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35,167 |
<p>Is it of any value to mention a course one is following on www.coursera.org, in a SOP?</p>
<p>For instance, if I have a Bachelor of Computer Science and want to apply for a Geoinformatics Master program, would it help my application at all to mention that I am currently following a Geoinformatics course on coursera.org to get familiar with the field?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35168,
"author": "Florian D'Souza",
"author_id": 26958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I don't think it would necessarily hurt your application. However, if you have a limited number of words for your SOP, I think a better use of space would be to explain why exactly you want to obtain a degree in geoinformatics. Your Master's coursework will give you all the background (and probably more) that you need in the field, so it might be better to explain your motivation behind applying for the degree in the first place. Of course, if the Coursera course was a primary driver in your decision, that is highly relevant and should be mentioned.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35286,
"author": "user3550416",
"author_id": 26840,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26840",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm familiar with a couple of the geospatial-themed MOOCs offered by coursera. Mentioning in your statement that you're following the class would show initiative and a genuine interest in the subject (good things in grad school). However, I would emphasize on mentioning the topics or areas of GIS or geospatial computing that during the MOOC caught your attention, rather than just stating that you signed up and followed the class. If you completed the MOOC and earned a statement of accomplishment, I'd certainly mention it as well. </p>\n\n<p>P.S. I'm currently in academia and working as a geospatial professional. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35167",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26860/"
] |
35,170 |
<p>I am currently a postdoc at a research university. I had originally intended to stay at my postdoc for two years, and this was the understanding I had with my postdoc adviser.</p>
<p>However, I decided to speculatively apply for a few faculty jobs, intending to defer any offers for a year. I have now obtained a faculty job offer to start at the end of one year of my postdoc.</p>
<p>After much reflection, I believe that it is better for my family life not to ask for a deferral and to start the faculty job earlier.
In the event that I take the faculty job offer,
I still intend to continue and finish the research work
which I have started with my postdoc adviser,
so I will not be hurting my adviser by starting but not finishing my postdoc work.</p>
<p><strong>Question:</strong> Do I have an ethical obligation to stay at my postdoc for two years, because that was my initial plan and was what I told my postdoc adviser?
Should I expect him to be understanding when I choose what is best for my family? </p>
<p>The following timeline may explain the sequence of events more clearly:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>March 2014</strong> I was applying for postdocs, and I told my potential postdoc advisor that I was intending to stay for two years at the university if he were to give me an offer.</li>
<li><strong>April 2014</strong> I was hired with a one-year contract starting August 2014. My adviser explains that there is a good chance my contract will be renewed at the end of the year.</li>
<li><strong>Sept 2014</strong> I decide to apply opportunistically for a few faculty positions just in case I can get a good offer, and intend to ask for a deferral, so that I would only start my faculty job in August 2016.
I told my postdoc adviser that I was applying opportunistically only for a few jobs,
and that if I got a job offer, I would ask for a deferral.</li>
<li><strong>Jan 2015</strong> I get a faculty job offer to start in August 2015.
By this time I changed my mind and feel that starting in 2015 is better for me and my family.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Additional relevant details:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>My research area is applied mathematics,
so the only requirements for my research are
a decent computer and an Internet connection.
I can collaborate productively with my postdoc adviser effectively
even if I am not physically in the same location as he is.</li>
<li>I did tell my postdoc adviser that I received a job offer.
However, my postdoc contract has not yet been renewed for the second year,
and we have not yet had a conversation about when to renew the contract.</li>
</ul>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35177,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Congrats on getting a tenure track position! </p>\n\n<p>You are not the first person to whom this has happened. Of course, there may be specific circumstances that make the early departure more difficult - say, if you are the only person who can operate a certain instrument in a lab. But people do leave post-docs early, from time to time - it's not at all unheard of. And, if you applied opportunistically, you probably have a job that you are happy to take. </p>\n\n<p>My advice is to break the news to your advisor as soon as possible - once you have made the decision to accept the offer. Your current institution might still be able to find a replacement for next year, which would be good for them. If you reflect on it, it's hard to see real advantages of telling your advisor <em>later</em>. And there is a good chance they will be happy for you that you got a tenure track position. </p>\n\n<p>Remember that you will still be in touch your advisor professionally, so you want to try to keep the relationship on the best terms that you can.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35185,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This answer is undoubtedly affected by the fact that I'm in pure mathematics and can do my research even without postdocs (unlike people in experimental sciences who may need postdocs to keep their labs functioning properly). If one of my postdocs gets a tenure-track offer, at a good place, before the end of the scheduled postdoc period, I could not in good conscience try to get them to stay as a postdoc. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35193,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my experience, most academic contracts last for a single academic year. For instance, I am a tenured (associate) professor, but I still sign yearly academic contracts. Postdocs are often offered with an \"expectation\" of N years, and the expected value here depends on the institution. </p>\n\n<p>In my opinion there is no dishonor in leaving any academic job after the current academic year contract expires (and before signing another yearly contract). In some cases you will be missed if you leave: that's just part of the situation. I have multiple graduate students and am scheduled to teach several classes next year, more than one of which would probably be cancelled if I couldn't teach it. If I wanted to leave my job next year, I most certainly could. It would be honorable to take an active role in covering for my own departure, but it is not strictly necessary. Presidents of entire universities often give less than one full year's notice of their departure: that's just the situation.</p>\n\n<p>When it comes to postdocs: a postdoc is by definition a temporary job. Those who supervise postdocs want (or should want) nothing more than to have their postdocs eventually land a suitable permanent job. In my department (mathematics, UGA), when a postdoc leaves early it is a bit sad to see them go, but we definitely view it as a success story.</p>\n\n<p>A postdoc who is doing key research on a PI's project may be more like a tenure-track faculty member in the \"weight\" of their leaving, but I don't see how that changes anything fundamentally. If a postdoc is doing something so valuable on a project that someone else can't be trained to do it over a period of months, then something is wrong: that's a PI-level of indispensability. (In fact postdocs should be <em>assuming</em> that they will depart in the relatively near future and start training others as soon as they have the skills themselves.) There is no doubt that a postdoc has a legal right to leave at the end of the academic year. Any PI who would not be able to deal with that one way or another in the face of a permanent job is someone that I would distance myself from all the sooner.</p>\n\n<p>Anyway, the OP's particular case is the best possible one: <strong>the OP doesn't have a solid offer from his institution for the next year's employment</strong>. So the OP can leave: case closed. If the institution actually regrets his leaving then there's a real lesson there: don't string valuable personnel along on serial year-long offers. You can't have it both ways.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35292,
"author": "Jon Custer",
"author_id": 15477,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15477",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Congratulations on your new position. </p>\n\n<p>In the research group I manage, I make it as clear as I can that the job of a post-doc is to get a job. We will do everything we can in terms of having good, well structured projects to enable that, but the post-docs should always be thinking about getting a real job. If somebody is good enough to go get a real offer in the first year, well, we probably got a lot of good work out of them, they moved the projects along nicely, and we have an opportunity to go find another post-doc. Also, we hope we have made a new friend in the research community that we can collaborate with (and get good post-docs from in the future). More power to them, and to you. </p>\n\n<p>Don't agonize, take the position, make sure you get publications out on whatever you haven't finished up, and go out and do great things.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 143624,
"author": "Max Gottlieb",
"author_id": 108452,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/108452",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Actually, you are not being fair to your advisor. They might have actually turned someone away because they preferred you. That person unlike you might have actually honored their promise to stay 2 years. Defer for a year, and keep your promise. Otherwise, why should anyone trust you to ever keep commitments?</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35170",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27308/"
] |
35,172 |
<p>For example, if I am going to apply to 3 REU programs that ask me for 2 recommendation letters each one. </p>
<p>Can my 2 professors who I asked the recommendation letters send the exact same letters to the 3 REU programs?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35173,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, they can. Sometimes letter writers make minor changes to the letters, for example to add information specific to a given program, but this sort of fine tuning is optional (and almost nobody makes major changes). The default is to send the same letter.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35181,
"author": "Florian D'Souza",
"author_id": 26958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, they can send the exact same letter. In fact, trying to come up with a new letter for each individual program can be overly burdensome. </p>\n\n<p>I would, however, make sure that your letter writers either make no specific mention to the individual programs or make sure they change them appropriately. If one of your letters to program X says \"This student would make a fantastic addition to program Y,\" then a reviewer at program X might be turned off to your application. I don't think it's as bad as mentioning program Y in your SOP (where you have complete control of what is said) to program X, but it's an error to be avoided if possible.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35172",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27242/"
] |
35,187 |
<p>I know people say in Europe (say in Computer Science) a PhD normally takes three to four years. My concern is: is there no way to know the number of years in advance? Is it not something I can "agree" with the supervisors before hand how long it will take? Exactly? Not approximately, rather exactly. In other words are three year long phd programs common?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35189,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<h2><strong>Almost certainly not.</strong></h2>\n\n<p>Even in programs where the PhD research phase is supposed to have a defined length (for instance, when students receive a fellowship to cover their work for a certain period of time), it is not possible to guarantee that the PhD program will actually be completed in a certain period of time.</p>\n\n<p>It <em>can</em> be possible to finish; however, without knowing how well a student will perform in advance, advisors can only estimate how long a PhD program will take. There is simply <strong>no way</strong> to guarantee in advance how long your student will need to finish her program. The main issue that we have is that research is inherently unpredictable, and if things don't work out right, it's difficult to say people can finish.</p>\n\n<p>We can try to work with a student to <em>plan</em> to finish in a certain period of time, but we wouldn't try to guarantee that until the middle of the student's PhD progress.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35205,
"author": "keshlam",
"author_id": 10225,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10225",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If anyone knew in advance how long it would take to produce meaningful research results, it wouldn't be research worthy of a PhD Adding something worthwhile to human knowledge takes as long as it takes, and is subject to variation either because candidate capabilities vary or because unexpected problems arise. It is entirely possible that the research project fails entirely due to a basic flaw, and does so in a way which is not itself publishable, in which case you get to try again from the beginning.</p>\n\n<p>Remember, even a BS degree sometimes runs over the nominal four years, and that should be much more predictable. (My BS thesis missed the due date by three days. And I should probably have dropped a few classes (and in retrospect should have changed majors slightly, which could have extended things.) PhD is, by design and intention, a larger and less predictable commitment.</p>\n\n<p>You can probably find a school which <em>will</em> absolutely graduate in three years with a PhD... if you don't care that nobody else in the academic or business communities will respect that as a real PhD. </p>\n\n<p>Your plans should allow for these possibilities. If you can't tolerate that risk, you may want to think again about whether you really want the PhD. </p>\n\n<p>And, in fact, that's an important question: Why are you looking for this specific degree? It sounds like you're not patient/dedicated enough for this kind of research to be your career, so perhaps you should be looking at other paths such as engineering. For that purpose, an MS -- or a second MS -- might serve you better. </p>\n\n<p>For that matter, even in academia there are fields where an MS is considered a \"terminal degree\" and -- together with some real-world experience -- would make you a suitable candidate for professorship. I know someone who's been looking at \"Professor of Practice\" positions, which are exactly this. </p>\n\n<p>Take a step back, ask yourself whether you really want to earn a PhD or only to have earned it. If the latter, you probably aren't a good candidate for any respectable program.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35215,
"author": "Piotr Migdal",
"author_id": 49,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In many places there is an limit after which you stop receiving funding (in Europe typically 4 years).</p>\n\n<p>You can ask what are official PhD times and what are typical (usually: longer).</p>\n\n<p>It is a great idea to talk in advance when it comes to advisor's expectations (e.g. how many papers and in journals of which rank) and expected time span. But at best, he can give you a honest estimate (perhaps: lower limit).</p>\n\n<p>He cannot guarantee that you will do it at all, much less - in a given timeframe.</p>\n\n<p>Yet, it is certainly possible to set a time and act accordingly. It may be wise to set it 6-12 month before the final deadline, as delays are rather a norm than an exception. So, if you want a contract which is de facto for 4 years, in many place it is doable.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35218,
"author": "Nick",
"author_id": 27349,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27349",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I concur with the answers to the negative above. However, I would like to mention that most (+80%) of those who get their PhDs don't discover anything of value during their studies. This percentage may be somewhat lower at the more prestigious universities but is still well above 50%. So getting your PhD is mostly the result of you convincing your supervisor (and the committee) that you made the effort and learned something in the process. I got mine in less than 3 years and while I still managed to get a publication past the peer review I don't think Computer Science is any better as result of it. And while my uni is not prestigious I also happen to know similar cases (less than 3 years with modest or even non existing publication record) at top universities. So, nobody would expect miracles from you. At least, most supervisors wouldn't. </p>\n\n<p>You have to be, however, very careful when choosing a supervisor. A supervisor can make or break a PhD. I know some who treated their students as rubbish and some who were father figures of sorts. So the quality of support varies drastically <em>within the same university</em> - and, again, this applies to top universities, too. I would advise you to talk to students of your prospective supervisor and find out how happy they are.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35231,
"author": "rumtscho",
"author_id": 103,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/103",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think you have the hidden assumption that a Ph.D. \"program\" is similar to a Master's \"program\". This is a very dangerous assumption, which is not true at all, and can cost you a lot of time if you don't \"get\" it quickly. </p>\n\n<p>As a Master student (or similar degree), you are presented with knowledge somebody has compiled for you, and asked to learn it, as many people before you have done. At the end, you are given a well defined task of modest dimensions and difficulty, which is related to a possible job to the field you are majoring in. It's not a research level task, it's more of a task of the type which is typically solved by a professional in your field. And your supervisor knows how it should be solved, and can guide you if you are stuck. In the end, you finish it, document it, and this is your master thesis. </p>\n\n<p>A Ph.D. position is a job position as a researcher (at least in Europe - I think it involves some credit taking in the USA). You are doing original research. You have to first find a topic which is interesting enough for the research community to get published, Goldilock-dimensioned so that the answers are not trivial but can hopefully be found in a reasonable amount of time, and fits with your supervisor's interests. Then you start finding the answers to your research questions. <strong>You are hampered by two things: 1) You have never done research before, so you are learning by doing, and 2) Nobody has ever found the answers to these questions before, so neither you nor anybody else can tell you how long it will take.</strong> Your supervisor will only be able to help so much. </p>\n\n<p>The bottom line is that, if you manage to do very little mistakes, and also work overtime to correct the mistakes you've made, you'll just about manage in 3 years. If it takes you longer to figure out how to produce good research, and/or you don't work overtime, it will take you longer. And you will make mistakes. Most prospective Ph.D.s spend their time from 6 to 23 learning how to learn efficiently - but this skill is very different (although a prerequisite for) the skill of doing research efficiently. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35234,
"author": "Benoît Kloeckner",
"author_id": 946,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In France there is a relatively strong policy of enforcing a fixed time frame for PhD theses, at least in STEM (things are very different in different fields, notably humanities tend to have longer PhD studies). The official duration of the PhD is 3 years, as in most Europe (the LMD system has uniformized that), and in many university a PhD student and her advisor will have to ask for a derogation <em>and</em> find additional funding in order to be allowed a fourth year. So, in principle it is possible to start a PhD with a three-year time frame planned, and it should in fact be the norm (but see below).</p>\n\n<p>The above fact will probably astonish other answerers, as one in principle cannot pledge to find new pieces of knowledge in any given amount of time. I therefore feel it necessary to make a few observation about this before going on.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Please have a look at your last grant proposal before claiming that no one can pledge to make a significant discovery in a given amount of time.</p></li>\n<li><p>There are two points of view on PhD duration: either we decide what is worth a PhD and have PhD students continue until they meet that standard or quit or are sacked; or we decide how much time should be spend for a PhD thesis and at the end of that time, depending on what was achieved it is decided to award the PhD or not (with the possibility that the PhD is awarded but with reports that make it clearly insufficient to continue in academia, a common event in my experience). Both points of view are conventions, none is intrinsically <em>the good one</em>. It happens that France has mostly the second point of view, with the provisio that derogations for a fourth year is pretty common, and even without it many applicants only defend a few month after taking another job (many European post-docs can be started before the PhD is awarded, provided it is close enough to completion).</p></li>\n<li><p>These considerations are strongly field-dependent. Fields where researchers work on large teams can in principle (but see below) more easily have PhD student participate in projects whose completion in the next years make little doubts, while still having them learn how to do research. Some fields may be richer in subjects with low competition and high chance of success than others, etc.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>However, I know from a very close relative that even making it clear at the beginning that a three-year long PhD is strongly wanted by the applicant, and even a clearly and definitely stated agreement by the advisor may not be sufficient to have your advisor really doing her best to make it happen¹. In experimental fields in particular, PhD students are close to free labor for the teams getting them, so it is a strong temptation to have them stay another year to have a stronger paper, and it is very difficult for a PhD candidate to measure by herself whether she has a case for defending earlier. In other words, my conclusion is even worse than that of other answers: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>you should not consider a three-year PhD granted <strong>even if such a promise is made to you.</strong> </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>To end in a slightly more positive word, one of the key point is, as mentioned by another answerer, to choose your advisor wisely; in your case, this includes having a look at how long her former PhD students needed to defend, an information not always easy to track down.</p>\n\n<p>¹ Which would include: assess honestly the difficulty and uncertainty of the proposed subject, giving access to tech help and helpful kits when time comes short, be available in a timely fashion for helping writing papers, accepting completion of a lesser, still publishable paper instead of a better paper that would take much more time to complete, etc.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35279,
"author": "Robert Buchholz",
"author_id": 19905,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19905",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Judging from your comments on some of the answers, you did not ask the question you want answered. Your actual question seems to be:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I am not willing to spent more than three years in a PhD program abroad. It there a way to guarantee that I will obtain the degree in that time?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The answer is: No, there is not even a way to <strong>guarantee</strong> you'll get a PhD <strong>worth having</strong> at all!</p>\n\n<p>Here's the basic concept behind the PhD degree: A PhD certifies that you have <strong>demonstrated the ability to conduct independent research that produced new results</strong>. And the duration to produce new results is inherently unknowable. It may take you one year, three years, or you may not be good enough to do it at all.</p>\n\n<p>Any program that is <em>guaranteeing</em> that you will obtain a PhD in three years is either lying, or the corresponding institution is willing to set the bar for the degree so low that the degree wouldn't have any worth, because it does not certify your ability to do anything. In the former case, you wouldn't necessarily obtain a PhD in three years; in the latter case you would essentially just be guaranteed to obtain a worthless piece of paper with your name and the text \"PhD\" on it. The degree would only certify that the institution stood by their guarantee to award you the degree after three years. It would not certify any ability on your part. </p>\n\n<p>But I don't think the lack of a guarantee should stop you from pursuing a PhD abroad even if you are not currently willing to spent more than three years abroad: I am guessing you did not have a guarantee that you would obtain a Master'a degree either. You just had to try. And if you hit any serious problems or delay, you had to decide for yourself whether the Master's degree was still worth pursuing. It that respect, the PhD is not less certain than the Master's was. You just start despite the uncertain outcome, and you continuously evaluate whether the goal is still worth achieving along the way.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35322,
"author": "Robert Buchholz",
"author_id": 19905,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19905",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Reading more of your comments on already given answers, I think two of your underlying assumptions on this issue are wrong, and lead you to have unrealistic expectations.</p>\n\n<p>The first assumption seems to be:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Master's degrees have a fixed time frame. If a PhD program does not, then that is due to organizational deficiencies on part of the supervising professor or the institution.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>And thus you seem to look for an institution or supervisor that does not have that deficiency, or a way to mitigate its effects.</p>\n\n<p>But there is no deficiency! A master's program can have a fixed time frame, because it only teaches stuff that is <strong>already known</strong> and has been taught before. Your job as a Master's student is to learn that pre-determined set of abilities and apply it to pre-determined problems in a pre-determined time frame.</p>\n\n<p>But a PhD program is nothing like that. There is nobody telling you what to learn, and which knowledge or abilities to apply to which problem. And <strong>that lack of a structure is not a deficiency, but is the core idea of, and therefore inherent in a PhD program</strong>: A PhD certifies that you were able to produce new scientific results independently and under these uncertain conditions. If a PhD program was structured like a Master's program, the PhD degree would only certify the same abilities as the Master's degree you already have, and thus would be pointless. </p>\n\n<p>Your second assumption seems to be</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I got a \"degree either in X years or not at all\" guarantee for my Master's. Such a guarantee is useful, and I therefore want it for my PhD as well.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But that guarantee for the Master's was no guarantee of success at all. Rather, it was an additional restriction! All degrees certify that you achieved a certain level of proficiency in a given field. For your Master's, that \"degree either in X years or not at all\" guarantee was simply the additional restriction, that they will only give you X years to achieve that level of proficiency, and won't give you any degree at all if it takes you any longer. A PhD simply does not have that additional restriction. So not having what seems to be a guarantee actually makes obtaining the degree easier. </p>\n\n<p>The bottom line is: <strong>You don't need that 3-year guarantee.</strong> It only means that somebody else is allowed to force you to abort your efforts of obtaining the degree. Not having that guarantee actually gives you the freedom to decide when and whether to abort, or to continue your efforts. If you need it, you can easily give you your own \"three years at most or no degree at all\" guarantee by deciding beforehand that you will leave the PhD program after three years. That would have exactly the same consequences for you as the guarantee you are trying to obtain. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37318,
"author": "Rebecca Cors",
"author_id": 28197,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28197",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>FUNDING and duration of PhD work are, as some other commenters point out, are two different things. In Switzerland, at least, many PhD students in the sciences have 3 years of funding if they receive money from the Swiss National Science Foundation. The Teacher Training Universities offer 4 years of funding. Of course, how long it takes to complete a PhD program depends so much on the student and on the advisor AND on how well they work together. Advisors can sometimes offer office space and/or additional funding to support students when their PhD work goes beyond their originally funded period.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35187",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
35,191 |
<p>I have following situation. No good quality phd is available in my country (field: computer Science). On the other hand leaving my country for too long is also a little bit difficult for me mainly for family situation. My question is: is it not possible that I negotiate somehow with possible supervisors etc. that I do some part of my Phd remotely? Or say I visit the University for 6 month, then next 6 month I will spend in my country, etc. Or similar arrangements. I know sometimes they call such programs also Sandwich phd programs. Field is computer science so I don't need to be there in some "lab" all the time. Do you know if this is possible? And where/how can I find such programs? Who do I have to "negotiate" it with and how? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35192,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, this can be done, but this has to be discussed with the school and program in advance. At previous work places, I've seen PhD students on site who were working \"remotely\" essentially full-time. Usually, for this to work, you need to have a \"local\" supervisor who is known to the PhD advisor who will be able to oversee your work.</p>\n\n<p>One other important note: you will most likely be required to spend at least a certain portion of your time at the degree-granting institution, as most schools have some sort of \"residency\" requirement.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35232,
"author": "Alexandros",
"author_id": 10042,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10042",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me give you a different perspective to your question.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>No good quality phd is available in my country</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It is good that you aim high. But you must see things through the PHD admissions' perspective. Good universities and good PHD programs have a lot more candidates than PHD positions. Why should they choose you over the other candidates? Is your undergraduate research work that good? Are your grades excellent? Is your university reputable (probably not). If the answer to these questions is no, then the main issue is that you would not get accepted to these programs anyway, regardless of your plan to do it remotely or not.</p>\n\n<p>Also do you have a MSc degree? In many countries in Europe you need a MSc degree before doing a PHD and in USA you need to pass some courses before conducting the actual PHD research. This simply (in either case) cannot be done remotely</p>\n\n<p>Also from your comments I understand that you also want to have funding during your PHD (you would also agree to a reduced funding). In other words, you want someone to hire you (and pay you) to do research, coming from an unknown university, remotely, without actually having a first hand experience of how you can perform at this level, coming directly from an undergraduate university and with no industrial real-world work experience. This is too big a bet for any advisor and university to undertake, unless you have already proven yourself as an extremely talented individual. In that case, exceptions may be possible but still a remotely done PHD is still a major gamble for the advisor and the univesity. Without funding the stakes are smaller but as @xLeitix said remote PHDs do not always work that good. But I think expecting funding for a remote PHD is highly unrealistic.</p>\n\n<p>The only solution I can think of, is for you to work a couple of years on site for a PHD (if you get accepted to a good PHD program) and after proving your\nworth there (with some good publications) during the second-half / dissertation writing portion of your PHD you can ask / convince your advisor to work part-time / remotely from your home country. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35191",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
35,194 |
<p>Books covering primarily academic topics, from philosophy and neuroscience to physics and geopolitics, are usually written (not surprisingly) by experts in the field, which are normally academics themselves. <strong>I wonder how these academics secure the time and funding to write such books</strong>?</p>
<p>To give a few arbitrary examples, I refer to books like these (note that these are not college textbooks):</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://amzn.to/1xELP76">Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction</a> - at the time of publication, the author was an associate professor of philosophy;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://amzn.to/1rQbirC">Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul</a> - the author is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://amzn.to/1xG1cJh">Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter</a> - the author is a professor of biological anthropology;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://amzn.to/1AnLYd0">The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy</a> - the author is a professor of economics.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Is this something academics normally work on in their spare time, or do they get paid to actually do it? Are there grants or donations involved? Is it a privilege that comes with tenure? I'm mostly familiar with life science research, where people will constantly publish papers in journals and that's it - there seems to be no time nor funding to write anything beyond that, at least not as a part of the job.</p>
<p>Apparently, the amount of books written by academics also varies with discipline - e.g. there are more books by professors of philosophy compared to professors of physics. Is this also due to the differences in funding mechanisms and day-to-day job duties among various disciplines?</p>
<p>What are the main factors that influence this?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35195,
"author": "Florian D'Souza",
"author_id": 26958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, I think a desire to publish a book is required. You could have all the time and funding in the world to publish a book, but if you're not motivated to do it, it won't be done.</p>\n\n<p>In my experience, the summer \"break\" offers the best chance of completing side projects like book writing. During the academic year, most people are too busy with teaching classes and doing research; however, during the summer, these obligations become much lighter, especially with regards to teaching. My undergraduate advisor (a life scientist) published his book by writing the vast majority of it over the summer when he had no teaching duties.</p>\n\n<p>I would also surmise that funding does play a part. Someone who is funded primarily through teaching might have more time to polish his/her lecture notes, which in turn might make turning them into a book easier. In fact, I've read several books/textbook where the author explicitly mentions that the book was born out of the classroom. Someone who has no teaching responsibilities doesn't have as much inertia to write a book, and it might even be detrimental to try because it takes away from research and/or publishing research papers in journals.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35197,
"author": "Cape Code",
