'll paraphrase slightly - I hope I haven't distorted your friend's intended meaning - and for each I'll frame it within the question as asked on the application form:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>she's seen her being from a historically under-represented community as a challenge rather than a struggle; as a member of the department her very presence could provide a positive role model for others both internal and external to the deparment</li>\n<li>she's maintained optimism and not let the status quo get her down; as a member of the department, she would bring a realistic optimism and determination.</li>\n<li>she's sought to work towards a system that rewards merit for its own sake regardless of national origin, ethnicity, financial status, and so on; as a member of the department, she would contribute to the department's culture of meritocracy: academia of all places should strive to overcome conscious and unconscious biases, and work strive towards meritocracy.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>That would seem to me to cover the question on the form as it has been asked.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32495,
"author": "user-2147482637",
"author_id": 12718,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12718",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The reason for the question may well depend on the School and its own reasons. One popular case of this is the <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/us/supreme-court-michigan-affirmative-action-ban.html?_r=0\" rel=\"noreferrer\">University of Michigan</a>. While the school may feel diversity is important, and through affirmative action it can achieve it, the government or voters may not agree. In this case, Michigan created an essay section for contribution to diversity, in which they can more actively decide admissions based on diversity when affirmative action is not available. </p>\n\n<p>Answering the question honestly is the best policy. Of course you would not want to lie, as an interview would probably create automatic rejection. If you do not want to come off as 'complaining', dont complain, it doesnt ask that. Answer how your background can contribute, and the simplest of answers is what your question mentions: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>As being a female immigrant from latin america, I have been considered\n a minority. However, I do not look at this like a struggle, I look at\n it as a challenge, and I think my mindset will help contribute to both\n diversity and academics at the University.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 89818,
"author": "April ",
"author_id": 73829,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73829",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is an interesting brochure on <a href=\"https://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/Benefits_Challenges.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Benefits and Challenges of Diversity in Academic Settings</a> on the website of The Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI) that mentioned things like this:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>A controlled experimental study of performance during a brainstorming\nsession compared ideas generated by ethnically diverse groups\ncomposed of Asians, blacks, whites, and Latinos to those generated by\nethnically homogenous groups composed of whites only. Evaluators who\nwere unaware of the source of the ideas found no significant\ndifference in the number of ideas generated by the two types of\ngroups. However, when applying measures of feasibility and\neffectiveness, they rated the ideas generated by diverse groups as\nbeing of higher quality.</p></li>\n<li><p>The level of critical analysis of decisions and alternatives was\nhigher in groups exposed to minority viewpoints than in groups that\nwere not. Minority viewpoints stimulated discussion of multiple\nperspectives and previously unconsidered alternatives, whether or not\nthe minority opinion was correct or ultimately prevailed.</p></li>\n<li><p>A study of corporate innovation found that the most innovative\ncompanies deliberately established diverse work teams.</p></li>\n<li><p>Data from the 1995 Faculty Survey conducted by UCLA’s Higher\nEducation Research Institute (HERI) demonstrated that scholars from\nminority groups have expanded and enriched scholarship and teaching\nin many academic disciplines by offering new perspectives and by\nraising new questions, challenges, and concerns.</p></li>\n<li><p>Several investigators found that women and faculty of color more\nfrequently employed active learning in the classroom, encouraged\nstudent input, and included perspectives of women and minorities in\ntheir coursework.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I don't know whether this brochure would be helpful for those who are working on their statement of diversity but it is a pretty interesting reading.\nAnd in this post on Writing the Personal Statement on the website of Berkeley Graduate Division there is a list of things they'd like to see in a <a href=\"http://www.diversitystatement.net/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">statement of diversity</a>. Here are some of them:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Demonstrated significant academic achievement by overcoming barriers\nsuch as economic, social, or educational disadvantage;</p></li>\n<li><p>Potential to contribute to higher education through understanding the\nbarriers facing women, domestic minorities, students with\ndisabilities, and other members of groups underrepresented in higher\neducation careers, as evidenced by life experiences and educational\nbackground. For example,, attendance at a minority serving\ninstitution; ability to articulate the barriers facing women and\nminorities in science and engineering fields; participation in higher\neducation pipeline programs such as, UC Leads, or McNair Scholars;</p></li>\n<li><p>Academic service advancing equitable access to higher education for\nwomen and racial minorities in fields where they are\nunderrepresented;</p></li>\n<li><p>Leadership experience among students from groups that have been\nhistorically underrepresented in higher education;</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I hope this will help!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 143544,
"author": "David E Speyer",
"author_id": 1244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1244",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This isn't very different from EnergyNumbers answer, but I want to emphasize that the question isn't asking \"what bonus points can we give you for your background\" but rather \"how does your background make you more suited for the position you are applying for?\". (Bearing in mind that graduate students are usually expected to teach and serve as mentors to undergraduates, so that is a relevant qualification.) I've seen a number of well received diversity statements along the lines of \"I have always viewed my background as a challenge, and have risen to meet that challenge. Here are some of the strategies I have used to do that ... Here is how I can mentor students in a similar situation and show them how to excel as I have...\" </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/30
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32484",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24943/"
] |
32,497 |
<p>How would the dutch educational system be represented in a diagram? Or put differently, what are the different roads that lead to the academic world in the Netherlands?</p>
<p>PS. This question ("What are the different roads to get into academics in the Netherlands?") came up in chat awhile ago, so I drew a diagram and it was suggested I share it as a self answered post as well, because it's a neat resource. Didn't do it back then as some parts lacked, but somebody asked me the same question more generally again so looked up the diagram, finished it and wanted to share it publicly now after all.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32498,
"author": "David Mulder",
"author_id": 11353,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11353",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/kw23q.png\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/kw23q.png\" alt=\"Dutch Educational System\"></a></p>\n\n<p>PS. I have only been part of the Dutch system for the first 8 years, but I know it pretty well as I know a lot of Dutch people, still I might have made mistakes. If so: apologies.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32537,
"author": "Maarten Buis",
"author_id": 14471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14471",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are similar diagrams and descriptions of educational systems for the Netherlands and other European countries here:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/</a></p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/30
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32497",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11353/"
] |
32,500 |
<p>My Master's thesis instructor has copied a chapter of my thesis draft into several publications, sometimes listing me as an author and sometimes not. They said it won't cause me any problems so I gave permission in one case but not the others, where I was just informed afterwards. As they were my boss and instructor, was in a hurry to submit the publication and insisted there will not be problems I didn't feel like having another choice.</p>
<p>After consulting with my supervisor I'm starting to feel doubtful, especially if any automatic plagiarism checking is involved because searching for various numeric results and phrases from my thesis in Google returns results with the exact same text and without my name in the list of authors.</p>
<p>I'm supposed to hand in the finished thesis this week and don't have time to rewrite the affected chapter. My supervisor said I should at least include a footnote explaining the situation. What should I write? I wouldn't want to cause trouble for the instructor either, they're a nice person in a difficult situation.</p>
<p>The other publications are all reports or conference proceedings available free of charge from government sources or the university's website so commercial publishers' copyright claims should not be an issue.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32502,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your instructor has committed serious academic misconduct several times: if it is your words or your work being published, you should be one of the authors and your permission is <em>required</em> for publication. It's also not clear from your post whether the <em>same</em> material was published multiple times, which would also leave you vulnerable to accusations of self-plagiarism.</p>\n\n<p>It sounds, at least, like you are no longer working with this instructor, which is a good thing. You should always look to separate yourself from seriously unethical people, lest you be tainted by association or involvement in their crimes.</p>\n\n<p>Now you are faced with a problem of cleaning up a toxic mess, because your instructor has also lied to you about this \"not being a problem\" for you. There are three different aspects of the cleanup that I can see:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><strong>What should you do in your thesis?</strong> I think that your supervisor's suggestion here is good: put in a footnote at the beginning that explains where else the various pieces of the chapter have been published (both with and without you as an author), and note that due to misconduct on the part of the other author, you were not listed as an author. Note that I am assuming the instructor is not required to sign off: if they are, this may be a problem.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>What should be done about the papers?</strong> Once you are safely graduated and are secure from retribution in another position, you can contact the publishers and request to have the record corrected. The note, signed off in your thesis by your supervisor, will be useful here. If material was inappropriately reused in multiple publications, you might instead ask for some of the publications to be retracted. Don't be surprised, however, if the publishers fail to take action, as many publishers are not very responsive when asked to correct the record.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>What should be done about your instructor?</strong> It is very difficult for a student to accuse their instructor of misconduct. Fortunately, it sounds like you have informed a responsible senior individual (the tenured supervisor), and it would now be appropriate for you to pass the responsibility of deciding how to proceed to that person. Unfortunately, it sounds like this person may not actually take any action, so you may wish (again, once you are away and secure from retribution) to contact people who actually have authority over the instructor and may be willing to act.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Finally, be prepared to simply walk away if you need to: fortunately, this is happening only at the Masters' stage, and so all of this mess can likely be rendered irrelevant by your future work as long as you take precautions (like the note in your thesis) to avoid it coming back to bite you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32503,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32502/53\">jakebeal's fine answer</a>, I want to note that this problem would have been entirely avoided if your instructor had simply included you as an author, as virtually all publishers allow published journal material to be \"recycled\" in master's and doctoral theses, and vice versa. (It would make life exceedingly difficult for graduate students if they couldn't reuse material from work published during their careers in their thesis!)</p>\n\n<p>The other issue is that you should maintain a paper trail of all of your correspondence with the instructor regarding the papers that were submitted (and I hope you <em>did</em> maintain such records!) Without them, all of the allegations will be much more difficult to sustain, as it will become an \"X said, Y said\" allegation.</p>\n\n<p>One other thing to inquire about: will your university offer you an extension on turning in your thesis? Many universities allow students to petition for a short-term extension (usually a few weeks). If so, then this might give you time to revise the affected text to remove the plagiarism allegations. This might be the best option for you to avoid future problems.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32506,
"author": "Penguin_Knight",
"author_id": 6450,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6450",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Too long as a comment so I am submitting as an answer.</p>\n\n<p>While I like the principles of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32502/6450\">jakebeal's answer</a>, I would like to advise against citing someone committing a misconduct in a permanently archived document without a proper investigation. I am sympathetic about your situation but to any future investigation committee you're simply another party of interest, and it's fully likely for you to accuse the other of misconduct. That's drawback number 1.</p>\n\n<p>Drawback number 2 is that the world comes and goes around. Just because the instructor is no longer in a position to harm you does not mean he cannot do so in another occasion. If you've decided to use the footnote approach, I'd recommend saying a human error was made rather than a misconduct was committed.</p>\n\n<p>This is not to say I would always cover for unethical people, this is to say that without a proper third party's investigation, I will not accuse anyone especially if I am involved in the issue.</p>\n\n<p>And I also think rewriting, as suggested by <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32503/6450\">aeismail</a> is also a good approach if you don't feel like hurting the instructor in any way.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/30
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32500",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24958/"
] |
32,505 |
<p>I am applying for admission to several CS PhD programs (in the US), and I am just wondering how common it is for schools to request interviews with the candidates. I will be out of the country for much of January which seems like a prime time for interviews to take place, so I am wondering if I should start making alternate plans. Thank you!</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32507,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From what I've seen, some form of interview is not uncommon (and a good sign, since it means you've passed most of the initial filters and are being considered seriously). In such cases as there is an interview, however, it can often be conducted over the phone or internet. Thus, your travel is unlikely to be a major issue as long as you will have good connectivity and be able to receive messages sent to the contact information you provided.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32508,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<h2>Extremely uncommon</h2>\n\n<p>I understand that interviews are fairly common in other fields and in other countries, but they are rare in computer science in the US. In my experience (student, postdoc, or faculty at five different American CS departments; multiple years on graduate admissions committees; dozens of recommendation letters for CS undergraduates applying to graduate school), very few (if any) American computer science departments include interviews as a standard part of the PhD application process.</p>\n\n<p>There are rare exceptions, though, usually involving prospective advisors calling up applicants directly. The most common reason for a phone interview in my department is to assess their English fluency, especially when the applicant's test scores are borderline, or there seems to be a discrepancy between their test scores and the fluency of their statements. I'd be surprised if this happens more than 10 times a year, and we get 2000 grad applications each year.</p>\n\n<p>When I applied to Berkeley's PhD program, I was already a PhD student at UC Irvine. My future advisor and the director of grad admissions called me to ask why I wanted to move when I seemed to be succeeding in my current program (good advisor, good research progress, and so on). I suspect they also wanted to understand the discrepancy betwen my grad school grades (good) and my undergrad grades (terrible).</p>\n\n<p>In short, as long as there's nothing borderline or non-standard in your application, it's unlikely that you'd need to be available for an interview. And even if someone does want to interview you, they're much more likely to want to do it by phone or skype than in person.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/30
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32505",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24961/"
] |
32,509 |
<p>I am 25 years old, and in a few months' time I will have to decide whether to get a job in London or apply for a postdoc somewhere. </p>
<p>Apart from all of the usual pros and cons (eg. job security, salary, lifestyle) associated to each path, one thing that worries me most is my loneliness. I am worried that if I were to get a postdoc (say at some small university in some small city), that I would never meet someone to date and get married to eventually. Most math postdocs tend to be male (I believe) which is fine for me since I am gay. But it seems to me more likely that I will find true love taking a city job in a metropolitan environment where there are many more people. And I am really not sure that the "single life" is amenable for doing a postdoc in a foreign country (where I'll likely have to look to find a postdoc in my field).</p>
<p>I apologise if this thread is not suitable for this board, but it is an important consideration in a potential academic's life. I would truly appreciate your thoughts and experiences.</p>
<p>Edit: I guess I am asking whether I am right to be worried about the lack of potential for dating in a studious and bookish environment like academia, and whether anyone has any advices about how to deal with this.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32513,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>How is Academia different that any other job? You work for a number of hours a day, and then you are free to use your time solving jigsaws at home or socialising with other people.</p>\n\n<p>Perhaps the academic environment has the advantage of multiculturalism. In most industries, the large majority of the people are from the country; but at universities you can find much more diversity, and thus, easier to find people you feel more comfortable with.</p>\n\n<p>Lastly, in large cities there are, statistically, more potential \"suitable partners\", but they will be more difficult to find. As a mathematician, you may want to model it as an Erdős–Rényi graph, for the fun of it.</p>\n\n<p>In the end, I think either path will have comparable a priori chances of finding love, so this should not be your main criteria to decide what to do with your life. Being happy with what you do will make you a nicer person, and have a larger impact that the city you are in.</p>\n\n<p>And, to put at ease your concerns, most professors I know are married, and they certainly went down the postdoc path.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32517,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From the anecdotes that I am familiar with, there seem to be two key questions:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Is the community that you are going to dominated by the academic institution?</li>\n<li>Would you prefer to avoid dating undergraduates or potential colleagues?</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then you may have a difficult time finding romance. This is particularly true for some U.S. institutions that are not near anything else (e.g., <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_College,_Pennsylvania\">State College, Pennsylvania</a>), because most of the potential matches that you will meet would be too \"close\" professionally. Likewise, if you have highly unusual tastes, your only option may be to go to a large city where the population of people you are interested in will be non-trivial. Otherwise, however, your dating prospects are likely to be dominated by constraints on your social life rather than the number of possible matches.</p>\n\n<p>There is a further consideration that is not in your post, but which I think is also important to keep in mind. A postdoc is inherently a temporary position, so if you find a serious romantic partner, the two of you are likely to soon have to confront <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-body_problem_%28career%29\">the two-body problem</a>. This doesn't have to be a show-stopper, but it's probably worth thinking about the degree to which you might be willing to adjust your career goals to match with the goals of a partner...</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32519,
"author": "Flounderer",
"author_id": 5842,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5842",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Great question! I would not worry about the lack of potential for dating. I was a postdoc for three years, and although it was quite a lonely life, I had a lot of friends, mostly <strong>PhD students from outside my own department</strong>. The reasons for this were (a) it is quite hard to befriend PhD students in your own department when you are a postdoc; it's like an officer trying to fraternise with privates and (b) younger academics with permanent positions tend to be married/have children and are not looking for social life.</p>\n\n<p>So although I was shut in my office all day, the graduate community in general was a great way to meet people. However, I did not find anybody. I think key reasons for this were (a) uncertainty about my future (I was doing a postdoc in a foreign country and in an area in which I felt insecure and probably wasn't going to continue, and I think that women found this lack of confidence and future plans unattractive) and (b) incompetence.</p>\n\n<p>Now I am working in industry, and I don't find that single life in industry is any better or worse than single life as a postdoc. It's actually harder to meet people because there is no campus, and the people I do meet tend to be less interesting.</p>\n\n<p>Summary: ignoring the other pros and cons which you mentioned, there might be plenty of potential for dating graduate students from outside your field.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32552,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 11565,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11565",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Unfortunately, based on my experiences, I am somewhat more pessimistic than other answerers to the question. As a postdoc I met a couple of interesting potential dating partners, but they weren't interested in getting involved with someone who had to move across the country in a couple of years.</p>\n\n<p>I then began a tenure-track job in a rather small, quiet city. For some people this is exactly their cup of tea and they are quite happy. For me, it represented some compromises that I had to make if I wanted to continue my academic career. Among them, I've found it difficult to meet people with whom I have much in common. </p>\n\n<p>There are many ways in which your situation could turn out well! And, I think most people that decided to go into academia are happy with their choice. You might get a job offer in an appealing big city. You might end up in a small town, meet someone there, and discover that you love it. And at no point, even once you are tenured, do you ever have to commit to any job for the rest of your life. You can always apply for other academic jobs or go into industry.</p>\n\n<p>Nevertheless, I'm afraid that I believe that your worries are indeed reasonable. Best wishes to you, whatever you decide.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32554,
"author": "blankip",
"author_id": 11420,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11420",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>How do you know that there isn't someone in this small institution that is thinking, \"Damn, there are no dating prospects here.\"</p>\n\n<p>And then when you meet said someone, well there isn't much competition.</p>\n\n<p>But the fact is if you have a campus that will give you 10,000 choices vs another with 20 choices, it really comes down to there is only \"1\" and you don't know if that person is in the 10,000 or the 20.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/30
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32509",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24964/"
] |
32,511 |