"author_id": 10643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You correctly observed that monographs are more common in the humanities than in experimental sciences. Often, researchers in humanities publish their PhD thesis as a book (typically during their early post-doc years), and the output of the tenure-track years is a second one, etc. Articles are also usually expected, but they can have much less weight than monographs.</p>\n\n<p>For experimental sciences, (senior) researchers write <em>handbooks</em>, because they enjoy their field, they see it as a way of organizing their thoughts, and it's a great reference material for the classes they teach. The time and funding is related to teaching appointments. Some say, some even made a few bucks out of these, but I have my doubts.</p>\n\n<p>Otherwise, publishers regularly ask prominent researchers to edit books about their field. These persons proceed to ask around to find people to write chapters for the book that are similar to very thorough literature reviews. Here the funding situation is unclear, researchers know that it's good for their CV and network to author a chapter and make time for this, generally to the expense of their free time.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35201,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another route to finding time and funding for creating a book is a sabbatical. While my own position gives me no personal experience with this, I have often heard colleagues talk about using sabbaticals for book-writing. The semester or year of freedom from other work that a sabbatical provides is often an excellent time for faculty to execute larger-scale projects like writing a coherent book.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35206,
"author": "keshlam",
"author_id": 10225,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10225",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've also seen quite a number of textbooks which were originally a professor's lecture notes. After teaching the same class for some number of years, refining the lectures and the notes each time, writing down a combined version of the lectures and notes is mostly a matter of investing the time and effort.</p>\n\n<p>Whether the result is a <em>good</em> textbook depends on the professor's teaching, writing, and editing skills -- and the skills of anyone they bring in to help with the project as co-authors -- and on the skills of the editors and technical editors the publisher assigns to that book.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35208,
"author": "Massimo Ortolano",
"author_id": 20058,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From those I know who wrote a book in the field of engineering, the writing is frequently done during spare time -- nights and weekends -- and during the periods where academic work is reduced. The time needed to complete the book can be around 2-3 years. No specific funding is provided.</p>\n\n<p>From the prefaces of technical books, you can read writing times which range from a couple of years to 7-8 years (not many authors declare the writing time, but some do). Such long times are probably a sign of part-time writing. Shorter times can be declared by those who took a sabbatical leave.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35210,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I'm an associate professor in a humanistic social science (anthropology). Anthropology is different from pure humanities in that monographs are usually based on extended participant-observation fieldwork.</p>\n\n<p>Before getting tenure, I wrote two books (monographs):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>The first book was an extension of my original PhD dissertation. I revised and submitted it to academic presses in the first three years of my first tenure-track job. I used a portion of my third year leave to do the final editing of the ms. </p></li>\n<li><p>I used the remaining half of my third-year leave to do some of the research for my second book. I also changed universities and used another year of leave provided by them for additional fieldwork. The second book was then written during summers and other leave periods. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So in the twelve years or so years since my doctorate, I've finished two books. I'm currently working on my third using a portion of my triennial leave to focus on writing it. Each book has taken around 4-6 years to research and write -- which is on the fast side compared to some of my peers. I should note that one of my senior colleagues in history has written a book every two years -- he is considered exceptional by most. </p>\n\n<p>To answer some of your specific questions:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is this something academics normally work on in their spare time, or do they get paid to actually do it? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Writing books (for faculty in the humanities / humanistic social sciences) is considered part of our research output -- the same as when natural scientists write journal articles. We try to do secondary research and write during the school year and do our primary field research in the summers and when we can get research leaves (sabbaticals, triennials, etc.). </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Are there grants or donations involved? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I used external grants to conduct the field research for the books. I also used internal grants for book completion (copyright clearances, indexing, production offsets, etc.).</p>\n\n<p>It should be noted that the royalties for most academic books (except popular textbooks) are very modest. At best, you might earn a few thousand (US) dollars on royalties on an academic book. Many don't make any money at all. Advances on books are also very rare. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is it a privilege that comes with tenure?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>No. If you want tenure, you have to write. At most R1s, you have to have at least one monograph for a strong tenure bid (in humanities/humanistic social sciences). </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I'm mostly familiar with life science research, where people will constantly publish papers in journals and that's it - there seems to be no time nor funding to write anything beyond that, at least not as a part of the job.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In disciplines where monographs are important, journal articles are slightly deprecated in importance. </p>\n\n<p>Note that monographs are also separate from edited volumes. In disciplines where \"books\" are prioritized, this almost always means a single-authored monograph from an academic press. Edited volumes count much less in value in terms of promotion and merit raises. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/03
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35194",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17810/"
] |
35,221 |
<p>I have to write an (poster-) abstract for a conference in April. Back in November I already wrote an abstract for a similar conference. Since I have not gained many new results on the same research topic, I made some minor changes to the 'old' abstract and was thinking about submitting this 'reused' abstract for the conference in April.</p>
<p>Is that professional? Or is this even plagiarism, since I copied work that is already published (I am first-author of the 'old' and 'reused' abstract)?</p>
<p>I am not lazy, but the abstract that I wrote last year seems to be very good and I don't see the point in rephrasing it. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35222,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Assuming you're talking about a one or two paragraph abstract, the question here is not really about the abstract per se but the contents of the poster. In my opinion, you don't need to worry about self-plagiarism per se from a brief poster abstract because it's not a real publication in the first place (if it were a 1+ page extended abstract, that would be a different matter). </p>\n\n<p>Instead, the important question is whether your research community will find it acceptable to have you presenting essentially the same material in two different conferences. In many communities, this is OK, taking the view that it is essentially raising visibility of a result with different groups of people; in others communities, however, it may not be viewed as acceptable. Consult with your supervisor to see what the standard is for your community.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35223,
"author": "Florian D'Souza",
"author_id": 26958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You might want to check the policies of your conference. Some conferences ask that all submitted abstracts/posters be original or unpublished. Since you have already presented the abstract at a previous conference, this would prevent you from submitting the same abstract again without considerable changes being made (i.e., a new analysis, etc.). Then again, some conferences would be ok with you submitting the same abstract. I think the best course of action is to be honest with the organizers and ask whether such a submission is acceptable.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35221",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27354/"
] |
35,225 |
<p>I am very surprised that I could not find any similar question here.</p>
<p>It seems to me that researchers from all universities are willing to write papers about their research for free and hand them into a journal to gain reputation. On the other hand, some other researcher do voluntary check the paper in order to examine if the paper is acceptable for the journal. Therefore, the main work is done by researches. </p>
<p>The remaining work for the journal is to offer a platform where researchers can communicate and making sure that the reviewer is selected anonymous and to bundle many articles to a journal. </p>
<p>Now everyone has to pay a huge amounts for the papers, they are not accessible for free to the general public, even though that most researchers are financed by taxes and only the journal is making profit.</p>
<p>Now I wonder, should it not be possible to create a network page for researchers which contains methods to imitate the review process of a paper? So that all papers can be downloaded at the website for free. I guess most researchers would be very happy if everyone could read their work. Also the money that is spend on journals by universities could be spend to this huge network page instead in order to keep it running.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35228,
"author": "Aubrey",
"author_id": 26682,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26682",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Please meet the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access\">Open Access</a> movement. \nIn the last twenty years, many scholars and librarians did try to address the problem you pose. \nIt is, in fact, a huge issue, and things like this don't change overnight. </p>\n\n<p>The OA movement focused on two main strategies:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Publishing in peer reviewed open journals</strong> (<em>gold open access</em>): the idea is to create a brand new journal (or to change the model of an old one) which will provide articles free for the readers, without the current subscription model in which libraries (meaning, taxpayers) pay. The crucial factor of Gold OA is the presence of <em>peer review</em>: organize real journals costs a lot of money, and at the moment the major business model is APG (<em>author processing charges</em>), meaning that the author (often, the faculty behind it) pays for being published and cover the journal costs.\nWe're still in transition, and there are a lot of drawbacks: there are <a href=\"http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/\">predatory publishers</a> who try to scam authors, and big publishers offer the \"open access option\" charging huge fees (this is also called <em>double dipping</em>, because a hybrid (both Open and Closed) journal will receive the money from subscriptions <strong>and</strong> the money from the authors. It is important to remark, also, that big publishers make a lot of money with subscriptions and they are actively challenging the open access model. \n<a href=\"http://www.plos.org/\">PLoS</a>, for example, is one of the new Gold OA publishers. </p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Self-archiving in repositories</strong> (<em>green open access</em>): it is the model of <a href=\"http://arXiv.org\">arXiv</a>, <a href=\"http://repec.org/\">Repec</a>, and thousands of other repositories. They can be \"institutional\" or \"disciplinary\", and they accept mostly pre-prints, but also post-print articles. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Of course, there are some experiments in the field:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://peerj.com/\">PeerJ</a> has a very interesting <a href=\"https://peerj.com/pricing/\">business and pricing model</a>.</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://gowers.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/why-ive-also-joined-the-good-guys/\">Epijournals</a> (from my understanding) are journals created selecting papers from arXiv and other repositories. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<h3>References</h3>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Open_Access_%28the_book%29\">Open Access</a>, by Peter Suber, MIT Press, 2012.</li>\n<li>Wikipedia \"<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access\">Open Access</a>\" article. Accessed 4 Jan 2015.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><em>Full disclosure</em>:\nI've worked as a digital librarian in managing OA journals from University of Bologna. I'm biased towards OA and open knowledge in general. Please keep it mind that my answers reflect these bias. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35230,
"author": "Superbest",
"author_id": 244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/244",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The traditional publishing model has in fact been heavily debated over the past decade or so, and there have been several reinventions. Among these are Open-Access journals, repositories like arXiv, academic social networks like ResearchGate and publishing the paper and the data through repositories such as GitHub.</p>\n\n<p>Some of these are also attaining a great deal of success. The biggest reason we're \"not there yet\" is inertia. There are two reasons for this inertia.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Publishers don't want to lose their revenue stream, and <a href=\"http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1439\" rel=\"noreferrer\">produce propaganda</a> claiming open access or other alternative models don't work, and traditional paywalled journals are the best.</li>\n<li>There is a very strong culture of judging the worth of research by the journal it's published in. So in practice, if you have a very good paper, you make a decision: Do you compromise on your pro-OA sentiment and publish in a prestigious journal, or do you risk undermining your future job applications by publishing in an OA journal?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Ultimately, it appears to be the case that applicants who are seriously considered will be evaluated on the merits of the papers themselves, not where they published. However, when there are hundreds of applicants for a position that need to be quickly screened, will the overworked committee have time to read several papers of every single one, or will they start scanning the CVs for journal names?</p>\n\n<p>OA will surely prevail in the end. Recent past has shown that in practice and in theory, there are no major reasons why it shouldn't. Perhaps after that, other more revolutionary changes will follow. However, OA will not \"win\" until faculties overcome the bias that OA journals are lesser journals and papers published in OA journals are not good enough for traditional ones. When they do overcome this bias, post-docs and graduate students will happily switch to publishing in OA, now that it's not endangering their career.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/04
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35225",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21266/"
] |
35,244 |
<p>By theory, I should cite <code>page x</code> (page ten) like <code>[Krusche1999, p. x]</code>. If it were on <code>page iii</code> or <code>page xi</code>, it would look better, such as <code>[Krusche1999, p. iii]</code> or <code>[Krusche1999, p. xi]</code>. However, it is on <code>page x</code>, so we end up with <code>p. x</code>. At least to me, I won't understand, what <code>p. x</code> means at first sight. What do you think? Any good ideas?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35246,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You shouldn't be veering from the style guide (you are of course following a style guide, right?), and style guides cover such meticulous points as this. Even if you feel their advice is a little off and you might have a better solution to a readability problem, you should never contradict it. (Why you should not contradict it is a lengthier topic, and I think this answer stands without going into it.)</p>\n\n<p>So, the right thing to do is consult your respective style guide whether it's AMA or Chicago or anything else, and do what it says.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35247,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To expand on AAA's answer, the correct answer to any question about citation style is always \"check with the guidelines of the journal in question.\" To give one example, the Chicago Manual of Style <a href=\"https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/03\" rel=\"nofollow\">clearly lists how to cite introductory page numbers</a>. Your journal will link to something similar; check their documentation and do whatever they say.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/05
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35244",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14804/"
] |
35,254 |
<p>In both <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34481/is-it-expected-that-a-part-time-masters-student-publish-before-transferring-to-a#comment76514_34492">this comment</a> and <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/35197/12454">this answer</a> it is conveyed that it is often the case in the humanities, that PhD thesis are viewed as a first draft of a book and are often published. There are probably a number of factors that have led to this view. </p>
<p>I'm interested in a number of issues. First of all, is there hard data that shows how many PhDs by discipline get published as a book? </p>
<p>I have no knowledge of the publishing process but it would be interesting to know in this case where the driving factors are. Does the student themselves seek to publish or does their supervisor/committee/department inform the student that they think their material could be a book. Do the publishing companies actively seek material to publish or expect the author to approach them. Are there other factors unique to the Humanities that mean the book is a preferred publishing route?</p>
<p>So to round up, what are the main factors that mean Humanities PhDs appear to often get published as book?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35257,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Are there other factors unique to the Humanities that mean the book is a preferred publishing route?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The boundary between Humanities and Social Sciences is fuzzy in many places, and indeed the phenomenon of theses commonly being parlayed into books happens in some social sciences as well: e.g. history. But there are some factors common to these disciplines as opposed to non-STEM ones, yes.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The length of the thesis.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Average (in any of several senses) thesis lengths vary widely by discipline: see <a href=\"https://beckmw.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/how-long-is-the-average-dissertation/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">here</a> for a nice treatment. Theses in history (the longest) are almost three times as long as those in mathematics and bio-engineering (the two shortest). (Note that history is followed by anthropology and political science: all social sciences. English comes in at sixth longest in the list of 50 disciplines.) In order to have math theses average about 100 pages, they must be counting pages with respect to the spacing one uses in the officially submitted copies. So when math theses are single-spaced -- as they would be in any published form -- the average is more like 50 pages. <a href=\"https://mathoverflow.net/questions/54775/what-is-the-shortest-ph-d-thesis\">See here if you don't believe that a math PhD thesis could be much shorter than that.</a></p>\n\n<p>Anyway, the moral is clear: in some disciplines a perfectly good PhD thesis has length closer to (or equal to) that of a journal article than a book. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The independence of the chapters of the thesis. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It is my understanding that in many STEM disciplines, a perfectly good PhD thesis is several independently written articles stapled together. (This is less true in math but not unheard of.) But in the humanities a thesis is usually one long, sustained argument such that it would detract from it to publish it in parts.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The prior publication status of the work of the thesis.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It is my understanding that in many (most?) STEM disciplines outside of mathematics, the sense is that a PhD thesis should contain some already published work! Whether the work got published in a reasonable place becomes part of the committee's evaluation. Clearly this works against publishing as a book.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The amount of time that one spends doing the work and writing of the thesis measured as a portion of one's academic career.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In the humanities and many social sciences, postdocs are no longer unheard of but are still quite rare. A lot of STEM PhDs are awarded to people in their mid to late 20's at the point where they have demonstrated that they can do <strong>one</strong> novel, sufficiently substantial piece of research. They then go on to 2-5 years of temporary faculty positions where the real work is done. In the humanities (and...), getting a PhD much below the age of 30 is pretty rare, and most tenure-track jobs -- even very strong and research-intensive ones -- hire straight out of PhD programs. One might say that a PhD in the humanities is more like a European <em>Habilitation</em> in the sciences: it's just a more mature, substantial piece of work. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The feeling that someone outside of academia might just possibly be interested in buying a copy.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I have actually occasionally read and even bought books that I presume originated as a humanities / social sciences PhD theses. Though I am having trouble thinking of a truly gripping read, some of these books certainly make more of a concession to the general reader than STEM theses do. I have never bought a book describing five experiments the author did in someone else's lab... </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35265,
"author": "Massimo Ortolano",
"author_id": 20058,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My guess -- a wild guess, actually -- is that in humanities, or at least in many sectors thereof, authors need to publish their theses mostly as books and not as journal papers due the strictly local value of many topics, which would not find their way to international journals.</p>\n\n<p>For example, if I'm doing my PhD in literature digging in the life and works of an obscure Italian poet lived in the middle age, writing in <em>lingua volgare</em>, how many papers could I expect to be accepted by international journals? Probably not even one. Indeed I could expect a better acceptance from specialized Italian journals -- if I could find one -- but those would count next to nothing when applying for a faculty position. So, let's publish my findings about that obscure poet as a book.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35268,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>First of all, is there hard data that shows how many PhDs by discipline get published as a book?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I doubt there are meaningful data available on this. I don't think total number of \"thesis-books\" is meaningful since this would depend on the size of the field. The percentage of thesis-books would ignore drop out (although potentially drop out rates are consistent across fields). My understanding of tenure and promotion committee meetings is that at top universities, the representatives from STEM fields discount books while the representatives from the humanities discount journal articles. At lower ranked schools, where research productivity is less, fewer books are published.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Does the student themselves seek to publish or does their supervisor/committee/department inform the student that they think their material could be a book.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Most of the so called \"book\" fields publish single author papers and books. The student (or former student) seeks to get the material published as a book.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Do the publishing companies actively seek material to publish or expect the author to approach them.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>A little bit of both. The publishers encourage authors who they think are doing good research to submit a \"book proposal\", but they get hundreds of unsolicited proposals.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Are there other factors unique to the Humanities that mean the book is a preferred publishing route?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In some ways the optimal publishing strategy for a humanities thesis is to carve one chapter from the thesis into a journal article and have this published in a good journal. Book publishers are okay with some of the material being previously published (as long as copyright issues can be handled). This article/chapter then becomes the basis of the book proposal that is used to \"sell\" the book idea to the publisher. The problem with this approach is that for many theses in the humanities, craving out a single chapter is difficult. The research problems that humanities students tackle are simply larger in scope than the problems STEM students tackle and the problems cannot be neatly subdivided. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>So to round up, what are the main factors that mean Humanities PhDs appear to often get published as book?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Historically, in the US PhD students in the Humanities would do multiple years of \"field work\" (often in archives, but sometimes in the actual field) and tenure at R1 institutions is based on one or two books being published. In the UK, the shorter PhD duration and the pressure of the REF to have 4 publications, leads to many more thesis being published as articles. The type of PhD projects conducted in book and article based cultures varies significantly.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 48089,
"author": "henning",
"author_id": 31917,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31917",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would like to add to the good answers above that until recently in Europe, examination regulations in the humanities in general required the writing of a single, monographic thesis and its subsequent publication. The doctoral title is awarded not until publication. A dissertation that is \"stapled together\" from finished papers was unheard of. This has started to change over the last few years, but out of tradition and for the reasons named in the answers above, it has not yet become customary. Thus, <strong>part of the answer is that regulations required a published monograph</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>I am generalizing a bit here, my first-hand experience being in the German system and in law and the social sciences (political science, cultural studies, sociology). Even beyond those fields, what in Germany is called a \"cumulative\" (non-monographic) dissertation was possible only in <a href=\"https://www.academics.de/wissenschaft/die_kumulative_dissertation_56018.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">12 percent</a> of local universities back in 2007.</p>\n\n<p>The usual procedure after submitting the thesis was to (more or less) revise the thesis for publication and maybe extract one or two papers from it for publication in a journal. These of course need to be self-contained enough to count as separate publications; for example, they could be a summary focused on a particular aspect of the thesis. Thus, <em>in general</em>, while the STEM fields tend to write separate papers and then staple them together, the humanities write a monographic thesis and then rip it apart.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/05
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35254",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12454/"
] |
35,255 |
<p>I'm applying for a scientific research position at a Welsh university and one of the desirable skills is to demonstrate an understanding of the bilingual nature of the University. </p>
<p>As I am fluent in Welsh, I would like to add a sentence to my cover letter stating that I am a bilingual. I would like to write something that makes them feel that it is important to have someone that can speak Welsh and that this would benefit the university. </p>
<p>Can anyone suggest an appropriate sentence to include? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35259,
"author": "A.S",
"author_id": 22447,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22447",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>To address your specific question, I would propose the following sentence for your letter (or something similar to your liking) to highlight your language skills. I would position it toward the bottom, in the concluding paragraph:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I also believe that my fluency in Welsh will contribute to my ability\n to effectively support the university's bilingual nature.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(alternative wording): </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>...the university's mission of bilingual service.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I would not worry about providing any additional evidence of Welsh proficiency (as a letter written in the language) as you only want to submit the exact documents required in the application, nothing more. If there will be any need to ascertain your language ability, it can be easily done in a quick chat as part of your interview process or by phone.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck! </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35270,
"author": "Eric",
"author_id": 20424,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20424",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would go beyond what Aymor said and write a paragraph of your cover letter in Welsh where you discuss the importantance of the bilingual philosophy. Stating you are fluent is quite different than demonstrating it.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/05
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35255",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25341/"
] |
35,261 |
<p>I have been invited to a symposium related with my research field within a conference devoted to a broad area in Mathematics, not really associated with my field. This symposium is organized by a researcher that I met in previous, well-established and respectable conferences. </p>
<p>The problem is that I have never heard before about that conference to any colleague in my field, if we exclude the emails sent by the conference organizers asking researchers to attend <em>or to organize</em> a symposium within the conference (I have received myself a lot of them in my email <em>spam</em> folder). Indeed, I am really confused about the reputability of the conference itself, and I tried to find it out without too much success in <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34723/how-to-know-if-the-icnaam-conference-is-good">this</a> closed question.</p>
<p>I have decided not to attend the conference given the information that I have at hand, since as a young researcher I want to stay as far as I can from <em>potential predatory</em> conferences. Also the funding money for attending conferences is limited and I think I will get a better value for it on another conference.</p>
<p>Now, my question is regarding the <strong>way and etiquette for rejecting the invitation</strong>. My initial idea was to be honest and tell the symposium organizer about my reason to not accept the invitation (not feeling confortable in that conference), without making up any excuse such as problem in the dates or whatever. But maybe in that way I will hurt his/her feelings, something that obviously I do not want. </p>
<p><strong>What will be a honest and polite way of rejecting this invitation?</strong></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35264,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Just say \"no thank you\" or say nothing. You don't have to make an excuse to not attend a conference symposium. You appear to be a junior researcher, so I'm assuming you were invited to participate not to give a keynote address or be honored otherwise. The symposium organizers will have invited more people than they can actually host since they know many will decline. There's no need to antagonize your colleague by accusing them of being involved in a sketchy conference or worse accusing them of being associated with something <em>predatory</em>. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35267,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>You basically said it best yourself:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>the funding money for attending conferences is limited and I think I will get a better value for it on another conference.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This seems to me like a perfectly acceptable reason which needs to be enough for any reasonable person. You can't go to every conference where somebody you know asked you to go, and this one isn't high enough on your priorities list.</p>\n\n<p><em>(personally, I would not lecture the other person about what you perceive as a spam conference that (s)he is involved with - just say friendly and truthfully that this specific conference is not of great interest to you, and that should be it)</em></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35277,
"author": "Matthew Leingang",
"author_id": 5701,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5701",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n<p>Thank you very much for the invitation to this conference. It seems like a very interesting event. I will not be able to attend, but I wish you the best of luck with it.</p>\n<p>Yours, etc. ...</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>This is polite but firm. Like Jake says in the comments, it is possible to increase the apparent (or intended) sincerity of the message by being more specific about why you think the conference will be interesting. And it is <em>true</em> that you are unable to attend because you have given higher priority for your limited travel budget on other events.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35331,
"author": "Adam Davis",
"author_id": 11901,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11901",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There's no polite way to say, \"I believe your conference has no value, and isn't worth my time.\"</p>\n\n<p>So I'm glad you are asking for an honest and polite method to decline, rather than an open and polite method to decline. I don't believe you can be open, honest, and polite in this case.</p>\n\n<p>I don't believe you can honestly express regret that you cannot attend, but you can at least express a wish that the conference be successful, or that they achieve their goals with the conference and speakers. If you expect to check on the conference proceedings afterwards, whether out of curiosity or professional interest, it might be worthwhile expressing that as well.</p>\n\n<p>\"Thank you for your kind invitation to present at conference XYZ. While I must decline, I do look forward to reading the conference proceedings.\"</p>\n\n<p>Keep it short, simple, and straightforward.</p>\n\n<p>If this is a close friend, and you believe they are headed down the wrong path, it's probably worthwhile to follow this up with a phone call (no need for this conversation to be in writing!) and express your underlying reasons. If you are on the fence, call them prior to sending the refusal and see if they have evidence that it isn't or won't turn into a predatory conference.</p>\n\n<p>The reservations you have may be valid, but expressing them when you decline the invitation is unnecessary and impolite. Keep those reservations to yourself, and only share them if asked, or if they are a close colleague or friend and you wish to save them from later difficulty.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35332,
"author": "Ntabgoba",