<p>I am applying for admission to the Master's program next fall. However I am in doubt about the source of reference. I have two options: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>My mentor at a research institute who was pursuing his PhD. when I was a research intern. However, he did not complete his PhD.</p></li>
<li><p>Research Scientist(PhD) at my current organization where my role is that of a software developer. Therefore the recommendation is based on my work as a developer rather than on my research contributions.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Both are willing to write strong recommendations for me.</p>
<p>Who would be a better source of recommendation?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32512,
"author": "Argalatyr",
"author_id": 9748,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9748",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would ask mentor #1 (with a master's degree) to write a letter to the PhD research scientist #2, and have the latter (#2) submit a letter for your application. Thus, the recommendation letter is received from a prestigious source, is based on current experience of your work habits and character, but can also incorporate quotes/details from the more junior person. This is not an unusual pattern in my experience.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32524,
"author": "Marcia Pinheiro",
"author_id": 24975,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24975",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would use the first person because it is about your work in research. I think that their qualifications matter very little: What really matters is the nature of your work when you were under their supervision. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/11/30
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32511",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24966/"
] |
32,531 |
<p>So I was wondering. Most IP policies at Universities state that you must work on inventions, software, etc. on your own time in order to keep your rights to it. Most also say that you can't use University facilities in the process. But if you live in student housing, wouldn't this count as a "University facility." So wouldn't it technically be impossible to patent something while keeping your rights?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32544,
"author": "socrateslopes",
"author_id": 24709,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24709",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First of all, how should be defined \"University facility\" in this context? I don't think that housing would make part of the definition. They must consider labs, machines and so on. \nTherefore, I believe that it is possible to patent something and still hold the intellectual property.</p>\n\n<p>Anyhow, you should read carefully the IP policies at your university and find out what they actually call \"university facility\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32645,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>University IP policies generally have a separate category for intellectual property created using resources \"usually and customarily provided\" by the university. In every policy I've ever seen, even if the university generally retains ownership of IP created using university facilities, this excludes the above category (which would certainly include standard university housing).</p>\n\n<p>For example, at the <a href=\"http://www.bot.uillinois.edu/general-rules\">University of Illinois</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Traditional academic copyrightable works created using university resources usually and customarily provided are owned by the creators. Such works need not be licensed to the University.</p>\n \n <p>When determining ownership and license rights in copyrightable works, \"University resources usually and customarily provided\" includes office space, library facilities, ordinary access to computers and networks, or salary.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>At the <a href=\"http://ualr.edu/policy/home/admin/intellectual-property/\">University of Arkansas</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>Creator is entitled to copyright ownership and right to revenues subject to compliance with conflict of interest and commitment policies.</em></p>\n \n <p>This category applies when the faculty or staff member constructs the materials using nothing more than university resources usually and customarily provided. These include but may not be limited to office space, library facilities, ordinary access to computers and networks, faculty development workshops, or salary.</p>\n \n <p>The author owns the copyright and is entitled to receive all revenues for commercialization, subject to the conflict of interest and commitment policies.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>An alternative terminology for the same concept is to distinguish between \"substantial\" and non-substantial use of resources. For example, at <a href=\"http://www.mnscu.edu/board/policy/326.html\">Minnesota State</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>Substantial Use of Resources.</em> Substantial use exists when resources are provided beyond the normal professional, technology, and technical support supplied by the college, university, and/or system office to an individual or individuals for development of a project or program.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Or at <a href=\"http://www.cmu.edu/policies/documents/IntellProp.html\">CMU</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Substantial use of university facilities means extensive unreimbursed use of major university laboratory, studio or computational facilities, or human resources. The use of these facilities must be important to the creation of the intellectual property; merely incidental use of a facility does not constitute substantial use, nor does extensive use of a facility commonly available to all faculty or professional staff (such as libraries and offices), nor does extensive use of a specialized facility for routine tasks.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/01
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32531",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24978/"
] |
32,532 |
<p>I'm currently a second-year undergraduate physics major, and I joined an experimental nuclear physics (astrophysics primarily) group a few months ago. I joined the group wanting to work extremely hard to learn new things, apply them (and my intuition and previous knowledge) to solve problems, and present my findings and progress on a weekly basis, reporting to the group head on a more frequent basis though. It started out like that at first - the head made me solve a problem, write a GUI/applet for it (just to show that I fully understood the problem), and then implement that into a particular framework that would be used for an actual experiment later on down the road. I noticed that the head also didn't like to be a mentor too much - that is, he only liked to tell me what I needed to know for my task and nothing else, leaving extra learning for myself.</p>
<p>The problem with this is I'm left mentally starved. I've been assisting this other person in my group (relatively new graduate) on preparations for that actual experiment that I mentioned earlier, and that feels good. I've learned more of what's going on behind the scenes (significance of the experiment, theoretical implications of the results obtained, detector and equipment [and setup]) through publications, other people within the university, and asking the group head, but all of this was essentially on my own. As a result, I feel that any average joe with minimal work-ethic and intuition could thrive in a group like this. I've learned a lot more about nuclear physics/astrophysics (hence, more about this universe we live in) through sources that I might have otherwise not come across had I not joined the group, so that's good. </p>
<p>Also, just quick side note, the experiment is coming up soon, and I'm sure I'll learn a whole bunch through that process, and sorting out and analyzing the data after the experiment will certainly put me to work.</p>
<p>I've been thinking about possibly trying to join another research group, just so I can quench my mental thirst. There is a nuclear theory group at my university, and even though I know nuclear theory is probably way over my head, I'm willing to put a lot of time into working hard.</p>
<p><strong>Here is my question:</strong> Is attempting to join another group a bad idea? Should I instead tell the group head how I feel, and see where to go from there, or would that be far too disrespectful?</p>
<p>Please excuse any ignorance of mine. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32533,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is attempting to join another group a bad idea? Should I instead tell the group head how I feel, and see where to go from there, or would that be far too disrespectful?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>These two options are not mutually exclusive. You can do either, both, or none of them.</p>\n\n<p>As you see it, you believe your choices are</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><strong>Talk to your current supervisor</strong> - You should absolutely do this, regardless of what you decide to do with respect to the other group. Your mentor has no way of knowing what you're thinking unless you tell him; it's up to you to let him know if you need more from the supervisory relationship. Of course, you should do this in a respectful and adult way.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Join a second research group</strong> - You should consider doing this if you're interested in the research the second group is doing. As an undergraduate, it's to your benefit to experience different kinds of research, different advising styles, etc, to help you understand what you need when applying to graduate school. Note, however, that research is very time- and energy-consuming, and if you spread yourself too thin, you will experience \"research\" only on a superficial level and won't get much out of it. Only you can determine whether you <em>really</em> have enough free time and energy to participate in two research groups in a meaningful way.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Finally, I'd like to comment on your statement</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>... all of this was essentially on my own. As a result, I feel that any average joe with minimal work-ethic and intuition could thrive in a group like this.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You seem to think that because your mentor gives you a lot of independence and doesn't tell you exactly what to do, that standards and expectations in the group are pretty low. That's not necessarily the case. </p>\n\n<p>The ability to work independently is a highly valued skill in supervisees, and it's <strong>great</strong> that your advisor has given you the chance to show your capabilities in that respect. This means that he'll be able to write strong recommendation letters for your graduate applications - much, much stronger than a supervisor who could only speak to your ability to follow focused, specific instructions.</p>\n\n<p>Research is not like coursework. It's <em>supposed</em> to be highly self-directed. If somebody is telling you exactly what to do and what to learn next at every step, you're not doing research. If you feel like you're not sufficiently challenged by what you're doing now, <em>you</em> are supposed to take the initiative to speed things up.</p>\n\n<p>In other words, don't confuse a hands-off mentoring style with low standards. If the group in general is productive, does good science, and writes solid papers, then standards are what they're supposed to be. From your description, you are learning a lot of new things, starting a new experiment, finding out how research works, and overall describing a pretty excellent research experience. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32538,
"author": "user-2147482637",
"author_id": 12718,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12718",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To echo some of what ff524 has said, I think there could be some difference in your interpretation of what research should be, and what is mentally challenging for you.</p>\n\n<p>Personally the few times I have felt like I was not learning enough, was not because my research was not challenging, but I was not actually doing research. If you are directly given menial tasks by your advisor, that you are not thinking for yourself and just repeating a motion, it may feel not challenging enough. </p>\n\n<p>However, it sounds you are given a good amount of freedom. In that case, it could be that you are just not diving into the research itself. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I noticed that the head also didn't like to be a mentor too much -\n that is, he only liked to tell me what I needed to know for my task\n and nothing else, leaving extra learning for myself.</p>\n \n <p>The problem with this is I'm left mentally starved.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>To me, this sounds like you are looking for a challenging class, not research. You want someone to specify a problem and you work through it with them and studying the necessary topic until you can solve it. Otherwise, I do not see how self-learning/teaching and exploring how to solve a problem is not challenging enough.</p>\n\n<p>My suggestion is to talk to your advisor after thinking about what your really looking for. Do you want self guided learning and research but your advisor is not allowing you to tackle challenging problems? If so, first prove you can do the easy ones she/he has given you, and then bring up your need to 'quench the mental thirst'. If you want a more detailed path, maybe think about taking more graduate level classes.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32539,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The process of becoming a good researcher is learning how to become an expert in a field you may know nothing about. At some point, <em>every</em> real research project becomes a \"stab in the dark,\" as we have to do things that nobody has (or very few people have) tried before. So an advisor who doesn't tell you step by step what to do may be trying to encourage you to learn for yourself, and to take \"ownership\" for your project.</p>\n\n<p>It may also be the case that, as your first time, you may be feeling bewildered and directionless. This sounds like a case where you need to talk with your advisor to better align your working styles: perhaps the advisor can suggest further directions to explore—and you could broaden your outlook to learning more about the field than just doing what you're told. (If you want to do a PhD, then there will come a point when your advisor <em>can't</em> tell you what to do—because you will be the expert!)</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/01
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32532",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24979/"
] |
32,540 |
<p>My transcripts contain a mistake on the grade I took for a course. I applied before two months to change me the grade but the process is slow. Until now nothing has changed and I need to apply for graduate programs. What should I do? <strong>How should I inform them that this grade is wrong and the official transcripts will contain the appropriate number.</strong> What GPA should I write in the online form? This with the wrong grade or the right one (calculated by me).</p>
<hr>
<p>More information:</p>
<p>This mistake was not my fault, it was the professor who accidentally wrote a "D" instead of an "A-". I have contacted him after I noticed it on the online system, but it is a long process to change a grade in my university. Two months have passed already and they told my that the grade will be changed before Christmas, but the deadlines are soon and I need to find a way to inform them. The case is that, in most courses, I have "A" and, in a few of them, "B". I am applying to very competitive courses and this might ruin my chances of getting admitted.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32541,
"author": "keshlam",
"author_id": 10225,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10225",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you can't wait for the school, and the professor agrees that this was his error, ask him for a letter saying so (on school letterhead) which you can attach to the transcript. Ditto for the school itself. If employers have some evidence of the error, and have someone they can contact to confirm the correction, this should be manageable.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32595,
"author": "Patric Hartmann",
"author_id": 20449,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20449",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Personal experience at the infamous university of Zurich: Get as many people involved as possible. This is a shame for a university, they don't want people to know.\nI had a mistake in my transcript (they misspelled a course which was substantial for my further studies). I went there, talked <em>a bit louder</em> than usual and suddenly had a bunch of other students supporting my cause. It took them less than an hour and I had a correct transcript.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/01
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32540",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8381/"
] |
32,548 |
<p>This is a something I'm really concerned about. I am an undergraduate physics major, and I've been in the honors program at my university for a little while now, and that means certain things. I must take at least 1-2 honors courses (or do an honors-contract in a normal course) every semester, I must make a yearly update to a personal portfolio/e-portfolio, I must obtain a sufficient amount of research-group credit hours before I graduate, and I must defend an undergraduate thesis.</p>
<p>I do like all of this, but what starts to bother me is one other requirement, as well as a few things within the program. We must attend at least one 'Honors Student Council' event per semester (not a big deal, but these are ridiculous/stupid most of the time). Also, most of the other students in the program are snobs and stuck-up compared to other non-honors students. I do like the chance to learn a lot more about the material presented in my classes through honors and course-contracted classes, but I'm starting to think that I could just do that on my own - that is, set that up with professors on my own.</p>
<p>However, I don't really know how useful having an 'honors' distinction on a degree will be. Is it very useful? I've been thinking of quiting the honors program, but I wouldn't want to do it if it will drastically hurt me later on. For example, how much of an impact does having an honors distinction have on graduate school/job applications?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32550,
"author": "Stephan Kolassa",
"author_id": 4140,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4140",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Being an Honors student is a prime example of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_%28economics%29\">signaling</a>: you could just as well learn the <em>content</em> by yourself, but having that distinction on your degree <em>signals</em> something to potential employers or grad school admission committees. And those people hope that this signal correlates with something useful, e.g., flexibility in thinking, openness to new ideas, conscientiousness etc. (Yes, being able to sit through boring meetings can be a survival skill in many bureaucratic settings.)</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/the_magic_of_ed.html\">It has been seriously suggested that much of higher education is explained by a signaling model.</a></p>\n\n<p>So you will need to weigh the current pain of boring meetings and uninteresting people against potential future benefits. Your trade-off will depend on what else you could be doing in the time you could free up by de-Honoring.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>I personally have profited from being a member of a <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studienstiftung\">similar German institution</a>. When I applied for a job in a (mature) startup, one of the founders, who happened to be a university professor, saw this in my CV, and he explicitly said that this helped me get an interview.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32551,
"author": "Compass",
"author_id": 22013,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22013",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<h3>It depends on your reasons for being in the Honors program.</h3>\n<p>Are you in it for the extra line or two you have on your CV or diploma, or the learning experience, or the potential opportunities that arise from your undergraduate institution?</p>\n<p>Look carefully at how you've "sold" the Honors College to us. A list of requirements, a mention of a waste of time, and pointing out that you can do everything the HC provides to you without assistance. You come across as dissatisfied with the system.</p>\n<p>I am going to try and be as objective as possible, given how I also feel dissatisfied with my time in the Honors program, and be as fair as I can about the situation's pro/cons.</p>\n<h3>In it for the Learning Experience</h3>\n<p>If you're in for the learning experience, by all means, it is certainly a learning experience. One of my courses in my Honors program, I learned a significant amount about leadership, and drastically improved my writing skills. I certainly would still have been a terrible writer if not for that class, and that's a plus in my book for how Honors helped me. That being said, not all of the Honors courses are <em>that great</em>. I assume that your program may require you to take classes outside your major to fulfill <em>enrichment requirements</em>. I would recommend you find something that isn't only useful, but interesting. I took a class about the Beatles because it fit my schedule, and that probably could have been replaced with something much better.</p>\n<h3>For the Resume/CV</h3>\n<p>If you're looking for stuff to put on your resume, there's probably far more time-efficient and cost-efficient methods. Assuming 1 hour a semester for 8 12-week semesters, plus perhaps 4 hours of other Honors-related stuff per semester, that's about 130 hours of time spent to just add the Honors distinction to your degree. May not seem like many hours, but that's equivalent to <em>10 credits</em> in a <em>120 credit degree</em>. Add in the possibility of unrelated Honors courses, and it starts turning into 15-20 credits that could have been spent on other courses. I do not believe you have to be in the Honors program to qualify for Honors-related work, and in fact, I would assume non-Honors students can take your classes anyways.</p>\n<h3>Potential Opportunities in Research</h3>\n<p>The thesis/capstone projects provided by the Honors program do provide the ability to perform research projects at the undergraduate level <em>and are likely the most high-yield activities you can get as an Honors student.</em> If you capitalize on this, you should be able to do research in a lab at your university and write, present, and possibly even publish a paper. This is probably one of the few things you can benefit from. If you don't use this, it's a wasted opportunity for sure.</p>\n<p>The question becomes whether or not the time spent in the Honors program is worth the additional benefits. After finishing the Honors program, no one asked me "Oh, did you go to the Honors program? Tell me about it." They did, however, ask me about stuff I learned through Honors courses. It's nice to see that I have a certificate for it, but apart from that, once you graduate, whether or not you attended the Honors College matters less than <em>how you capitalized on it</em>.</p>\n<p><em>In case it wasn't apparent, I attended an Honors program in college to completion.</em></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32556,
"author": "reirab",
"author_id": 12999,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12999",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I can speak at least for myself in saying that I wouldn't give any extra weight to a resume or graduate school application specifically for going through the Honors program. In an interview, I might learn that some of the specific things you did in your specific honors program do make you more qualified, but I can't really take that for granted just from seeing the line on your transcript or diploma. For example, if you took an interesting/challenging Honors class wherein you demonstrated an exceptionally deep level of understanding in some given concept or demonstrated other useful skills like writing, speaking, teamwork, leadership, etc., telling me about that during an interview would certainly benefit you toward me recommending that you get the position. However, this would be true if you took such a course regardless of whether you completed the whole Honors program or not. The same situation would be true with the undergraduate thesis if you were applying for graduate school. If I read about what you did in your thesis, that would certainly benefit you, but that would again be true regardless of whether you were in the Honors program.</p>\n\n<p>I would also say that this probably varies by field. My field is Computer Science/Software Engineering. My experience in undergrad, at least, was that my university's Honors program was focused much more on humanities than on the sciences or engineering. The vast majority of the Honors courses past the Freshman level were in the liberal arts areas. As such, I imagine that such a program would have been much more useful to someone in those fields than it would have been to me. As far as those who were in engineering, my experience was that the vast majority of the top science and engineering students were not in the Honors program. Among the science and engineering majors, it seemed that being part of the Honors program was much more common among somewhat-above-average students than it was among exceptional students. I can generally tell whether you're above average just by looking at your transcript without regard for whether or not you were in the Honors program, so I don't really gain much information about you just from seeing that line.</p>\n\n<p>You also mentioned that your impression of most of the people in the Honors program at your school were arrogant/stuck-up. This was generally my impression at my school, as well. Since that's obviously not a desirable trait for either an employee or a graduate student, having this on your resume or CV may actually hurt you a bit among those who have had such impressions of Honors programs. On the other hand, it could help you if the person reviewing the resume or CV had a positive impression of the Honors program at their school or of previous candidates who had completed such programs, as Stephan mentioned.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32566,
"author": "Kimball",
"author_id": 19607,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19607",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me add to other answers (this may be a little too long for a comment): depending on what you want to do, you can potentially do things a lot better for your career outside of the honors college. I was in a similar position, and got \"kicked out\" of my honors college my sophomore or junior year because I refused to take so many honors courses. Instead I spent my time taking a lot of advanced math/CS classes (many graduate level), and the honors college director wouldn't let them more than a couple count as honors credit. (I actually enjoyed most of my honors classes till then, and was friends with a lot of the honors college, including the director.) </p>\n\n<p>I ended up finishing with a dual math/cs degree and a masters in math in 4 years, which I wouldn't have done if I had to spend more of my time taking honors classes. This was much better preparation for grad school (or many industry jobs). So I would say it depends on your situation (other answers mention pros of being in the honors college), but <strong>if it prevents you from doing other things you want to do, it's not worth it</strong>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32609,
"author": "Michael Durrant",
"author_id": 11825,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11825",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Noting your comments:</p>\n\n<p><em>We must attend at least one 'Honors Student Council' event per semester (not a big deal, but these are ridiculous/stupid most of the time). Also, most of the other students in the program are snobs and stuck-up compared to other non-honors students. I do like the chance to learn a lot more about the material presented in my classes through honors and course-contracted classes, but I'm starting to think that I could just do that on my own - that is, set that up with professors on my own.</em></p>\n\n<p>I can imagine this not fitting well with you but to be honest, 30 years on, I actually feel that learning to do the above will be of HUGE benefit to you because:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>you'll learn to deal with snobs just like in the working world.</li>\n<li>you'll learn patience at doing sub-optimal 'ridiculous' tasks. Real world training.</li>\n<li>you'll learn to to engage, agree, disagree and discuss subjects with other that don't share your opinions.</li>\n<li>you'll get to engage with others from widely different backgrounds bringing perspectives you may not have thought of.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Apply these lessons quickly now and save yourself a lot of years of learning them slowly. You may feel that these are not the important lessons to learn while in higher education but personally experience has taught me the opposite.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32666,
"author": "Ginger",
"author_id": 25085,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25085",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think this has been answered better by the others already, but the Honor's program will open doors and provide opportunities that might not otherwise come your way. I wasn't in an honor's program but I did graduate with Math and Physics degrees, and unless you're already planning a career in academia, you will need those opportunities. Just my two cents. :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32673,
"author": "thecommexokid",
"author_id": 25091,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25091",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>I must take at least 1-2 honors courses (or do an honors-contract in a normal course) every semester, I must make a yearly update to a personal portfolio/e-portfolio, I must obtain a sufficient amount of research-group credit hours before I graduate, and I must defend an undergraduate thesis.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>An important consideration is that the definition of an Honors degree varies tremendously between institutions. Judging by what you have said, your institution requires quite a lot of its Honors students, but every institution is different. (For instance, the university I currently attend is happy to hand out Honors degrees like candy.)</p>\n\n<p>So no one who is not from your institution is necessarily going to know what that phrase \"with Honors\" on your degree actually <em>means</em>. If their own experience with Honors degrees is from places that take them less seriously, they won't know all of the work you had to do to earn yours.</p>\n\n<p>Is your advanced coursework, portfolio, and undergraduate research experience highly beneficial for your future in physics? Of course. But if you have done all those things, I'm not sure how much additional value the phrase \"with Honors\" on your diploma will add.</p>\n\n<p><em>If nothing else, don't expect anyone outside your university to know how much or how little work your Honors degree entailed.</em></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 66102,
"author": "houstonguest",
"author_id": 51648,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/51648",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've had my older son start in an Honors program only to be annoyed by frivolous and pedantic courses obviously feeding the egos a some Honor professors. It's these fluff classes that make me want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Students can and should take fluff classes of their choosing. Obviously, my older son got out of the honors program; he failed to see the return. </p>\n\n<p>My younger son never entertained the idea - he would manage his own broadening. Choosing not to go the Honors route actually makes my younger son an unwelcome interloper when Honors students are paraded around as 'better'. He's taken advantage of all the research opportunities of the fine university he attends, found his set of advisers, and has been remarkably successful as an undergrad and will pursue his PHD at a world class institution - but no thanks to his Department which still sneers at this non-Honors punk ruining their party. </p>\n\n<p>All the pluses for the Honors programs, the third place to grow mind and soul with peers that my son found in clubs and such to some extent but was really denied because he wasn't in the Honors program underscores why he didn't join the Honors program - the very real cronyism and elitism - is distasteful at best. </p>\n\n<p>The fact that he's a student who should be celebrated but is at best tolerated because his success dampens the Honors parade vividly highlights the sense of entitlement of those RUNNING the Honors programs - they expect their students to get all the awards and such - deserving or not. This isn't a matter of sour grapes - my son landed a dream PHD opportunity where he's been picked up by one the premier scientists in the world in his field. I'm just pissed that he's had to bob and weave his way around these Honors obstacles. </p>\n\n<p>Again I repeat - it is the Honors professors themselves who have the vested interest in their little golden gooses who foist their brand of elitism onto the unlucky 'rest'. People call the Honors programs meritocracies - hogwash. They may compete among themselves but at the end of the day they and their teachers expect that they'll walk to the front of the line - right past the 'rest'. </p>\n\n<p>So, not a fan of your little Honors programs. Honors programs need to understand that they showcase some of the best students NOT all of the best students. Their hubris pisses me off to no end. If you'll note that it is implied by all Honors fans that the best of the best ARE there and if you're not then you're one of the 'rest'. That's not elitist? Until they understand that they're just some of the best or even many of the best, then I think the undermine their own core value of meritocracy. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 66128,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 11565,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11565",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At my university the Honors college has a fair amount of money, which supports some additional classes intended for Honors students. In some cases these are only available to students in the Honors college; in others, non-Honors students can take these classes but there is some annoying bureaucracy involved.</p>\n\n<p>If it were me, I would find dealing with this bureaucracy more annoying than sitting through the 'Honors Student Council'. You could always prepare a physics problem in advance and then try to solve it in your head during the meeting.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/01
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32548",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24979/"
] |
32,562 |
<p>I am a MSc graduate student, still trying to get a PhD position, but with no success at all. During and after my graduation I struggle to publish some articles (right now I got 6, mostly published in IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus), but I do not feel happy at all.</p>
<p>The problem is that I see my publications as having a lack of public interest. I would like to publish more interesting, formal and mathematical stuff (I am in the field of Computer Science), but the problem that I have is that in my current place of work almost all my time is dedicated to lecturing. Also, and because I am working in a university of applied sciences; the research made here is highly applicable and less theoretical. All this things has put me in a state of deep depression.</p>
<p>What should I do to start looking to my research and my made publications with a different attitude? Should I seek for medical counselling?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32563,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>What should I do to start looking to my research and my made publications with a different attitude? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that your problem <em>isn't</em> that you are working in applied sciences vs. theory. Further, I am not sure if your problems are of medical nature (but this can of course not be ruled out from what you wrote). Let me recap some things you wrote and provide some interpretation. I am not sure to what extend this will answer your question, but I hope my ramblings will provide input and perspective anyways. Maybe somebody else will provide a more direct answer to the question.</p>\n\n<p><strong>You are a master student who published 6 papers during his masters at a university of applied sciences. All of the papers have been in IEEE/Scopus venues. Yet you still can't get a PhD position.</strong></p>\n\n<p>First of, <em>IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus</em> isn't the quality label you maybe hope it is. There are <em>terrible</em> venues for which both of these things are true. The fact that you say you have very little time for research, and still wrote 6 of those things indicates that the quality of your papers <em>may</em> be not all that super. If this is the case, the problem that prevents your papers from having impact isn't that they are applied, it is <em>that they may simply not be very good</em>.</p>\n\n<p>This may also be the issue with your PhD applications. For me, and many others, papers below a certain (subjective) quality standard count for next to nothing. Really bad papers may actively work against you. Again, \"IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus\" does not rule out either of these cases, so try to evaluate your publications independently of these labels. For instance, pick a few PhD student papers from the group that you are applying to. Try to neutrally evaluate whether your papers play in the same league as those. If all papers of PhD students of the prof. or lab you are applying to are much better, and/or have appeared in much better venues than your papers, I am uncertain how much your publications will help your case.</p>\n\n<p><strong>You worry that your papers do not have a strong impact.</strong></p>\n\n<p>I think this point warrants some additional explanation. One of the sad realities of research is that <em>most papers in all but the very top venues of your field</em> (think ICSE or CHI for applied computer science) have very little to zero impact on the research community - and even the papers in the top venues often have close to zero impact on anybody <em>outside</em> your research community. Papers that really get the attention of your fellow researchers are few and far between. I have written papers that I personally consider good to great, which remain pretty much uncited (and, presumably, almost unread) to this day.</p>\n\n<p><strong>You want to progress as a researcher, but you work almost exclusively as a lecturer.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Try to see your situation as it is. Similarly to above, your problem isn't so much that you are working in a university of applied sciences - your problem is that your current position is incompatible with your career goals. You want to do research, but your job is teaching. Your situation would be none the better if you worked as a pure lecturer in a research institution (maybe this would in fact be even more frustrating for you). What you need to do is either (a) find a job or stipend that allows you to do what you want to do, or (b) accept that you are currently not on a research track.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32565,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Aim High, target top conferences and take your time when doing research.</strong> </p>\n\n<p>@xLeitix gave a nice answer. I would speak from my experience here. </p>\n\n<p>I was in a similar situation when I finished my Master degree. I published several papers with my advisor, all in ranked C conferences and two in unreputable journals. This was partially because I was new to research. I thought publishing <em>anything anywhere</em> is something good; obviously this was not true. I am now 2 years into my PhD and I have not published a single paper. The result: I am happy now that I have a manuscript that has a good chance to be accepted in a top conference. </p>\n\n<p>I assume part of your feeling of depression is because you do not believe in your results. You do not see them as being as <em>good</em> as other (even uncited) related results. This might be true. And this is a good sign that you are in the right track of becoming expert in your field. <strong>Take your time in doing research</strong>. Instead of publishing every single small idea you have, try to combine them into one more solid paper. The bottom line: if you work on something, you have to believe in its merits and fight for it. </p>\n\n<p>For theoretic versus applied research, I believe this is a personal preference and interest more than anything else. If you see yourself more as someone who is into the theoretic aspects of the problem, then do theoretic research. Either ways, the joy of research is that 1) you give crazy ideas a try 2) believe what you did is something really good 3) people (at least the reviewers) either admit it is good or provide a learning experience through constructive criticism. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32575,
"author": "GreenAsJade",
"author_id": 11468,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11468",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think that to be happy in research, you have to be doing it for <em>you</em>. Not for external validation.</p>\n\n<p>Are the papers that you published in your opinion good? Did it give you fulfillment completing them?</p>\n\n<p>And ... most importantly ... are you looking forwards to doing more? Looking forwards purely because you like doing them, and it fulfills your academic curiosity?</p>\n\n<p>If the answer to these is no, then you may have a problem of doing what you're doing for external validation (IE you want to feel good about yourself based on what others say about you).</p>\n\n<p>As a comparatively senior (age) person I can tell you from life's experience that this is a recipe for depression. In order to have a fulfilling life, you need your validation to be coming from inside. If you are relying on others for your self-worth, you are always going to be let down. </p>\n\n<p>This is true in any field of life, but especially so in academia, where lets face it no-one really cares about your little area, no matter what it is (unless you are one of the lucky lucky few ... do you want to base your happiness on that chance?).</p>\n\n<p>This stuff sounds simple but can be hard to get your head around and mentally fix up. A good counsellor can help a lot: you don't need to go to them because you are \"depressed\", you can go even if you are basically healthy but need to have your self validation improved to enjoy life more. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is one good technique for this, if you are wondering what \"kind\" of help to look for.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32583,
"author": "fermat4214",
"author_id": 11839,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11839",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I was always thinking about the visibility issues and finally I come up with a reasonable strategy, I also hope that these steps can improve the data dissemination of your research. </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>I may suggest using arXiv preprint server for your works and of course you should have a web page and googlescholar account.</li>\n<li>If you developed a simulator for your work, try to improve it a bit and make it opensource (upload it to github or something similar).</li>\n<li>Prepare a walk-through for your simulator and upload to youtube.</li>\n<li>Prepare a presentation for your paper and prepare a video of your presentation and just the sound via a video editing tool. Uploading this presentation to youtube also improves the visibility and dissemination of your findings.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>P.S. You should start with the work that you are most satisfied :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32631,
"author": "keshlam",
"author_id": 10225,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10225",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you really want to write for the public, consider trying to write \"popularizing\" articles for magazines/newspapers/websites that the public reads. There's definitely a market for well-written articles that explain new discoveries -- or even old discoveries, interesting techniques, and basic principles -- on a level suitable to someone who is science-literate, generally curious, but not deeply steeped in your field. </p>\n\n<p>Scientific American used to have magnificent examples of this kind of writing, though my perception is that they've gone downhill in recent years. Technology Review magazine often has good examples, though they're obviously biased toward articles contributed by the MIT community. </p>\n\n<p>Steven Jay Gould's extended series of essays in Natural History magazine were a great example of explaining fairly subtle aspects of science -- and of the history of science -- in near-layman's language. Anthologies exist covering just about the entire run -- including pieces where he corrected his own prior essays when new information became available.</p>\n\n<p>As a much older example of the scientific essay form, Berton Rouche was just about synonymous with the \"medical mystery\" form, in which a puzzling (preferably real) case is presented in semi-story form, which is then used as a springboard to discussion of the biology, chemistry, history, diagnostic technique, or whatever else the essay is really about. Most of his pieces were originally published in a magazine (the New Yorker?) but subsequently collected into anthologies; it shouldn't be too hard to find them and they're fun reading if you're a scientific omnivore. </p>\n\n<p>Of course those two were excellent writers as well as having scientific knowledge. I'm just suggesting that, if your focus is on the public, that's the kind of ideal you might aspire to. You'd need to be able to write well and clearly, have something to talk about which they'll find interesting (or that you can quickly convince them they should be interested in), and be able to discuss it in terms of things they're already likely to have at least some knowledge of (or be able to define your terms as you go without losing the reader along the way). </p>\n\n<p>Of course as with any kind of writing, don't expect it to come quickly or easily. Popularizing articles are a craft of their own, the market isn't huge, expect to see lots of rejection letters unless you're \"self-publishing\" onto the web (fewer as you hone your craft)... all the usual platitudes and advice about writing for the public apply.</p>\n\n<p>And as Gould demonstrated, this can be done alongside a productive research career producing results <em>not</em> immediately accessible to the public. Doing both simultaneously is a lot more work, but it's one way to reconcile the conflicting goals of advancing the field and advancing public knowledge about the field.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32693,
"author": "nwp",
"author_id": 25105,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25105",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>You are not alone</strong></p>\n\n<p>I somewhat recently wrote a paper that makes multithreaded programming easier, guarantees that there are no data races and offers more optimization potential. Seeing how multithreading is one of the major topics at the moment and how much my system improves that I expected to get the Turing Award by now. I sent my paper to a couple of experts on the matter and only got one replay that said <em>sorry no time</em>. The conference I sent it to said <em>Sorry, this is off-topic this year</em>. I am not even convinced my professor actually read it. This is probably the greatest contribution to science of my life and nobody cares. It is indeed very frustrating.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Medical help</strong></p>\n\n<p>Seeking medical help will most likely not work out for you. I am no psychologist but the gist of it is that if you get sad because something bad happened that is normal and there is nothing to be done about it. If good things happen to you and you still get sad for no reason that is a depression that can be treated. Seeing that you are upset about a real problem, solving the problem will help whereas therapy will not.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Solving the problem</strong></p>\n\n<p>Send the paper and presentations or articles about it to conferences and journals. When they reject your paper (they will!) they will give you reasons. Some of those reasons actually make sense, so you can fix your paper. Find local meetups or study groups to present it and get feedback. Sometimes you just didn't word the point in a way that people understand it and in a live audience someone may ask the correct question. Keep improving the paper. Make real applications that solve real problems, don't just keep to theory and paper writing. This is a lot of work that we should not need to do and are not particularly good at, but I hope eventually someone will \"discover\" us and it will be worth it.</p>\n\n<p><strong>TLDR</strong></p>\n\n<p>Don't give up, keep at it.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/01
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32562",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6144/"
] |
32,568 |
<p>I am applying for a PhD to top schools in engineering. Whenever I talk to my peers I hear the word 'connection' very often. I started thinking that it is almost impossible to be admitted to these schools without knowing a professor ! (I am an international applicant)</p>
<p>How important is having a connection when applying? What If I don't know one and I believe that my profile qualifies me for admission? Should I apply or just not bother?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32571,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At least for schools in the US, it is not necessary for you to have a direct \"connection\" or contact at a department to be admitted.</p>\n\n<p>In general, where contacts can be useful is if one of the people who writes your letters of recommendations for you knows a particular person in the given department. If that \"connection\" is good, and you get a good letter of recommendation, that will carry more weight than a typical letter of the same quality, since you will be better \"known\" than someone who the department doesn't know at all.</p>\n\n<p>That said, though, there is no expectation that you would directly know someone already at the school—although your research interests should align with the department as a whole.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32587,
"author": "flindeberg",
"author_id": 25025,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25025",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my experience it differs from school to school, but since you specifically stated <em>\"top schools in engineering\"</em> I would totally agree with @aeismail that a \"connection\" is not needed, but might be helpful.</p>\n\n<p>Also, I have come across the fact that it is common that PhD positions are \"created\" with a particular candidate in mind, ergo it is very hard to get a position at first try but an application will often get you to a meeting with the prof / research group representative for the department you are interested in, and will dramatically increase the chances that a position might be \"created\" for you.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Should I apply or just not bother?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You should apply, worst case somebody at least had a look at your resume and you will be higher up on the list for the next PhD recruitment ;)</p>\n\n<p>Do note that top universities have the same issues as many other top tier employers, how do you sift through thousands of applications in a responsible manner? The answer is that you don't; you pick the first and best one, which usually is someone known from previous relations.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/01
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32568",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18244/"
] |
32,585 |
<p>I have a good memory, but some of the fields I'm working in (NLP, Semantic Web, Information Visualization, Machine Learning) are quickly expanding. </p>
<p>While I do have a good method of keeping track of good research (I only follow the best researchers and research groups on Twitter, Scholar, conferences, journals, etc), sometimes perhaps it's better to save all the interesting papers, add notes to them and put them in context and relationships with other papers (if a paper frequently cites another paper and is a sequel to that paper, perhaps it's better to read those 2 papers together, for example).