"author_id": 27439,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27439",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In today's world, it is difficult to predetermine an outcome of a conference, unless you are aware of the list of the participants. In the research field, every bit of new information is valuable, thus you might not be exact at outweighing the symposium, based on limited information.</p>\n\n<p>Advice: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Politely request your inviter to give you extra information, the usual 5Ws. If any of the <em>who</em>, <em>when</em>, <em>what</em>, <em>where</em>, <em>how</em> are not coherent, then depict them and inform him that you did not feel attracted because of A,B,C.</li>\n<li>If financially, it does not match, be specific and tell him that you do not have the financial means.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>A researcher is a civilized person and would not be hurt by valid reasons.</p>\n\n<p>NB: Having emails in Spam boxes does not mean that they are spams. It just means that their email server is not green listed on your email's red flagging.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/05
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35261",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20897/"
] |
35,280 |
<p>If I use photos in my thesis that I found on Internet, should I cite them? If so, how should the photos be cited? Should I write something like "In Figure 4.5 [9]" or should I cite it in the Appendix? Or should I add the source in the caption?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35281,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<h2>You <em>must</em> cite them!</h2>\n\n<p>Failure to cite photographs and figures is just as much plagiarism as stealing quotations. To some extent, it is <em>tougher</em> to use pictures from other sources, because you need to make sure you have the permissions to use them.</p>\n\n<p>You should add the citation in the caption, as well as the requisite acknowledgments required by the author or publisher.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35287,
"author": "test",
"author_id": 27407,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27407",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>here's usa library of congress copyright source:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.copyright.gov/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.copyright.gov/</a></p>\n\n<p>for using other's copyrighted photos you need reproduction rights permissions.</p>\n\n<p>for using your own photos, you should protect your own copyright with the three-part copyright notice mentioned at loc - copyright symbol or word, date, name - on or near the photo. otherwise you have put your photo into public.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/05
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35280",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15949/"
] |
35,296 |
<p>It seems that NSF only supports researchers affiliated with academic institutions. For instance, if a researcher is in the industry, is there a chance to get funding from NSF for a pure academic research? </p>
<p>Let's say the researcher's employer is not a scientific/research establishment, maybe it's a manufacturing plant, and the researcher's interest has nothing to do with his/her daily job.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35298,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>NSF's Grant Proposal Guide section I.E addresses eligibility. <a href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappguide/nsf15001/gpg_1.jsp#categories\">I.E.3</a> addresses for-profit corporations and states:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <ol start=\"3\">\n <li>For-profit organizations - US commercial organizations, especially small businesses with strong capabilities in scientific or engineering research or education. An unsolicited proposal from a commercial organization may be funded when the project is of special concern from a national point of view, special resources are available for the work, or the proposed project is especially meritorious. NSF is interested in supporting projects that couple industrial research resources and perspectives with those of universities; therefore, it especially welcomes proposals for cooperative projects involving both universities and the private commercial sector.</li>\n </ol>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>My read of this is that it is certainly possible for a company to submit a proposal, but the introductory language certainly hints that not all programs will allow for-profits to submit: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Except where a program solicitation establishes more restrictive eligibility criteria, individuals and organizations in the following categories may submit proposals: </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Which is to say that many RFPs limit submissions to categories 1 and 2 from that list (universities and other non-profits, respectively).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35300,
"author": "Geoff Hutchison",
"author_id": 21869,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21869",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/35298/21869\">Another answer</a> quotes the Grant Proposal Guide, which is of course the essential resource.</p>\n\n<p>The NSF does solicit proposals (like other agencies) for the <a href=\"http://www.sbir.gov\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program</a>.</p>\n\n<p>But I'd also say that whenever you have questions about NSF funding for a research idea, I'd figure out an appropriate program officer and send them an e-mail. For example, I'm in chemistry, so I go to the NSF chemistry website and guess an appropriate sub-program.</p>\n\n<p>In general, I send an e-mail saying something like:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Hi, I have a research idea that I think might fit in your program but I have some questions. Would there be a good time to talk this week? [etc.]</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Sometimes I'll even get a call back promptly from the program officer, or a polite message that program X might be a better fit, etc.</p>\n\n<p>In all cases, the NSF program officers want to fund the best research they can, so they are very helpful at suggesting appropriate approaches (e.g., if it's possible for them to fund your idea).</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35296",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14179/"
] |
35,302 |
<p>I contacted a lecturer from my alma mater. He replied me a few days later that he had funding, explained me his project and application process and even attached a detailed research proposal. He asked me to skype with him.</p>
<p>In such case, please advise me what kinds of questions during interview can be asked.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35304,
"author": "Ben Bitdiddle",
"author_id": 24384,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24384",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>He probably wants to talk about his project and your research background/interests. He may ask about some past projects you've done and what kind of work you are interested in. It's best if you can demonstrate sincere interest in his project and read some previous papers of his that seem relevant to the proposal.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 38305,
"author": "Ian",
"author_id": 22000,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22000",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This doesn't sound like an overly formal process as you're already known to the interviewer. However, in my institution at least, the process is becoming much more formal (person specifications, training for interviewers, etc.) and so there are definite areas that the interviewer will be trying to explore:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Do your skills match up with what you claim on your application? Expect specific questions on your application, particularly on relevant projects, or reports, or dissertations.</li>\n<li>Can you communicate? Particularly, why do you want to do a PhD, why in this area, with this person, etc. This also covers language skills, if you're not a native speaker. Expect more general questions probing your motivation.</li>\n<li>Can you link together different areas of knowledge? Show that your earlier studies have gone in and you can see where they're relevant to the PhD topic. Expect detailed questions on key techniques for this project, maybe linking back to courses you've taken (if they don't make the link, it's a strength when you explicitly do).</li>\n<li>Do you know what you don't know? There's a lot to learn in a PhD and the best candidates will (a) know that, and (b) want to fix that <em>themselves</em>. Communicating what areas you need to improve, and how you want the supervisor to help you improve, can be a strength (provided it isn't key background for the PhD!). This is where you should show you've read the research proposal, and also the papers referred to in it: you don't need a detailed understanding of it all, but you should clearly show <em>what</em> you've understood, and <em>how</em> you'd go about learning what you haven't.</li>\n<li>Evidence of problem-solving skills. Talking about projects, reports written, group work done. Show that you understood what you did (even if strongly directed), that you can communicate it clearly, and how you generated ideas.</li>\n<li>Can you connect with the potential supervisor? This can be purely personal, and is the hardest thing to do in a Skype call. If possible, try and make it a conversation instead of a question and answer session. Also, try and prepare some questions to ask them, particularly around the research proposal.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>As I noted at the top, if you're already known to the interviewer, and if there's no formal university process mandated by central administration, this could well be an informal chat. Even then, I'd make sure you've read the research proposal, and researched its background, so that you can genuinely talk, and not get a huge information dump.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 70938,
"author": "Paul Symonds",
"author_id": 56282,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/56282",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>He certainly seems to be considering you for inclusion if he gets the funding. I would make a clear list of all your achievements both academic and non-academic and be clear in your own mind what you are looking for in the future. The project may not be something you actually want so make sure to include questions that help you to judge if this is something which matches your own goals. </p>\n\n<p>So I would include questions about the scope of the project, who else is involved and be clear on what funding will be available and how long it will last. Do not be afraid to ask these things.</p>\n\n<p>Regards Skype, the camera is often not where you will look directly because you will be looking central screen at the video relay of other person. Just relax and do not worry though as Skype is easy. Just make sure you remember the different times zones if this is applicable. </p>\n\n<p>You might also find this article useful <a href=\"http://www.socresonline.org.uk/21/2/12.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.socresonline.org.uk/21/2/12.html</a> because it goes into details about Skype for academic purposes.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35302",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27421/"
] |
35,306 |
<p><strong>tl;dr</strong></p>
<p>Faculty don't think teaching is as important as their other responsibilities; how do we change that?</p>
<p><strong>Long version</strong></p>
<p>I've been working in academia for a long time and whenever I see instructors half-assing their teaching the go to excuses are that they have no time, or that it doesn't get any respect/grants/promotion/tenure/etc. I don't doubt they're busy, and I know departments don't typically reward teaching excellence (or punish teaching mediocrity...) but the students are suffering as a result.</p>
<p>How can we (faculty that care about teaching and staff supporting faculty) change this situation? What can we do short-term to make faculty care about teaching <em>now</em> and what can we do long-term to make departments care about excellence in teaching, and not just in research?</p>
<p><em>Note:</em> I'm aware research brings in money. Keep in mind most faculty are adjuncts who aren't doing research but still have tenured research faculty that don't care about teaching as their role models.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35307,
"author": "BrenBarn",
"author_id": 9041,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9041",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You don't hire people who don't take teaching seriously, and if you do happen to hire them accidentally, you deny them tenure and kick them out.</p>\n\n<p>More generally, you reward those who take teaching seriously and/or punish those who don't. This means you give the former time (by reducing the number of classes they have to teach), money (by paying them more, giving them department funds for research, whatever), and/or other perks (nice office, free parking pass, first dibs on teaching the particular classes they'd most like to teach, whatever), and you don't give those things to the latter.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35308,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Putting in place a better system for evaluating teaching than today's student evaluation forms would be a good start. Getting serious about the assessment of student learning outcomes (rather than simply assigning grades) would also be extremely helpful. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35310,
"author": "BrianH",
"author_id": 6787,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6787",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Step 0:</strong> Talk to/with existing faculty. How do they view their teaching skill, it's relative importance, motivation to do better, what do they think would improve their own teaching and/or the teaching of others? I would hope the actual people on the ground know a thing or two more than some random fool on the internet (such as myself).</p>\n\n<p><strong>Step 0b:</strong> Probably prioritize what people actually think at your institution over what I'll say below. Further, educated people are generally incredibly resistant to having random diktats imposed on them (and professors who are renowned for valuing their positions autonomy all the more so), so you'll need people to buy into things and embrace things. That takes some great implementation skill, diplomacy, and care - good advice followed poorly is rarely a boon. But with that said...</p>\n\n<p><strong>Step 1:</strong> Clearly, effectively communicate what is valued in the department/institution - to existing faculty, students, prospective faculty, and the world at large. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Step 2:</strong> Actually value those things - don't just pay them lip-service. Are meaningful teaching awards given? Are special posts/chairs given for teaching excellence, with funding and reduced other-than-teaching workloads optionally reduced? Can a person be a great teacher and a not-so-good researcher and expect to be respected and have job security comparable to a star researcher who can barely teach at all? Research/grants are often tied to equipment, labs, funding for students/assistants/projects - must teaching be solely it's own reward at your institution?</p>\n\n<p><strong>Step 3:</strong> Measure what's important. Is a respected teaching-quality rating system in place to poll students before/during/after courses, program entrance/graduation, etc? How do you know who is doing a great job and who's doing a bad one? Do people even know if they are doing a good job? Does everyone else know who's doing great things? Is student success/learning solely the responsibility of individual faculty to determine and measure - as though assessment were somehow trivial and easy to do - and thus one class/semester/teacher cannot be meaningfully compared or evaluated? Tight feedback loops are necessary for flow experiences and improvement - tighten the loop.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Step 4:</strong> Provide mechanisms for improvement. Feedback from students, constructive advice/encouragement/criticism from senior faculty - especially previously identified great teachers, funding for workshops/conferences specifically about education/pedagogy/teaching, bringing in outside faculty/speakers to speak and hold workshops, etc. Teaching is a skill, just like researching - it must be learned. As some people have very little teaching experience (sometimes having won fellowships that exempted them from teaching), it is generally unwise to just cross your fingers and pray people figure it out on their own. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Step 5:</strong> At the end of a semester/year, appraise the situation. What is going well, and what isn't? Make a plan to do better next year, implement the plan, and follow up again next semester/year. Do it again. And again. And again. There are no real shortcuts, just consistent hard work performed by many, repeatedly, over a stretch of time.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Step 6:</strong> Align decisions at ever greater (and lesser) levels to match what is truly valued. Student selection, graduate program admittance, postdoc positions, faculty hiring, tenure decisions - if teaching isn't important to the department/institution, it is strange to expect it to be treated as though it were actually important none the less. This doesn't necessarily have to mean everyone must be amazing teachers or else - just that it must be a factor that really does matter and holds value. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Warning:</strong> <em>Anything that hints of punishment, job insecurity, lack of respect, or unpleasantness will lead to both intentional and unintentional gaming/sabotage/resistance to any process of improvement or assessment. Trust is valuable, hard to build, and incredibly easy to lose.</em> </p>\n\n<p>In the end, some people are naturally motivated and take it upon themselves to be better and better teachers. For those people you likely need only give them what they need and don't step on them or get in their way. But social systems are powerful, and can rob people of their desire and motivation just as they can encourage the better angels of our nature and inspire us. It must then be decided what system you have now, and what are you willing to and able to do about it?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35330,
"author": "J...",
"author_id": 20760,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20760",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The fundamental problem is that research and teaching are two <em>entirely</em> different skills. Imagine you're hiring a chef who is also expected to spend a third of his or her time waiting tables; the simple fact of reality is that specially talented individuals will rarely excel at both of these tasks. </p>\n\n<p>You can't <em>convince</em> a professor to be a better teacher than they are - most simply do not have the personality type, passion, inclination, or even inherent capacity to be excellent teachers. They haven't trained those skills nor have they required them to get to their current position in life. It isn't what they were hired for, it isn't what they are good at, and it isn't what they have spent their lives wanting and learning to do. Professors are hired to perform and manage research activities and are only incidentally required to also perform <em>custodial</em> teaching duties. They would likely also do a terrible job if you required them to pitch in cooking lunch in the cafeteria twice a week.</p>\n\n<p>At least in my part of the world, secondary school teachers are not even allowed to apply for a job without an appropriate degree in education. This is to say that, in addition to having the required qualifications in the subject that they are teaching they are also required to be qualified <em>teachers</em>. I see higher education eventually following a similar model - as teaching becomes more important, professorship <em>must</em> eventually branch into two or three largely separate streams.</p>\n\n<p>With specialization being so critical in almost every other professional activity it is almost unbelievable that professorship is such a haphazard occupation. While the training and demonstrated excellence for the position is almost entirely based on research and scientific acumen, professors are nevertheless required to also perform at least two entirely different functions - teaching and management. Surely some PhDs would love to only teach while others would love to devote entirely to research. Likewise, how many late-career professors could continue to produce invaluable research if not burdened by the need to both teach and project-manage a large research group; the very skill they excel at is squandered while their time is occupied performing things they are often neither good at nor that they enjoy. </p>\n\n<p>If you want good teachers, hire teachers to teach. If you want good researchers, hire researchers to research. If you want well managed research groups, hire managers to manage them. If you want chaos and headaches, pick some clever boffins and get them to juggle it all at once. Occasionally you will get lucky and find professors who are excellent researchers, excellent teachers, and excellent managers but, in my experience, these are very rare creatures indeed. Higher education would do well to reconsider its organizational hierarchy, I think.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35343,
"author": "I Like to Code",
"author_id": 8802,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8802",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In a nutshell: <strong>Competition</strong> between departments\nfor students and funding\ncan be one of the important reasons\nto cause departments to care about the quality of teaching.</p>\n\n<p>I give the following anecdote to illustrate the above principle.</p>\n\n<p>In my undergrad institution,\nwhich is outside the US and is fairly large (~30 K undergrads),\nthe introductory math classes taken by engineering students\nwere taught by professors in the math department.</p>\n\n<p>I had heard from people in the math department that\nsome in the engineering department\nwanted to teach the classes themselves,\nso as to gain more funding and be able to hire more headcount (faculty).\nBecause the math department did not want to\nlose this funding and headcount to the engineering department\nthey sent their best teaching professors to teach the intro math courses.\nThis allowed the math department to defend their position and say,\n\"We're doing a good job teaching this course,\nas evidenced by good teaching evaluations,\nso why should you rock the boat?\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35362,
"author": "Paul Smith",
"author_id": 16116,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16116",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Much mention has been made of Reward for good teaching, but I would like to suggest an old fashioned and out-of-date idea: Punishment. If someone fails to deliver on their contracted responsibilities to the agreed quality and standards, then they need to face the consequences of their actions and decisions, resulting if necessary in formal disciplinary proceedings. It is not like their students are going to get another chance, so why should the teachers? </p>\n\n<p>However, this means taking responsibility for setting those standards and auditing progress to ensure that they are met, which is something most facilities seem reluctant to do. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35306",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27290/"
] |
35,311 |
<p>In programming, there are these so-called "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language">esoteric programming languages</a>" like "LOLCODE" or "Shakespeare," which really have pretty much zero usefulness. They are just kind of a novelty, or if a computer science professor is feeling like being particularly obnoxious he can choose it as the language for one of his assignments.</p>
<p>I was wondering if there is anything similar for citation styles. Citation styles are a "language" of sorts, and in principle you could have the analog of "LOLCODE" for making citations. I have never heard of such a thing, and I was considering inventing one---you know, something for a Humanities professor to require if they are feeling like being particularly obnoxious---but I wanted to make sure that such a thing didn't already exist.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35320,
"author": "Koldito",
"author_id": 12314,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12314",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Off the top of my head, an esoteric citation style would be one that uses exclusively doi and/or ISBN numbers instead of author-year or similar styles ---e.g., \"as doi:16.1244/0979e.98 says in his reply to 12-9809-090-09...\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35335,
"author": "Federico Poloni",
"author_id": 958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The syntax of <code>.bst</code> files (bibtex style files) is obscure enough to be borderline to an esoteric programming language, in my opinion. <a href=\"http://kinglab.eeb.lsa.umich.edu///pub/biblios/bst/nature.bst\" rel=\"nofollow\">Example here</a>.</p>\n\n<p><sup><sub>(And don't get me started on TeX error messages...)</sup></sub></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35351,
"author": "BrianH",
"author_id": 6787,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6787",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>May I humbly suggest <a href=\"http://xkcd.com/1208/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">footnote labyrinths</a>?</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/dGWqY.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>Alt text: Every time you read this mouseover, toggle between interpreting nested footnotes as footnotes on footnotes and interpreting them as exponents (minus one, modulo 6, plus 1).</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35311",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9765/"
] |
35,313 |
<p>My master thesis is an improvement of a code. I gave this code about one year and half ago from the author of the one paper.</p>
<p>After working on his code, I improve the result. but my implementation is not a lot. My added part to his code is less than 300 lines.</p>
<p>The base paper was published on 2013 in the journal with impact factor 2 .</p>
<p>My question is "improvements works" have the ability to send to a journal? Or when you can send your work to journal which you should develop the whole things.</p>
<p>By the way the issue which I am working on is one of the new standard.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35314,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>For purposes of publishability, it doesn't really matter whether your implementation was built from scratch or from an existing codebase, or how many new lines of code it required.</p>\n\n<p>What matters is <em>whether your results contribute some new knowledge</em> to the field....</p>\n\n<p>... which we can't evaluate for you here. You need to read the literature and the previous work, and identify what you're contributing that's new. (It's not measured in lines of code.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35317,
"author": "David Richerby",
"author_id": 10685,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Publishable? Yes. Everything is publishable, as long as it's original work and you can find a journal that thinks it's interesting enough. Publishable in a good journal? We've no idea: ask your peers in your field. <em>Ask your advisor</em>: it's what s/he is there for!</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35313",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19761/"
] |
35,321 |
<p>I'll be giving a 30-min public talk as a part of my PhD defense next month. It would be attended by the examination committee (consisting of my advisor and two examiners). I reckon that some professors/lecturers from the university might also join it apart from my colleagues and friends. </p>
<p>What would be a suitable - neither too short or seemingly-snappy nor too long and boring - way to address the audience at the very beginning of my talk? For instance, starting with </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hello everyone </p>
</blockquote>
<p>sounds a bit too informal to me. Personally, I am inclined to starting with </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Respected members of the examination committee...</p>
</blockquote>
<p>but I am not sure if that, because of the "<em>Respected</em> ", may be considered too traditional (unfortunately, I don't recall how my colleagues who graduated in the last years did it - you never focus on such aspects until it is your turn :-$). </p>
<p>Should I refer to the examination committee using names, as in:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Respected members of the examination committee, Prof. X, Prof. Y, and Prof. Z</p>
</blockquote>
<p>or better not?</p>
<p>For peers and friends, addressing could simply continue as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>... and dear colleagues and friends. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Should I also try to sandwich another category specifically for the other professors and lecturers? If so, what could be a suitable way to address them? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35323,
"author": "Stephan Kolassa",
"author_id": 4140,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4140",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Ideally, you would already have attended similar defenses of your advisor's earlier Ph.D. students before and picked up the prevailing social norms there - also concerning other \"soft factors\", like whether to feed everyone afterwards, with what etc.</p>\n\n<p>I gather this didn't happen, so I'll second <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35321/how-to-greet-the-audience-at-the-beginning-of-a-phd-defense-talk-presentation#comment78790_35321\">Koldito's comment-answer</a>: just ask your advisor. And/or talk to other people in your institution, even if they work in other areas. Such things will likely be more specific to your regional culture than to your specific subfield.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35324,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The answer lie in the comments to your question. </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Check your local customs. Have you not attended a single PhD talk during your time as a PhD student? What have students done so far? And ... talk to your advisor.</p></li>\n<li><p>Do not overdo it. If you try to work in lots of complex thanks and courteous comments, you are very likely to stumble and forget and the impression becomes unprofessional or insecure at best. Thanks area also easily managed by adding a slide with thanks to advisers, funding and whatever you feel is necessary. You can use that as the last slide of your presentation since the audience will then know the presentation is over.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35336,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would like to second both xLeitix and Koldito's comments and convert them into an answer:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>In most cases, there is no requirement, and you can just say, \"Good [morning/afternoon], my name is [name], and welcome to my thesis defense.\"</p></li>\n<li><p>A very few institutions have a much more formal set of requirements. For example, when I was an examiner for a defense at TU Delft, I had to learn a few words of Dutch in order to ask my questions with the required formality. Also, I had to come a day early to get fitted for a special archaic form of suit. Don't worry about this, though: if this is the case for your institution, then somebody will make sure that you are instructed in what to do.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35321",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18210/"
] |
35,325 |
<p>I'm currently in the process of applying to college for undergraduate degree in software engineering. I really love everything about electronics from hardware to software. I find it difficult to choose between electrical engineering or software engineering till I decided to take software engineering then continue my education for master in electrical engineering. Though, I'm not looking to offer myself more job opportunities, I literally want to know every single bit about hardware and software. My question: </p>
<p>Is it possible to study software engineering and then masters in electrical engineering?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 40217,
"author": "enthu",
"author_id": 15723,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It depends on the program you apply for your masters degree. Some universities and educational systems accept changing fields for masters degrees and some others not. Some programs may require the applicant to study some more courses from the bachelors syllabus to help them be more prepared for their masters program.</p>\n\n<p>I think you would better ask the program you want to apply to, to see whether they accept and consider applications with different bachelors degree or not.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 95615,
"author": "Joseph August DeLeonardis",
"author_id": 79514,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79514",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I know this it is a late response but maybe this will help others. If I was in that situation I would get an undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering. Computer Engineers have to take software and hardware courses. At many universities, they can specialize in either by taking senior electives. However, it really depends on what you want to do. Computer Engineers will not usually take courses in Electromagnetics or Device Science. Those courses are specifically for Electrical Engineers. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35325",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27438/"
] |
35,326 |
<p>I'm applying for a fellowship wherein they ask for a long proposal about what I'm working on (a PhD thesis in pure math). Then they advise me that some of those evaluating me will be from non-math departments, so the proposal "should be jargon-free."</p>
<p>Right off the bat I guess [PSL<sub>2</sub>(O<sub>d</sub>):Γ] < ∞ is out of the question... I could explain what a manifold is to a mixed audience, but I think they'd need to do some homework before they followed what it might have to do with finite index subgroups of Bianchi groups (or whatever topic you might be studying). Without the "jargon" I feel like my whole language for it is gone. Afterall the reason we have so many definitions is because each one refers to a distinctly defined thing that we previously had no name for!</p>
<p>I can see that I could take a more historical, conceptual perspective, but I'd still be dancing around what I'm <em>actually doing</em>. It's especially hard to summarize something that is not even fully developed. I think that for people who don't study math, the only reference point is science applications, but those don't really exist here because then it would be applied math and not pure math.</p>
<p>I'm coming up short looking for anyone addressing this online. There are multidisciplinary tips about writing proposals, but I think the accessibility problem is at its biggest with pure math.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35327,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Hint: what you are doing is \"non-Euclidean crystallography\". Then explain somewhat aspects of those two concepts, and <em>why there is still research to do</em>. I.e. Euclidean crystallography was all worked out long ago, but ...</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35328,
"author": "J Fabian Meier",
"author_id": 27442,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27442",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>What I did in that position: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Explain some \"motivation\", even if it is far-fetched, from physics, economics, computer science ... for the general field of study.</li>\n<li>Try to paint some geometric picture of some (very simplified) version of your field.</li>\n<li>Make sure you stress that there are unsolved questions and that the solution would contribute to a general picture.</li>\n<li>Give some \"hard\" mathematical details at the end, coming with some disclaimer, to convince any mathematicians on the committee. </li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Generally, I would try to give an overview of the general aim and direction of the field and stress that there are \"important problems in it\".</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35337,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think that the key idea here is that they want to know <em>why</em> you are doing what you are doing more than <em>what</em> you are doing. </p>\n\n<p>Let's say you're diligently working towards establishing an isomorphism between soliton elves and the christmas-tree singularity. That's all well and good, but:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>There are lots of properties in the world. Why is isomorphism between soliton elves and the christmas-tree singularity an interesting property to try to establish?</li>\n<li>Is there a higher-level strategy to your approach than \"just do lots of math until the problem is solved\"?</li>\n<li>Why is the approach that you are taking a good one?</li>\n<li>If you establish this property, what are the consequences, and what comes next?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>A really good and clearly written proposal should be able to have its logic grasped by pretty much any scientist, whether or not they are capable of judging its originality, plausibility, and significance in detail.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37153,