Essentially the things I want to do are these:</p>
<ul>
<li>keep records of the workshops, classes or tutorials I attended, but also
video recordings of presentations I have never seen in real life</li>
<li>annotate PDFs, extract metadata from them and generate bibtex
bibliographies</li>
<li>keep tutorials in pdf + video format synced (where possible) </li>
<li>keep everything in context - organized in folders, tagged,<br>
cross-referenced if possible (if an article is cited in a paper and I
already have it in my library, I want to be able to access it fast)</li>
<li>I want to be able to search about various keywords/tags regardless of the location where the actual files are stored and OS.</li>
</ul>
<p>I noticed most of these things are doable in the Apple ecosystem (iTunes, iBooks, etc), but not really on Windows and Linux. Does anyone has any idea about how to do this in Linux and Windows? I happen to absolutely need to use both operating systems (still have some work with SQL Server, Excel, etc), but most of my development work is in Linux (coding in Java, Python, JavaScript and others, but also writing papers in LaTeX).</p>
<p>I would preferably only sync a huge zotero (or similar) folder using Dropbox, and papers/tutorials should be in sub-folders named after their research field, but also tagged so that I can find them regardless of the folder. </p>
<p>EDIT:
I have paid Dropbox, but apparently finding free WebDAV is an issue (therefore that would mean an additional 5-10 euros per month). As far as code goes I use GitHub and GitLab. </p>
<p>After seeing your answers, it occured to me that I'm thinking about it too much. Perhaps the best idea is this: the whole workflow should be a webapp - this way it will perform almost similarly on all operating systems, as even if there are differences between browsers, they are not so big as the differences between OSes.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32571,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At least for schools in the US, it is not necessary for you to have a direct \"connection\" or contact at a department to be admitted.</p>\n\n<p>In general, where contacts can be useful is if one of the people who writes your letters of recommendations for you knows a particular person in the given department. If that \"connection\" is good, and you get a good letter of recommendation, that will carry more weight than a typical letter of the same quality, since you will be better \"known\" than someone who the department doesn't know at all.</p>\n\n<p>That said, though, there is no expectation that you would directly know someone already at the school—although your research interests should align with the department as a whole.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32587,
"author": "flindeberg",
"author_id": 25025,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25025",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my experience it differs from school to school, but since you specifically stated <em>\"top schools in engineering\"</em> I would totally agree with @aeismail that a \"connection\" is not needed, but might be helpful.</p>\n\n<p>Also, I have come across the fact that it is common that PhD positions are \"created\" with a particular candidate in mind, ergo it is very hard to get a position at first try but an application will often get you to a meeting with the prof / research group representative for the department you are interested in, and will dramatically increase the chances that a position might be \"created\" for you.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Should I apply or just not bother?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You should apply, worst case somebody at least had a look at your resume and you will be higher up on the list for the next PhD recruitment ;)</p>\n\n<p>Do note that top universities have the same issues as many other top tier employers, how do you sift through thousands of applications in a responsible manner? The answer is that you don't; you pick the first and best one, which usually is someone known from previous relations.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/02
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32585",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14887/"
] |
32,612 |
<p>Let's say, I am writing a paper. I am reading paper A that cites results in Paper/Book B. I do not have access to Paper/Book B. </p>
<p>In the list of references, do I include only A? A and B?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32614,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You should add both. I assume you, in your text, refer to B as referred to by A in some way. The point is that everyone should be able to trace your information and knowing B is a book and is referenced by A, from which article you took the information.</p>\n\n<p>That said, I would like to add a warning against doing this, it should only be done as a last resort. The problem of using a reference in a reference is that you have not actually seen the original work and you are therefore trusting that A, in this case, have cited B correctly. Many cases exist where misconceptions have been propagated by trusting the judgement of others and not checking the original source.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32623,
"author": "Boris Bukh",
"author_id": 609,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/609",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Be honest. You do not gain anything by pretending knowledge you have not, nor it helps the reader. </p>\n\n<p>Write \"According to A, in B it is shown that\" or some variation on it. If you have made a good-faith effort to obtain a copy of B (that includes interlibrary loan), but had undue difficulty in doing so, you might want to mention it --- \"We were unable to find a copy of B\".</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/02
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32612",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25048/"
] |
32,616 |
<p>I am in Computer Science and currently in my proposal phase. For my problem statement, I want to come up with good research questions. However, at the moment I am struggling with the definition of "good" research questions. My professor usually comments that my current questions are not "why" questions, but instead are "yes/no" questions.</p>
<p>Any recommendations what make good research questions good?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32627,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my opinion, a good research problem has at least the following properties:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>It is a small piece of a big problem. In other words, it needs to be both small enough so that you can reasonably make progress on it, yet connect to a larger problem. </li>\n<li>It is possible to do a small \"pilot\" to sanity-check your approach and whether results are promising. Most research problems can take a lot of work to really tackle. It's good to have milestones along the way that can let you figure out if you are on the right track and whether the project is likely to be worth the full investment. </li>\n<li>Something can be learned from the work, whether or not it comes out the way that you hope. A large fraction of interesting research projects don't work out the way it was hoped: either the driving hypothesis was wrong, or turns out to be too hard, or something else shifts and things end up obsolete. A well formulated project will still contribute knowledge, whether or not it actually ends up advancing you toward the original goal.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Let me illustrate further with nice example that I saw recently: <a href=\"http://2014.igem.org/Team:NCTU_Formosa\" rel=\"noreferrer\">a group of undergrads at NCTU Formosa</a> put together a project to modify E.coli to manufacture PBAN neuropeptides to stimulate pheromone production in the <em>Heliothis virescens</em> moth. This is a really specialized and esoteric-sounding goal, but relates to a much bigger idea: doing this could lead to a general approach to radically improved insect traps that could greatly reduce the need for industrial pesticide use. The narrowly scoped project they set for themselves thus connects to a much larger goal, but has a set of clearly delineated milestones along the way (e.g., create PBAN-expressing sequences, verify they work in E.coli, test the extract on female <em>Heliothis virescens</em> moths, verify the increase in trap efficacy, pilot tests with local organic farmers, etc.). Furthermore, even if it turns out the bigger vision can't be achieved, there still can be a lot of things learned about neuropeptide engineering, which may turn out to be relevant to a great many other questions, both foundational and applied.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32640,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<ul>\n<li><p>Do you want to know the answer? Really?</p></li>\n<li><p>Do you realistically have a good shot at finding the answer, in a reasonable amount of time? Really?</p></li>\n<li><p>Will lots of other people be happy to learn the answer (even if the question had never occurred to them before)? Really?</p></li>\n<li><p>Are you sure nobody already knows the answer? Really?</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If you can answer yes to all eight questions, it's a good research question.</p>\n\n<p>(Unfortunately, some of these points may depend on what the actual answer is, which of course you don't know.)</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/02
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32616",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17751/"
] |
32,617 |
<p>I regularly assign my undergraduate students papers with a range of expected page/word length (e.g. 10-12 pages or 2500-3000 words). Is there any sort of rule as to whether or not to count a works cited page(s0 (and its equivalent in the other citation styles) in determining if a paper meets this limit? I've discussed this with colleagues and heard varying answers.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32619,
"author": "Penguin_Knight",
"author_id": 6450,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6450",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Should not count.</p>\n\n<p>A six-line main text can pack more convincing arguments compared to a one-line main text. That's why it's important to make sure all students have an equal share of area or real property to build upon.</p>\n\n<p>A six-line citation does not necessarily bring any advantage compared to a one-line citation. For that reason, I don't see why we should penalize students who had identified some information with more authors or a longer title; that is not how we teach them to examine the credibility of a paper.</p>\n\n<p>If you're concerned about them citing too many things or citing mindlessly, you may put a limit on the number of citations like some journals do. However, I wouldn't include them in the word count.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32625,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In the scientific world, whether citations count against length limits or not varies wildly by publication, including hybrid models like <a href=\"http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI/2015/aaai15call.php\" rel=\"nofollow\">AAAI</a> which allows six pages text and up to one page of citations.</p>\n\n<p>I think that which way you go depends on what you want the students to learn. Some examples that would push you one way or another:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>If you want them to focus on prose, don't count citations in the length.</p></li>\n<li><p>If you want them to learn to express complicated thoughts concisely, use a short page limit and count citations (e.g., the IEEE six-page format)</p></li>\n<li><p>If you want them to focus on referencing, count citations and text separately.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Either way it shouldn't matter too much, because you're using a range and probably have some flexibility in how you apply your rubric, so you can adjust for common sense.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/02
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32617",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
32,626 |
<p>I am currently applying for a PhD in a very competitive top tier university, which requires three references. I have two referees (my tutor and my undergraduate research project supervisor) who I am quite sure would write very good references for me. </p>
<p>I am stuck with the choice of my third referee: </p>
<p>I am currently doing a masters, but my masters supervisor is overly precise and temperamental. Although he is the "ideal" choice as my referee as he can comment on my research capabilities and working in a laboratory environment, I am certain that his reference will be lukewarm or may even be negative as I am currently having difficulty getting along with him. <strong>(ADDITION: I had only worked with this supervisor for 2-3 months. I also had an undergraduate research project supervisor who can also comment on my research abilities).</strong> </p>
<p>Alternatively, I have asked one of my lecturers (who I get along with very well) in my undergraduate, and he is very happy and eager to write a reference for me. I am quite sure that he will write a positive reference in support of my application. But he is unable to comment on my research abilities (just my academic capability and personality). Additionally, wouldn't the admissions tutors suspect that something is going on if all my referees are undergraduate even when I am taking a master's course??</p>
<p>What should I do?</p>
<p>PS. The problem is that he initially offered me a PhD position despite the fact that I wanted to pursue and applied for a masters programme. I turned it down as I was not interested in the PhD project and when I told him about my applications to other, top tier universities, his attitude towards me has changed and became very impatient, frustrated and uninterested. This is the reason why I am quite certain he will not be writing a positive reference for me.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32628,
"author": "user18244",
"author_id": 18244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18244",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You are applying for PhD to a top school. This means intensive research skills and abilities are needed and not having a letter from your advisor is a big red flag. Your advisor is the one who is most qualified to comment on your research. </p>\n\n<p>Although many universities don't state this directly, you MUST have a letter from your advisor. </p>\n\n<p>If I were you, I would just go and ask him for a STRONG letter of recommendation. See what he says. Most professors give indications on how supportive their letters are going to be. If you feel that his letter will have a negative impact, then there is not much you can do.</p>\n\n<p>Try to find someone willing to comment on your research and take his recommendation (Department head or maybe a professor who knows your work and research). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32641,
"author": "Mad Jack",
"author_id": 11192,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11192",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Can I apply for PhD without recommendation from my masters advisor?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes, you can <em>apply,</em> but you may experience great difficulty in getting accepted. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Additionally, wouldn't the admissions tutors suspect that something is going on if all my referees are undergraduate even when I am taking a master's course??</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Most likely, yes.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I am certain that his reference will be lukewarm or may even be negative as I am currently having difficulty getting along with him.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As others have suggested, the very important first step is to <em>ask</em> your advisor for a strong recommendation letter. If he agrees, no problem. If not, and there is nobody else that can comment in a strong, positive way about your research capabilities/potential, you may need to take a break from your studies and come up with a plan about how to move forward. I have been in such a situation.</p>\n\n<p>I had a falling out with my MS advisor. I <em>knew</em> that he wouldn't write me a strong letter (I was not on speaking terms with him and I can't say much more than that). I also knew that I would need several strong recommendation letters commenting on my research capabilities/potential to continue on with my goal of pursuing a PhD. To get strong recommendations, I decided to go back into industry for a few years. In my field, a good percentage of industry jobs that I qualified for are heavily R&D focused. A good couple of years back in that environment landed me some solid opportunities to work on some cool stuff and impress some people who were very willing to help me out with pursuing my long-term goals. </p>\n\n<p>I'd like to point out that this is still not a fail-safe approach: several schools I applied to explicitly asked me to submit a recommendation from my MS advisor. I explained to them my circumstance (it's actually a pretty good story), but that did not matter to them. I was very fortunate that one of my industry-based references was considered a big shot by several top schools I applied to, and for those schools that did not ask for a reference from my MS advisor, that worked out well for me. While there was a lot of hard work that went into my plan, I also feel in some ways that I got <em>very lucky.</em></p>\n\n<p>So, if you cannot get a strong recommendation from your MS advisor, be prepared to take some relatively drastic measures to improve your chances of success. Also, if it is possible in your field of study, leverage the skills you have obtained to build up some strong research references.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32626",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25055/"
] |
32,632 |
<p>I have heard that the range of grades in graduate school shrinks and grades mostly range from A to B-. What if an undergraduate student takes a graduate course, what is the grading policy for him/her?</p>
<p>The reason why I am asking is because he/she is in a graduate course so his/her grading can't be different from others, but getting B- for an undergraduate student does not mean he/she is failing, so his/her situation is different from graduate students.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32634,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my experience, it's not that the grade range shrinks because the graduate students are graded differently, but instead because of the following three factors:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Graduate classes typically focus more on <em>illumination</em> than on <em>certification</em> in their grading policies (see <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31445/what-is-the-purpose-of-giving-grades/31448#31448\">this answer</a> for more on the distinction)</li>\n<li>Graduate admissions mostly filters down to a population of people who would have been getting pretty much only As and Bs in their undergraduate classes too.</li>\n<li>Graduate students often have less classes or more closely related classes, enabling them to focus their energy more effectively.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Thus, the undergraduates are likely to be graded against exactly the same standards as the graduate students. If they're well-prepared, interested in the material and willing to put the work in, they'll probably earn the same A and B grades as well, and also will deserve them. </p>\n\n<p>Why then, is a \"failing\" grade for a graduate student a \"good\" grade for an undergraduate? It's just that the expectations of graduate student performance are much higher, as also indicated by the previous point on filtering at admissions.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32642,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>When an undergraduate student takes one of my graduate courses, they're graded in exactly the same way as the graduate students in the class. Numerical grades are assigned for individual homework assignments, exams, and projects, and a weighted average is used to compute a percentage grade for the entire course. Letter grades are then assigned on a scale where 90-100 is an A, 80-90 is a B, etc. I reserve the right to ease that scale (e.g. at the end of the semester I might lower the cutoff for an A to 88% or even 85% if I feel that the cutoff was too high.) </p>\n\n<p>Our university has no rule that explicitly prohibits undergraduates from taking graduate level courses (although the courses may have advanced undergraduate prerequisites that would keep out all but the most advanced undergraduates.) However, since the graduate courses won't satisfy requirements for the bachelor's degree there's little incentive to take a hard course that will only be useful as an elective. Most of the time when we see undergraduate students in graduate level classes it is because they're in our 5 year BS/MS program or they're committed to going on to graduate study somewhere else. These are highly motivated students who are generally well prepared. </p>\n\n<p>It's certainly been my experience in teaching graduate courses that most of the grades that I assign are A's and B's, and that this is very different from undergraduate courses where I often assign lots of C's, D's, and F's. </p>\n\n<p>However, this happens mostly because all of the students in the graduate program are students who consistently earned A's and B's as undergraduate students (they wouldn't have been admitted otherwise) and they typically continue to perform at the same level as graduate students. In those few cases where a graduate student does earn a grade of C, D, or F, it's often because of some significant non-academic problem (illness, depression, death in the family, etc.) rather than lack of ability or effort. </p>\n\n<p>At the undergraduate level, the majority of low grades (D's and F's) are assigned to students who simply don't put in an effort to pass the course. A few undergraduate students try hard but genuinely lack the ability to do well. </p>\n\n<p>When undergraduate students who are well prepared (with A grades in advanced undergraduate courses) take my graduate level courses they typically do almost as well as the graduate students in the class. When poorly prepared undergraduate students have attempted to take my graduate courses they've often ended up withdrawing from the course or failing. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32632",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20608/"
] |
32,635 |
<p>I have been accused of plagiarism from my prof, since I have an answer from a Facebook page based on our course, and a lot of students got their answers from there. The Facebook page has previous labs and assignments from graduate students or senior students who have already done the course, thus there were around 14 students with the same mistake including me. But I went through my university web site and it states for the TEACHING ASSISTANT (TA) that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Academic Dishonesty in Laboratory Environments</p>
<p>Academic dishonesty is a serious problem in undergraduate labs. This
is partly because the culture of lab courses sometimes fosters
plagiarism. Lab exercises may remain unchanged for years, making it
relatively easy to obtain lab reports from previous students. Since
students generally work in pairs, the distinction between acceptable
and unacceptable collaboration can become blurred. And sometimes lab
work is simply not taken as seriously as other scholarly work. The
main forms of academic dishonesty in laboratory classes are:</p>
<p>Plagiarism in laboratory assignments and reports</p>
<p>Among some students there is an academic culture that accepts a
certain degree of academic dishonesty in labs. Students buy and sell
lab reports from the previous year and some try to "help" junior students
by "handing down" lab material. When such conduct is common, it
becomes acceptable, and many students may not realize the element of
dishonesty involved. In addition, in most cases the entire class is
writing up the same report, so there is bound to be an enormous
exchange of information.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think the paragraph above says that at this point this academic dishonesty becomes acceptable. Does that sort my issue at any point?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32636,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You are misreading that passage.</p>\n\n<p>\"It becomes acceptable\" is intended to mean \"acceptable <em>to the students</em>\". To rephrase:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>When such conduct is common, students come to believe that it is acceptable.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But such students would be mistaken in that belief, from the institution's point of view. I think the clear meaning of the passage is that such conduct is <em>not</em> acceptable to the institution and is considered plagiarism and academic dishonesty.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32637,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The text that you quote is written a bit confusingly: I think that it is trying to say that even if <em>students</em> view a behavior as acceptable \"because everyone is doing it\", that behavior is still not acceptable.</p>\n\n<p>In the end, dishonesty is dishonesty. If you claim to have done a piece of work, but you did not do that work, then you are being dishonest. When that work is a creative effort, we call it plagiarism.</p>\n\n<p>Even if somehow your institution had a policy that allowed such dishonesty, it would still be dishonest. When you progress further in academia or industry, if you continue to engage in such behavior, it can end your career in an instant when it is discovered.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32635",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25058/"
] |
32,648 |
<p>I love German literature, but I am not interested in literary criticism/theory; just in close-reading, by which I mean, "reading while analyzing the grammar, syntax, usages of words, etc." </p>
<p>As my future goal as a researcher, I am thinking of compiling some sort of detailed guidebooks that will help the reader understand how the sentences parse in a systematic fashion; for no one has ever done that, at least not in a detailed, fool-proof kind of way, as far as I know after much research, both in the university library and on the Internet.</p>
<p>What sort of path should I set myself upon to pursue that kind of vision?