"author": "j0equ1nn",
"author_id": 27475,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27475",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em>I'm adding a different answer based on the advice I got from my adviser, which is the method I ended up going with since after all he is my adviser. If I do end up getting the fellowship I will most likely change my selected answer to this one (though as you'll see the other strategies suggested are actually a part of this one). Here's what he told me:</em></p>\n\n<p>Mainly, don't worry about the idea of it being accessible to people from other departments. When they say to write it that way and keep it \"jargon-free\" it really is kind of misleading compared to what they're actually looking for.</p>\n\n<p>The important thing is that it look serious and professional, and writing in a more friendly tone can give the impression that the project is elementary. The evaluators (especially those not from the math department) will pay the most attention to the introductory portion of the proposal, so that is really the place to include the type of content suggested in the other answers. In particular, @J._Fabian_Meier's itemized list would end up with the first 3 items done quickly at the beginning, and the 4th item would take up the remaining majority.</p>\n\n<p>After setting up the general motivation and context in the first couple of pages, go ahead and get into the mathematical details as though writing for a mathematician to read it. The other people on the evaluating committee will be looking for the math representative to confirm that what you are proposing is well considered and properly formulated. Moreover the more complicated and confusing the explanation looks to them the better. After all most people not in the math world gauge mathematical sophistication by their own inability to understand it, so just go ahead and scare them!</p>\n\n<p>I will add though that I think the process of trying to explain my research to a mixed audience was really good for me in developing a broader perspective, even though my adviser had me start over again after that. I think that in the future, even if I don't end up using it (like what happened this time) I might take some time to write an outreach-style exposition of my project first, just to get that farther-reaching view of things.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37154,
"author": "Inquisitive",
"author_id": 27985,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27985",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My only suggestion would be to describe how the work you do could eventually be applied to improve the human condition. I simply don't accept that pure mathematics can't be of benefit to humankind.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35326",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27475/"
] |
35,329 |
<p>There are many reports out there that say you should not go get an MBA or JD unless you are going for the Top 5 or Top 10 schools respectively. The rationale is that the lost salary and tuition does not make up for the expected NPV difference (get a professional degree vs. do not get a professional degree).</p>
<p>I have never heard this about medical schools. It seems reasonable to assume that most patients do not inquire about their doctor's alma mater and that there is a lot of standardization in the final board exam. Also, most medical schools have an extremely low dropout/failure rate (<5%). However, there is huge variability among the selectivity of medical schools, <a href="http://www.startmedicine.com/app/medstatistics.asp?iMD=Y&iSO=MC&iST=&iCO=&cSU=%20%20Refresh%20School%20Info%20%20">ranging from an average undergraduate GPA and MCAT score of 3.35 and 20 respectively, all the way up to 3.89 and 38</a>.</p>
<p>What advantages does a Duke M.D. have over a Marshall University M.D.? Am I correct in assuming that the average salary distribution over all US medical schools is relatively flat?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35347,
"author": "mkennedy",
"author_id": 5711,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5711",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The consequences of rank apply to medical schools just as they apply to undergraduate or graduate education. <strong><a href=\"http://www.mdorbust.com/single-post/2016/05/09/does-it-matter-which-medical-school-I-attend\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">A more highly ranked medical school can make it easier to get a residency that you want or acceptance into a better quality residency.</a> It may also make you better prepared to pass board exams.</strong> </p>\n\n<p>If you want to do medical research, then you should look for schools that are performing similar research, just as you would for a non-professional graduate program. </p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Update per comments</strong> --</p>\n\n<p>I don't have any experience with medical schools (I knew at 5 I didn't want to be a doctor), so I contacted my resident expert, a relative who both graduated from the Ohio State University School of Medicine and was a professor there. In her words: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Harvard and Yale grads can be more picky about the residency programs\n they apply to. But the other comments are true also [that I sent to her]. \n If they almost\n flunk out of school, have an abrasive personality, have poor test\n scores, etc., they will need to set their sights lower for residency.</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 42600,
"author": "IamNotaSmartMan",
"author_id": 32414,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32414",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I disagree. There are very little differences between medical schools so long as you do well on your STEP I through STEP III exams. Basically what really matters is how you rank compared to the national average. \nI have interviewed residency candidates from around the country-their alma mater means very little to me. Their STEP scores and extracurricular activities matter as well as their personal statements. Don't worry about medical school ranking-just worry about Step exam scores-that will really help you get into any residency program you want.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35329",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8090/"
] |
35,344 |
<p>A professor of mine gave me a paper, because he wanted to show me the kind of work that we might do together in future. It is the advance access version of the paper, but I've found some errors, like typos, and wrong references of some figures in the text. Should I warn him about those things? If so, what would be the best way to do that? </p>
<p><em>Update</em></p>
<ul>
<li>I'm from Italy, but I would love to know about other different cultures as well, especially USA;</li>
<li>My professor is very open minded, nice and easy-going;</li>
<li>Let's put it this way: if I was a computer I wouldn't understood the meaning of the figures because the references in the text don't match with the right plot, but since I'm human being I've understood that he meant the other figures.</li>
</ul>
<p>I believe that pride is less important than the truth, especially when it comes to scientific publications. I mean, everyone can be wrong, there is nothing bad about it in my opinion. But I know that not anyone think the same, so I've asked this question because I wanted to know if it's worth to risk what @littleScala pointed out, to spread higher quality articles around the world and to show meticulousness in reading the paper.</p>
<p>Basically I thought: </p>
<ul>
<li>Maybe a professor could be nicely impressed by such a level of attention;</li>
<li>What if he find its own errors? He might think that I didn't read the paper with caution.</li>
</ul>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35345,
"author": "David Richerby",
"author_id": 10685,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Ask him. It sounds like none of the errors is serious so if your question is just one of etiquette, all you need to say is that you think you found a few typos and little mistakes in the paper and ask if he'd like a list.</p>\n\n<p>If the final version has already been sent to the publisher, it's probably too late to fix that, though there's the opportunity to correct small typos when reviewing the galley proofs. In many fields, people put their papers on their web page, too, so he'll probably appreciate the opportunity to fix that version, even if the version in the journal is already set in stone.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35353,
"author": "Fadecomic",
"author_id": 17379,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17379",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't know where you're writing from, but it would be perfectly fine for you to say something here in the US. I know etiquette varies with culture, though. If one of my students came to me with errors in my papers, I might be sheepish, but certainly not offended. On the other hand, if it's already published, and the errors don't affect the content or the point, there's probably not much of a reason to point them out. You'd be hard-pressed to find a paper that doesn't have at least one typo. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35360,
"author": "Bee Kay",
"author_id": 27464,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27464",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Yes, but ask in the form of looking for an answer.\nHow does this work? I don't see how this piece aligns this way, or this formula looks transposed incorrectly, is it?</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36379,
"author": "Patrick Tudor",
"author_id": 27481,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27481",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There's a balance to be maintained.</p>\n\n<p>First, I always assume grammatical and spelling errors to be matters of style and typographical errors. Clearly if someone has typed \"teh\" or \"peaked\" it should be noted. But otherwise, use the red pen to note style and readability. </p>\n\n<p>But when someone more learned than myself makes claims I as a student would contest, it's better to frame that discussion as, \"Could you explain to me why...?\" Certainly the most expert among us make errors. But on both sides, it's more likely to be caused by ignorance than intention. As the mentor I might not have encountered a scenario that raises questions; as the student, likewise. So many, although one may be certain in a claim, frame it with a subtle doubt as I just did.</p>\n\n<p>Beware though of your own hubris attacking someone else's pride. The professor can make a mistake and be grateful you politely advised them privately. Likewise many students are eager to raise their hand and say, \"That's wrong!\" only to invoke the ire of public humiliation as the professor either tactfully acknowledges their statement or more often suggests they engage in further research and report their findings.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36415,
"author": "Hi Lo",
"author_id": 11938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11938",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Definitely no.</p>\n\n<p>I did the same and it <em>did not</em> go down well. Smiles yes and thanks, but after that we had a bit of an icy relationship.</p>\n\n<p>This nearly cost me my M.Sc.</p>\n\n<p>Don't!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36426,
"author": "Adam Davis",
"author_id": 11901,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11901",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm sure they could have had it proof-read by many people if they wanted. He gave it to you as an example of the work you might be involved in - not in order for you to correct. There's no need for you to bring these issues to his attention, but keep it in mind when you write your papers - have it looked over by others even if you think it's perfect.</p>\n\n<p>If you can't resist, though, don't ask us - ask him. I'd make it a short throw-away question that's part of a larger discussion about what he really gave you the paper for:</p>\n\n<p><em>\"Thanks for the paper, I see that you've researched/studied x and shown y. It looks like the next direction is z, or possibly a, or b. I'm interested in... \"</em> ... have the discussion with him that the paper is intended to start...<em>\"...Thanks, this was a useful discussion. Oh, by the way, I noticed a few minor issues in the paper of a purely editorial nature. Maybe it's too late to send corrections, but if not are you interested in having me mark it up?\"</em></p>\n\n<p>You aren't criticizing his work - in fact you just spent a great deal of time discussing it with him, hopefully in a positive light. You are offering your help in improving the presentation of the work. If he declines, no problem. If he accepts, go ahead.</p>\n\n<p>Keep in mind that you may, however, be seen as volunteering to proof-read all the work he is involved with, and later that may actually become a burden you don't want to have.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36436,
"author": "Ben Bitdiddle",
"author_id": 24384,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24384",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would wait until you are actually his student. At this stage he probably has lots of potential candidates and it's important that he sees you as friendly and easy to work with.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35344",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25315/"
] |
35,352 |
<p>I've been studying for my PhD in Sweden (I moved from the UK in January 2014). It's been alright. I've had difficulties before, and I've thought of quitting it, but I pushed through. I don't speak the language, but I'm in an academic environment where everyone speaks English anyway. I've got on with people here, but being back with my parents for Christmas has made me realise just how much I miss things here.</p>
<p>I can't afford a city apartment abroad, so I live with a family as a lodger in the countryside. I can never quite relax there. It's an old house with thin walls and easily damaged doors, so I have to take care with everything. I have a small room and I don't quite feel comfortable expressing myself around somewhat-strangers. We get on, but I never feel comfortable speaking with them, and they don't really know me. I can't really move out either, since I would be moving on in six months as per the program, and would it really be worth it to find a new place for that amount of time?</p>
<p>Folks at work are nice, but I've never felt completely comfortable around them either. We just have different interests and are different ages. They're nice, but I've felt the urge to prove myself and do well and that's isolated me. There is a LOT of support available, but somehow I still find things difficult. Socialising outside of work is very hard due to the language barrier, the distance from the city (which makes weekends abysmally dull unless I want to spend all day on a trip to the shops) and the way things are organised there. It's not impossible, but it takes great effort.</p>
<p>It's not necessarily the work which is getting me down, but I've realised that I've gotten by this year by devoting myself to work. I've made many mistakes (not all of which can be cleared up), but my supervisor doesn't really mind and still thinks I've done well enough. He's probably right, but as I'm so focused on work I notice all the possible small mistakes, and when they could come back to bite me. And that sucks. I do dread going back to work, as I will have to finish this project somehow, and it won't be as good as I had hoped it would have been. But I will finish it.</p>
<p>Some of the later projects (in my department we work on several different but related papers for a PhD) so seem better, and I can usually get back into things, but I don't have a burning passion for the field. I took the PhD because I was struggling to find a job, and I was considering academia. The PhD was related to what I considered that I wanted to study in the future, and my old masters supervisor recommended it.</p>
<p>As I've said, this isn't the first time I've had doubts. Last year I had a very bad period when I wanted to quit too, but it passed when I felt like I was doing better. Every time I'm back in the UK for a few weeks or longer I feel even more rubbish going back, because things are so much easier here. I know my way around, I speak the language, I have friends I can easily relate to and family nearby that loves me... And it'll only get worse when I have to move to Australia in six months for the next part of my PhD, as the PhD is jointly hosted with another uni in Sydney.</p>
<p>I really feel like I want to come back to the UK. I'm not even sure a PhD is right for me; sometimes it feels okay, but it never quite feels wonderful. It feels more like a job than a life. I'm already on medication for depression/bipolar, and I'm autistic too, if that makes a difference. I get the feeling that I just want to be around folks who get me, which for me seems rare to find over there in an environment so devoted to work.</p>
<p>I feel so lonely right now. I have such an <em>empty</em> life, and it sucks so much. Even this kind of work feels kind of wrong for me too: I don't want to be stuck in an office doing facts and figures forever, especially not for four years. I always thought it was what I wanted, but now I feel like I'd much rather go out and help people somehow as my life's work, or find a boring-but-menial job and focus my life outside of that. Even without my work problems, I've felt like this for at least six months. My PhD seems like a temporary thing to me now, and after it I hope to do something else. But four years like this? I'm not sure if I could handle that.</p>
<p>My passion for my work has gone, I suppose.</p>
<p>There are other things to consider too: I'm transgender, and still struggling to get hormone replacement therapy. Sweden is supportive, but they're told me it'd take a year to begin due to the necessary psychological tests. Which I've already done in the UK. Every time I go somewhere else I have to start the whole thing again.</p>
<p>I am scared that I just feel this way because I'm afraid of how my project will turn out. I'm going to go back and get it done, and see how I feel then, but even then I think I'm afraid I'll just slip back into feeling generally miserable again.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35355,
"author": "gnometorule",
"author_id": 4384,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4384",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Even before you mentioned it, reading your detailed description made me wonder if you might be dealing with depression. </p>\n\n<p>A lot of what you feel is likely due to that. A depressed person is unlikely to feel passion (or what you think that might be) for <em>anything</em>. Feeling a burning void, a lack of purpose, are common, and would probably be with you whatever you target (I am depressed and empathize). </p>\n\n<p>Yes, going home helps, as you say, as you have a support network there. Sweden must be among the better countries to actively support uncommon life circumstances - transgender, depressed, autistic; and you indicate that you feel tolerance (I don't know as much about Australia). Before you drop out, and fall into a possible alternate void in part because of how your mind is wired, I'd strongly consider finding an analyst in Sweden, and working on opening up and finding support in Sweden (transgender groups, other depressed people, people at your school, giving your guest family a shot, and talking to your adviser). I don't know how hard that is considering you say that you are autistic too, but it really is essential to not feel alone; and I see no way around trying.</p>\n\n<p>I would make that my primary focus for the next 6 months, also considering that - for some - depression peaks in winter. If you still feel the same then, I would consider asking for a break of your PhD first before completely dropping out. If granted, try to work as an intern or such in one of the other fields you mention, and see how that feels. My guess though is that it wouldn't necessarily be all that different as long as your depression is strong, but you would have an actual point of comparison. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35371,
"author": "ventsyv",
"author_id": 27409,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27409",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Don't sweat it, what you feel is perfectly natural. I moved to the US when I was 19 and the first year did suck. It just takes a while to get used to the country, meet people you have things in common, get a car etc, etc.</p>\n\n<p>You already spent a year, I think you'll soon find that the worst is over, just stick with it, get your PhD and with that in hand you can do pretty much whatever you want. You can go in academia, you move to the private sector or whatever.</p>\n\n<p>If you are worried about your job, go talk to the manager. I'm sure you are doing just fine, everyone makes mistakes, even seasoned professionals who should know better, just be honest about it and fix it. </p>\n\n<p>Try meeting other English speakers, I would imagine that Sweden has a sizable British, Americans etc community. Check with the local universities, embassies often have mixers where you can meet people.</p>\n\n<p>I would seriously consider getting a car or moving somewhere closer to town. Get a roommate if you can, that way it's cheaper and you get someone to hang out with. Having a place to go home where you can feel comfortable is super important, it will make you feel much better.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 49786,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You are the one who gets to decide what constitutes a valid reason for dropping out of a PhD program. Feeling lonely and uncomfortable is a valid reason for ceasing to do almost anything if the feelings are intense enough. </p>\n\n<p>The situation of studying abroad in a foreign country where you don't speak the language and don't have an ideal living situation is well known to be difficult. I was an American living in Montreal on a work permit for two and a half years (as a postdoc, not a student). This is certainly the easy end of the spectrum -- how many people living abroad can take a bus to their hometown? -- but it was more difficult than I was expecting it to be. That said, this is a relatively common difficult situation which many people do get through and even come to enjoy. </p>\n\n<p>You also mentioned that you are bipolar, autistic and are transgendered. Not only transgendered but in a transitional state which is being impeded by your living in a foreign country. Wow, that's a lot of stuff to deal with at once. Again, you are the one to decide whether it's too much stuff, but I have little doubt that it would be too much <em>for me</em>. If it were me, I would only continue as a student if the PhD program were going amazingly, excitingly well, to the extent that I could clearly see the wonderful academic career that these personal hardships and sacrifices are setting up. It doesn't sound like your program is going that well, and more importantly it sounds like the prospect of a future academic career is not a source of deep pleasure and satisfaction to you. </p>\n\n<p>In summary, you sound like you are quite unhappy, and you are in a situation in which those feelings are more than justified. What one life change, however large or small, would make you more happy and fulfilled? That's a tough question and one worth really thinking over. If the answer is \"Dropping out of the PhD program and moving back to your home country\": great, because you can absolutely do that. If it's something else, try doing <em>that</em> first and see what happens. </p>\n\n<p>Good luck. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 49808,
"author": "damian",
"author_id": 27812,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27812",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The other answers are excellent, but let me add one thing:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I don't speak the language, but I'm in an academic environment where\n everyone speaks English anyway.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Believe me - this is a great misunderstanding (though it is a common one). I work at a University (and did my PhD there) in another country as well - but i <strong>do</strong> speak the language, just as many - but not all - of my international colleagues. Also in our department, most official stuff is done in English, and people are happy to speak English with new colleagues who don't speak the local language. </p>\n\n<p>But this can actually be pretty dangerous as well: It creates the false impression that learning the local language is not neccessary. Technically speaking, it indeed isn't. But actually, it is. It is simply impossible to feel at home if you cannot do any normal stuff <em>without everyone else having to make an effort they wouldn't make if you weren't there.</em> Yes, people might be fluent in English. But that it something different than actually wanting to talk English (= your mother tongue, not theirs!) all the time. To be honest, I think it is perfectly understandable if you go out for a beer after work and you know that inviting person X to join would result in having to speak another language the whole evening, that people don't invite X.</p>\n\n<p>You are the only one who can decide whether to quit or not. But let me give you an advice: Learn the language. In fact, the very act of taking such a class gives you many new contacts as well, and you might find some friends there as well.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck and all the best!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 56467,
"author": "funmi",
"author_id": 42845,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/42845",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's normal to feel this way at the beginning, but once These Feelings persist for longer than a month or two, then they cease from simply being the normal 'moving to a new environment' jitters. I say, if it does not suit you, and the programs benefits are not worth it enough for you to stay (e.g. you may be more likely to get a secure Job, but it may be in Sweden, still away from Family and/or you may not be happy with that Position, as is already what seems to be the case from reading your Story), then I do not see the harm in either taking abreak or stopping indefinitely. Sure, the work that you have already completed would have lost its value, but in the Long run, you will thank yourself tremendously for making a decision that would inform your happiness. Another alternative is to enjoy your own Company and seek out at least one like-minded individual by joining an Organisation or speaking to someone within your course of study about going out for Drinks, etc. \nNever allow your emotions to control you, rather, you control your emotions by doing what is best for yourself in both the short and Long run. Hey, maybe sacrificing a bit of happiness now may yield your happiness for the rest of your life once the program is over and you are more financially stable. True, Money does not bring happiness, but lack thereof is just as burdensome. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 56484,
"author": "Fábio Dias",
"author_id": 41208,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41208",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Phds are seldom easy. It does get better afterwards (postdocs/professors have way more say in what/how they do stuff). Indeed, what I'm doing now has little relation to what I did during the phd...</p>\n\n<p>All these doubts and insecurities are common. But I'll reinforce the advice: go for professional psychological support. I know from experience that helps, and you have a lot going on :) And, maybe, a hobby, something to take your head of stuff for a while... If you go to australia, try to get a more confortable place to live. For me at least, it really helped...</p>\n\n<p>IMHO, the decision of continuing or not is almost irrelevant. You will do what you think its best and live with it, which is nothing new for you. I would only say that it wouldn't be very wise to decide stuff that is that important while feeling that bad. Clearheaded decisions are always best, but not always possible :)</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35352",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21337/"
] |
35,354 |
<p>One of my student’s MA thesis is very well done. I know him and I worked with him enough to notice that something is going on. I talked to him and he always seemed confused about what he was doing and he did not seem to know the source so well. </p>
<p>Is it possible that he just translated and paraphrased another thesis from his native language, which is Spanish? How can I find it out? </p>
<p>The thesis contains citations and everything but it’s too accurate and I have some doubts.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35364,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your question suggests that you are not sure which of the following is true:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Your student worked hard and produced an excellent thesis</li>\n<li>Your student plagiarised a thesis from another language</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In either case, this warrants extra attention from you. </p>\n\n<p>The first step would be to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/18158/11365\">discuss the work with him further</a>. If he was able to discuss said work intelligently, this would be an indication that he did write the thesis. However, you said that you spoke to him, and he seemed confused about what he was doing, which raises legitimate suspicions. </p>\n\n<p>To find out whether he can (and has) produced good written work, but finds it hard to discuss said work in person, you can ask him to edit his written work. Unless the thesis is 100% perfect in every way, you can identify a potential area of improvement that should not place an undue burden on the student. For example, you can ask him/her to</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>add some extra detail to one section</li>\n<li>compare to another related work in the literature review section</li>\n<li>etc.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If the student did the work and independently produced a great thesis, this is positive attention that will help improve the work. If the student did not do the work, it will become evident when he tries to improve it following your suggestions. </p>\n\n<p>Of course, if you know someone who speaks the student's language and who can be counted on to keep your request quiet, you can (without sharing the student's name) ask him/her to search the web in the student's language for publicly available theses on the subject, and see if a match turns up.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35366,
"author": "Tom Au",
"author_id": 755,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/755",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Apparently, the professor's concern is that the student's \"brilliant\" thesis is too far out of line with his other work. It's possible, of course, that this student excels at one academic aspect, i.e. prepared writing. But the possibility ought to be considered that the student hired a \"professional\" to do his work for him. </p>\n\n<p>The first thing the professor should do is try to get a sample of the student's other writing. The most obvious source is an in-class test (not a take home). Of course it will be less polished than a thesis, but even so, there should be clear badges of common authorship. Otherwise, the professor might even ask to see one of the student's other papers. Perhaps this could be co-ordinated with one of the student's other professors. </p>\n\n<p>Perhaps the best possibility is to consult an expert in \"Spanish,\" and specifically the \"kind\" of Spanish where the student comes from. Such an expert would know how a \"native\" would likely translate his sentences into English, and whether it is at least possible that the translation came from him, or from a \"different\" Spanish speaker. Perhaps the Spanish expert can also quiz the student in Spanish to see if he understands the material in his native language to the degree implied by his submitted thesis.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 46842,
"author": "mafu",
"author_id": 5640,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5640",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm just adding a small idea which was not contained in the other answers.</p>\n\n<p>If his work contains references, you might try to check which articles in the student's language have the same or similar references.</p>\n\n<p>I'm not aware of a tool that automates this process, but you could use e.g. Google Scholar to get a list of all works which reference a particular source. Add those to a list. Repeat for every reference and note down the repetitions of each item.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, you will have a (hopefully not too long) list of works with similar references. Those with the highest count are your best bet to check.</p>\n\n<p>Obviously, more 'obscure' references are more useful in this process, while very widely cited sources add no value and can be omitted. If the work only cites widespread sources, this 'fingerprinting' approach is unmanageable without writing an appropriate automation tool first.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 188741,
"author": "Mariusz Bojarczuk",
"author_id": 162682,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/162682",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is not unethical "to be suspicious on your student because he has done his job very well." It is called having a reasonable doubt. The student obviously has not demonstrated an appropriate intellectual level during the course. That is why we have Turnitin. Nothing unethical about it.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35354",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27460/"
] |
35,356 |
<p>If an email message sent to one's professor is not answered promptly, is it rude to forward it without comment to the original recipient as a reminder? If so, how long should one wait before doing so? Assume the professor is teaching a class the sender is taking.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35357,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>On the whole, I'd say \"yes, this is a rude way to send a reminder to a non-peer.\"</p>\n\n<p>The premises are tricky: what is \"prompt\" to one person is not to another, and not everyone checks (work-related) email at every available opportunity. E.g., some seem to only go through email once a day, on weekdays, or even less often.</p>\n\n<p>There is the other issue about acknowledgement of receipt, even if one's response will be delayed.</p>\n\n<p>But/and if one is teaching a course with 30 or 100 or 250 students, individual responses to daily can be a time-consuming occupation... so that \"acknowledgement of receipt\" becomes unappealing and an arguable waste of time... if a proper understanding can be reached.</p>\n\n<p>I've tried to cultivate in my students a sense that emails should have a \"greeting\", a \"body\", and a \"closing\", much as old-timey paper letters did... if only so that one can tell whether a thing was mis-sent and/or truncated, not to mention some overt acknowledgement of the identity and dignity of the recipient.</p>\n\n<p>So, if <em>I</em> were to receive a fowarded copy of an email that had already been sent to me, I would consider it quite rude, yes. I do attempt to respond within a few hours of receipt of all email, even if only to acknowledge receipt. Whether or not I had done so, I'd view a merely-forwarded email as uncivil, apart from issues about peer-or-not.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35358,
"author": "marsisalie",
"author_id": 10017,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10017",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would be at a minimum annoyed and further less receptive in such a situation where someone would send a plain forward of an already sent email.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, when I need to take such action, I do not send a plain forward but instead I assume the recipient took knowledge of the original email, and add some recent relevant developments (eg: since our last exchange, two new students joined our team efforts and work is really being done. Regarding the original email, everything still stand, please give us an update whenever you can...) or something to that effect</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35356",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] |
35,370 |
<p>Consider someone invited on a job interview (in the sciences) at a university or a national lab or something of that sort with a regular seminar series. As part of the interview, the person is asked to give a talk as part of the seminar series.</p>
<p>Is that appropriate for inclusion on the CV as an invited talk?</p>
<p>I saw one related question to this but it was different enough that it didn't really answer my question:
<a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1157/do-presentations-given-during-interviews-count-as-invited-talks">Do presentations given during interviews count as invited talks?</a></p>
<p>However, the thread really just has a couple answers with equal support for opposite positions. The difference here is the distinction that the talk is given as part of an interview but <strong>also</strong> is part of a regular seminar series. I was wondering if this changed people's feelings on the matter at all.</p>