Is it even a legitimate research goal?</p>
<p>Thank you in advance.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32652,
"author": "Alexandros",
"author_id": 10042,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10042",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a rule of thumb, you cannot possibly know what has and has not been done in a scientific area if you are not part of this scientific area. @xLeitix offered his suggestion about linguistics and his suggestion is good. So, search there, ask specific people about this, read the accompanying textbooks first and then focus on recent papers. It is very hard for an amateur researcher to think of something that has not been done before. It might happen occasionally but it is not that common.</p>\n\n<p>Also you need to consider, that if there is not a scientific area about what you want to research, it might mean (again it is not 100% sure) that what you are suggesting is not that interesting after all. Why e.g., focus on a specific book for example and not on all books written by the same author? What are you hoping to achieve and why does it matter? These are questions that need to be answered <strong>before</strong> starting the actual research. </p>\n\n<p>So, initially I would try to identify and align my research agenda according to the greater scientific area most close to my scientific interests. Once, you get a good grasp and knowledge of this specific area, you could then try to form your individual research and find what differentiates your work from the rest of the bunch. Identifying the area is a very major step, because otherwise even if your work is seminal you still need to find a journal that would publish your work. And without knowing where to publish it would be very hard to disseminate any scientific work. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32661,
"author": "Piotr Migdal",
"author_id": 49,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>detailed guidebooks that will help the reader understand how the sentences parse in a systematic fashion</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Detailed guidebooks may be hard to follow unless someone is really motivated to do so. So along with its accuracy and novelty it is good to know if there is anyone in actually interested in reading or using it.</p>\n\n<p>Plus, the problem is general, it is unlikely that no-one have tackled a similar approach before (did you talk to local experts in this field?).</p>\n\n<p>If it is a very systematic thing, you can try to write a computer program doing it - which may, or may not, be useful or insightful contribution.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32648",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
32,650 |
<p>Few months back I communicated a paper. I got the reviewer's report in a positive direction. But he asked us to add some results if we wish and in the end he wrote:</p>
<p><em>"I leave it to the decision of the editor for further process."</em></p>
<p>Now I got a mail regarding this from the editor:</p>
<p><em>If you wish you may send a revised version according to the suggestion of the referee.</em></p>
<p>My question is will they reject our manuscript if we are not interested in updating our work as it will long time to finish. I am in dilemma. As the editor started his words with <em>"if you wish"</em>. What could be the possible consequences if we are not interested in sending revised work. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32651,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, a reviewer can only make recommendations for revisions. The editor should make clear what changes should be made but it is still up to you if you see fit to do so. Of course, if an editor says you should make certain revisions and you do not, particularly without indicating any good reasons for not doing so, the risk is that rejection decisions may follow. From this point, you may see that providing good arguments why such revisions cannot be made are necessary. </p>\n\n<p>The fact that revisions take time is not by itself a good argument since it may mean your manuscript is currently sub-par but that is up to you to convince the editor when you submit your revisions. The revision process is in this case a sort of give and take process where any revision not made has to be clearly argued from a scientific point (not from a point of time constraints or other irrelevant aspect).</p>\n\n<p>The comment you quote seems a bit lazy on the part of the editor because I think there should be additional qualifying statements indicating if any comments are more important than others and set the review(s) in perspective. How you should decide to respond is therefore hard to judge since the editor has, at least seemingly, not provided any guidance on what needs to be done. This, unfortunately, opens for decisions in any direction. Your experience with your field, should, however, provide some guidance for what should be expected of a study such as yours and also checking the standards of the journal should add some pieces to decipher what must be done. In the end, you will need to provide feedback on the reviewers comments that allows the editor to understand the scientific reasons and ramifications of your revisions (or lack thereof).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32674,
"author": "afaust",
"author_id": 21371,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21371",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is always a good thing to imagine that at the next conference you will be having a dinner with the reviewer without knowing it. </p>\n\n<p>An alternative to running the experiments is to add a paragraph discussion about the suggested results. If they are related to the paper, it can go to the paper. If it is not, that a reasonable explanation why the certain property is not interesting to the paper should come in the rebuttal letter, along with clarification of the paper's focus.</p>\n\n<p>For example, in your paper you are examining how green the alligators are (to gather empirical evidence that <a href=\"http://books.google.com/books?id=5mUdokpAV3UC&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=All%20alligators%20have%20square-shaped%20bodies&source=bl&ots=kRA0mE4w3p&sig=YXTvta2CsTa2mGdYrgzt02VzKAc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rGt_VP3WG8qtogT92YKADg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=All%20alligators%20have%20square-shaped%20bodies&f=false\" rel=\"nofollow\">all alligators are squared bodied</a>). Your paper measures the greenness level, and the reviewer suggests you need to measure the redness as well. Now, that requires hunting down the same alligators and recollecting the data. </p>\n\n<p>You update your paper to emphasize that you examine the level of the green hue irregardless of other hues, and add possible future research direction to examine how different colors mix. In your rebuttal letter, you thank the reviewer for the suggestion for an interesting future research. State you updated paper to clarify the focus on greenness only. The redness effect is out of scope for this paper, but would make a nice extension in the future work.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32688,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>When you submit a paper to a journal, you are implicitly agreeing to make a reasonable effort to publish the paper in that journal. But you are not signing a contract that requires you will make absolutely <em>every</em> change that the referees suggest. In the end, it's your name on the paper. </p>\n\n<p>If the editor has actually <em>rejected</em> the draft (e.g. \"revise and resubmit\"), and you are not interested in sending revised work, there are few direct consequences. You only need to write an email to the editor saying that you have carefully considered the referee's reports, and that you would like to retract your submission. It is polite to acknowledge the referees at the same time, since they have spent time on your paper. But see the note of caution below!</p>\n\n<p>If the editor has <em>accepted</em> your paper (e.g. \"accepted with minor revisions\") then I would recommend making a good faith effort to revise the paper. This is what you implicitly agreed to by submitting to the journal. Of course, you do not have to make all the changes, or make them exactly how the referee wants. But you want to make a good-faith effort to address them in your own way. You don't want to cultivate a reputation as someone who is not willing to make even reasonable changes to a submitted paper. </p>\n\n<p><strong>One word of caution:</strong> it is not entirely \"safe\" to retract a paper and then submit it in the same form elsewhere. The new journal might end up picking the same referee! <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/7203/16122\">Here is a different answer</a> on this site about this exact issue. I recommend reading that entire Q & A thread, actually. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32650",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13294/"
] |
32,655 |
<p>So, I get this page's link: <a href="http://hcibib.org/perlman/question.html" rel="nofollow">User Interface Usability Evaluation with Web-Based Questionnaires</a> from my friend. I want to make one of them as Questionnaire for the design I made for Academic Research. But I'm confused, is that only an example, a guideline, or can I use the Questionnaire as it is? Is there any license for those questionnaire? I've tried to read the page, but don't really know if there's something like that.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32651,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, a reviewer can only make recommendations for revisions. The editor should make clear what changes should be made but it is still up to you if you see fit to do so. Of course, if an editor says you should make certain revisions and you do not, particularly without indicating any good reasons for not doing so, the risk is that rejection decisions may follow. From this point, you may see that providing good arguments why such revisions cannot be made are necessary. </p>\n\n<p>The fact that revisions take time is not by itself a good argument since it may mean your manuscript is currently sub-par but that is up to you to convince the editor when you submit your revisions. The revision process is in this case a sort of give and take process where any revision not made has to be clearly argued from a scientific point (not from a point of time constraints or other irrelevant aspect).</p>\n\n<p>The comment you quote seems a bit lazy on the part of the editor because I think there should be additional qualifying statements indicating if any comments are more important than others and set the review(s) in perspective. How you should decide to respond is therefore hard to judge since the editor has, at least seemingly, not provided any guidance on what needs to be done. This, unfortunately, opens for decisions in any direction. Your experience with your field, should, however, provide some guidance for what should be expected of a study such as yours and also checking the standards of the journal should add some pieces to decipher what must be done. In the end, you will need to provide feedback on the reviewers comments that allows the editor to understand the scientific reasons and ramifications of your revisions (or lack thereof).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32674,
"author": "afaust",
"author_id": 21371,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21371",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is always a good thing to imagine that at the next conference you will be having a dinner with the reviewer without knowing it. </p>\n\n<p>An alternative to running the experiments is to add a paragraph discussion about the suggested results. If they are related to the paper, it can go to the paper. If it is not, that a reasonable explanation why the certain property is not interesting to the paper should come in the rebuttal letter, along with clarification of the paper's focus.</p>\n\n<p>For example, in your paper you are examining how green the alligators are (to gather empirical evidence that <a href=\"http://books.google.com/books?id=5mUdokpAV3UC&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=All%20alligators%20have%20square-shaped%20bodies&source=bl&ots=kRA0mE4w3p&sig=YXTvta2CsTa2mGdYrgzt02VzKAc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rGt_VP3WG8qtogT92YKADg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=All%20alligators%20have%20square-shaped%20bodies&f=false\" rel=\"nofollow\">all alligators are squared bodied</a>). Your paper measures the greenness level, and the reviewer suggests you need to measure the redness as well. Now, that requires hunting down the same alligators and recollecting the data. </p>\n\n<p>You update your paper to emphasize that you examine the level of the green hue irregardless of other hues, and add possible future research direction to examine how different colors mix. In your rebuttal letter, you thank the reviewer for the suggestion for an interesting future research. State you updated paper to clarify the focus on greenness only. The redness effect is out of scope for this paper, but would make a nice extension in the future work.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32688,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>When you submit a paper to a journal, you are implicitly agreeing to make a reasonable effort to publish the paper in that journal. But you are not signing a contract that requires you will make absolutely <em>every</em> change that the referees suggest. In the end, it's your name on the paper. </p>\n\n<p>If the editor has actually <em>rejected</em> the draft (e.g. \"revise and resubmit\"), and you are not interested in sending revised work, there are few direct consequences. You only need to write an email to the editor saying that you have carefully considered the referee's reports, and that you would like to retract your submission. It is polite to acknowledge the referees at the same time, since they have spent time on your paper. But see the note of caution below!</p>\n\n<p>If the editor has <em>accepted</em> your paper (e.g. \"accepted with minor revisions\") then I would recommend making a good faith effort to revise the paper. This is what you implicitly agreed to by submitting to the journal. Of course, you do not have to make all the changes, or make them exactly how the referee wants. But you want to make a good-faith effort to address them in your own way. You don't want to cultivate a reputation as someone who is not willing to make even reasonable changes to a submitted paper. </p>\n\n<p><strong>One word of caution:</strong> it is not entirely \"safe\" to retract a paper and then submit it in the same form elsewhere. The new journal might end up picking the same referee! <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/7203/16122\">Here is a different answer</a> on this site about this exact issue. I recommend reading that entire Q & A thread, actually. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32655",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15236/"
] |
32,656 |
<p>I am a recent Ph.D. graduate in computer science.
In the last few months, I wrote a paper about an aspect of my thesis, with the collaboration of my former supervisor. We found a call for papers for a "special section" of an important journal, that is a section focused on the data set we are exploiting. The submission deadline was set to the end of November 2014, but surprisingly we just discovered that it has been post-poned to the end of March 2015, a four month delay.
I did not know if it was better to send this paper to this "special section" or to the "normal track" of the journal, so I asked here on <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32274/is-it-better-to-submit-a-paper-to-a-journal-normal-issue-or-wait-4-months-and">Academia</a>.</p>
<p>User Geoff Hutchison suggested to me to contact the editorial board and ask them if I could have all the original time schedules. That means to have all the notification and re-submission dates as they were not post-poned, except the final publication date.
It seemed reasonable to me, so I wrote to my former supervisor (who is also the co-author of the paper, even if his contribution to the project and the paper is only around ~5%).</p>
<p>He replied to me in a very <strong>ill-mannered, thwarted and angry way</strong>, stating that "writing this request to the editors may cause a lot of problems", that I am "not able to understand how lucky we are for the existence of this special section", "having the paper accepted in this special section may be the best thing that could ever happen to our our paper", that I "should focus on how to improve the paper, instead of inventing new ways to create problems", and I should "<strong>understand that the paper isn't worth much</strong>".</p>
<p><strong>What to reply back to this <em>"gentleman"</em>?</strong></p>
<p>The paper is mine, comes from the doctoral thesis of mine, from an idea that I had, and was written entirely by me. My former supervisor just reviewed and corrected it.
I am not going tolerate this disrespectful behavior, and cannot stand having a co-author that considers my paper "not worth much".</p>
<p><strong>[EDIT]</strong>: Thanks to all for your contributions. I'm asking to you all some suggestions on how to manage this situation: should I trust someone that is the co-author of my paper and thinks that the paper "isn't worth much"? In my opinion, this statement is in contrast with actually being a co-author of the paper.
How to let him know that I did not like his ill-mannered way to reply back to me, without damaging my perspective paper submission? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32660,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's hard to tell what your former supervisor is thinking from just the few out-of-context fragments you give. I think, however, that they may have some good points and that you may be reading it as much more disrespectful and confrontational than it actually is.</p>\n\n<p>From what you have written, it sounds like what's really gotten you angry is the \"isn't worth much\" statement. The unfortunate truth, however, is that with extremely rare exceptions, most individual scientific papers aren't worth much on their own. Since you are quite early in your career, each paper may seem very important to you---and a few high-impact papers can make a big difference in getting postings. In many cases, however, both impact and career are built more cumulatively from a collection of good but not world-shaking publications. </p>\n\n<p>It's not possible to judge for certain without knowing your particular research, but your former supervisor may simply be giving you an honest assessment of the likely impact of this particular piece of work. This likely doesn't say anything bad about you or the work, but is just <a href=\"http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/\">pulling back from the hyper-focus of a dissertation towards the bigger picture</a>. The same goes for the other comments you highlight.</p>\n\n<p>If it were me in your shoes, I would not be likely to read this as a set of insults to a former disciple, but rather as your former supervisor beginning to talk to you more as a peer and collaborator.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32662,
"author": "Alexandros",
"author_id": 10042,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10042",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>In the last months, I wrote a paper about an aspect of my thesis, with\n the collaboration of my former supervisor.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That means that the paper is not 100% yours. Do not add or remove co-authors on the basis if you like them or hate their guts. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Having the paper accepted in this special section may be the best\n thing that could ever happen to our our paper</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Sounds like excellent advice. Special issues are more focused, have shorter response rates and usually easier acceptance for more focused papers.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Writing this request to the editors may cause a lot of problems\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Also excellent advice. You want to contact the editors to do the review of your paper sooner just for you? This is simply stupid.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>should focus on how to improve the paper, instead of inventing new\n ways to create problems</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You have four months to improve the paper. Are you sure that it cannot be improved? Are you afraid that your competitors might publish sooner? If yes, submitting to the journal now, will not save you anyway. Could you not upload on arxiv? You should also discuss this with your advisor. </p>\n\n<p>Conclusively, cool down. As a PHD graduate and not a student anymore, you must behave always as a professional. Perhaps your paper is not that great (perhaps it is). That is not an insult - it is the sincere scientific opinion of one of your more senior peers (who contributed to your success). Do not burn bridges with your supervisor, just because he expressed his honest opinion (even if you do not agree with that).</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32656",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8234/"
] |
32,659 |
<p>So here is my situation.</p>
<p>I'm an undergraduate physics major right now (second-year) at a moderately-good university. I've experienced a bit of analysis and algebra (and almost nothing in topology, which I should change), and I like it (I do study maths on my own time - I like [complex] analysis best). However, my style and preference gears me more towards physics than anything. I've experienced working under an experimental nuclear physics group for some time now, and I love it, but it has shown me that I'm probably better suited with theoretical physics. I'm not saying that because I've proven to some people to be a genius at mathematical physics [maybe I could become one :-) ], but rather because that's where my interests seem to lie.</p>
<p>But I've noticed something. A lot of smart students here and theoretical physics professors at various universities come from a double math & physics backgrounds (a few just from math), and I was wondering whether I should go down that same path. I've avoided it so far because I felt that with the topics I've learned on my own, I've gone more in depth and personal as compared with my classmates, and so I feel that it is in my best interest to continue to do so with my math courses. Also, I feel that getting the math degree will only take up time and my full-attention from my normally planned physics track.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I feel that I could probably learn quite a few things from my math classes that I wouldn't learn otherwise. Professors already know the material they're teaching, so they typically know <strong>what</strong> to teach you. On top of that, if I wanted to enter a theoretical physics program for graduate school, I might have more of a chance of being considered with that extra degree.</p>
<p><strong>Does getting a double degree in mathematics and physics better increase your chances of being admitted to a graduate program in theoretical/mathematical physics?</strong></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32831,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Obtaining a double major is helpful but not necessary. In making your decision, consider what you would do instead of obtaining the double major. Research experience will count for more than a double major.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 56056,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yeah, you probably need to know a lot of serious math to succeed in theoretical physics.</p>\n\n<p>I wouldn't belabor the question of completing the <em>major</em>. If you know the stuff and complete the coursework it doesn't matter if you get the major or not.</p>\n\n<p>I'd suggest talking with your physics advisors about what math they think you should take and know, and combine this with what you can learn from math professors about the curriculum. You will probably want to be in the most challenging math courses (e.g. if there's an honors class or track, or a graduate version of an undergraduate course, you probably want the more advanced one.) But your physics advisor might suggest you take a subset of the rigorous math courses needed for a major, and whether you'd be better off completing the major or taking more physics courses is up to you.</p>\n\n<p>If there's a thesis requirement for a math major, that is probably less valuable to you than more research in physics.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32659",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24979/"
] |
32,663 |
<p>After sending an unsolicited email to a potential postdoc advisor, and receiving no response for a while, what is a very polite way to follow up?</p>
<p>Based on past experience lack of immediate response does not necessarily mean a lack of interest, they might just have been too busy at the time. This question is about how to best phrase the followup email to be as polite as possible, and not to seem pushy.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32664,
"author": "Emilie",
"author_id": 25030,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25030",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I've encountered this situation recently. My personal strategy has worked well on multiple occasion.</p>\n\n<p>Send back the first e-mail with a beginning similar to this (I suggest you adapt it):\nDear Dr Smith,</p>\n\n<p>I'm afraid my precedent e-mail arrived in your junk mail. Just in case, here it is again. \nThank you very much for your attention. </p>\n\n<p>Edit: I don't resend an e-mail after only a week. I usually wait 2-3 weeks...even more !</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32788,
"author": "Kelly Cooper",
"author_id": 25202,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25202",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, perhaps consider your timing. It's the end of the semester on the day you posted your question. The faculty focus is on finishing up, grading and grant reporting, etc. Next are the holidays. Then, the first two weeks of the semester are about committees, budget issues and helping students set up. There are sweet spots before midterms, mid semester, and a few weeks before finals when faculty exhale. I suggest, if you have time, week 3 of the new semester. I realize for students this sounds odd; however, when there are a lot of students/classes as professor/teacher it's important for us to finish well and it's amazing how many letters come in on everything from car problems to job offers to health issues.</p>\n\n<p>If you don't have time, here's a second strategy. I often receive reference requests that are so general/vague I have no idea where to start. When students send an \"outline\" of what they're looking for I can respond much quicker. For example, perhaps note the request, purpose, a reminder of particular projects, dates, assignments or papers in your follow up email. This sounds crass but sometimes a request comes a year or two after a class and I remember the student but not enough detail to support a recommendation. I don't need the letter written for me, I need something akin to a mind map to bring the student and course to mind in a way that adds value to the recommendation. Also, bluntly, from your course experience you probably know if the professor/teacher is organized to the level that you can count on him/her for a recommendation.</p>\n\n<p>Lastly, a few ideas for students. A couple of days before most college applications are due is less than an ideal time for ask for recommendations due to the numbers of last minute requests received. Select faculty you worked with beyond attending class who will have something to say; I often receive requests from students who chose to remain somewhat anonymous in class and I don't know them well enough to offer something insightful. Faculty have posted office hours. An ideal reference situation is when a student comes in with a single page paper noting the dates, a few details of the course and reintroduces him/herself. Then we have a chance to chat for a few minutes. In that time I \"travel\" to our work and am excited to hear about the student's potential opportunity. This lends an enthusiasm to the reference. </p>\n\n<p>I don't want this to sound like it's all about the faculty, I'm trying to nicely say you would never believe the requests that come in, I could write a post only on funny/sad/shocking email I receive every semester. There is great joy in seeing students transition to their next level of education and we're happy to write recommendations when we have the information to do so. Student consideration of timing, ideas/details provided and a referential conversation create a better opportunity for meaningful reference letters. </p>\n\n<p>This advice goes beyond post grad; however, when I advised post grad students, up until last year, many of the issues were the same and I think the approach crosses education levels.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32663",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25084/"
] |
32,675 |
<p>I defended my thesis last year and was granted MS degree. After that my advisor pressurized me to work more with him and write papers. I refused after some time and my relationship with him became sour. Can this cause any problem in the future such as thesis being taken away. Note that there is no dishonesty in my thesis at all, but there are some weak areas.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32677,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Once a degree has been conferred, it is exceedingly difficult to retract at without clear evidence of misconduct. Having a souring of relations with your advisor definitely does not rise to the level where you should have to worry about your degree being revoked. It is definitely worth mending your relationship with your former advisor just on professional grounds, but the \"safety\" of your degree shouldn't be one of them.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32681,
"author": "Wrzlprmft",
"author_id": 7734,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7734",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As Aeismail already said, you would have to have commited some serious misconduct for your degree to be revoked (at least in any reasonable academic and legal system). And even then, the proceedings for doing so will cost your supervisor quite some time and effort.</p>\n\n<p>Most importantly, however, it’s almost impossible for your supervisor to revoke your thesis without shooting himself in the foot:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If there is any lack of quality in your thesis, the reviewers should have noticed. And the main reviewer usually is your supervisor.</li>\n<li>Misconducts that are not directly obvious from the finished thesis such as plagiarism, rigged data or employing a ghostwriter are much more difficult to perform under proper supervision. Thus making a corresponding accusation against you will almost certainly lead to allegations of improper supervision against your supervisor.</li>\n<li>Revoking your thesis causes some noise that also reaches potential future students of your supervisor, moreover if you stir that noise up and have good arguments against the revocation. These students will think twice about choosing your supervisor as a supervisor, which will almost certainly not make up for the damage of a few papers not written by you. It may very well destroy his workgroup.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Finally, these points would also apply to a second reviewer to some extent, which gives that person good reasons to work against allegations against your thesis.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32675",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25092/"
] |
32,676 |
<p>I frequently receive brief, usually confirmatory e-mails (such as <em>"Can do. Best"</em> in response to a request for a letter of recommendation) from academics with considerably less time than myself.</p>
<p>Each time this happens, I am very indecisive about whether the nuisance caused by responding -- and adding an e-mail with essentially no information, such as <em>"Many thanks; this means a lot to me! All the best"</em> to their inbox -- really weighs more heavily than the risk of being perceived as ungrateful.</p>
<p>Any thoughts, ideally from the referee's perspective are greatly appreciated!</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32678,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>My own busy-person email triage has three tiers:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>No response needed = near-zero cost</li>\n<li>Minimal response needed = minimal cost</li>\n<li>Response with significant thought and care needed = significant context-switching cost</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>A brief \"thank you\" email would go into category #1: no bother or burden, but noticed and appreciated all the same. In other words, send the email: it's not a significant nuisance, and it's nice to be appreciated.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32719,
"author": "David Z",
"author_id": 236,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/236",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To me, <em>any</em> email takes some amount of time to process. If I were to send something so short as \"Can do. Best\" (NB I wouldn't, but if I did) then I wouldn't be expecting a response, and in fact if I got one, to be honest, I would consider it a waste of time. Don't get me wrong, I'd appreciate the sentiment, and I wouldn't be <em>offended</em>, but I'd consider such an email wholly unnecessary and more distracting than it's worth. After all, what's the alternative - that you're <em>not</em> thankful? I think I can safely assume that, unless you're actually an all-around horrible person, that is not the case.</p>\n\n<p>Contrasting this with jakebeal's answer, I think the only <em>general</em> conclusion you can draw is that depending on the person you're emailing, a \"thanks\" email in response to a short message of acknowledgement may be appreciated at best and somewhat inconvenient at worst, but it's unlikely to <em>seriously</em> bother anyone.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 98826,
"author": "cag51",
"author_id": 79875,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79875",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To me it depends on how well I know you.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><strong>If I know you very well</strong>, then we are probably exchanging e-mails frequently. In this case, the continuous streams of gratitude are a distraction and may even seem sycophantic. </li>\n<li><strong>If I know you somewhat well</strong>, and have already formed an opinion of you (presumably a good one, if I'm willing to do something for which you are thankful), then either way is fine, and everyone's preference will be different. Personally, I'd rather receive the \"thanks!\" mail only for really significant favors and omit them otherwise.</li>\n<li><strong>If I do not know you well</strong>, especially if our only contact was for you to request the favor, then I'd probably appreciate the \"thanks!\" mail, as I would have no other way of knowing that you appreciated the effort.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Given that you're requesting a LoR, you are probably in the second group, which is maybe why the answers are so mixed. In this case, my personal strategy would be to send a detailed \"thank you\" mail (or even a small gift) after all the letters are submitted, but I would not continuously thank them after every correspondence.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32676",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25093/"
] |
32,685 |
<p>I am preparing a paper in the field of Computer Science.</p>
<p>In order to report test results, we usually run a number of tests and report the average of those tests.</p>
<p>For each test, we generate random data.</p>
<p>Because of the randomness, at some points, the results may come out not as expected.</p>
<p>For instance, a graph may be like:
<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/sxlcG.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
<p>Usually, one should explain why on points 8, 11 and 12 there is a decrease on the plot.