<p>It seems to me that any other person would list that as an invited talk. It also just seems to get grayed a bit by the fact that it is technically being used as part of a job interview.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35375,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here is a possible rule of thumb: if they list your talk on the web page for the seminar series (in the list of talks given that semester), then you should not feel bad at all about listing it on your own C.V.</p>\n\n<p>Personally, I would view any talk that you are invited to give that is \"open the public in the way a normal talk is\" to be an invited talk. But I do divide my talks into conference talks and seminars on my vita.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35378,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is that appropriate for inclusion on the CV as an invited talk?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>Yes.</strong></p>\n\n<p>If someone invited you to give a talk, then it's an invited talk. It is perfectly appropriate to list it on your CV as such.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35380,
"author": "Andy Putman",
"author_id": 4513,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4513",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is no need to overthink this. Every job talk I've ever given or attended was described either as a seminar (say, a geometry seminar) or a colloquium. List it on your cv like that. There are many job talks on \nmy cv (see my webpage), but they are indistinguishable from the rest. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36400,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I think there are two points of view in regards to talks related to a job search. The first is everything associated with the search should be lumped together, and if listed on your CV, it would be under something like \"positions interviewed for\". On my full CV, which I use for keeping track of my activities, I group positions interviewed for into off-campus and on-campus. The other approach is to separate out the \"public\" aspects of the job search and list them separately (e.g., under research seminars and guest teaching). I take the later approach since an issue with the former approach is that sometimes after giving a research seminar (or potentially guest teaching), you might be asked to apply for a job, which of course then blurs the lines.</p>\n\n<p>In general, prior to making a campus visit, I ask for information about the audience of at the different activities (e.g., teaching demo, research talk about past research, and chalk talk about future research). The response about an activity is usually something along the lines of \"it will just be the search committee\" or \"it is open to everyone and their might be a couple of interested undergraduates in the audience.\" From that I can usually decide if it is a public or private activity. Once I decide an activity is \"public\", I think it is not only entirely appropriate to list it the same as any other talk on your CV, but that leaving it off is misleading. I would consider it the same as if I found out someone was leaving \"questionable\" publications off of their CV.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/06
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35370",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27474/"
] |
35,372 |
<p>If a TT position is announced in a medical-related field in a research-intensive university, and they request to apply using 1) a letter of interest and 2) a CV (No research statement is required). They say the candidate's time would be divided between research 60%, teaching 20%, and service 20%. Would you still submit a research statement or would you just include in the letter of interest more details about your current and future research (this might require making the letter little longer ~3 pages)?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 35375,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here is a possible rule of thumb: if they list your talk on the web page for the seminar series (in the list of talks given that semester), then you should not feel bad at all about listing it on your own C.V.</p>\n\n<p>Personally, I would view any talk that you are invited to give that is \"open the public in the way a normal talk is\" to be an invited talk. But I do divide my talks into conference talks and seminars on my vita.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35378,
"author": "JeffE",
"author_id": 65,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is that appropriate for inclusion on the CV as an invited talk?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>Yes.</strong></p>\n\n<p>If someone invited you to give a talk, then it's an invited talk. It is perfectly appropriate to list it on your CV as such.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 35380,
"author": "Andy Putman",
"author_id": 4513,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4513",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is no need to overthink this. Every job talk I've ever given or attended was described either as a seminar (say, a geometry seminar) or a colloquium. List it on your cv like that. There are many job talks on \nmy cv (see my webpage), but they are indistinguishable from the rest. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36400,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I think there are two points of view in regards to talks related to a job search. The first is everything associated with the search should be lumped together, and if listed on your CV, it would be under something like \"positions interviewed for\". On my full CV, which I use for keeping track of my activities, I group positions interviewed for into off-campus and on-campus. The other approach is to separate out the \"public\" aspects of the job search and list them separately (e.g., under research seminars and guest teaching). I take the later approach since an issue with the former approach is that sometimes after giving a research seminar (or potentially guest teaching), you might be asked to apply for a job, which of course then blurs the lines.</p>\n\n<p>In general, prior to making a campus visit, I ask for information about the audience of at the different activities (e.g., teaching demo, research talk about past research, and chalk talk about future research). The response about an activity is usually something along the lines of \"it will just be the search committee\" or \"it is open to everyone and their might be a couple of interested undergraduates in the audience.\" From that I can usually decide if it is a public or private activity. Once I decide an activity is \"public\", I think it is not only entirely appropriate to list it the same as any other talk on your CV, but that leaving it off is misleading. I would consider it the same as if I found out someone was leaving \"questionable\" publications off of their CV.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35372",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21650/"
] |
36,381 |
<p>In elementary school we are taught to give an apple to your teacher as a sign of appreciation. Obviously it doesn't work anymore in academia.</p>
<p>I wish to maintain a relationship with a professor after his class, so to establish a relationship that maybe worthwhile longer down the road.</p>
<p>What are some of the ways to show appreciation to your university prof. without resorting to excessive (and often empty) flattery or sending him gifts which maybe in violation of university policy and land everyone in trouble.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36382,
"author": "Amstell",
"author_id": 24782,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24782",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>After I finished my undergraduate degree I wanted to thank those professors who were the most influential to me and my studies over the past years. In particular, those who wrote all my graduate school letters of recommendations and took the time to help me through the process. I thought about getting them a gift, but felt it was inappropriate. </p>\n\n<p>What I ended up doing was typing a letter to them which thanked them for all they did to me and provided a specific example in which they were influential to me that helped steer me in the direction I was going. I then mailed it to the department so they received it unexpectedly. All of them emailed me to thank me for the nice letter and that it was their pleasure.</p>\n\n<p>This would be a really nice thing to do that isn't flattering and full of praise, but what you actually got from them that was beneficial. </p>\n\n<p>Hope this helps :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 42784,
"author": "Daniel L",
"author_id": 381,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/381",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some institutions have awards for outstanding instructors that students can nominate people to receive. If you believe your instructor was outstanding, you might submit a nomination for a teaching award.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 42801,
"author": "O. R. Mapper",
"author_id": 14017,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am first going to point out how the actual application of any answer to this question is <em>very</em> dependent on the culture that you are in, and afterwards, I am going to suggest a few abstract ways how to do this.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>As I said, answers to this question will be extremely culture-dependent. Starting with your example of giving an apple to an elementary school teacher, this could be seen as bordering on corruption in some places (especially in elementary school, where it can be surmised that the child did not buy the apple themselves, but was given the apple by their parents and asked to hand it over to their teacher). (Aside from the more practical question, unless you expect to be treated in a special way compared to your classmates, which would leave an extremely sour taste concerning your little apple gift, what the teacher is supposed to do with some 20 (or whatever the size of your class) apples.)</p>\n\n<p>Signs of appreciation, and the degree at which appreciation is expressed, vary a lot between cultures. I grew up in Germany, and seen with a German cultural background, most praise expressed in English-speaking cultures sounds way over the top. Conversely, Germans are often perceived as cold and uncaring by people from English-speaking cultures, as a simple \"Thank you for the interesting class.\" would already be quite a strong praise in German, but is not necessarily perceived as such by native English speakers. (Some of these differences are outlined quite well in an <a href=\"http://usaerklaert.wordpress.com/2006/09/18/warum-amerikaner-briten-kanadier-nicht-sagen-was-sie-meinen/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">essay</a> that was translated to English by <a href=\"https://travel.stackexchange.com/users/7442/thorsten-s\">Thorsten S</a> in his <a href=\"https://travel.stackexchange.com/a/38192/13104\">answer on Travel SE</a>.) There is even a region in Germany that is especially well-known for that trait, and one of their sayings goes \"Absence of ranting is sufficient praise.\" While it's not actually quite that bad and that somewhat humorous saying should be taken with a grain of salt, it demonstrates well different cultural attitudes toward expressing praise.</p>\n\n<p>The same applies to more material ways of expressing praise. Depending on the culture and circumstances, the way in which a gift (for saying thank you or otherwise) is presented might matter more than the gift itself. To cite just two examples:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>In some cultures such as in China, a gift might be simple, but needs to be well-chosen. As pointed out by the <a href=\"http://www.illuminantpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Illuminants-Chinese-Takeout-Vol-04-Enter-the-Dragon-Gifts-72dpi.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">graphic</a> linked in <a href=\"https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/40415/are-candles-a-welcome-gift-in-china\">a Travel SE question</a>, an apple might be an ok gift, but by no means switch it for a pear.</li>\n<li>Wedding gifts in Germany typically involve some money, but the most important aspect (the one that will actually be appreciated and memorized) is that a lot of fantasy and crafting went into them. cf. <a href=\"http://grossstadtprinzessin.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Gesamtansicht.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this</a>, <a href=\"http://s33.dawandastatic.com/Product/3926/3926198/product_l/1361458510-945.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this</a>, or <a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/VH3cs.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>After establishing that the actual contents and wording is very culture-dependent, there might still be some generic suggestions for how to place the statement of appreciation:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>At the end of the last lesson, when you see the professor for the last time: If you hope to collaborate with the professor in the future, just talk to the professor and express that you'd be interested taking more classes/participating in projects in the research area of the professor or their department. You can then easily start such a conversation by pointing out that one of your main motivations for that goal is that you found the current class very interesting (or, if the topics do not match a lot, at least that it was very well organized and/or well-taught).</li>\n<li>Once you have something specific in mind, such as a project, point out that you found the class very interesting then. You can postpone your praise till that time; being on the professor's \"gave praise, but didn't have anything concrete\" batch will probably not help a lot, anyway.</li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36381",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20070/"
] |
36,384 |
<p>I've seen candidates for tenure-track positions in computer science that managed to negotiate a starting date that is a year later than originally planned. During that additional year, they all seem to be doing a PostDoc in various places. </p>
<p>I'm wondering what the benefit of this is. Many departments provide you with a lighter teaching load during your first year, so it seems to me that the overhead with moving to a new place (for just a year), working on a postdoc salary, and then, before the 12 months are up, moving again, doesn't strike me as an efficient way to develop one's career. </p>
<p>Is there some big advantage of doing such a postdoc rather than immediately starting your tenure-track position that I'm missing? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36386,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Once you have a t-t position, you're in a race against time to get as many publications as you can before your tenure clock runs out.</p>\n\n<p>A postdoc effectively gives you one more year of focused attention to research and publications before you have to start teaching. </p>\n\n<p>Note that teaching can be highly disruptive to research and publications, especially in your first year.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36388,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to postponing the tenure clock by a year, there's another benefit that can accrue from a postdoc: you get to learn a new area, and work with a new group of people, which will improve your group management and leadership experience, and broaden your knowledge base for the future. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36437,
"author": "mako",
"author_id": 5962,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5962",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think there are three main benefits:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><strong>Delay the start of the clock.</strong> When a TT position starts, you have a fixed amount of time until your tenure case goes up for review. At that point, your whole portfolio of work and letters from scholars in your field and everything else will be evaluated. If you have more time to publish and build a reputation, you can do more in this regard and build a stronger portfolio and a stronger case for tenure. </p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Focus on research.</strong> Tenure cases are evaluated almost completely in terms of research productivity, quality, and impact. Post-docs are usually full-time research positions. TT jobs are largely teaching and service. In this sense, there are some ways that it's easier to build a tenure case <em>without</em> a tenure track job! </p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Work in another institution.</strong> If you have a job at University X but have an offer for a post-doc at University Y (perhaps a more prestigious institution) this way you can still take the job and add the CV line for Y. It's also a great way to build your network and start collaborations.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Of course, post-docs certainly not without costs once you have the TT job in hand. For example, post-docs generally can't apply for grants as principle investigators and this is something that often matters for tenure. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36475,
"author": "user155002",
"author_id": 27210,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27210",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I can't comment so take it as a possible answer to what has already been correctly said. Usually, postdoc positions are tax-free (at least in Canada for a limited number of years). It is certainly not the main reason to delay tt but a rather pleasant one.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36384",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24769/"
] |
36,406 |
<p>Say a student who wants to further her study in a specific field, so she applies for multiple programs at several universities.<BR> Each of these prospective universities requires her to submit at least two recommendation letters.<BR> The question is that how many recommendation letters should she ask a Professor to write? <BR>
If she has applied for 5 programs at 5 universities, then she needs to submit 10 recommendation letters. She knows 10 professors of her former school, in this <br>case, should she ask each professor to write one recommendation letter for her, <br>or ask the two professors she knows best to write 10 recommendation letters for her?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36407,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>From my point of view as a recommendation writer, it's not much harder to send out 5 recommendation letters for a student then it is to send out one letter, since the letters vary only slightly and in most cases the letters can be submitted online. In my experience, when students ask me for recommendations I typically end up sending out four or five letters per student. </p>\n\n<p>Thus I don't think that it is at all unreasonable to ask your recommendation writers to send out multiple letters (within reason.) </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36408,
"author": "Nate Eldredge",
"author_id": 1010,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Normally, you should choose the two people who know you best and can write you the strongest letters, and ask each of them to send one letter to each program to which you are applying. Each of them will write one letter and send copies of it, with minor modifications if needed, to every program, so it isn't much more work than sending one letter.</p>\n\n<p>This is to your advantage (you get the strongest letters) and also minimizes the total amount of work.</p>\n\n<p>If a program needs more than two letters, or you think another professor would be a more suitable writer for one particular program (for instance, if they have connections to that institution), then you can ask for letters from them as well. But there's no need to get letters from more different people purely for the variety.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36411,
"author": "Aru Ray",
"author_id": 948,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/948",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Your goal should be to get the absolute best letters possible. </p>\n\n<p>Most likely, of the ten professors the candidate knows, there are two that will be 'better' letter-writers than the others - in the sense that they know her better, have taught her in multiple classes (more than the others) that she has done well in, the candidate may have done some research/reading course with them, etc.</p>\n\n<p>In general, these two should be asked to write a letter each that they would send to the different programs. If a student were to come to me and ask me to send letters to five different programs, I would not write five entirely different letters. The letters might have some minor differences if the programs have some significant differences (applied vs theoretical program, or something like that), but they would be mostly identical. </p>\n\n<p>The only situation where you might ask a third person is if they are a better choice for a particular program, e.g. they might be an alum of that program, or might know someone there personally, might have had the candidate in courses that are particularly relevant for that particular program, etc. In that case you would ask them to write a letter for that particular program in lieu of the default choices. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 133009,
"author": "Prof. Bill Randall",
"author_id": 110598,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/110598",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a professor, the student gets ONE letter. With dozens of requests each year, writing them is very time-consuming and somewhat daunting when one has a \"to do\" list with multiple students. To be honest, it seems that some students just ask every professor they've had to write one, which is poor planning and perhaps \"letter shopping\" for the best one. \nStudents should accept a generic letter that will suffice for any program. I teach nursing so usually, it's for a student's first job as an RN. A few years later ask for a letter when applying for graduate school. I have agreed to those \"only\" if I know the student very well. Since I do not teach classroom courses anymore, usually I refer them to faculty who know their academic work (not just their clinical work). I hope that's helpful. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36406",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27408/"
] |
36,414 |
<p>Is there a process one could follow when assessing the prestige of a specific supervisor when evaluating PhD programs? I ask because in the academic world, the professor almost trumps the school. I am not sure if that statement holds for industry. How can one assess if the PI's reputation is large enough to offset the fact that conferring institution is not in the top 5 or ten schools for that discipline. I am aiming for of an entrepreneur/industry trajectory and in an ideal world this would not matter. I want to believe that as long as you stellar work experience, the sky is the limit. I just have in the back of my mind in a hypothetical situation where you are trying to pitch and idea for VC funding having that pedigree may be helpful. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36416,
"author": "Buzz",
"author_id": 27515,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27515",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you go into academia, the school where you get your PhD and the prestige of your specific advisor are about equally important. (Neither is as important as what research you actually do while completing your degree.) If you are not going into academia, then then the prestige of the school is more important. People who have PhD degreed but have been working in industry for while are probably not going to know your advisor's particular standing in the field; venture capitalists certainly will not be able to parse your advisor's standing. What these people can recognize is the prestige of the university (although not necessarily the department) where you studied.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36420,
"author": "marsisalie",
"author_id": 10017,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10017",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my opinion, the prestige of a potential supervisor in the industry (vs strictly academic) can be (rapidly) assessed by first checking his academic curriculum vitae for:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>The committees he is part of. As an academic working with the industry, he should be involved with one or several government / industries related committees with a focus on state of the art application of the knowledge in that industry (procedures to do x,y,z) common best practices (for that field), budgeting and assigning funds, defining road-maps for the next 5, 10 years etc. I know some academics working closely with the transport industry (or government related agencies) - and in addition to the usual academic implication, they are also working actively with those instances, often have a student doing a project with those instances as well.</li>\n<li>His publications : he should write or be co-author on papers/books that are recognized in his field. Often large efforts with large groups of academics. His methods/work should be found or referred in some textbooks. He should have international collaborations. Patents ?</li>\n<li>Editor : is he on any editorial boards for relevant journals ?</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>If he is an early career academic, is he that person who is always everywhere, always organizing something, always at conferences and meeting with half a dozen presentation - this could give a hint that this person is dynamic and his career may be promising.</p>\n\n<p>This information should be easy to find. If it is hard to find, this may be a flag. I would personally have a good confidence joining a researcher with at some degree meet those characteristics, even if he is not a tenure at a top university. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36414",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10097/"
] |
36,419 |
<p>I emailed some tutors from several years ago to ask for a meeting (as described in <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35350/why-might-my-tutors-from-several-years-ago-not-respond-to-my-email-request-for-a">this question</a>). I am happy to tell you that I have received another reply from my former school teacher. She had a trip to Japan for weeks and had not read any emails. She agreed to meet me at my former school.</p>
<p>I want to further my study and I want to seek more information from her.</p>
<p>I know that she is very busy, so should I make use of this opportunity to ask her to write to any recommendation letter for me even if I have not applied for any programms at a university? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36422,
"author": "Florian D'Souza",
"author_id": 26958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm not quite sure what you're asking. What \"more information\" do you need?</p>\n\n<p>I think it is unlikely that any professor or teacher will write a recommendation letter for you in the absence of an application deadline. Otherwise, she might be wasting her time (e.g., you never end up applying or decide that a letter from another professor would be better). Since you say that \"she is very busy,\" I would be careful about asking her to write a letter if you aren't applying anywhere right now.</p>\n\n<p>The only situation where I would even consider asking about a recommendation letter in the absence of a plan to apply soon would be if you think her memory of you will substantially wane between now and when you apply. If that's the case, maybe reconnecting with her will help jog her memory. On the other hand, many professors will ask for a CV or draft statement of purpose before writing a letter, which can also serve the same purpose.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36423,
"author": "marsisalie",
"author_id": 10017,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10017",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Definitely, you should tell her that you would like to further your training. And since your former tutor know you well, she is one of the capable person to write this letter. </p>\n\n<p>Meanwhile, she doesn't have to write it now and then - if you manifest the possibility of asking her in a near future for such a letter and she agree, this will still stand in a year or so. </p>\n\n<p>It is hard to write a good and relevant letter in advance without knowing on which desk it will land on - so better make precision when you know more details, such as the institution, concentration, which possible supervisor, with hyperlinks to relevant pages in case she want more context.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36429,
"author": "Jessica B",
"author_id": 20036,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20036",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Take the opportunity to ask if they would be willing to write a reference for you at a later time (when you email them the details), giving an indication of when you expect to be doing applications.</p>\n\n<p>(As I have said elsewhere, if your referee is busy (or even if not), try to allow your referee to write their letter and send it to as many places as needed in one sitting, rather than spacing out requests and so taking up more time.) </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36419",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27408/"
] |
36,428 |
<p>I've seen on this site several posts about how to handle <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16265/you-are-paid-to-answer-my-questions-how-to-handle-silly-questions">silly</a> or <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16319/how-do-you-deal-with-trolling-students/16387#16387">"trolling"</a> questions, but I recently faced the opposite situation. Several students in a class I'm teaching continuously bring up questions that are relevant to the lecture and/or interesting; however, they ask so many questions that it tends to disrupt the lecture by throwing off the pace and flow of the presentation (e.g., I lose my train of thought or I have to speed up to finish the lecture on time). I don't want to discourage questions, but at the same time, I don't think it is fair to entertain so many questions if it results in a lowering of the lecture's quality. </p>
<p>A solution that I tried is telling the students that they can come to office hours or make an appointment with me to talk. However, most of them don't take me up on those offers, and those who do take advantage of my offer sometimes come with so many questions that I cannot answer them all within the time I've set aside for office hours/teaching appointments.</p>
<p>Since this is limited to a small (but vocal) subset of my students, I don't think the issue is with the quality of my teaching. Otherwise I would expect (and hope) that more people would be asking questions or giving some other indication that I'm not being clear.</p>
<p>Is there any way to handle this sort of situation without coming across as uninterested in student questions or discouraging questions from being posed? I truly am interested in making sure everyone is understanding the material, but at the same time, I cannot be devoting large amounts of time above and beyond what I'm already devoting to teaching.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36430,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>As a student, I find that waiting to ask <em>all</em> questions in office hours or the end of class is not a great solution. I don't mind delaying non-urgent questions, but sometimes if I don't understand something presented in the first ten minutes of the class, I might then miss out on the rest of the lecture if I don't have a chance to ask a question. So I appreciate when instructors give students <em>some</em> chance to ask questions during the lecture.</p>\n\n<p>A good way to allow this and also control <em>when</em> and <em>how many</em> questions are asked is to invite questions in each class at times of your choosing (and let students know you'll be doing this).</p>\n\n<p>At the beginning of the lecture, say, \"I'll pause and ask for questions at regular intervals, so you'll have a chance to ask your questions then.\"</p>\n\n<p>Decide ahead of time where you will pause and ask for questions (at convenient places to break the lecture, or places where you know students often have questions).</p>\n\n<p>During the lecture, pause at the predetermined places and say something like:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"I'll pause for questions now. We have time for three or four questions.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(and you can decide how many questions to take depending on how the lecture is going, time-wise.)</p>\n\n<p>Students with too many questions in office hours are an entirely different issue. You should ask these students to schedule a separate appointment, and determine whether the questions are a sign of a problem (i.e. they may need tutoring or similar services) or a good thing (i.e. they are looking for enrichment and need some pointers on how to find it).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36432,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I too have struggled with this as a teacher, particularly because I don't want to stifle engagement from students. My main approach, which I think works well with relatively small classes but would not scale well to more than a couple dozen students, is to change my lecture structure so that rather than just presenting material, I am asking students to actively reason about what should come next. That way, the exploration of ideas is built into the lecture and becomes part of the education rather than distracting from it.</p>\n\n<p>To illustrate this, let me give an example from a lecture that I gave last semester:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>I started by presenting a basic algorithm on the topic of the lecture.</li>\n<li>Next, I worked an example, having the students say what would happen at each step.</li>\n<li>We then worked an example of a situation that was problematic for the algorithm the same way, and we talked about what more general circumstances would cause the problem.</li>\n<li>I then led a discussion where the students tried to figure out how they might change the algorithm to improve its behavior. After a little while, we'd come close enough to the ideas of the more sophisticated algorithm that was the next thing I wanted to present, and I moved to presenting that algorithm, explaining how they had nearly reinvented it.</li>\n<li>We then did the same thing for one more cycle, covering a total of three important algorithms in the lecture and ending with a discussion of the general trade-off space they were representative of, as well as assumptions and pragmatics to be concerned about in real-world usage.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>This approach requires a lot of thinking on your feet, but I think it can be rewarding because it illustrates the students not just how the material works but also where it comes from. I think it also helps build confidence in their own intellectual abilities when (with a little coaching) they can develop the same insights that created the advances they are learning about.</p>\n\n<p>The downside of this approach is that you probably can't pack as many things into a single lecture. I think this is often OK, because you end up teaching more about principles and how to think about a subject, which means the students will be more able to pick up related material if they need it. You also need to be really confident in your material. I also have no idea how it could scale to large classes.</p>\n\n<p>Other things that I think are important for making this type of approach work:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Call on different \"areas\" of the class (e.g., \"let's hear from somebody in the back\", \"let's hear from somebody who hasn't spoken yet\"), to keep things from being dominated by the same students.</li>\n<li>Be willing to let a silence stretch long enough for students to think and gain confidence to speak.</li>\n<li>If any chunk of discussion is going on too long, you can say something like, \"These are really good ideas, and they lead right into the next thing I wanted to show you...\" or \"That's an excellent question, and we'll come back to it later in the lecture...\" and just move forward. It won't feel as much like discouraging questions in this mode, since after all you've just been leading a discussion!</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36460,
"author": "Chris H",