Probably, it is because of that randomness.</p>
<p>Not hand-crafting all the graph, but just manipulating a few points makes the graph acceptable:
<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/U2KuJ.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
<p>Since three weeks or so, I work my ass off and try to figure out why my resulting graph looks like the first one. Sometimes I feel like yielding to temptation and just modify the raw data before I go crazy.</p>
<p>I believe, at this point the title became misleading, so let me make it clear:</p>
<p>I am not seeking an advice on data manipulation. I will not manipulate my data. However, I ask to myself "how the hell this can be detected?"</p>
<p>And now, I don't only ask to myself, but to whole community. How is this detected? For editors, referees out there, have you ever detected something like this?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32687,
"author": "Cape Code",
"author_id": 10643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The image manipulations reported on Retraction Watch are most of the time naive collages of gel photographs or spectrograms. They get caught, among other things, because repeating patterns in the noise appear on closer inspection, or linear disruption of the noise are visible, see <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/27345/10643\">this</a>.</p>\n\n<p>For 1D data, the case you mention, there is the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Benford's law</a> and other statistical tests that can indicate potential manipulation of data. It usually relies on human beings preferring certain digits over others, even unconsciously, thus generating data that has a non-random variability.</p>\n\n<p>Also, many journals ask for graphs to be submitted in vector format, which means you are actually sending the data points, and not just a rendered figure. Things like editing out a few data points to smooth a curve will be apparent. </p>\n\n<p>Now, to the best of my knowledge publishers and, even less so, reviewers don't systematically screen for these things, they only do so if they have suspicions, because the scientific publishing process is based on good faith. But if the paper gets any sort of attention it will get caught by post publication review.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Don't fabricate/manipulate data.</strong> It's adding unwanted noise to an already noisy signal, it's dishonest towards your coworkers, the people who fund you, the publisher and the readership, and it will ruin your career.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32689,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First of all, don't do it.</p>\n\n<p>You probably wouldn't be detected, because peer review isn't generally hunting for subtle data manipulation. Methods like those the answer by CapeCode could be applied, but even then a small number of data points like you are showing would not likely produce a terribly conclusive indication of dishonesty. But it will be in the literature forever, and you never know...</p>\n\n<p>But really, that doesn't matter. Whether or not you get detected, <em>you</em> will certainly still know you that you lied. You'll be voluntarily throwing out the one thing that nobody can take from you: your integrity. Will it stop there, or will you do it again, the next time something's not quite perfect? How much of your work will be tainted? Pretty much all of us researchers struggle with <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome\">impostor syndrome</a>, but if you go down this path, you'll know it's true. Do you really want to live that way?</p>\n\n<p>Not only that, but you will have lied and compromised yourself over something really stupid, just to make a graph a little bit prettier. If you have real results, they will stand, even with noise. If the noise is big enough to actually be a problem, then that's not a problem, that's an opportunity. As the quote attributed to Asimov goes: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka” but “That’s funny...”</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>A lot of important emergent phenomena in computer science get discovered that way as well. If you lie, not only are you compromising your integrity and risking total damnation if it ever gets discovered, but you are also cutting off the possibility that you might stumble over something more important than what you were doing at first.</p>\n\n<p>In short: don't do it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32692,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Why not run the experiment enough times so that you can produce your plot with error bars on the points? This will make it possible for the reader to understand how much random variation there is in the measurements.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32694,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Cape Code <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32687/11365\">pointed out</a> that in fields that involve use of gel photographs or spectrograms, sloppy image manipulation can be detected by experienced readers.</p>\n\n<p>In other fields, data can be flagged as possibly fraudulent for being \"too perfect.\" For example, here is the <a href=\"http://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-store/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">abstract of a report</a> that led to the investigation of a social psychology researcher:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Here we analyze results from three recent papers (2009, 2011, 2012) by Dr. Jens Förster from the Psychology Department of the University of Amsterdam. These papers report 40 experiments involving a total of 2284 participants (2242 of which were undergraduates). We apply an F test based on descriptive statistics to test for linearity of means across three levels of the experimental design. Results show that in the vast majority of the 42 independent samples so analyzed, means are unusually close to a linear trend. Combined left-tailed probabilities are 0.000000008, 0.0000004, and 0.000000006, for the three papers, respectively. The combined left-tailed p-value of the entire set is p= 1.96 * 10-21, which corresponds to finding such consistent results (or more consistent results) in one out of 508 trillion (508,000,000,000,000,000,000). Such a level of linearity is extremely unlikely to have arisen from standard sampling. We also found overly consistent results across independent replications in two of the papers. As a control group, we analyze the linearity of results in 10 papers by other authors in the same area. These papers differ strongly from those by Dr. Förster in terms of linearity of effects and the effect sizes. We also note that none of the 2284 participants showed any missing data, dropped out during data collection, or expressed awareness of the deceit used in the experiment, which is atypical for psychological experiments. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This report is obviously the result of some non-trivial effort. But some of the symptoms described (exceptionally good fit, no experiment participants dropping out, atypically large effect sizes) can raise alarms for any experienced, diligent reviewer, possibly leading to a more formal investigation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32752,
"author": "Relaxed",
"author_id": 11596,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11596",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Others have provided useful input but I am not sure they completely addressed the “How can editors and reviewers detect data manipulation?” question.</p>\n\n<p>The simple answer is that mostly, <strong>they can't and they don't</strong>, certainly not in fields where researchers don't routinely share code, raw data, photographs and the like but only statistical tests or basic plots. If you are really sloppy, you might end up with incoherent numbers that could not possibly have been produced by the analysis you claim to have done (I have seen things like that) but more subtle manipulation is not so easy to detect.</p>\n\n<p>There are a few fascinating techniques to detect bogus data (including but not limited to Benford's law) but very few people actually have the expertise required and reviewers do not routinely check for that. In most cases, such an analysis can give you a strong presumption but no solid proof. Some famous data sets have been thoroughly analyzed without reaching a consensus (e.g. Cyril Burt's work on intelligence and heredity).</p>\n\n<p>If you look at some of the high profile cases of fraud exposed in recent years (Jens Förster but also Diederik Stapel or Dirk Smeesters), they were mostly found out after many many fraudulent publications and not always because there was anything suspicious about these publications. The more “greedy” the fraudster is, the clearer the pattern becomes and some people might have had private misgivings at some stage but the fraud is only exposed later, usually after someone blew the whistle and not because a reviewer noticed it.</p>\n\n<p>You can look at this as a glass half full (fraud is eventually detected) or half empty (How could it go on for so long? How many others are out there?) but the fact is that it's only in the aggregate that the results look suspicious, not at the level of a single graph or article.</p>\n\n<p>Not that I advocate doing that, of course. Ethically, it's clearly wrong and the cases I just mentioned show that you can get found out in other ways and face very serious consequences. But reviewers and editors usually can't detect fraud directly, that's not how the systems works.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32753,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At the point at which you only have the figure, or the underlying processed data, you cannot detect \"well crafted\" manipulation. One aspect of reproducible research, which is becoming more popular, requires that others be able to reproduce the data. This means making code available, describing hardware in sufficient detail, and also proving things like seeds and states of random number generators. This allows reviewers to recreate your data and then test how sensitive they are to slight perturbations.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32685",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15949/"
] |
32,700 |
<p>Many of the professors and lecturers I come across are very critical of Wikipedia, but they never give proper support for their claims of "Wikipedia is bullshit!". And they threaten "Do not use Wikipedia if you want to pass!", and they mean it seriously.</p>
<p>It is true that "any Tom, Dick and Harry can edit it", but it is also true that Wikipedia takes a lot of effort to add in citations. </p>
<p>I do understand why we should not cite Wikipedia directly, instead go for the primary sources, but many do not even allow Wikipedia as a introduction to a subject matter. If I tell them "I read from Wikipedia that..." I get dismissed immediately, yet in online forums we use it like a Bible.</p>
<p>What is the real reason Wikipedia is perceived negatively among many professors, even for informal use (e.g. as an introduction to a subject)?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32701,
"author": "Stephan Kolassa",
"author_id": 4140,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4140",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?q=wikipedia+inaccuracies+examples\" rel=\"noreferrer\">A little googling</a> turns up <a href=\"http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/education/2010/march/The-Top-10-Reasons-Students-Cannot-Cite-or-Rely-on-Wikipedia.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">this list of reasons</a>. I think you don’t need to agree with the author’s obvious agenda to take it seriously. A selective citation of a couple of points I personally think are most valid:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<ol start=\"9\">\n<li>You especially can’t rely on something when you don’t even know who wrote it.</li>\n</ol>\n<p> </p>\n<ol start=\"8\">\n<li>The contributor with an agenda often prevails.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>...</p>\n<p>In March 2009, Irish student Shane Fitzgerald, who was conducting\nresearch on the Internet and globalization of information, posted a\nfake quotation on the Wikipedia article about recently deceased French\ncomposer Maurice Jarre. Due to the fact that the quote was not\nattributed to a reliable source, it was removed several times by\neditors, but Fitzgerald continued re-posting it until it was allowed\nto remain.</p>\n<p>Fitzgerald was startled to learn that several major newspapers picked\nup the quote and published it in obituaries...</p>\n<ol start=\"6\">\n<li>Sometimes “vandals” create malicious entries that go uncorrected for months.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>...</p>\n<p>For example, John Seigenthaler, a former assistant to Robert Kennedy,\nwas falsely implicated in the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers\non his Wikipedia biography for a period of more than 100 days without\nhis knowledge.</p>\n<p>And finally, the number one reason you can't cite or rely on\nWikipedia:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>It says so on Wikipedia.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>Wikipedia says, <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ten_things_you_may_not_know_about_Wikipedia\" rel=\"noreferrer\">“We do not expect you to trust\nus.”</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Given the composition of academe, I wouldn’t say their point 5 (“There is little diversity among editors”) really is an argument against Wikipedia in a contest with “standard” academia.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32702,
"author": "Amstell",
"author_id": 24782,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24782",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think the primary reason professors don't want students to use Wikipedia is because <em>a lot</em> of students only quote Wikipedia instead of actually researching a topic. </p>\n\n<p>The great thing about Wikipedia is it can give you a general idea about a topic and offer a starting point to dig in deeper. However, students can be lazy and instead of digging in themselves, they take the easy route and just reference Wikipedia. This is obviously not the point of Wikipedia and research, and I can understand the need to announce on day one to <em>not</em> reference Wikipedia.</p>\n\n<p>However, the reference and bibliography sections of Wikipedia is the real gold mine and could be a great starting point for any research topic. This is what I see as a pure advantage of Wikipedia and what professors should also say on day one.</p>\n\n<p>For example, suppose I'm interested in Financial Economies, so I do a quick google search. First hit : <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_economics\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_economics</a></p>\n\n<p>Great discussion of the discipline, vague descriptions of risk, graphs, and financial pricing theory. But the real gold mine is in the reference and bibliographic section. There are references for financial economics, asset pricing, and corporate finance, which a great starting point for looking further into topics. The links point me further into a direction I'm interested in from very famous authors. </p>\n\n<p>I can understand the question as a student and I think it's the professors responsibility to explain how <em>not</em> to use Wikipedia and how <em>to</em> use Wikipedia.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32703,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>A small sidenote to start things off:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If I tell them \"I read from Wikipedia that...\" I get dismissed immediately, yet in online forums we use it like a Bible.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Well, one of the reasons for that is that \"I read in Wikipedia\" is almost synonymous with \"I have exactly 5 minutes worth of knowledge on the topic\". The problem here really isn't the fact that you read Wikipedia, but that citing from it implies that you have read <em>nothing else</em> on the topic. If I am an expert in whatever field, I would probably not take a concern from somebody who implies that all his knowledge comes from a few-minute Internet recherché very seriously, either (no matter what source (s)he actually found). Also, which online forums \"use it like a Bible\"? Most that I hang around at are <em>very</em> critical of Wikipedia quotes, mostly for the reason I stated above - arguing based on a Wikipedia entry does not exactly establish creds as a person knowledgeable about the subject.</p>\n\n<p>Now, let's discuss the real question here:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>What is the real reason Wikipedia is perceived negatively among many professors, even for informal use (e.g. as an introduction to a subject)?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><em>(note that the question is specifically about using Wikipedia as an introduction to a subject, not as a primary, citable source)</em></p>\n\n<p>Honestly? It is probably a combination of feeling threatened, reluctance to embrace change, and lack of knowledge how Wikipedia articles <em>actually</em> evolve over time. </p>\n\n<p>\"Feeling threatened\" in the sense that Wikipedia is kind of decentralising knowledge compilation, which is of course not necessarily something that makes academics (the people that used to be more or less the definition of \"compiled knowledge\" in pre-internet times) very comfortable.</p>\n\n<p>\"Reluctance to embrace change\" in the sense that Wikipedia is (in comparison to text books or lectures) a very new (and radically different) way to get an introduction to a topic, and most humans tend to be sceptical of this kind of disruptive technology.</p>\n\n<p>\"Lack of knowledge\" in the sense that many critical academics simply have not taken the time to study how (especially popular) Wikipedia articles actually evolve over time. I am convinced many would be positively surprised if they knew how well quality control in Wikipedia actually works in practice. I remember that in 2004, c't (a well-known German magazine widely read by IT professionals) ran <a href=\"https://www.heise.de/artikel-archiv/ct/2004/21/132_Wissenswettstreit\">an experiment</a> where they took random articles out of various encyclopaedias, anonymised them so that one could not tell the source anymore, and had domain experts compare them to anonymised Wikipedia articles for quality and technical errors. Wikipedia was consistently rated higher-quality than even well-respected standard encyclopaedias. That being said, I assume that the average quality of Wikipedia articles degrades a lot for entries on more esoteric topics, so I actually agree that for deeply scientific topics, one should be somewhat skeptical of Wikipedia, just as one would be about any other single source.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, I have to say that I know <em>many</em> professors that don't have a problem with using Wikipedia as a starting point for your review of a subject. However, if you write, for instance, an seminar paper, <em>you are expected to read the primary sources</em> (and I fully agree with this).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32705,
"author": "BrenBarn",
"author_id": 9041,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9041",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To be frank, I think that people who take that sort of hard-line stance against ever learning anything from Wikipedia have simply lost their heads. I don't mean that they are crazy, just that they are making an irrational decision (although there may be understandable reasons why they make it).</p>\n\n<p>In some cases it is a desperate, overcompensating attempt to get people to not use <em>only</em> Wikipedia (which, as you acknowledge, is a problematic practice). Like a jilted lover who, to protect his fragile heart, vows never to date another artist no matter what, a weary professor may adopt a blanket anti-Wikipedia stance simply due to having their heart broken too many times by papers that are based solely on Wikipedia.</p>\n\n<p>In some cases it stems from an ivory-tower mentality that rejects anything that is not a product of the academic in-crowd. In some cases this is augmented by a generalized fear that things like Wikipedia will make original research (or perhaps highly paid tenure-track jobs) obsolete. In some cases, perhaps related, it stems from an out-of-touch ignorance of what is actually available on Wikipedia; some people may have heard that Wikipedia has issues, and not want to put in the effort to actually check how accurate its information is in their field, so they just proscribe it altogether.</p>\n\n<p>Whatever the reason, though, the solution is the same: keep reading Wikipedia, and learning what you can, and remaining alert enough to not accept it as gospel, because nothing is. If your professor doesn't like it, just don't tell him you read it on Wikipedia. (You can follow up on the sources in a Wikipedia article and then mention those instead.) Academic journal articles are not unsullied by speculations, skewed viewpoints, and logical gaps. Getting information anywhere is fine as long as you know the limitations of the source. You can <em>begin</em> to learn great things from the back of a cereal box, if it happens to clue you into something you had no previous knowledge of.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32708,
"author": "Alex",
"author_id": 25116,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25116",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This kind of attitude match quite well the behaviour when a disruptive technology enters the scene and challenges old institutions: The role of the new technology is not completely clear, there is insecurity in how to handle it, it's misused and some people get defensive and aggressive while others have a more positive view, embrace the changing environment and tries to make things fit together. </p>\n\n<p>It will gradually be resolved when a better understanding of the role of the new technology emerges: Exactly what its benefits and disadvantages are and how it can complement the current system.</p>\n\n<p>In the case of academics and wikipedia, I place my money on a wider appreciation of the fact that there are several methods to acquire information, with their own benefits and disadvantages, and that wikipedia in reality has a high reliability for most topics on a basic level and that it's a very efficient way to traverse different subjects and to gain a good but basic birds-eye view of a subject.</p>\n\n<p>And to clarify, of course wikipedia is not for original research (well, obviously except research about wikipedia itself). It's <em>generally</em> a good way (efficient: Time is capital) to traverse the crude domain of a subject (see the references to research about this in the other answers here), but less suitable for more in-depth research. Right tool for the right job.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32711,
"author": "A.Schulz",
"author_id": 1467,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1467",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Being a Wikipedia contributor myself I would not like to see my students cite wikipedia, though I would not say that such citations should be forbidden. Here are a few reasons for this:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it does not contain original research and topics are not covered with great depth (for example in Wikipedia proofs for mathematical statements are not relevant in most cases). I would find it equally bizarre if students would cite the Encyclopedia Britannica. </li>\n<li>Wikipedia article contain more errors than an average textbook. Especially articles of not so popular topics contain wrong statements. I discover this often (more on the German Wikipedia than on the English). Of course you might say that this is just my personal impression, but I would guess that the professors you mention had similar experiences.</li>\n<li>At the university you should learn how to write about academic research. Honestly, I haven't seen a single scientific paper citing Wikipedia as a source. </li>\n<li><p>Although everything that is written on Wikipedia should have a source - let's face it - many statements are just claims without a citation. </p></li>\n<li><p>Wikipedia is dynamic - even more than other online sources. Pages can change dramatically over time, so if you cite you better add the <em>access time</em>.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Let me add that I think that Wikipedia is a great source of information for scientists. I just don't think it's the best source for citations.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32712,
"author": "J...",
"author_id": 20760,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20760",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The very fact that you need to ask this question, in a way, provides its own answer. </p>\n\n<p>One of the primary functions of academia is to teach the skills of research. There are two aspects to this, both critical; first, being able to find what work has been done by others and, second, to do new work yourself. Without the ability to effectively do the former you risk wasting time repeating pre-existing work when it comes to the latter.</p>\n\n<p>Now, for non-academics, Wikipedia has rapidly become a catch-all, sole source, and generally fantastic one-stop shop for information. While this is well and good for casual use, it nevertheless provides an enormous disincentive to acquiring and practicing those critical skills of research that <strong>you will need</strong> if you intend to continue to pursue a career in academia.</p>\n\n<p>My feeling is that most professors are, even if subconsciously, objecting to Wikipedia for this reason above all others. It feels wrong to them because it is a shortcut -- a cheat that puts a stop to a student's research effort before it even begins. In their own careers they have a deep appreciation for the need of strong research skills and, likewise, an appreciation for the need to teach those skills to students. </p>\n\n<p>If Wikipedia ceased to exist at this very moment, ask yourself the question - <em>\"Where would I find information, and how would I go about doing it?\"</em> </p>\n\n<p>In the world of academic research, this is the situation you find yourself in - beyond a certain level, Wikipedia will <strong>not</strong> have the answers you are looking for and you will need to have developed more advanced research skills to find them. </p>\n\n<p>By artificially outlawing Wikipedia, professors are attempting to simulate what the real academic world is like - one where the answers are not already known and easily accessed; one where you, the researcher, are tasked with needing to know how to effectively dig deeper to answer questions for yourself. </p>\n\n<p>The critical thing to realize is that higher education is not like primary school anymore. The error you are making is in thinking that an assignment about topic-X is chiefly intended to populate your brain with information about topic-X and that the most effective means of getting information about topic-X into your brain is the best solution to the problem.</p>\n\n<p><strong>This is wrong.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Topic-X is largely irrelevant. The real task is to teach you <em>the skills you require to find information about any topic</em>. Topic-X is simply a convenient and concrete sample of a topic on which to learn and practice those skills. That the information on Topic-X is readily available on Wikipedia is merely a reflection of the fact that, as a junior academic and undergrad, you simply (at the moment) lack the technical education necessary to be given a more advanced \"practice\" topic to research - one that would not be so readily found on Wikipedia. </p>\n\n<p>Nevertheless, the professor's objection to Wikipedia is for a very clear reason - it is entirely counterproductive to their primary (and probably unstated) objective of getting you to exercise and develop <em>real</em> research skills.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Consider the broader context.</strong></p>\n\n<p>From a slightly different perspective, in a lot of ways Wikipedia has really raised the bar. If you are a university student and you are working towards a degree in a subject then it bears considering what that means. If any joe public can look something up on Wikipedia with the most minimal amount of effort then what does that mean for you? </p>\n\n<p>Surely an academic degree needs to be something much more than a certificate proving that you know how to type <em>\"X\"</em> into a wikipedia search box. A child of 6 can do that these days - if you're looking to gain a serious academic qualification then you really need to be going above and beyond what has become this most basic level of ability to research information.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32717,
"author": "Patricia Shanahan",
"author_id": 10220,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10220",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The question notes the difference between on-line use of Wikipedia and academic use. I think the two situations can be very different.</p>\n\n<p>I do use Wikipedia links in answering questions on StackOverflow, but would not use it as a reference in an academic paper, even a coursework paper. I see two major differences:</p>\n\n<p>When writing an academic paper I can assume my readers have just as good library access as I have, and have at least as good paper-reading skills. If I can access and understand a paper, they can also access and understand it. I don't make that assumption for people asking e.g. basic algorithm questions on SO. </p>\n\n<p>A Wikipedia link in an SO answer is just background information that I could write out in the answer at the cost of making it too long. A reference in an academic paper may be general background, but is often intended to demonstrate peer-reviewed support for some statement.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32729,
"author": "Don",
"author_id": 25138,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25138",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As an adjunct professor teaching a classroom-based introductory statistics course, I'm not critical of wikipedia at all. You have to be careful, of course, and check the information on wikipedia against information in the textbook or other reliable sources. But having said that, wikipedia can be very useful to clarify something that may be causing confusion, or provide a slightly different perspective that might help to increase understanding. I'm in favor of anything that helps students learn the subject, and wikipedia can definitely be useful in that respect.</p>\n\n<p>It would be different if I were teaching a graduate-level course that requires research and access to original work. But for an introductory course, there's nothing wrong with wikipedia.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32743,
"author": "Noah Snyder",
"author_id": 25,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>On the one hand, Wikipedia is one of the greatest accomplishments of human civilization. Never before has so much knowledge been so easily accessible to so many people. It is one of the wonders of our world. On the other hand, this means that if you want to do anything yourself you need to add value beyond what's in wikipedia which everyone else has access to anyway. Wikipedia is the new bare minimum of common knowledge, and so you should assume your reader already has access to wikipedia and anything you write needs to say something that's not already available on wikipedia or else it is worthless (not because wikipedia is worthless, but because you haven't added any value beyond wikipedia so the reader might as well just read wikipedia instead).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32812,
"author": "Patric Hartmann",
"author_id": 20449,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20449",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I, as a lecturer, use Wikipedia often when I need a quick introduction to a certain topic. Mostly when I decide on which texts my students shall read for a seminar, I start on Wikipedia. There you have great summaries of many important works. A wiki research can, of course, also turn out to be completely useless - but in most cases I still saved time: Reading through hundreds of books and magazines again to find out that a certain text doesn't fit my needs, costs me much more time.</p>\n\n<p>Anyway, I never would cite from there and neither would I let cite my students from there. But that also has to do with me generally being against online-citation. It's simply not reliable. Websites can disappear or be changed at any time without leaving a trace of the old state. Not so books and magazines: Older editions are still available when newer ones are printed, so you can always go back and, if the information was wrong, figure out how the mistake could have happened.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32822,
"author": "Vietnhi Phuvan",
"author_id": 25233,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25233",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Wikipedia is really crowd sourced knowledge. I learned much from looking things up on Wikipedia but it would be imprudent to rely on Wikipedia as THE sole source of knowledge, just as in centuries past, it was imprudent to rely on the Bible as THE source of knowledge - You just don't want to depend upon a single source of information.</p>\n\n<p>Professors may love references but these references may be biased themselves. I wouldn't be surprised that some of the emperors who have been recorded as evil may actually have been good people, and vice versa.</p>\n\n<p>The blunt fact is that every source of information has its limitations and using it comes with its own liabilities.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32910,
"author": "DA.",
"author_id": 12869,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12869",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Good professors just don't want you to be lazy. They'd like to see you push your 'research muscles' beyond the first google result.</p>\n\n<p>Pre-wikipedia this was true as well. Rarely could you get away with citing Encyclopedia Britannica as your primary source--or citing Cliff's Notes in your english paper. </p>\n\n<p>These days, if you treat wikipedia as your 'card catalog' you'll be better off. Use it as a jumping off point for your research. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 34242,
"author": "h22",
"author_id": 10920,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10920",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Encyclopedia of any kind is not an appropriate learning material for a student as it is way too shallow. </p>\n\n<p>Specialized literature (textbooks, review articles) usually contains much more information that may not be essential for minimal understanding but is supposed to be known by professionals. </p>\n\n<p>This is not a criticism of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is actually very good. Good as it is, it is not sufficient to get a professional knowledge. There is probably no obvious harm from reading it, just not enough.</p>\n\n<p>There is a certain type of the scientific literature - \"scientific popular\", educational material published in popular non-scientific journals, etc, to read by wide range of people, for entertainment. While such texts are generally correct (also professors frequently write them), they are not used in student education and also never cited in any serious scientific work. Too shallow.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 83072,
"author": "Pete Forsyth",
"author_id": 67485,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/67485",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>\"Casual use\" of Wikipedia can mean any number of different things, for instance:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://wikistrategies.net/tying-it-all-together%20%22%22\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Scaffolding</a> your understanding of a topic, while forming an idea of what authoritative sources to seek out</li>\n<li>Correcting a typo</li>\n<li>Creating & submitting a graphic to augment an article, as practice in creating graphics for academic texts</li>\n<li>Seeking to remind oneself about a concept one already knows but has forgotten</li>\n<li>etc. etc.\nSome of those might be illegitimate (just as some uses of citations in highly respected peer reviewed journals can be illegitimate), but some are perfectly reasonable, and well-vetted in the academic world.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>To be blunt, any professor who decries any casual use of Wikipedia is telling you more about their own biases, than they are telling you about Wikipedia.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32700",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21326/"
] |
32,704 |
<p>Of course it is not a good idea, preferably one would meet up with the professor to make the agreement.</p>
<p>In my case, I've talked to the prof for a year, and then went off work for a year, now I need a recommendation letter. In September I emailed him my situation WITH the invitation for a meet up at his office. He told me he is willing to provide a reference, but did not address the meeting up issue.</p>
<p>Now it is close to application deadline and I've yet to received the letter from him despite a few follow ups. I'm worried it is the reason is that I did not meet up with him so he might have forgotten who I was (which is understandable). I will attempt to email him once more with a more urgent tone, perhaps he will respond this time, but should I also invite him again to a meet up or is it too late?</p>
<p>Any profs care to share their ideas?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32706,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is it possible to acquire a LOR without having a face to face meet up/agreement?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes, of course. It happens all the time. People are not always geographically co-located with their letter writers.</p>\n\n<p>If you are worried your professor might not remember who you are without a face-to-face meeting, then the major concern is whether he will be able to write a strong letter for someone he barely remembers without a visual reminder - not whether you have met to discuss the letter in person. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32707,
"author": "Amstell",
"author_id": 24782,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24782",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are within driving distance, I would suggest trying to meet the professor at their office hours and show up with a resume and a letter explaining your purpose for whatever you are planning on pursuing. By doing this, you can get in front of them and show urgency in the letter. This is a very common tale, and you are certainly not alone. Be appreciative of the LOR, but also be firm in the need for it. Offering coffee is always an option too.</p>\n\n<p>Hope this helps.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32727,
"author": "Bob Brown",
"author_id": 16183,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16183",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I write letters all the time for students I've taught, but whom I haven't seen for a long period. I do ask for specific information:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Tell me what the deadline is!</strong></li>\n<li>Include your student number.</li>\n<li>Remind me which of my classes you have taken, and when.</li>\n<li>How did you distinguish yourself in those classes?</li>\n<li>How would you describe yourself? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? I am going to have to answer those questions when I write your reference, so the more details the better. I have to have personal knowledge of anything I write, so remind me of those things I may have forgotten.</li>\n<li>What are some of your academic and nonacademic accomplishments that I may not know about?</li>\n<li>Tell why you're particularly qualified for the job, educational program, or award you're applying for.</li>\n<li>What makes <em>me</em> particularly qualified to write a letter for you? That is, why should the recipient of the letter value it over a letter from someone else?</li>\n<li>Include a copy of your application essay.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Put that stuff together, write the professor a note saying, \"As the deadline of [whenever it is] is approaching, I thought the following material might help you. Thank you again for agreeing to write a recommendation.\"</p>\n\n<p>The professor who has that material to hand can complete a letter in a much shorter time than if it all had to be looked up and remembered. People (that would be me) tend to do the easy things before the hard things. Make this one an easy thing!</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32704",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20070/"
] |
32,709 |
<p>I submitted my research paper in journal X on 7th July, 2014. Journal sent me one thanks email immediately. After that I waited for one month for any response from editor but nothing came from editor side.</p>
<p>Than I submitted my paper in other journal Y. My paper was accepted in that Journal and sent for review from editor side.</p>
<p>At 30 August, 2014 I received one acceptance email from the editor or journal X that my paper has accepted and I was asked to submit publication fee of 90$. But I could not reply this email due to busy schedule and I was also not interested to publish my paper in journal X. After that I could not receive any email or revision or anything from this journal X.</p>
<p>I continued to work with journal Y, modify paper according to reviewer comments, sign copyright agreement and now paper is in publication phase.</p>
<p>Yesterday, by chance I open my Google scholar account and find paper that was published in journal X to whom I was not interested and who was demanding 90$. When I checked the online paper, I was astonished that the journal published my paper in its July issue and date of publication was 1st July, even I send this paper on 7th July and journal X notify me about acceptance and fee payment on 30th August.</p>
<p>How its happened that Journal X published my paper without my consent and published it in back dates. Now what I should do because the same paper is in final publication phase in journal Y to whom I have signed copyright agreement also. Please guide me tell me any forum to raise voice against that journal X. Because I send many emails to editor of journal X but receiving no reply from editor side. Any penalty or any other thing which I can do. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32713,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The fault here is <strong>yours.</strong></p>\n\n<p>You should <strong>never</strong> have the same paper be submitted in two different journals at the same time. This is an absolute rule that protects both you as an author and the journal as the publisher from duplication of effort, as well as avoiding situations like this.</p>\n\n<p>If you had wanted to stop the publication in journal X, then you should have sent them a letter <strong>clearly retracting</strong> your submission. This would have ended the process at journal X, and allowed you to submit the paper to journal Y with a clear conscience.</p>\n\n<p>Now, however, since the paper has been published by journal X, you are stuck. If journal Y publishes your paper, you will have the same article published in two different journals, which is also a violation of ethical standards, and could lead to <em>both</em> copies being retracted by the publisher. So, unfortunately, you are stuck paying the fees to the journal X, and the work you've done to improve the paper with journal Y is now \"lost\" to the literature.</p>\n\n<p>As has also been pointed out, journal X appears to be quite sketchy, and I would avoid any future contact or involvement with them. But for now, consider this a lesson learned for the future.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32714,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am sorry to say that you have ended up in a tricky situation totally on your own, and apparent lack of understanding of publishing. What you need to do? On the face of it the paper is accepted for publication in X and you need to withdraw the paper from Y.</p>\n\n<p>Your description contains so many twists where you have seemingly dug yourself deeper that your best outcome is to learn from the mistakes and go on.</p>\n\n<p>Some pointers:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>You should never send papers to a journal where you really do not want to publish, or, I do not see the point of sending papers to a journal where you do not wish to publish</p></li>\n<li><p>You should never send papers to more than one journal at a time. If the first choice rejects your paper, it is ok to pass it onto another</p></li>\n<li><p>If you send a paper to a journal that charges for publication, there is no excuse not to follow up on those charges. Yo have essentially agreed to paying by submitting.</p></li>\n<li><p>Your own time crunches is solely your problem. If you cannot answer E-mails or other correspondence in time, the world will not stop and wait for you.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So regardless of how you dislike journal X you have put yourself in a situation where you may have to accept the fact that the paper is with X and because of that Y should not be able to publish it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32725,
"author": "Elchin",
"author_id": 25134,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25134",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I can't believe how everyone is blaming the OP. </p>\n\n<p>Since you clearly did not sign an agreement with the journal X, I think you should talk to the lawyer and sue them. Laws may change from country to country regarding this, however it seems quite illegal to me that they demand $90 from you for something you did not agree for.</p>\n\n<p>Does your university have a legal department to deal with such cases?</p>\n\n<p>EDIT: I clearly understand that it's OP's fault to submit into 2 journals. However I clearly see 2 distinct issues here: 1. The OP unethically submitted to 2 journals. 2. Unethical Journal X supposedly published without the OP's agreement, as OP himself stated.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32780,
"author": "Trevor Wilson",
"author_id": 8937,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8937",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You ask what to do with journal X, but I think it is more important to do the correct thing with journal Y first.</p>\n\n<p>You should reread the copyright agreement that you signed for journal Y and see if you misrepresented the status of your work. (Typically when one signs these agreements one is representing that the work in question has not been published before and is not under submission at any other journal.) If so, you should immediately inform journal Y of your mistake and of the true publication status of your work!</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32709",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25119/"
] |
32,720 |
<p>I would be interested to know the differences between peer reviewed journals and refereed journals in these aspects:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Conditions for the acceptance of papers for publications.</p></li>
<li><p>The time length of paper stage after submission.</p></li>
<li><p>Amount payable by authors.</p></li>
</ol>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32721,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>To expand on Yuichiro Fujiwara's comment, \"peer review\" and \"refereeing\" are exact synonyms, and no differences at all are implied by the names. For historical reasons, some fields are more likely to use one term than the other (for example, mathematicians talk more often about refereeing than peer review). Publishing practices also differ between fields in other ways, such as the length of the reviewing process. There might be a weak correlation with the use of terms like peer review and refereeing, since both issues are heavily influenced by which field you are looking at. However, I'd bet that any correlations are small, and in any case this is not a productive way to investigate journal differences (since knowing the field would tell you enormously more than just knowing which term the journal uses for peer review).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32742,
"author": "David Mulder",
"author_id": 11353,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11353",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I could be mistaken, but the correlation that I believed to exist was that refereeing was common in fields where works where fully self contained. E.g. with mathematics you do not need to additional research to (in)validate a work, as long as the steps are correct the conclusion is correct. Contrast this to a field like medicine where you would need to redo all the experiments as well to truly 'referee' a result, whilst peer review 'simply' means somebody went over your work and gauged it's reliability.</p>\n\n<p>Now, I could well be mistaken and it's <em>definitely</em> not a clear cut line, but that seemed to be the general trend I observed. Then again, I don't know that great a number of fields that use the term 'refereed' over 'peer-reviewed' in the first place, so I could well be mistaken.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32720",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24870/"
] |
32,723 |
<p>There is an effort at my university to promote "research integrated teaching" [<a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Reshaping_the_University.html" rel="nofollow">Barnett, 2005</a>; <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07294360600792889" rel="nofollow">Robertson, 2006</a>] which got me thinking about the topic. I generally make an effort to discuss research problems and recent results when they fit with the material we're covering in a course, but it occurs to me that this is a very passive approach.</p>