"author_id": 8494,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8494",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It sounds to me like there are 2 types of question relevant here </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><em>What did you mean by ...?</em> </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The answer is brief and not answering would affect a student's ability to follow the rest of the lecture.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><em>What are the implications of ...?</em> </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This is a question that might lead to a longer answer or some discussion. </p>\n\n<p>I suggest that the first kind should be answered when asked, the effect on the flow of the lecture should be small. The second kind is more amenable to deferring to one or more of </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>the end of the lecture or section</li>\n<li>office hours</li>\n<li>the next lecture</li>\n<li>a seminar/problems class</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In many of these cases you <em>and more importantly the students</em> can take some time to read about the question (you might need a 5 minute refresher, it might take them an hour).</p>\n\n<p>Of course at first it will be up to you to say \"let's save that question\", but you can be clear about what's a good question to handle inline and what is best kept to the end. This distinction may serve them well in, for example, postgrad seminars if they go on to such things later.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36468,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You're very lucky to have this problem, which is not really a problem but rather an opportunity. You don't say what field this is, but for STEM fields, there's a great deal of research (see [Freeman] for a review) showing that straight lecturing is the worst possible mode of instruction, and that the methods that work better involve some kind of active engagement by the students.</p>\n\n<p>Some of the comments on jakebeal's answer seem to show that a lot of people are really hung up on a strict 19th-century interpretation of what \"lecture\" means. Just because it's referred to as \"lecture\" in the college catalog, that doesn't mean that it has to be taught using techniques that have been demonstrated to be ineffective.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I don't want to discourage questions, but at the same time, I don't think it is fair to entertain so many questions if it results in a lowering of the lecture's quality. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The research shows that the opposite is the case. The lowest quality of instruction will result if you give a straight, smooth, highly organized, noninteractive lecture.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>they ask so many questions that it tends to disrupt the lecture by throwing off the pace and flow of the presentation (e.g., I lose my train of thought or I have to speed up to finish the lecture on time)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Your concern about covering all the material is a natural one, given traditional expectations that students will be spoon-fed the material in class. Active learning techniques can only succeed if the instructor makes it clear that the students are responsible for reading <em>before</em> the material is covered in class, and enforces this expectation using grades, typically by giving easy, multiple-choice questions on the reading. The purpose of the class meeting is then to wrestle with the material, not to introduce it. For an example of successful practices, see [Mazur].</p>\n\n<p>Freeman et al., \"Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics\" -- <a href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/05/08/1319030111\">http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/05/08/1319030111</a></p>\n\n<p>Mazur, Peer Instruction: A User's Manual, 1996</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36477,
"author": "Myself",
"author_id": 27563,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27563",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Frankly it sounds like you are the issue here. As the questions are on topic you are a lucky teacher to have students as interested in the topic. As a student (of the questioning persuasion) I can't stand to be told that my questions are \"out of the scope if this class\" etc. Learn your material backwards and forwards an in-depth. You aren't there to read the text book to them. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36428",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958/"
] |
36,431 |
<p>It's been 8 days since my TOEFL scores were sent to me by ETS and I chose for them to be sent directly to the university I am applying. However, the official score reports won't be sent there before the deadline. Is it okay to copy-paste (since there is not a "print" option) and upload the scores that were electronically sent to me 10 days after the test date and notify the university about the delivery of the official score reports? Also, will I be notified by ETS when the university receives the official score reports?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36446,
"author": "JustStarted",
"author_id": 18043,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18043",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>ETS says \"Official score reports will be sent to your designated recipients approximately 13 days after you take the test.\" at <a href=\"https://www.ets.org/toefl/ibt/scores/send/\" rel=\"nofollow\">this link</a></p>\n\n<p>That means, if your deadline is 20 days from now, and you take your TOEFl today, then score would be sent within 13 days (7 days before the deadline.) and finally will be received by the university after 13+7 days (it might take more). You can mail the university asking them to consider your report if they receive it wthin 2-3 days. They can wait for 2-3 days, if requested, but totally depends on the school. Talk to them, request them. Otherwise, your application will be considered as INCOMPLETE! and it would be considered in the next Round.</p>\n\n<p>I don't think that the candidate is intimated about the delivery of the report as they send it via postal mail.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36493,
"author": "user141592",
"author_id": 27327,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27327",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my experience, universities don't have a deadline for official scores. They do however have a deadline for when you should have taken the exam. If you took the exam before the deadline, they either know that the scores will arrive before they actually start reviewing your application, or they don't consider the scores until later in the process. You can always contact them and ask if they would like an unofficial score report, but if you took the exam before the deadline it will not be a problem.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/07
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36431",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23239/"
] |
36,438 |
<p>This <a href="http://www.ssmlaw.ca/2012/11/noteworthy-cases-pridgen-v-university-of-calgary-2012-abca-139/">case</a> in Canada was between students who were complaining about a professor and the school who claimed doing so was misconduct. The school lost because the punishment infringed on students' freedom of speech.</p>
<p>By this logic, does freedom of speech protect students from punishment if they were to release details of a test question while complaining about it in a similar manner? What legal right do universities have to mandate confidentiality of such things? (I hope this doesn't sound facetious) </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36439,
"author": "Ben Bitdiddle",
"author_id": 24384,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24384",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>From your link:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Where a government-funded or affiliated entity such as a University attempts to limit the freedom of expression of its students it must carefully consider the students’ Charter right to freedom of expression, and ensure that any limitation is <strong>reasonable, justified and compliant with the Charter.</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It seems like the difference between punishing people for sharing test questions and punishing them for criticizing professors is that one of these is \"reasonable and justified,\" while the other isn't.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36440,
"author": "fedja",
"author_id": 6118,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6118",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In all reality, there is no way to keep people from talking to each other in pretty much any way they want and the boundaries between what is officially \"legal\" and \"illegal\" here are so uncertain, that whatever one hundred volume treatise an army of crooks may write on the subject, it will just confuse everything and clarify nothing. </p>\n\n<p>As to the formal question, AFAIK, the freedom of speech act won't help you much if you are doing something utterly ridiculous (like posting the questions you were explicitly asked not to spread on billboards, online or otherwise), and any legal dispute will be resolved based on the circumstances more than on the action itself, if you decide to bring it to that stage. In general, universities can and do enforce written academic policies against obvious violations and within reasonable limits, but, like it is with copyright, speed limits, and other things, it is understood that an attempt to stick to the letter of the law no matter what will make more harm than good, so you can get away with \"minor infringements\" more often than not.</p>\n\n<p>As a side note, a professor officially complaining about students complaining about her makes me just laugh: if we had all followed the pattern, the courts would have to work day and night for the next few decades. The article carefully avoids telling what exactly the posts were (and, knowing what our students write in the evaluations, I am ready to believe that some of them might be offensive enough to merit a good slap on the face) but going the official way about such stuff just doesn't seem to lead anywhere. If you are dealing with legitimate and civilized criticism, you'll just have to swallow it, though you may prefer to stay at your own opinion, and if you are dealing with morons, you will just waste your time on them and gain next to nothing even if you win. You'd better leave the judgement about the validity of student complaints about you to your colleagues and other students: most of them aren't blind or stupid and know who is worth what.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36438",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27526/"
] |
36,441 |
<p>So I am inquiring general tips from experienced individuals of academia and industry. I am a recent graduate from a top university with B.S. in math. I had goals of doing PhD in stats, but recently changed mind. I have a bit of family pressure to get a job and work to build income. I am from lower middle class, and am 30 years old. I've worked at a leading hospital and my boss encourages me to do a PhD. </p>
<p>However, it seems better to work full time at a company which will pay for the masters or some of it. My strategy is that at 33-35 years old, I would be working full time and working on a masters instead. Thus at this age I could have work experience, income, and a graduate degree. </p>
<p>It seems like an unwise choice to pursue a PhD and graduate at age 35-36 without work experience and having to start earning income. </p>
<p>My interests are to work in industry, and research centers. I do not believe PhDs would guarantee job security, higher wages, or happier careers. A masters would suffice. I argue that a PhD is not necessary.</p>
<p>Is my logic sensible? On a personal note, I am quite disenchanted/burned out with higher education. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36445,
"author": "Orion",
"author_id": 19732,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19732",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Be honest to yourself. Are the arguments against truly yours or are you echoing your family? If they are yours, you have your answer. </p>\n\n<p>If you are echoing your family, do your homework on job security, salary, etc. There are salary surveys. PhD does bring you a higher salary and very different job. Job security should be higher with PhD since you are hired for your uniqueness - hence you are irreplaceable, or least it is much more difficult to replace you. </p>\n\n<p>With Master in stats you help others make sense out of data with the existing toolset. Most of your project will be successful. They will be relatively low risk too. If you prefer to feel mastery of the subject, go for MS.</p>\n\n<p>With PhD in stats you invent new tools. Your day to day life is uncharted waters. The risk is higher, and you never feel you have mastery. There will be lots of unknown, dead-ends, and fails. There will be occasional successes, which will make it all worthwhile.</p>\n\n<p>Lastly, I have a feeling that age is the unspoken factor. You have a 30+ career ahead of you. Few years don't matter much. Choose what fits you better, because it will be 30 long, miserable years ahead otherwise.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36462,
"author": "Stephan Kolassa",
"author_id": 4140,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4140",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Background: I have a math Ph.D. and am working as a statistician in industry.</p>\n\n<p>I'll try to address both the general question you ask and your specific situation.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>M.Sc. vs. Ph.D. in stats in general</strong></p>\n\n<p>This quote of yours is key:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I do not believe PhDs would guarantee job security, higher wages, or happier careers.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>And you are right about this. A Ph.D. won't guarantee any of these.</p>\n\n<p>If you do a Ph.D., you will end up with a different qualification than with \"only\" an M.Sc. In doing a Ph.D., you will be spending multiple years thinking up <em>new</em> methods or algorithms. You will become an expert on an (admittedly small) topic, which you will know more about than your advisor. In contrast, in doing an M.Sc., you will learn a lot of different techniques and apply them, but you won't develop new ones. (Some M.Sc. students do just that - exceptions exist.)</p>\n\n<p>What does that mean for your job prospects? If you are looking for a job as a \"consulting statistician\", \"data analyst\" or similar, an M.Sc. will usually be enough. Employers may balk at hiring a Ph.D. for such positions for multiple reasons:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Ph.D.s usually ask for higher salaries</li>\n<li>Ph.D.s are older, possibly less flexible (families) than entry-level M.Sc.s</li>\n<li>Ph.D.s may feel underchallenged and try to leave for more interesting work elsewhere</li>\n<li>Ph.D.s may be specialized in one field - but an M.Sc.'s knowledge of <em>multiple</em> methods is more recent</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So with a Ph.D., you would be applying for more \"conceptual\" positions, where you don't only <em>apply</em> your knowledge, but actively create new statistical methods to solve problems.</p>\n\n<p>There are more jobs out there that require <em>applying known methods</em> than <em>creating new ones</em>.</p>\n\n<p>You may be lucky and find a job opening that requires a Ph.D., or (even better) one that matches your Ph.D. research interest. (I wouldn't count on this last possibility - research is so specialized these days that it is rare to find a position in industry that closely matches what you did in your Ph.D. career.) If so, your Ph.D. pays off. If not, you may be in for a long search, or you may need to work for lower wages, and still need to convince an employers that he is better off hiring you than a new M.Sc. graduate - at the same wage. If this happens to you, you will definitely feel like the Ph.D. was a waste of time.</p>\n\n<p>Overall, I would only recommend doing a Ph.D. if you are passionate about it, if you genuinely want to devote three to five years of your life to research. Don't do a Ph.D. for the career value if you plan on leaving academia. It likely will be a step backwards in terms of lifetime earnings or your career progression. (Around me, I see no correlation between having a Ph.D. and job security or higher wages - I can't judge the happiness of my colleagues' careers.)</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Your specific situation</strong></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I have a bit of family pressure to get a job and work to build income.\n ...</p>\n \n <p>It seems like an unwise choice to pursue a PhD and graduate at age\n 35-36 without work experience and having to start earning income.</p>\n \n <p>...</p>\n \n <p>... On a personal note, I am quite disenchanted/burned out with higher\n education.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I see a lot of skepticism about doing a Ph.D., and much focus on your alternatives. I don't see anything indicating you would love to do research for research's sake. (Please don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying you are lazy. I am pointing out what your priorities seem to be, based on your question.) Compare this to my recommendation above.</p>\n\n<p>It does not seem to me that doing a Ph.D. would be a wise move for you.</p>\n\n<p>Nevertheless, we can't usefully help you a lot with your decision. I'd recommend you talk to people who know you and your specific situation.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18300/pure-math-phd-careers/18309#18309\">This</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/27638/is-a-phd-right-for-you-if-you-hate-doing-research-in-your-free-time-but-love-doi/27643#27643\">this</a> earlier answer of mine my be helpful.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36441",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27534/"
] |
36,443 |
<p>Is there some quantifiable difference between those who seek master's degrees and those who seek doctorates? If there is, does the difference justify the current distinction between the two? </p>
<p>The distinction seems like a product of institutional culture rather than anything practical. But that's just my view as an outsider. Regardless, I'd love to get y'all's insight in this matter. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36459,
"author": "Maarten Buis",
"author_id": 14471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14471",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>The distinction seems like a product of institutional culture rather than anything practical.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The distinction between masters and PhD is very practical: a PhD is in essence vocational training for future researchers, while a master is intended for those who want to know more than they learned in their bachelor but do not want to become a researcher. </p>\n\n<p>So a meaningful dimension on which you could expect Master and PhD students to differ would be their intended future career. Notice that this is not a hierarchical dimension like intellectual and technical capability, it is just a difference in kind. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36463,
"author": "A.S",
"author_id": 22447,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22447",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>What is the practical difference between the training someone\n receives in a PhD program verses a masters?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In one sentence, experience with planning and conducting scientific research in a particular subject domain. </p>\n\n<p>A Master's degree may be viewed as an fast-track apprenticeship program. If done right, it allows the apprentice to get their feet wet in a knowledge domain, try out a relatively small-scale, \"practice\" project of independent research, and get oriented in the general space and culture of graduate-level academic (or \"serious\" professional, as in applied fields like business) life and work through a 1-2 year period of focused study. </p>\n\n<p>In comparison, a PhD is a substantial, systematic program of study with a duration, structure, and checks and balances intended to make it difficult to cut corners, and instead to fully invest one's intellect in training of research in a particular knowledge domain.</p>\n\n<p>This is a big area though, encompassing a fairly long laundry list of competencies, from subject matter knowledge (including past research, currest state the art, and future prospects), analytical thinking (both in the intricacies of the subject matter as well as practical issues of how to formulate, address, and communicate findings related to questions answering which is of value to the field and hopefully society at large).</p>\n\n<p>At the end of the day, as has been pointed out, both are types of vocational training intended to provide a foundation upon which one might build themselves to become a professional in a particular area.</p>\n\n<p>In some sense, both Masters and PhD are indicators of commitment to a particular occupation. It is relatively easy to try something out for a year or two, requiring some but not a very large amount of commitment, time, and effort. </p>\n\n<p>It is relatively more difficult to do this for an extended period of time (typically 5-6 years) and invest oneself fully into a large, long-term research project where much time-on-task is expected and personal discipline, perseverance, and abilities to overcome challenges and make a recognized contribution to a field are put to the test.</p>\n\n<p>The <strong>practical difference</strong> is that a person with a PhD would be expected, ideally, to be that much more effective in doing these kinds of things and exhibiting these types of qualifies as applied to a research-intensive occupation, all other things being equal. That is the working assumption, and the 'why' in 'why do a PhD'.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Why should I be willing to rank a PhD higher given the same amount of\n time in field?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Whether you are willing to rank a PhD above MA/MS depends on the value you attribute to the practical difference between the two (previous question). If these differences are relevant to your concerns, then you will probably interpret a PhD as carrying more 'weight' in terms of these relevant characteristics. So to some extent it is a matter of personal perspective. Also to some extent, you may want to defer to the \"institutional culture\" in ranking a PhD higher if your personal perspective aligns with that culture (stated differently, if you subscribe to the same premises). </p>\n\n<p>One example of this is if you consider yourself sharing the cultural norms which exist in certain settings, of valuing greater ability in academic writing, experience conducting scholarly / scientific research (e.g. selecting appropriate methodology, planning/conducting the study, acknowledging methodological limitations, and clearly writing up the background/method/results/discussion). </p>\n\n<p>What it boils down to, in my opinion, is the assumption that experience equals ability. The practical purpose for earning a PhD is formally engaging in a multi-year program of professional development with the assumption that it will yield greater skills/knowledge (ability) in a particular subject domain, as well as in some transferable skill areas such as research competency, as in the example above.</p>\n\n<p>Some resources:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.idealist.org/info/GradEducation/Resources/Options/Difference\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">What's the difference between a masters and a doctoral degree?</a> (see paragraphs \"Purpose and uses of a doctorate\" and \"Purposes and uses of a masters degree\".</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-main-differences-between-a-Masters-and-a-PhD-in-computer-science\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">More focused discussion in reference to computer science</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7252/what-are-the-main-differences-between-undergraduate-masters-and-doctoral-thes\">A related question on Academia</a></p>\n\n<p>Hope this helps. Good luck!</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36443",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27536/"
] |
36,444 |
<p>Is there a global/worldwide database of dissertations? If not, how can I access French, German, Italian, etc. dissertations online?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36450,
"author": "Maarten Buis",
"author_id": 14471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14471",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For German dissertations it is often a requirement that the dissertation is \"published\", which used to mean published by a publisher, though many universities have made this requirement less strict to allow for the new possibilities of the internet. However, publishing with a publisher is still common practice in many disciplines. This means that many German dissertions are not downloadable from the internet. If you have a concrete dissertation you want to read it can help to contact the author directly, they may be willing to sent you a copy.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36455,
"author": "magnetometer",
"author_id": 23443,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23443",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I am not aware of an international database, but basically all german dissertations have to be submitted to the German National Library (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek), so if they exist in physical form they can be accessed at the libraries in Frankfurt and/or Leipzig. If they only exist in electronical form, they are still registered at the library. The following link is going to give you a list of all german dissertations that are freely available online:\n<a href=\"https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=moveDown&currentResultId=hss%20all%20%22diss*%22%26any&categoryId=onlinefree\">DNB search</a></p>\n\n<p>The DNB also has a manual about searching for dissertations, however I could only find a german version that is available <a href=\"http://www.dnb.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/DNB/netzpub/anleitungSucheDissertationen.pdf?__blob=publicationFile\">here</a></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 42871,
"author": "Jaap Eldering",
"author_id": 1605,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1605",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Dutch doctoral theses can be found at:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.narcis.nl/search/genre/doctoralthesis/coll/publication/Language/en\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.narcis.nl/search/genre/doctoralthesis/coll/publication/Language/en</a></p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 42879,
"author": "Benoît Kloeckner",
"author_id": 946,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For French PhD thesis, the most important repository is <a href=\"https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/\">TeL</a>. Many university now make it mandatory to deposit one's thesis there, so it has a very good coverage for recent years.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 42905,
"author": "Massimo Ortolano",
"author_id": 20058,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<h2>Italy</h2>\n<p>In the past, all PhD dissertations in Italy were to be sent in printed form to the <a href=\"http://www.bncrm.librari.beniculturali.it/index.php?en/1/home\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma</a>. It appears, however, that those dissertations <a href=\"http://www.bncrm.librari.beniculturali.it/index.php?en/101/tesi-di-dottorato\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">can only be read there</a>. The library has an <a href=\"http://193.206.215.17/BVE/ricercaBase.php\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">online catalog</a> which, however, doesn't seem to index the dissertations (from the library's website it appears that the PhD dissertations catalog is only in paper form).</p>\n<p>For further information about dissertations deposited there, I suggest you to contact the library directly. There is also an international interlibrary loan service (<a href=\"http://www.bncrm.librari.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/875/articolazione-dei-servizi-al-pubblico-con-indicazione-dei-responsabili\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Prestito Interbibliotecario Internazionale</a>).</p>\n<p>Nowadays, instead, all universities in Italy have online repositories, and many recent dissertations should be available from these repositories.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 57985,
"author": "Federico Poloni",
"author_id": 958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some university thesis databases are registered and indexed by the international <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Archives_Initiative\" rel=\"nofollow\">Open Archives Initiative</a> organization. So you can find links to many theses via their search engine <a href=\"http://oaister.worldcat.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">OAIster</a>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 57986,
"author": "agold",
"author_id": 36623,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/36623",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In Spain the dissertations are listed on the website of the <a href=\"https://www.educacion.gob.es/teseo/irGestionarConsulta.do\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ministry of Education</a>, and the <a href=\"http://rebiun.baratz.es/rebiun/?&locale=en_EN\" rel=\"nofollow\">Network of Spanish University Libraries</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Most theses of Catalan universities can be found in digital form on <a href=\"http://www.tdx.cat/\" rel=\"nofollow\">tdx.cat</a>. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 68571,
"author": "Sara",
"author_id": 44158,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/44158",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is also DART-Europe <a href=\"https://www.dart-europe.org/basic-search.php\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.dart-europe.org/basic-search.php</a> which aggregates info about openly available European PhDs.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 165751,
"author": "MCan",
"author_id": 137957,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/137957",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You can find both master and phd thesis in Turkey from the following website:</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/giris.jsp\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/giris.jsp</a></p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36444",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9425/"
] |
36,449 |
<p>I'm a high school student also enrolled in a computer science class at a local college, and earlier this week I noticed that my grade for the class had dropped. I checked the online gradebook after noticing this, and there was a 0 for a programming assignment I had submitted. I sent my professor several emails (instead of asking him in person because the college is currently on break) asking why there was a 0, and he responded after a few days by telling me to wait for the disciplinary committee to contact me regarding the assignment.</p>
<p>And only after sending my email did I remember that I had taken bits of my program from an online one written for a problem very similar to mine--and it even used techniques we never learned in class. It was months ago, when I was really overloaded with work, and I thought I was safe because I paid to access the code online. And a lot of my friends who were full-time undergraduates seemed to be overtly cheating pretty often.</p>
<p>And only after he responded did the full gravity of the situation sink in on me: I had plagiarized, and there was no excuse. I had used someone else's work without much remorse while I was doing it, lacking moral responsibility just like a sociopath might. I did something might ruin my life.</p>
<p>At this point, I'm panicking and desperately need advice. I feel terrible, and I'm finding it hard to concentrate on my work for high school or even sleep. I had an amazing opportunity to pursue something I really loved at a higher level than most people my age, and I completely blew it. And what's more, I might not have the chance to do it again now.</p>
<p>I was recently admitted to my dream college Early Action, and it was the only college I applied to. But now I'm afraid that I'll get rescinded because I'll probably be dismissed from the college I'm currently enrolled in, and even if the disciplinary committee doesn't let my dream college know directly, it probably has a way to find out. </p>
<p>And even if I don't get rescinded, I'm worried that I'll need to send this information to all of the grad schools I apply to, or if not, they'll just have it anyway.</p>
<p>I know there's not much I can do until I hear back from the committee, but what should I do right now and after I hear back? If I'm brought before the committee for a hearing, what should I do? What are the chances I'll be rescinded? Will this prevent me from getting into a good grad school?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36461,
"author": "Benoît Kloeckner",
"author_id": 946,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>An important part in your situation is that you understand the seriousness of what you did, and that you regret it. </p>\n\n<p>I would think that a disciplinary committee, while it probably will and certainly should take a disciplinary measure against you, also probably will and certainly should mitigate that measure if they are convinced that you sincerely understand and regret your action. The good news is that there is a wast array of possible measures, as giving the lowest grade, giving an official blame, public or not, etc. You should expect something, but there is no need to anticipate something dramatic. Do not relax too much though, that might reflect badly on you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36481,
"author": "Pete L. Clark",
"author_id": 938,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You sound quite naive about what constitutes plagiarism or academic wrongdoing at the university level (in particular the thought that <strong>paying for the code</strong> makes it okay or even less likely to be caught is pretty much exactly wrong). But this naivete is quite well explained by the fact that you're a high school student.</p>\n\n<p>It's great that you realize that you did something seriously wrong: I agree with you. But you're not a sociopath: rather, you are a teenaged minor, and your behavior is well within the normal operating parameters of such entities. Many (perhaps most) minors do at least one really stupid thing that if they were an adult would get them in real trouble. But unless their actions cause irreparable harm to others, the adult world tends to be forgiving: there has to be a time in which you can make mistakes and learn from them. </p>\n\n<p>I think it is <em>very unlikely</em> that your actions would cause the university in which you've been early admitted to rescind its offer. This is on the border of being so unlikely as not to really be worth worrying about...but someone in your situation is going to worry. Here's how to allay your concerns:</p>\n\n<p>You should go to your professor and explain very calmly and honestly everything that happened. Your position should be that you are thoroughly repentant and will not contest whatever penalty to your course grade you have received. You have just one concern: you don't want the academic dishonesty to appear on your transcript, because -- be honest -- you think that might jeopardize your collegiate career. If it comes to it, you should make clear that you would rather get a failing grade or an unsatisfactory withdrawal from the course. (This is a difference between your situation and that of most normally enrolled university students.) If the professor is not willing to agree to that on the spot, then you should talk to others -- in particular, to your parents -- about how to proceed next. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 89289,
"author": "dragoncat16",
"author_id": 71136,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71136",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A first offense will generally not get you kicked out. I speak for my own institution but probably most others have a similar policy. Probably the worst that will happen is that the zero grade will stand for that assignment. It's when students habitually plagiarize that they get into real trouble. Just learn from this mistake and don't let it happen again.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 100121,
"author": "drsnark",
"author_id": 83555,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/83555",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You sound like you've punished yourself plenty too on this issue. We all make mistakes. Own the mistake and use it as an opportunity to grow personally and professionally.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36449",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27539/"
] |
36,458 |
<p>I am having very frustrated at the turn of events and review process. I had sent a paper to an International Journal. The paper was based on my work and well received by PhD committee of my Institute. The paper was submitted 3 years back. The paper was in status "Editor Assigned" for 6 months. After that its status changed to "Under Review". After 9 months in this status (15 months after submission date), I sent a polite mail to editor asking about how much time it will take to complete review? There was no response. After I month similar gentle mail was sent. There was no response. After month, I again sent query (18 months after submission). At that Editor replied saying that they could not review the paper as assigned reviewers either refuse to review or did not agree to review. The paper was rejected after 18 months without any review comment.</p>
<p>So how does one know where it requires improvement? If paper was not of required quality why they kept with them for so long? </p>
<p>I feel that it is wrongly rejected. </p>
<p>Is it correct answer? </p>
<p>How can it show status as Under Review and then Editor says no Reviewer did not accept or refuse. My understanding is that paper goes in "Under Review" state only after "Reviewer" accepts to review. So what would have happened? Why Editor requires 3 months just to tell the status and comes back with mail like this? Editor did not bother reply to mail. Is it that he got angry because of persistent queries. </p>
<p>I had even worst experience with next Journal. The paper was submitted and it remained in status "With Editor" for 9 months. Wiser by experience, I asked Editor about status? After persisting with it for about 2 more months, Chief Editor said that they rejected paper based on quick review as paper is not suitable to Journal as it does not meet its criteria like Originality, Depth etc. Again there no review comments about improvement.</p>
<p>It is not sour grape, I do feel that around 60% papers in that Journal do not possess these qualities and have been published in 6-8 months (after revision).
If paper is not of required standard, they could have rejected in 2-3 months, why it took them such long time. If I would not have sent mail, probably it would have remained with them for long time. This work is now 3 years old not published anywhere and I even do not know what to do to improve. I am feeling very bad and really do not know what to do?</p>
<p>What would happened? Is it wrong to ask editors about status even after 9 months or year? Our University requires two Journal publication for PhD thesis submission and really do not what to do?</p>
<p>Many friends are suggesting that publish in Open Access Journals.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 40216,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would not say your manuscript is wrongly rejected. What I would say is that it should perhaps not have taken such a long time.I can see many reasons for the delay, all dealing with personal issues, some understandable and some not so. Sometimes you just have to live with it. So the real problem here seems to be a lack of response as to why exactly the manuscript was rejected. It could be low quality, it could be out of scope and thus very different reasons. I think it would be only fair to ask the editor for a clarification, based on the fact that you accept the rejection and wish to see how it can be improved. </p>\n\n<p>I think a journal should provide feedback on reasons for a rejection but also note that the reasons one journal rejects the manuscript may not be the same reasons another journal does so, if, for example, the reasons for rejection is \"out of topic\". So trying to get a sense of the reasons may be key to how you should proceed.</p>\n\n<p>Another, to me, obvious way forward is to have a peer look at your manuscript so that you get feedback that can help you decide how to proceed.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, Open Access is not equal to easy to publish. Yes, there are murky waters where shady open access publishers reside but you need to chose your journal with some care., Having a publication in a low quality or even dubious journal will not be of much use to you. So Open Access is not an either or choice but one of the alternatives and chosing the right journal includes also Open Access journals.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 40226,
"author": "Benoît Kloeckner",
"author_id": 946,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The delays you mention are really excessive (note: I feel that way even though I am a mathematician), and your anger is quite deserved for that.</p>\n\n<p>From what I heard from editors I know, it can happen that a paper is sent to successive referees who decline to referee, or worse accept and then don't do the job and do not respond to queries. At some point, the editor have to either do a referee's job themselves, which usually do not happen, or reject the paper. Usually, this happen with papers that are not clearly wrong or uninteresting, but that are difficult to read and do not <em>really</em> interest the tentative referees. In some case, you can have better result by submitting to a different, e.g. more specialized journal.</p>\n\n<p>In your case, what bothers me is that being in a PhD, you have an advisor. What does she think of the paper? If there is no obvious problem in it, did you submit to journal suggested by her? On what ground? Is it possible that your institute, whose PhD committee you says received your work well, has much lower standards than international journals?</p>\n\n<p>In any case, the only effective answer to your question is: seek feedback from a knowledgeable individual. It could be your advisor, but if needed it could also be another senior researcher in your field and institute, or even someone working elsewhere in your field. The closer the better, as it increase the probability of getting the feedback and the probability that it will be honest.</p>\n\n<p>Last, as already mentioned, open access journal can be as toughly selective as subscription journals, and should not be considered easy shots when everything else has failed. I would not recommend submitting to a shady journal, let alone an OA one since shady OA journal often charge several hundred of dollars for publication.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 40236,
"author": "Zarrax",
"author_id": 30688,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/30688",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have had this happen a couple of times. In my case it meant that the paper was incomprehensible, and the referee(s) couldn't figure out what to make of it. The solution was to rewrite the papers in question and break them up into pieces, and more generally work on the exposition. Eventually I got all the work accepted into journals although it took a few years to sort everything out.</p>\n\n<p>Another possibility I suppose is that you are a \"crackpot\" and your writeups were technical gibberish. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that this is not the case. At any rate, if you are a crackpot nothing we say here is going to really help anyhow :)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 40238,
"author": "Johnathan Clayborn",
"author_id": 29299,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/29299",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I happen to be an editor for a new Open Access journal. I concur with the the general sentiment of the other commentators. I have had similar things happen to me before as well. One Editor flat-rejected a paper of mine on the grounds that \"there were already a lot of papers on that subject\", even though I had conducted an exhaustive search and even enlisted the help of my school library team and we could not find even one. </p>\n\n<p>The biggest advice I can give you is this; whether you choose a traditional journal, or an Open Access journal, they should have their guidelines clear. In their submission guidelines section they should clearly enumerate what fees are involved, if any. Many Open Access journals like mine don't charge a fee to read or publish. They should also clearly explain the turn around time from the editors. Some journals are published Quarterly so a review period of several months is common, but I have seen many journals with a turn around time of 4-6 weeks. The journal should also clearly explain the review process. For example, in my journal, I first quickly review the article for topic-fit to the journal. If the submission is within scope, then it is submitted to two different reviewers who conduct a double-blind review. At least one reviewer is a methodology expert and at least one is a content expert. The helps to ensure that the article is accurate. We also explain clearly what the outcomes are and what each one means. This is also a pretty common practice. If it is taking that long and the articles are being rejected by the reviewers then it sounds like either: 1. the journal you submitted to doesn't have a very large pool of reviewers, 2. the journal editor has too many submission to handle and is overwhelmed, or 3. the journal editor isn't going through and keeping the list of reviewers clean and is trying to assign articles to inactive reviewers. </p>\n\n<p>In any event, don't get discouraged, just look for a different journal and try again. Check to see when the journal published an issue last and if they have their policies spelled out on the site. Good luck! </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36458",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27543/"
] |
36,464 |
<p>Lets suppose that I see an open PhD position in the field of Machine Learning, area whose I have only some very basic or general knowledge, but that I am willing to learn more about it. I wonder what I should put in my cover letter to show that I have a genuine interest in the subject and that I am willing to learn more about it. I mean for what I know, the first year in a PhD program is for a student to gain knowledge about the theoretical parts that will help him or her to continue their PhD studies. I have seen that also some of them receive aome training that will help them to narrow their interests into one specific topic before the writing of the thesis start.</p>
<p>I am somewhat traumatized after once I applied to a PhD position and in the interview when I mentioned that "I was willing to learn more, enroll into courses and being self taught for the research that they were making"; and the professor in charge reply to me in a harsh way "You are not here to begin to learn, we need people that already know what we are doing". That shocked me somehow.</p>
<p>So bottomline, how can I express in a cover letter my genuine interest in learning the field in which the research group is working, without being rejected?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36467,
"author": "Florian D'Souza",
"author_id": 26958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Might I ask what country/countries these programs are in?</p>\n\n<p>I think the professor you quote was a bit harsh and that PhD applicants do not need to already know what they're doing completely. If you already knew everything about the field, what would be the point of the PhD?</p>\n\n<p>At the same time, I would be cautious about applying for a PhD position just because it exists or because you just want to learn more about the subject. A PhD is a long and hard degree to obtain, and most successful PhD students have a certain level of passion for the subject of their PhD (<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35001/do-you-not-belong-in-a-phd-program-if-you-dont-live-and-breathe-your-field-of-s\">this</a> is a useful post for you to read on that subject). There are definitely easier ways to learn about machine learning than getting a PhD in it. </p>\n\n<p>I don't think anyone has a magic formula to guarantee you getting accepted to the programs to which you apply. The best you can do is put together the best application possible and hope for the best. In terms of the cover letter, you should highlight what attracts you to the field of machine learning and possibly how a PhD will help you in your future career in the field. You might be rejected from a few places, but if you never apply, you can never be accepted.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36469,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Florian is completely right - the level of knowledge of the field typically expected from new PhD students varies a lot. In many places in Europe, for instance, a Master's degree is a formal requirement for starting a PhD, and the first year is most definitely <strong>not</strong> there for gaining fundamental knowledge about the field. You are supposed to have a solid working knowledge of the field from the start.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"I was willing to learn more, enroll into courses and being self taught for the research that they were making\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There is also the other problem with this statement that it is (sorry) incredibly bland and generic. <em>Of course</em> you are supposed to learn more about your field and do related courses. If that is the best you can say about how you are going to get up to speed in the field, I can understand that the professor you were talking to was not exactly blown away by your zeal.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36488,
"author": "zbicyclist",
"author_id": 27573,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27573",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>\"I have only some very basic or general knowledge, but that I am willing to learn more about it.\" </p>\n\n<p>This tells me that you should take a couple of courses in the field (which might or might not carry graduate credit in a program later) in order to see whether this is a field you really like and want to spend years mastering (PhD and after). This would also show not just vague interest to schools, but real interest.</p>\n\n<p>I'm reminded of a woman I interviewed for a job who had four masters' degrees. I asked her why, and the conversation went something like this:</p>\n\n<p>I thought I was interested in X, so I got a master's degree in X.\nBut then I got a job in X, and it wasn't that interesting.\nI got interested in Y, so I got a master's degree in Y.\nBut then I got a job in Y, and it wasn't that interesting.\nI got interested in Z, so I got a master's degree in Z.\nBut then I got a job in Z, and it wasn't that interesting.\nI got interested in W [the field the job was in], so I got a master's degree in W.</p>\n\n<p>Her flaw was that she jumped into programs without really understanding what the ultimate work would be about.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36464",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6144/"
] |
36,465 |
<p>I was wondering is it possible to study an MSc in applied mathematics with a background of a masters in chemistry? I have an absolute passion for mathematics and would love the opportunity to study a single year masters. </p>
<p>Would I be given the opportunity to take the entrance exams without formal training? Or would I be discounted instantly? </p>
<p>I have read extensively into the content of the course I have in mind including looking at all their past papers. </p>
<p>I understand it is going to be an individual basis depending on the university and my grades but wanted to hear has someone done or heard of anything similar? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36467,
"author": "Florian D'Souza",
"author_id": 26958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Might I ask what country/countries these programs are in?</p>\n\n<p>I think the professor you quote was a bit harsh and that PhD applicants do not need to already know what they're doing completely. If you already knew everything about the field, what would be the point of the PhD?</p>\n\n<p>At the same time, I would be cautious about applying for a PhD position just because it exists or because you just want to learn more about the subject. A PhD is a long and hard degree to obtain, and most successful PhD students have a certain level of passion for the subject of their PhD (<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35001/do-you-not-belong-in-a-phd-program-if-you-dont-live-and-breathe-your-field-of-s\">this</a> is a useful post for you to read on that subject). There are definitely easier ways to learn about machine learning than getting a PhD in it. </p>\n\n<p>I don't think anyone has a magic formula to guarantee you getting accepted to the programs to which you apply. The best you can do is put together the best application possible and hope for the best. In terms of the cover letter, you should highlight what attracts you to the field of machine learning and possibly how a PhD will help you in your future career in the field. You might be rejected from a few places, but if you never apply, you can never be accepted.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36469,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Florian is completely right - the level of knowledge of the field typically expected from new PhD students varies a lot. In many places in Europe, for instance, a Master's degree is a formal requirement for starting a PhD, and the first year is most definitely <strong>not</strong> there for gaining fundamental knowledge about the field. You are supposed to have a solid working knowledge of the field from the start.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"I was willing to learn more, enroll into courses and being self taught for the research that they were making\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There is also the other problem with this statement that it is (sorry) incredibly bland and generic. <em>Of course</em> you are supposed to learn more about your field and do related courses. If that is the best you can say about how you are going to get up to speed in the field, I can understand that the professor you were talking to was not exactly blown away by your zeal.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36488,
"author": "zbicyclist",
"author_id": 27573,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27573",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>\"I have only some very basic or general knowledge, but that I am willing to learn more about it.\" </p>\n\n<p>This tells me that you should take a couple of courses in the field (which might or might not carry graduate credit in a program later) in order to see whether this is a field you really like and want to spend years mastering (PhD and after). This would also show not just vague interest to schools, but real interest.</p>\n\n<p>I'm reminded of a woman I interviewed for a job who had four masters' degrees. I asked her why, and the conversation went something like this:</p>\n\n<p>I thought I was interested in X, so I got a master's degree in X.\nBut then I got a job in X, and it wasn't that interesting.\nI got interested in Y, so I got a master's degree in Y.\nBut then I got a job in Y, and it wasn't that interesting.\nI got interested in Z, so I got a master's degree in Z.\nBut then I got a job in Z, and it wasn't that interesting.\nI got interested in W [the field the job was in], so I got a master's degree in W.</p>\n\n<p>Her flaw was that she jumped into programs without really understanding what the ultimate work would be about.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36465",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27553/"
] |
36,470 |
<p>This past semester has seen an unusually high number of students plagiarizing in one of the subjects I teach. To be specific, it was five times the previous maximum I had seen. This has lead me down the path of digging into ways to reduce plagiarism from my students.</p>
<p>I read <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/26996/2692">this question</a> which was great and had several good answers but it was broadly focused. I would like to dig a bit deeper into one specific area: <strong>How can assessment design be used to minimize plagiarism?</strong></p>
<p>I realize that exams are less likely to have plagiarism but I want to avoid those because they are timed and I don't want my students to be assessed in non-real-world situations like that. So, <strong>I want the assessments to be take-home</strong> but I don't want to put more constraints on this question.</p>
<p>I really want to know <strong>what research has been</strong> done showing the effect of different assessment design and how it has impacted student-plagiarism (with a focus on what minimizes plagiarism)?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36889,
"author": "Raydot",
"author_id": 13535,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13535",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I don't know the answer from any direct experience (could point you to pages like <a href=\"http://drexel.edu/dcae/assessment/assessment-plans/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://drexel.edu/dcae/assessment/assessment-plans/</a>) but two things I can think of off the top of my head without knowing what subject you teach or at what level: 1) Have students have some input into their own assignments built around objective criteria that you specify and 2) have the students take some part in grading one another. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37141,
"author": "Inquisitive",
"author_id": 27985,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27985",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><a href=\"http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/47/2/397.abstract\" rel=\"nofollow\">Dee and Jacob (2013)</a> (<a href=\"http://cepa.stanford.edu/content/rational-ignorance-education-field-experiment-student-plagiarism\" rel=\"nofollow\">preprint</a>) conducted</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>a field experiment that evaluated the effects of a web-based educational tutorial in reducing plagiarism. We found that assignment to the treatment group substantially reduced the likelihood of plagiarism, particularly among student with lower SAT scores who had the highest rates of plagiarism. A followup survey suggests that the intervention reduced plagiarism by increasing student knowledge rather than by increasing the perceived probabilities of detection and punishment.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Potentially including an educational tutorial in your assignment design would reduce plagiarism. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37270,
"author": "Adrienne",
"author_id": 13729,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13729",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>According to your profile, you teach management. So we are looking at writing, rather than equations? </p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.ojs.unisa.edu.au/index.php/IJEI/article/view/761/576\" rel=\"noreferrer\">This review article</a> discusses steps taken at a university in Australia, and provides some lit review. It is open-source. In regards to research on assessment design, it recommends:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Regularly change the questions/prompts </li>\n<li>Projects should require original analysis rather than be summaries or definitions.</li>\n<li>More marks should be associated with the process of project creation, rather than the final draft. Examples of intermediate assignments are research journals, annotated bibliographies, and first drafts.</li>\n<li>Change product from text-only to something else - a poster, an oral presentation.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Above is the \"answer\" to your question. You may also want to consider why your plagiarism is suddenly increasing. The linked article points out that many students plagiarize because of lack of training in how to effectively write without copying a source. If you have a cohort of students from a background of poorer preparation, I would recommend a module on how to write without plagiarism. </p>\n\n<p>Best of luck.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36470",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692/"
] |
36,479 |
<p>I am an undergraduate and I was wondering if it was appropriate to ask someone (who isn't an author) to help revise the draft of a conference paper that I am writing.</p>
<p>I am new to writing and this would be helpful to get input from as many people as possible.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36480,
"author": "Nicholas",
"author_id": 1424,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1424",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is not just acceptable -- it is to be recommended!</p>\n\n<p>It is generally a good idea to have people read your work before it is submitted, or in your case, presented at a conference.</p>\n\n<p>Having someone from outside your specific research area read your paper is particularly good. Even if your reader isn't familiar with the fine details, they should still be able to follow your general argument from background, through your method, results, analysis and finally to your conclusions.</p>\n\n<p>Approach your intended reader and very politely ask if they would read your work. Make sure you are clear about what you want from them. If it is a colleague who is familiar with your work, you can perhaps ask and expect questions or comments on the finer points of your work. For someone outside your particular field, you can expect general comments on structure or questions on the broader aspects of your work. </p>\n\n<p>At a previous institution, we were all expected to hand our draft papers around for two internal reviewers to read, neither of whom were to be from the particular research field on which the paper was written. This was a very valuable exercise.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36482,
"author": "Aru Ray",
"author_id": 948,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/948",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It depends what you are asking them to do. </p>\n\n<p>You should definitely ask someone (maybe multiple someone's) to read your paper, give you comments about what was confusing/particularly clear/incomplete as well as suggestions on how to improve the paper. (In fact I would recommend this to anyone writing a paper at any stage, not just an undergraduate.) This might be done by your advisor if you have one, and you should thank them in the Acknowledgements section for their help (and personally too, expressing gratitude is always good!)</p>\n\n<p>You should not ask someone a non-co-author to actually edit your paper and make changes to it themselves. Any actual editing should be done by you or your co-authors, otherwise plagiarism becomes a concern.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36479",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26850/"
] |
36,483 |
<p>I am pursuing PhD in Computer Science. I am working on writing my PhD dissertation proposal.</p>
<p>My main contribution in my work is going to be about data classification and prediction model.</p>
<p>How should I phrase my potential contributions / tasks in which technical contribution is about clustering/classification and prediction?</p>
<p>I am also planning to propose potential performance improvement in clustering / classification techniques that currently exist in my domain. What all should I plan to achieve? How can I go about phrasing it in the proposal?</p>
<p>I know most answers cannot be specific to my question but any pointer towards direction that I should take...where to look for answer etc. regarding this is much appreciated...</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 38208,
"author": "Aaron Brick",
"author_id": 14140,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14140",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>one rhetorical framework you can use is this one: problem X exists; model Y has been proposed previously; i propose model Z, which solves X better than Y in certain cases.</p>\n\n<p>JeffE is right to point you towards your advisor. helping you develop an answer to this question is a big part of her job.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 41138,
"author": "MrMeritology",
"author_id": 17564,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17564",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>\"If the proposed research is successful, there will be three main\n contributions. First,.... Second, ... Third,...\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>What you need to fill in is the <strong><em>specific nature</em></strong> of your contributions. It's not enough to say that your algorithms will be \"better\" or \"interesting\" or even \"useful\". You might use these questions to form a list of specific contributions:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Will you be discovering <em>something new about the problem</em> of data\nclassification and prediction that no one knew before, or only\nunderstood poorly?</li>\n<li>Will you be combining two or more methods that had never been combined before?</li>\n<li>Will you be simplifying the problem in some non-trivial way? Or expanding it? Generalizing it? Making it more specific or concrete?</li>\n<li>Will you be formalizing the analysis in ways that have not before? What will your formal analysis be proving?</li>\n<li>Are you applying an algorithm or formalism from another domain, that has never been done before in this one?</li>\n<li>Are you demonstrating through experiments or other empirical research the viability of theoretical methods that have little empirical support?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Finally, imagine that you have completed your dissertation, and maybe you have published articles based on it. Now imagine what other researchers might need to use your work and build on it, and therefore to cite it. Why would future researchers need to use your work or build on it?</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36483",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27569/"
] |
36,485 |
<p>Say if you were a graduate of ABC university, and
When you want to thank a teacher of this university because she used to help you a lot in some courses or because she has the same hobbies and interests as yours, and you want to be friends with her:</p>
<ol>
<li>Should you just send a thank you letter to her or buy her a present?</li>
<li>If you choose to buy her a present, should it be a brand-named and very expensive one?</li>
</ol>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36487,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A good thank-you note is always appreciated by a former teacher. </p>\n\n<p>I would recommend that if you are a current student at the university, and may have that former teacher again, that you <em>not</em> purchase a gift with a significant price tag, as that could be viewed as creating a conflict of interest. On the other hand, a small memento of personal, but not monetary, value is still appreciated. (For instance, a photograph or small handmade item or perishable good would be OK.)</p>\n\n<p>If you are an alumnus, then the rules are obviously different. However, before giving an expensive gift, you might want to consider if there's an alternate use of the money that might be even more appropriate or appreciated (e.g., a donation to a charitable organization in the teacher's name).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36490,
"author": "Vladhagen",
"author_id": 14518,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14518",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a college instructor, the one thing that has meant the most to me in terms of thanks has been when students tell my superiors how much they enjoyed having me as an instructor. Even just an email to my boss from a former student was a very solid form of thanks. It made me look good; it also made my supervisor proud of himself for one of his lowlings having success. For me at least, this was the ultimate thanks. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36562,
"author": "brnz",
"author_id": 27594,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27594",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'll suggest that you write a note. Use paper.<br>\nYou can add a small gift to this - something that she can keep on her desk, a souvenir perhaps, that is related to her passion/subject.<br>\nOther than the great advice above, simply in terms of writing the thank you note, you may find this link useful:</p>\n\n<pre><code>http://www.artofmanliness.com/2008/10/23/the-art-of-thank-you-note-writing/\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>I'll mention the main points here, and you can use the link for a more elaborate guide.</p>\n\n<p>a. Always write the note as soon as possible.<br>\nb. Send it through the mail.<br>\nc. Use real stationery.</p>\n\n<p>When writing,</p>\n\n<p>i) Begin by expressing your gratitude for the gift/service.<br>\nii) Mention specific details about how you plan to use a gift or what you enjoyed about an experience.<br>\niii) For some recipients, add some news about your life.<br>\niv) Close by referencing the past and alluding to the future.<br>\nv) Repeat your thanks. (in short)<br>\nvi) Valediction.</p>\n\n<p>I hope this is useful in penning the actual note.\nCheers!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36565,
"author": "Sarah Boyd",
"author_id": 27632,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27632",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>No gifts. Words speak volumes. If you must give gifts, something handmade is better than anything purchased. Purchased gifts, especially more expensive gifts, may, in fact make your instructor feel uncomfortable and skirts the line of appropriate teacher-student relationships. </p>\n\n<p>At the very minimum, a handwritten, thoughtfully articulated note is the easiest way to thank a good teacher. </p>\n\n<p>A handwritten letter to the department Chair is even more powerful, but the <strong>best</strong> way to thank a truly outstanding teacher is to nominate him or her for a teaching award. Most institutions have teaching awards that give excellent instructors public recognition, something to enhance his or her resume and best of all they sometimes come with a small monetary reward. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36582,
"author": "DS R",
"author_id": 27610,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27610",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Sending a not very expensive gift but chosen carefully, with a personal note, as suggested above is good. </p>\n\n<p>However, teachers often appreciate if students stay in regular contact with them, discussing future career/family plans and sharing updates about batchmates. It all depends on the kind of teacher and the level of your relationship.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36584,
"author": "Alexander Gruber",
"author_id": 4545,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4545",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is traditional at the time of graduation to give your stole to someone who has provided you with an unusual amount of help and support. A lot of times this is given to one's parents, especially if they have paid for it, but it can also go to a mentor, as a profound expression of gratitude.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36901,
"author": "Thomas Lee",
"author_id": 24823,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24823",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you google \"rate my professor\", you will find some very popular websites that you can provide good feedback. Most of those who use such websites, are for giving negative feedbacks. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/08
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36485",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27408/"
] |
36,489 |
<p>The quality of university level education in developing countries (North Africa in my case) is mediocre at best, especially in the sciences (my interests lie primarily in mathematics). I've found that the appropriate places for getting this education would be France or Russia, more specifically ENS and <em>l'École Polytechnique</em> in Paris (I'm aware that going to the <em>classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles</em> is strongly advised, but how can I avoid going there if possible?) and the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow (which teaches in Russian which I will vigorously try to learn). </p>
<p>Can I study in my original country for a little while then go there? How do each of them cost? How can I proceed to achieve this almost impossible goal?