<p>I'm interested in developing more active or creative ways that research work and teaching efforts can be combined to benefit the quality of teaching without negatively impacting research. Are there any approaches that have shown to be particularly effective?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32734,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>An experience that worked out well in my past: in grad school as a TA, I helped to create an \"intensive\" section of the main introductory artificial intelligence course. Students who opted into the intensive section did two projects and got 25% more units of course credit.</p>\n\n<p>For each project, the students had two options, an \"applied\" option and a \"research\" option, each on something highly topical. The research options were always restricted-scope versions of academic research problems that the professor and/or TAs were actually involved in. This was a nice motivator for students, since they could see how what they were doing related to a real scientific problem.\nThe applied option was similarly relevant to industrial R&D. For example, the machine learning project's applied option was typically to build a spam filter against whatever turned up in that year's \"wild-harvested\" corpus. Students met with their TAs multiple times got guidance while working on the project, and were coached on how to produce a good technical report at the end.</p>\n\n<p>These projects also gave a nice path to getting talented and interested students involved in research as undergraduates. We made a point of reaching out to students whose projects were particularly good and offering to help get them connected with undergraduate research opportunities. Many ended up working joining the professor's research group, and many others joined research groups of other professors where we helped make introductions. A large fraction of those went on to grad school, and at least some to faculty positions (though I don't think anybody ever did a proper quantitative assessment). In effect, doing a \"trial run\" of working on research-style projects in class both helped students discover interest in research that they might not have realized, and also helped reduce the risk for professors to take them on afterwards.</p>\n\n<p>The main challenges in doing this were:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>selecting appropriately scoped projects, complex and interesting enough to give the students a taste of research, but not requiring deep background or more than a few dozen hours of work, and</li>\n<li>making sure TAs were sufficiently advanced as grad students to be able to coach the students well.</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37679,
"author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX",
"author_id": 725,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my field (chemistry, Germany) the Master courses usually include research practica. The topics are usually posted by PhD students and postdocs and are side-issues of their research. These practica are actually part of the regular schedule for the studies, they lead up to the research work for the final thesis. </p>\n\n<p>The <strong>big advantage</strong> of this is that the students learn how to do research. Actually, I don't see how they should be able to their final thesis (which is always research) without ever having done this before. </p>\n\n<p>In my experience the <strong>most dangerous pitfall</strong> here is to expect that the student will be productive in the sense that after the student worked a few months, they have more scientific output than their supervisor would have produced in the time they invested in teaching/supervising the student. This almost never happens*. It helps to recall that the practicum is part of the <em>teaching</em> to the practicum supervising PhD student/postdoc, the PhD student's supervisor and to the head of the practicum (who'd often argue that the students help their supervisors as there's usually rather a surplus of students than a surplus of projects). </p>\n\n<p>As @jakebeal says, the <strong>advantage for the supervisor/TA (or their group)</strong> is that this is a great way to find good and motivated students. And <strong>for the students</strong> it is a great way of finding a group they want to join for their final thesis and also a possibility to find a sub-field they are interested in.</p>\n\n<p>* unless the student is assigned slave work instead of learning how to do research.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32723",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22520/"
] |
32,735 |
<p>So I am completing the application for UCSB, and they ask me to write a Personal Achievements/Contributions Statement, however, I feel I have nothing to say, since I have never experienced anything like examples they give. So what should be talked about in this kind of essay except examples they give?</p>
<p>Here is what on their application:</p>
<blockquote>
<h3>Personal Achievements/Contributions Statement</h3>
<p>UC Santa Barbara is interested in a diverse and inclusive graduate student population. Please describe any aspects of your personal background, accomplishments, or achievements that you feel are important in evaluating your application for graduate study.</p>
<p>For example, please describe if you have experienced economic challenges in achieving higher education, such as being financially responsible for family members or dependents, having to work significant hours during undergraduate schooling or coming from a family background of limited income.</p>
<p>Please describe if you have any unusual or varied life experiences that might contribute to the diversity of the graduate group, such as fluency in other languages, experience living in bicultural communities, academic research interests focusing on cultural, societal, or educational problems as they affect underserved segments of society, or evidence of an intention to use the graduate degree toward serving disadvantaged individuals or populations.</p>
</blockquote>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 148447,
"author": "Robert Wm Ruedisueli",
"author_id": 71178,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71178",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's pretty likely you've experienced a lot more diversity than you realize. Consider:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Have you always been surrounded by people sharing the same ethnic majority as you?</li>\n<li>Have you ever experienced another culture beyond simply eating at taco bell and panda express?</li>\n<li>Have you ever spent time learning about a friend's culture? This includes European cultures like Irish, French, Italian, German, Polish, etc. (I only named the major ones for condensation.) </li>\n<li>Have you ever helped with social justice causes beyond being a follower in slacktivism? </li>\n<li>Have you ever stood up for someone who was being treated unfairly due to being different be it a disabled person, a minority person or a LBGT person? </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Let me give an example of four things I would identify with myself that could be mentioned in this section:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>I am half Lithuanian and keep many of the traditions in question, especially regarding food, which is valued in my culture, alive. </li>\n<li>I have Autism and have both suffered discrimination myself, and have fought to end discrimination.</li>\n<li>I have friends who are trans and/or gay and fight for their rights. I have strong empathy for this particular group due to the fact that they too are expected to hide who they are.</li>\n<li>I am a strong believer on solidarity political theory and have strongly pushed to assert it over convention Identity Politics.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Depending on what I would feel the place in question would expect, depends which of these I would include.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 148455,
"author": "Max",
"author_id": 108215,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/108215",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I agree with the other answerer in that some self-examination will probably yield many ways in which you have overcome adversity or worked to support others from diverse backgrounds.</p>\n\n<p>But here's another angle that's worth considering: <strong>Why does the university require a diversity statement in the first place?</strong> You'll encounter many forms of diversity at a large, public university like UCSB, where there is a substantial population of international students, federal student aid recipients, students with family/work obligations, and so on, and the school wants to know <strong>how you expect to integrate into the diverse community at the target university</strong> and <strong>how you believe interacting with a diverse student population will help you grow</strong> in your career and as a person. </p>\n\n<p>Therefore, you don't have to \"be\" diverse (how can any individual be diverse?) to help foster a diverse, inclusive campus climate. I found this <a href=\"http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~ewu/files/job/diversity.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">diversity statement from a faculty application</a> written by an Asian American to be very successful, even though the author makes no mention of his personal background, focusing instead on the things he has done to support diverse students and explaining why he thinks diversity is a good thing: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I believe that diversity is fundamentally the relationship between a community’s distribution along a multitude of dimensions (e.g., physical traits, interests, cultures) and that of of the general population. I am strongly in favor of a diverse community that samples broadly from the general population. From a selfish perspective, it lets me learn from a variety of different, strange, and interesting people. From a larger perspective, it creates a robust community that is immune to \"jumping on the band-wagon\", and, as the UC diversity statement notes, it is \"the source of innovative ideas and creative accomplishments\".</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In a case like yours, I would recommend <strong>being honest about your blind spots and expressing your interest in learning more</strong> about people from other backgrounds. What was it like to grow up and attend college within a homogeneous community? What challenges do you expect to face as you transition to the target university, and how will you overcome them? What are the characteristics of the university's community that attract you to studying there? Bonus points if you can name specific student organizations, courses, or other features of the university that align with these goals.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>On the flip side, it's worth pointing out that writing a diversity statement isn't necessarily any easier for those who are from \"diverse\" backgrounds. A diversity statement that simply enumerates one's demographic characteristics without reflecting on the meaning and importance of diversity can ring hollow. And there is a danger in invoking <a href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2016/06/10/how-write-effective-diversity-statement-essay\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">false parallels</a>, i.e. assuming \"Because I am from marginalized community X, I understand the challenges faced by those from marginalized community Y.\"</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32735",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24425/"
] |
32,738 |
<p>I am reading a paper which discussing the change in a specific idea in a field of science over time. I would like to basically summarize the points in the paper but in a smaller fashion by taking some quotes and explaining how they relate to my situation. </p>
<p>For instance, in the paper I am reading the author said "in 2002, Stanley and Miikkulainen [SM02b] argued that the topology of a neural network also affects their functionality" where the tag [SM02b] is a reference to a entry in the author's bibliography. </p>
<p>Is it sufficient to only cite the author of the paper, or do I need to cite both the author of the paper and the author of the paper the author cited in the paper? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32740,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>This will all become much clearer if you shift your perspective away from paraphrasing and towards giving a context for your own work. Start by pretending that the other paper doesn't exist, and asking: \"What does the reader of <em>my</em> work need to know about this concept?\"</p>\n\n<p>When you know that, and you know what level of detail you want to go into, then you can look to the other paper (and other things as well, I hope!) as a source of information to help you build your discussion of the context of your work.</p>\n\n<p>A useful phrase at this point is: \"A thorough discussion of [subject] can be found in [review paper].\" Then you can explain your view of the material, which the reader will understand is heavily influenced by the nice review paper you've just cited. In digesting the review to produce your own explanation, you will need to choose what <em>you</em> think are the important points for understanding the context of your work, and the key references supporting those points will be the ones that you should cite: as these references are the ones that were important for <em>your</em> understanding, so too should they be for your readers.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32761,
"author": "earthling",
"author_id": 2692,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While jakebeal's answer is a fine answer, I wanted to add that there is actual accepted format in some referencing system. For example, in Harvard Reverencing, your paper would contain (here is where you would actually shorten it down as you desire):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Stanley and Miikkulainen (2002, cited in Smith, 2014) argued that the topology of a neural network also affects their functionality</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This way you are saying that you did not read the paper by Stanley and Miikkulainen but you are giving the original authors credit, while still providing a source for your understanding, which the reader might want to check.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32990,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The suggestions by earthling and jakebeal are sound advice. I want to add, risking to provide an answer that actually is not answering the question that there is a caveat to citing material without checking the sources. When you do not check the original source you run the risk of propagating errors. You do not know if the way in which a particular source is correctly made and you may find that your take home from a paper is not the same as the source from where you were thinking of citing it. You should therefore, as much as possible, avoid to cite sources that involve also taking other author's interpretation of the original results or conclusions.</p>\n\n<p>This may see like a minor point but errors that are propagated this way can become very destructive. In some cases errors like this may become\"truths\" that are very hard to correct. So while you can cite a source by as <em>ref1 cited in ref2</em> you should make every effort to avoid it.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 63029,
"author": "Tommi",
"author_id": 13017,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13017",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This is an answer by Electricman in the comments.</p>\n\n<p>I remember that my professor had told me not to use the citation of one paper in separate to increase your references. Also, he told me this is a plagiarism if I do so. So what I did was so simple, I read those citations and wrote the literature review based on my understating.</p>\n\n<p>But I guess you want to know if you can cite only the main paper, so the answer is: of course you can. Even it is better add, you should only cite the main paper. But be aware that the main paper should be in a famous peer reviewed journal.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32738",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25149/"
] |
32,739 |
<p>I have recently started as a postdoc at a well-regarded foreign university. I like the place and I have no particular problems with my professor (even though his style isn't exactly to my taste, but I could live with that and take the difference as a learning opportunity).</p>
<p>However, I have a major problem with my fellow postdocs and other junior colleagues. I get the feeling they're just too full of themselves -- but whatever the reason, the situation is that I simply want nothing to do with them. Given that our research group is the only group at the department whose research I could plausibly participate in at the moment, this leaves me with practically no opportunities for fruitful daily scientific interaction.</p>
<p>I'd like to return to my home country after a couple of years of postdoc positions abroad, so I'm feeling some pressure to get the most of my time. I have often heard that the most valuable thing you get out of postdoc positions is the contacts you make. If this is the case, I'm probably wasting my time at my current job. On the other hand, my current institution has much more resources, scientific activities and opportunities to meet distinguished visiting researchers than pretty much any place else I might get to.</p>
<p>So the question is: what should I prioritize when deciding whether to continue at my current job? Is it worth tolerating intolerable colleagues for the opportunity of working at a prestigious and well-endowed university?</p>
<p>I'm sure a recommendation from my current professor would weigh a lot when looking for the next job, but I'm also quite sure I haven't been able to prove myself to him yet.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>(Copied from an answer posted below by the original poster:)</em></p>
<p>I was deliberately vague about the nature of my issues with my colleagues, but I do understand it's relevant.</p>
<p>Of course, it might be just culture shock, as someone suggested. On the other hand, I do feel there's a very unpleasant group dynamic in my research group.</p>
<p>We're conducting research on the beetles of Borneo. I used to be in a group that studies the beetles of New Guinea, and we often have guests who study the beetles of Java or even some other island. But the general atmosphere among my colleagues is that only Borneoan beetles are worth studying. My earlier work is considered definitely useless and irrelevant - and this was also told me explicitly, right after I had presented my work.</p>
<p>The professor seems to share the attitude in some respects, but he's old and experienced enough to understand that even though he might himself care only about the beetles of Borneo, others might still care more about beetles elsewhere. My junior colleagues just think that if it isn't Borneo, it's bullshit.</p>
<p>If I isolate myself, I will have problems learning about Borneo. If I try to learn about Borneo from my colleagues, I'll have to endure constant putdowns of my own interests and earlier work.</p>
<p>(To anyone who actually studies beetles: I'm sorry for using you as an example.)</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32748,
"author": "Anonymous Physicist",
"author_id": 13240,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Even if you have a good postdoc, you should keep an eye out for one that is even better. However, if you stay in your current position less than a year you may be viewed as unreliable by future employers. (US perspective)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32749,
"author": "Nobody",
"author_id": 546,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>I have often heard that the most valuable thing you get out of postdoc positions is the contacts you make. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I always thought the most valuable thing you get out of postdoc positions is the research experience and the research papers. The contacts/connections would be the by-products after you conduct quality research.</p>\n\n<p>You said <em>\"I'm also quite sure I haven't been able to prove myself to him yet.\"</em>. If you leave now, you wasted all the efforts you spent to apply for your current postdoc job and the time you spent on the job so far <strong>only</strong> because you don't like your colleagues?</p>\n\n<p>I understand you are at a well-regarded <strong>foreign</strong> university. My guess is that many of your colleagues came from different cultures/locations than yours. That's probably why you feel that they are intolerable.</p>\n\n<p>My advice: <strong>concentrate</strong> on your research (which is your job). Work with your professor and those colleagues if needed. Do your best.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Edit</strong> after the OP put in some more details:</p>\n\n<p>Your example sounds like you are in the wrong group in the sense of research direction. I don't quite understand why you went there in the first place. But, you are there now. I would try to stay there for a while if I were you. I would <strong>collaborate</strong> with my colleagues. I would learn beetles of Borneo from them. I would show them why beetles of New Guinea are also worth studying. I'll do my best. If it still doesn't work out after a while, then I'll quit and find another postdoc job, the right one this time.</p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32739",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25150/"
] |
32,744 |
<p>I was doing a PhD in a different subject and that was going nowhere and I lost interest in everything that I was doing. But I always loved mathematics and during the dark days of my 3rd of my (former) PhD. I happened to meet some exceptional theoretical CS people who encouraged me a lot. One of them got me as a TA and I am starting afresh in this new field. </p>
<p>How optimistic should I be about a career ahead? </p>
<p>I want to be a researcher/faculty. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 32746,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>How much do my career prospects suffer if I start a mathematics/CS PhD. at the age of 27?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Not at all. 27 is not considered \"old\" by any stretch of the imagination.</p>\n\n<p>Also see <a href=\"https://mathoverflow.net/a/60004\">this answer on MathOverflow</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24577/i-want-to-do-research-but-im-too-old-for-a-phd\">this question here on Academia about a PhD student who is <em>actually</em> unusually old</a>. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32763,
"author": "SimpleMan",
"author_id": 9019,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9019",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You're not alone and you're not old. I started my PhD when I was 25, hated it after 1.5 years, actually found out what I fancy doing, applied for a PhD in that field and I'm starting that PhD next month. Losing 1-2 years is way better than spending 3+ years in a field that you don't like (moreover, you're likely to perform below your potential since, well, you don't like that first field. Imagine what you can accomplish in a field you actually feel excited about).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32764,
"author": "dislexicmofo",
"author_id": 25178,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25178",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As some people have stated before, 27 is not really that old to be in continuing education. I work with a colleague at GTRI who is just starting a Math PhD at 27 so its not as unusual as you would think. I think it would really depend on which industry you are involved in or plan on being involved in. </p>\n\n<p>If you like/want to run in startup scene than the time you spend earning a PhD may not serve you as well as trying to get involved with an incubator program. </p>\n\n<p>If you are in industry, but not doing R&D, than you may not need a PhD either. Most CS is not at the PhD level, even when technically advanced.</p>\n\n<p>If you are working for a research lab affiliated with a university, or working with a company that does/funds PhD level research programs in Computer Science, than go for it. Especially if you are going to be working while you are enrolled, many people roll their career work into their research project.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 32770,
"author": "afaust",
"author_id": 21371,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21371",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Suffered compared to what? What is the alternative? </p>\n\n<p>If the alternative is completing your current program that appears to be going noowhere, how long will it take you to complete that? And, given that in your words you have no passion for it, how good that research would be?</p>\n\n<p>If the alternative is dropping out of PhD program? Well, your odds of becoming a faculty with no PhD are zero. </p>\n\n<p>Take what you can from your current field, and go where your passion is. It is 30 years career ahead of you. By already working on a PhD, you learned basics how to do research, write papers, etc... The fields will be different, but you still have a head start. And whatever your other field was, you will bring a new, fresh perspective to your new field. </p>\n"
}
] |
2014/12/05
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32744",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25154/"
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.