If you know of any other good mathematical institution that accepts student from North africa, please suggest it.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36491,
"author": "Arno",
"author_id": 12047,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12047",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The African Institute for Mathematics (<a href=\"http://www.aims.ac.za/\">http://www.aims.ac.za/</a>) is an institution meant to help those in your situation. Essentially, it is supposed to offer talented budding mathematicians from Africa the fundamentals to be competitive to apply to the top places all over the world.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36507,
"author": "SCO",
"author_id": 27590,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27590",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Let me clarify the classes prépatatoires stuff : their sole function is to prepare student to a competitive exam.\nI don't know if as a foreign student can directly apply to the competitive exam.</p>\n\n<p>However, as a foreign student you can apply for this instead :</p>\n\n<p>(<a href=\"http://www.admission.polytechnique.edu/home/ingenieur-polytechnicien-program/the-ingenieur-polytechnicien-program-23948.kjsp?RH=1252490031181\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.admission.polytechnique.edu/home/ingenieur-polytechnicien-program/the-ingenieur-polytechnicien-program-23948.kjsp?RH=1252490031181</a>)</p>\n\n<p>It states that :</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The Ingénieur Polytechnicien Program of Ecole Polytechnique recruits\n the best students who have completed two or three years of\n undergraduate studies in Science or in Engineering</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Please check this admissions conditions as well:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.admission.polytechnique.edu/home/ingenieur-polytechnicien-program/admission-requirements/admission-requirements-24008.kjsp?RF=1262268322650\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.admission.polytechnique.edu/home/ingenieur-polytechnicien-program/admission-requirements/admission-requirements-24008.kjsp?RF=1262268322650</a></p>\n\n<p>You should give a phone call to the schools you mention. It's very likely they will help you sort this out!</p>\n\n<p>As per this :\n<a href=\"http://www.admission.polytechnique.edu/home/ingenieur-polytechnicien-program/finance-your-studies-how-does-it-cost-to-study-a-l-x-/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.admission.polytechnique.edu/home/ingenieur-polytechnicien-program/finance-your-studies-how-does-it-cost-to-study-a-l-x-/</a></p>\n\n<p>Tuition fees are 4.000EUR, 12.000EUR, 8.000 EUR for 1st, 2nd and third year.</p>\n\n<p>Please let me add that Polytechnique is the most prestigious school in France. Not being able to find the aforementioned elements by yourself is a kind of concern. I really don't want to be rude, but really want to emphasize that the education level is very very high!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36515,
"author": "Cape Code",
"author_id": 10643,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One alternative, if you wish to study in a French-speaking country is the <em>École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne</em> (EPFL) in French-speaking Switzerland. It ranks highly in international rankings (overall <a href=\"http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2014-15/world-ranking/region/europe\">higher than the schools you mentioned</a>, although I don't know specifically for maths), and costs about 1300$/year in tuition (4.5 - 5 years to get Bachelor and Masters).</p>\n\n<p>On the contrary to the French institutions you listed, the selection does not happen before you start the studies, but during them. The school is typically easy to enter, but there is a high dropout rate. </p>\n\n<p>The typical route for prospective students who do not have a Swiss high school diploma is the <a href=\"http://cms.epfl.ch/\"><em>Cours de mathématiques spéciales</em></a> (never mind the silly name). It's a one year intensive math program to get you ready for the EPFL programs.</p>\n\n<p>There is a significant community of French-speaking North-African students there, so it looks like this route is popular for you fellow nationals.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36552,
"author": "Jessica B",
"author_id": 20036,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20036",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>(Your idea of a 'good' institution seems rather strict to me.) </p>\n\n<p>Montreal is home to a number of students from north Africa (and many other places), and gives you a choice of two languages (although English will be needed for most research careers in mathematics). Their fees are relatively low (although that might be changing).</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36489",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27574/"
] |
36,498 |
<p>I am currently a final year undergraduate, majoring in Pure Mathematics. My aim is to become a Maths lecturer in a university. With this in mind, I need to apply Phd in mathematics in the coming year. However, I'm not the person who likes to do research (not to the extend of hate, but I would not dwell myself for the whole day just to do research) while Phd is mainly research-based. </p>
<p>Question: Is there any university which offers Phd in mathematics with emphasis in teaching? Also, what are the alternatives to become a lecturer in university besides applying Phd in mathematics?</p>
<p>UPDATE: Anonymous Mathematicians mentions 'Doctor of Arts' (DA) in his answer below. <a href="http://www.isu.edu/math/docs/DA_Math_Alumni.pdf">Here</a> is the list of graduates from DA program offered by Idaho State University. Don't the data give a sense of difficulties, in such a way that it is difficult to enroll in the DA program? Also, I see most graduates end up working at university. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36499,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>\"Lecturer\" is a title with very different meanings in different countries. </p>\n\n<p>In the US system, the title typically indicates either a part time instructor or a person who is a full time teacher but not a tenured or tenure track faculty member. In the UK and many other commonwealth countries a \"lecturer\" is the equivalent of an assistant or associate professor in the US. </p>\n\n<p>My answer below is in the context of the US system. </p>\n\n<p>Within the US system, if you want to be a \"professor\" of mathematics at a prestigious university then you have to be an active researcher. It is sometimes possible to earn a PhD and do some research and then move onto a career as a tenured faculty member at a less prestigious college or university while doing very little research after the PhD. However, the competition for such positions is extremely intense (hundreds of applications for a tenure track position are common) and many colleges that wouldn't have cared about research in the past can now expect to hire faculty who will be active in research. Many universities at all levels have non tenure-track positions for instructors, but these jobs typically are part time or pay very poorly and offer little job security. Finally, there are full time and permanent teaching positions at community colleges where some of the instructors may have PhD's, but its also common for instructors to have only a master's degree. </p>\n\n<p>The typical career path is for students to complete a strongly research oriented PhD program and then (after one or more post docs or visiting assistant professor positions) to attempt to find a tenure track position at a reputable university. Most of these students end up either leaving the field entirely or end up in teaching oriented position at a lower ranked college or a community college. A relatively small number of PhD's end up with tenured faculty positions at research universities. However, the system still very much requires students to complete a research oriented PhD before \"settling\" for a teaching position. </p>\n\n<p>If you're not seriously committed to research and you really do just want to teach mathematics, then I would discourage you from entering a PhD program. Rather, you might consider an MS program that has a good track record of getting its graduates into community college teaching. </p>\n\n<p>I should also mention that there are PhD programs in \"Mathematics Education\", but the focus in such programs is typically on education more than mathematics. Graduates with PhD's in math ed are highly employable in the US right now. Typically, they are hired to supervise developmental, remedial and lower level courses (up to say the level of calculus) while regular tenure track faculty teach higher level courses. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36501,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Arts\">\"doctor of arts\" degree</a> was created in the 1960's to solve this problem. It's like a PhD, but it doesn't require original research for the dissertation. The goal is to prepare students for teaching careers that do not involve research.</p>\n\n<p>Several universities in the U.S. offer DA degrees in mathematics, but they have never become popular. Many people aren't even aware that such a degree exists, and those who know about it generally consider it inferior to a PhD. Even institutions that do not expect their faculty to conduct any research at all often prefer to hire candidates who have some research experience in the past, in which case they would prefer a PhD to a DA. (And many institutions require at least a little research to get tenure.)</p>\n\n<p>For most people, getting a DA would be a bad idea: the time and effort required are comparable to a PhD, with worse career prospects. However, there are some narrow circumstances in which it could make sense. For example, some institutions (particularly high schools and some community colleges) don't require a doctorate at all but pay a higher salary to faculty with a terminal degree. In that case, a DA might work just as well as a PhD.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36504,
"author": "Jessica B",
"author_id": 20036,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20036",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One alternative is to slightly drop where you aim to teach. In Quebec you can apply for positions at CEGEPs with just a masters <a href=\"http://caps.mcgill.ca/graduate/articles/2008-2009/december/teaching.php\" rel=\"nofollow\">(reference)</a>, and half of the students are at the same point in their education you would be teaching as an instructor in a US university. In the UK the same level positions exist at sixth form/further education colleges, but you'd need a teching qualification. There are probably equivalent positions in other countries too.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36542,
"author": "Flounderer",
"author_id": 5842,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5842",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is a whole field of research called <a href=\"https://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/our-research/research-groups/mathematics-education.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mathematics Education</a>. Some mathematics departments have groups devoted to it. Doing research in this field is nothing like doing research in pure mathematics; it is <a href=\"http://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/website/PSUTalk.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">more like sociology</a>. Perhaps you would be interested in doing a PhD in this field? Then you would still have the qualifications to become a mathematics lecturer.</p>\n\n<p>Edit: sorry, I just noticed that this was also discussed in the comments to another answer. You might also consider the field of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomathematics\" rel=\"nofollow\">ethnomathematics</a>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36549,
"author": "ABrown",
"author_id": 27621,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27621",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am not allowed to comment, yet, so I will post here.\nI attended NCTM (National Council for Teachers of Mathematics) in 2012 in Philadelphia. It was a great experience, and learned a whole lot about new ways to teach. The main focus is on the public schools, but coming from a community college, I still found applicable material.</p>\n\n<p>One of the talks that I attended was on choosing a Doctorate program in Mathematics Education. The main take-away was that you will need to do a lot of research into schools that will pay you to do your doctorate, and whether you get a PhD or an EdD won't really matter, as long as you do it well.</p>\n\n<p>Additionally, if you are interested in \"getting your feet wet,\" many community colleges (like mine) hire students with Bachelor's degrees in Math, or a related field, as adjunct faculty. I did this for three years, while earning my Master's degree. It helped me refine my teaching, as well as prepare myself for the community college students, and how different they are from University students.</p>\n\n<p>After working at my college for three years as a full-time faculty member, I'm not sure that I would enjoy going into a University, except into researching Education. Our community college has a fairly heavy emphasis on Education research, and encourages faculty to \"play\" with different pedagogical ideas.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36498",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18108/"
] |
36,500 |
<p>My paper has beed accepted by Elsevier's <a href="http://www.journals.elsevier.com/aeu-international-journal-of-electronics-and-communications" rel="nofollow">International Journal of Electronics and Communications (AEUE)</a>.</p>
<p>I want to know how long I should expect to wait until I receive the notice of online proof correction.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36499,
"author": "Brian Borchers",
"author_id": 4453,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>\"Lecturer\" is a title with very different meanings in different countries. </p>\n\n<p>In the US system, the title typically indicates either a part time instructor or a person who is a full time teacher but not a tenured or tenure track faculty member. In the UK and many other commonwealth countries a \"lecturer\" is the equivalent of an assistant or associate professor in the US. </p>\n\n<p>My answer below is in the context of the US system. </p>\n\n<p>Within the US system, if you want to be a \"professor\" of mathematics at a prestigious university then you have to be an active researcher. It is sometimes possible to earn a PhD and do some research and then move onto a career as a tenured faculty member at a less prestigious college or university while doing very little research after the PhD. However, the competition for such positions is extremely intense (hundreds of applications for a tenure track position are common) and many colleges that wouldn't have cared about research in the past can now expect to hire faculty who will be active in research. Many universities at all levels have non tenure-track positions for instructors, but these jobs typically are part time or pay very poorly and offer little job security. Finally, there are full time and permanent teaching positions at community colleges where some of the instructors may have PhD's, but its also common for instructors to have only a master's degree. </p>\n\n<p>The typical career path is for students to complete a strongly research oriented PhD program and then (after one or more post docs or visiting assistant professor positions) to attempt to find a tenure track position at a reputable university. Most of these students end up either leaving the field entirely or end up in teaching oriented position at a lower ranked college or a community college. A relatively small number of PhD's end up with tenured faculty positions at research universities. However, the system still very much requires students to complete a research oriented PhD before \"settling\" for a teaching position. </p>\n\n<p>If you're not seriously committed to research and you really do just want to teach mathematics, then I would discourage you from entering a PhD program. Rather, you might consider an MS program that has a good track record of getting its graduates into community college teaching. </p>\n\n<p>I should also mention that there are PhD programs in \"Mathematics Education\", but the focus in such programs is typically on education more than mathematics. Graduates with PhD's in math ed are highly employable in the US right now. Typically, they are hired to supervise developmental, remedial and lower level courses (up to say the level of calculus) while regular tenure track faculty teach higher level courses. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36501,
"author": "Anonymous Mathematician",
"author_id": 612,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Arts\">\"doctor of arts\" degree</a> was created in the 1960's to solve this problem. It's like a PhD, but it doesn't require original research for the dissertation. The goal is to prepare students for teaching careers that do not involve research.</p>\n\n<p>Several universities in the U.S. offer DA degrees in mathematics, but they have never become popular. Many people aren't even aware that such a degree exists, and those who know about it generally consider it inferior to a PhD. Even institutions that do not expect their faculty to conduct any research at all often prefer to hire candidates who have some research experience in the past, in which case they would prefer a PhD to a DA. (And many institutions require at least a little research to get tenure.)</p>\n\n<p>For most people, getting a DA would be a bad idea: the time and effort required are comparable to a PhD, with worse career prospects. However, there are some narrow circumstances in which it could make sense. For example, some institutions (particularly high schools and some community colleges) don't require a doctorate at all but pay a higher salary to faculty with a terminal degree. In that case, a DA might work just as well as a PhD.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36504,
"author": "Jessica B",
"author_id": 20036,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20036",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One alternative is to slightly drop where you aim to teach. In Quebec you can apply for positions at CEGEPs with just a masters <a href=\"http://caps.mcgill.ca/graduate/articles/2008-2009/december/teaching.php\" rel=\"nofollow\">(reference)</a>, and half of the students are at the same point in their education you would be teaching as an instructor in a US university. In the UK the same level positions exist at sixth form/further education colleges, but you'd need a teching qualification. There are probably equivalent positions in other countries too.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36542,
"author": "Flounderer",
"author_id": 5842,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5842",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is a whole field of research called <a href=\"https://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/our-research/research-groups/mathematics-education.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mathematics Education</a>. Some mathematics departments have groups devoted to it. Doing research in this field is nothing like doing research in pure mathematics; it is <a href=\"http://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/website/PSUTalk.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">more like sociology</a>. Perhaps you would be interested in doing a PhD in this field? Then you would still have the qualifications to become a mathematics lecturer.</p>\n\n<p>Edit: sorry, I just noticed that this was also discussed in the comments to another answer. You might also consider the field of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomathematics\" rel=\"nofollow\">ethnomathematics</a>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36549,
"author": "ABrown",
"author_id": 27621,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27621",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am not allowed to comment, yet, so I will post here.\nI attended NCTM (National Council for Teachers of Mathematics) in 2012 in Philadelphia. It was a great experience, and learned a whole lot about new ways to teach. The main focus is on the public schools, but coming from a community college, I still found applicable material.</p>\n\n<p>One of the talks that I attended was on choosing a Doctorate program in Mathematics Education. The main take-away was that you will need to do a lot of research into schools that will pay you to do your doctorate, and whether you get a PhD or an EdD won't really matter, as long as you do it well.</p>\n\n<p>Additionally, if you are interested in \"getting your feet wet,\" many community colleges (like mine) hire students with Bachelor's degrees in Math, or a related field, as adjunct faculty. I did this for three years, while earning my Master's degree. It helped me refine my teaching, as well as prepare myself for the community college students, and how different they are from University students.</p>\n\n<p>After working at my college for three years as a full-time faculty member, I'm not sure that I would enjoy going into a University, except into researching Education. Our community college has a fairly heavy emphasis on Education research, and encourages faculty to \"play\" with different pedagogical ideas.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36500",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27581/"
] |
36,502 |
<p>I read a lot of computer science papers, and have to understand a lot of equations. Most of the time the concept is so easy, that someone could explain it to me in 5 minutes. I one the other hand need up to an hour to get it.</p>
<p>It is difficult for me to search for the variables in the text, and often I print the paper out and write the meanings of each variable down on the side.</p>
<p><strong>My questions:</strong></p>
<p>So why is it not common to make equations and algorithms more readable? </p>
<p>Is there some PDF reader plugin which highlights the variables in text?
Any tips on how to improve in reading such papers?</p>
<p>Why do authors not add an additional list to each equation with a list and explanation of each variable. Should I do that? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36503,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>So why is it not common to make equations and algorithms more readable?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The simple reason is paper space constraints. You can only add so many reference tables and clearly separated equations into a paper before the page limit runs out. And given that many CS papers do not <em>only</em> consist of maths, but also need to have some space for a good evaluation, comprehensive related work, and various other sections, paper space is often at a premium, even at journals.</p>\n\n<p>(and, given that most authors are really used to writing papers this way, they often also keep up the same style in those journals without an explicit page limit)</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is there some PDF reader plugin which highlights the variables in text? Any tips on how to improve in reading such papers?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I doubt that there is a plugin for that, but doing what you are already doing (keeping notes with the meaning of the more important definitions and assumptions) seems like a pretty good start to me.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Why do authors not add an additional list to each equation with a list and explanation of each variable. Should I do that?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If you have the space in your manuscripts, sure - whatever helps the readability of the paper.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36514,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I do not believe that the problem is fundamentally about space, but rather is a cultural problem that stems from three things:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Reviewers do not demand clarity in their mathematics</li>\n<li>There is often a perception that \"fancy\" or \"difficult\" math means more important science (related to #1)</li>\n<li>Really clear presentation of mathematics is difficult and takes a lot of work\n(<a href=\"http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal#Quotes\">\"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.\"</a>)</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Ultimately, a community tends to get what it rewards. There is no reason that math must be impenetrable. Even if one is faced with a space problem, you can play the same sort of games that you do with figures and data in order to fit. Right now, however, it is typically understood and accepted that you don't have to do that with your mathematics. In fact, some scientific communities will <em>punish</em> a researcher for presenting mathematics more clearly, because it makes the work look \"less significant.\"</p>\n\n<p>Technology cannot help solve this, because ultimately it is a problem of human communication. Anyone who is bothered by mathematical impenetrability can, however, take their own small steps towards changing this culture:</p>\n\n<p>In your own work:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Include tables and clear explanations in your papers.</li>\n<li>Use as few symbols as possible, and choose the symbols to improve clarity, e.g., matching the symbol to the first letter of its description.</li>\n<li>Buffer your equations with explanatory prose that restates their content in plain English.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>When considering other people's work:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Call out mathematical impenetrability as a reviewer</li>\n<li>Ask for tables, clear prose, etc. in the papers that you review</li>\n<li>View the mathematical impenetrability of a work as a flaw rather than a good thing.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>This is a very difficult problem, and unlikely to change any time soon, but it can be made better one paper at a time. Moreover, it is my belief (and experience), that clearer mathematics can make for a higher impact and better cited paper, so it will likely be valuable to you in the short term as well, unless you are in a community that has a toxic relationship to mathematical impenetrability.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 144487,
"author": "Jakob",
"author_id": 119679,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/119679",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I love the <code>LaTeX</code> package <code>\\hyperref</code>. There you can link every variable to its definition. (If you use \\usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref} it does not change the visual appearance of your text, but makes variables clickable or you can <a href=\"https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/50747/options-for-appearance-of-links-in-hyperref\">color the links</a>.)</p>\n\n<p>You can link other symbols to their definition too (e.g. see <a href=\"http://docdro.id/HZMP7Uy\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://docdro.id/HZMP7Uy</a> from <a href=\"https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/360871/128042\">https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/360871/128042</a>). See <a href=\"https://www.overleaf.com/read/mbbqrdpwbqfk\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.overleaf.com/read/mbbqrdpwbqfk</a> for a simple code-example.</p>\n\n<p>The advantage of this solution is that there is no additional distracting content that might annoy experienced reader that are familiar with the used notation, but those reader who forgot the meaning of a certain variable can just click on it.</p>\n\n<p>Additionally, I personally think, sometimes there would be even more possibilities to improve readability by using</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><code>\\underbrace</code> to explain certain terms,</li>\n<li><code>\\overset</code> like <code>$a\\overset{\\text{Th. 1}}{=}b+c$</code> to indicate that a=b+c holds true because of Theorem 1.,</li>\n<li>highlithing/lowlingthing to indicate more,\nand less important parts of complicated equations,</li>\n<li>and probably many other ideas ..., </li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>but every time you do something creative/unconventional, you will have opponents. I use many of this tools and often get very positive feedback in return, but some people don't accept unconventional things which definitely makes it harder to get accepted to certain journals.</p>\n\n<p>At least <code>\\hyperref</code> is accepted or even recommended by the majority of the scientific community.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36502",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27584/"
] |
36,506 |
<p>The <a href="http://home.vef.gov/download/2016_VEF_Fellowship_Announcement_ENG.pdf">fellowship I'm about to apply</a> requires me to express my past leadership experience in the personal statement. Why? I understand that leadership is a soft skill that everyone should have, but this is academia, not business. People in this environment put cooperating before leading. Of course, even in business, there is no group that work like in military, the person in low level still can suggest idea and change the leader/manager's mind. The role of the leader is inspire and amalgamate separate people to one united unit. But in academia, everyone should inspire themselves, and the science itself are the glue to attach people together, right? So why don't these fellowships require me to show my past cooperation, rather than leadership?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36509,
"author": "Davidmh",
"author_id": 12587,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Precisely because we cooperate a lot, we need good leadership. A good leader is someone who can bring the best of everyone in the group. For example, encouraging everyone to voice their ideas, assessing which ones have actual value, but without making the group pursue all the wild geese. A good leader should also be able to recognise the strong points in the members of the team and assign tasks accordingly.</p>\n\n<p>I accept that everyone here should be motivated, but it is important for the group to keep it up. No matter how eager I am, if my professor were to start giving me contradictory orders, unreasonable workloads, or dismissing my ideas without explaining why, I can tell you, I would not remain that motivated after four years. After all, I can be motivated to work \"in the grand scheme of sciency things\", but not necessarily in the particular group I am in.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36510,
"author": "silvado",
"author_id": 3890,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Scientific breakthroughs are rarely achieved by a single scientist, but by a research team. It is important that the team leader can identify relevant research questions and direct the group members' work to use suitable approaches to solve them. Often, the breakthrough results are associated more to the group leader than to any group member, even though the group members may have done 80 to 99 % of the actual research work.</p>\n\n<p>Fellowship funders try to look into the future of your career. You will only stay in academia after the PhD or maybe Postdoc level if you have the ability to lead a research group. That is, apart from rare exceptions, you will only be able to associate big scientific results with your name if you have leadership abilities. And these results are what funders try to support in the end.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36516,
"author": "Floris",
"author_id": 15062,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15062",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The description of this particular fellowship includes the phrase:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Winners are chosen based on individual merit, including academic performance and preparation, intellectual capability, English proficiency, and the potential for contribution to scientific education and research in Vietnam.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>\"Leadership\" means the ability to work <em>with</em> and <em>through</em> others. It is much harder than people think - a good leader is humble yet decisive, a good listener yet able to motivate; he can synthesize the thoughts of the group into a common goal and vision, use that vision to obtain resources and allocate them in a way that helps the group achieve its goals. Doing all that without appearing to be \"the boss\" is real leadership - something that comes with practice. Selling cookies to support your local charity is initiative; getting together with your friends to sell lots of cookies and build a new school, that's leadership. I have heard it said that</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Leadership is what bridges the gap between responsibility and authority</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Leadership lets you change the scale of your impact; and since this particular fellowship is explicitly created to find individuals who will have impact on scientific research and education in Vietnam, you need people who have both the academic skills and the skill to translate this into impact \"on the system\".</p>\n\n<p>Demonstrated leadership experience is an opportunity for the selection committee to explore whether you will be able to make an impact - they are not looking for the next CEO, but you will be amazed how much difference a good leader can make in any collaborative environment.</p>\n\n<p>In the US this trait is becoming so highly valued that some high schools have an explicit course \"Leadership\" on their curriculum - a chance for students to develop and practice these kinds of skills, often in the context of community projects.</p>\n\n<p>It is obvious from the selection summary that intellectual ability, preparation etc. are most important - but I hope you can see that leadership as I tried to define it here has a place in this academic environment.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36651,
"author": "Tom Au",
"author_id": 755,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/755",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While research is your <strong>primary</strong> goal, a secondary goal of universities is to produce people that can \"lead.\"</p>\n\n<p>This is first done as a teacher in a classroom. But ultimately, universities will want their researchers to be able to \"consult\" for government or corporations, where leadership skills are necessary. </p>\n\n<p>After all, a university is a \"beacon\" in society.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36506",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14341/"
] |
36,519 |
<p>I am an international student, and I am going to be doing an MS in Structure and Materials in Aeronautics at MIT. Before I arrive, what do I have to do? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36522,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Some key things that any international student will typically need to do before arriving in the USA:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Obtain a student visa. Your institution will be able to support you, but you are likely to need to lead the process yourself, including going to a US consulate in your country. This can take a long time, so it is important to start many months in advance.</li>\n<li>Make sure you have any required vaccinations and health certificates (I'm not sure whether this is part of the visa, or separate; your institution and the US consulate can advise)</li>\n<li>Find housing. Some universities will help with this, many do not. For example, MIT is notoriously bad about this, and the Boston rental market is insane.</li>\n<li>Ensure that you will have health insurance. The US (still) does not have a national health system. Your institution will likely provide insurance, and may assist you in enrolling, but not all institutions will.</li>\n<li>Ensure that you will have access to money from your bank accounts, if needed. This can sometimes be a difficulty, and many things in the US are much more difficult to do without a working credit or debit card.</li>\n<li>Ensure that you will have a working cell phone. The US does not use the same standards as most other countries, though this is slowly changing. Just changing to a local SIM card may or may not work.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Caveat: I might be missing some things from this list...</p>\n\n<p>Regarding scholarships: the USA does not have any organized system of scholarship exams. In many cases, however, graduate programs in STEM fields ensure financial support for their students through TAships or RAships. Any reputable Ph.D. program will do this, but Masters programs are much more mixed. Check with your particular program to find out what they advise.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36526,
"author": "Aru Ray",
"author_id": 948,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/948",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To add to jakebeal's answer: </p>\n\n<p>When an international student is admitted to a US university, they will be contacted by the Office of International Students (these offices go by various names, which are usually a permutation of the words office, international, students, and/or scholars). </p>\n\n<p>The folks at the international student office are the best (and in fact the appropriate) people to contact with any questions about the logistics and details of being an international student, including visa issues, housing, travel, etc. Many of these will be addressed on their websites, see for example: <a href=\"http://web.mit.edu/iso/\" rel=\"nofollow\">ISO at MIT</a>, <a href=\"http://oiss.rice.edu/\" rel=\"nofollow\">OISS at Rice</a>, <a href=\"http://internationaloffice.berkeley.edu/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Berkeley IO</a>, <a href=\"http://www.hio.harvard.edu/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Harvard IO</a>, etc. </p>\n\n<p>In addition to the international student office, you should consider looking up whether there is a community of students from your country at the university. Some of these organizations also help out incoming students, and might have helpful information on their websites. For example, <a href=\"http://sangam.mit.edu/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Sangam at MIT</a>, <a href=\"http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~isar/new_students.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">ISAR at Rice</a>, <a href=\"http://web.stanford.edu/group/ksas/cgi-bin/\" rel=\"nofollow\">KSAS at Stanford</a>, etc. (There are often active Facebook groups/pages as well, where you can ask specific questions.) In addition to information specific for your community (e.g. best ways/rates to call a particular country, closest places of worship, etc.) these organizations are also helpful for more informal things, like finding a roommate from your country. The graduate international student organizations at my graduate institution also picked up students from the airport, which was extremely helpful. </p>\n\n<p>And some things to think about doing, which haven't been mentioned yet:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>If you can find out which textbooks are going to be used in your courses, it'll possibly save you a bunch of money to buy them ahead of time in your home country</li>\n<li>Same for kitchen utensils, clothes, shoes, etc. </li>\n<li>Certain food items are hard to find depending on where you will be. E.g., in a large city like Boston it's not hard to find Indian spices, compared to being roughly impossible in smaller collegetowns. </li>\n<li>Be careful about bringing electrical items from your home country. US power supply is 110V, unlike several other countries. If you must bring electronics, e.g. a laptop, make sure you have an appropriate power cord/adaptor (the power outlets in the US are also a different configuration than in several other countries). </li>\n</ol>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Source: I was an international student in the US both for my bachelors and doctoral degree. I was also heavily involved in the graduate Indian student organization at my graduate institution (Rice University) and occasionally worked with the office of international students and scholars there. In fact, I compiled a <a href=\"http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~isar/documents/starter_pack.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">\"Starter Pack\"</a> for incoming Indian graduate students to Rice which might be helpful to you. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36528,
"author": "user141592",
"author_id": 27327,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27327",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I just started as a graduate student in the US, and here is what I learned from my experience and that of some of my friends:</p>\n\n<p>1) Get the visa and book tickets to fly in</p>\n\n<p>2) Book a hotel / hostel for the first night. Even if you manage to get a rental before going there, it is unlikely that you will be able to sign the contract and get your keys on the first day.</p>\n\n<p>3) Try to find a place to live. Your university may have a site where students who have an apartment can look for roommates, and if the rental market is really bad, this is a good place to start looking. Don't freak out if you don't have a rental before flying to the states. You can be more efficient once you have arrived. I stayed in a hostel for 3 weeks when I first got here, before I could find a place and move in to it.</p>\n\n<p>4) Make sure you have health insurance / travel insurance / home insurance for the first few weeks. If you get health insurance through MIT, it will likely not start covering you until term starts, and you can get stuck with a $5000 bill for a broken leg or food poisoning or something like that. Not a fun way to start your time here.</p>\n\n<p>5) Look at phone contracts online and pick one that would suit you. If you have an unlocked smartphone, you can just go to a store your first day in the US and get a SIM. Smartphones from the rest of the world are compatible with the US system, as long as they are unlocked. You will need a working phone pretty quickly here, so this should be prepared before you go. If you don't have an unlocked smartphone, you can buy a simple phone for $10-$20 with some number of minutes on it.</p>\n\n<p>6) Make sure you have access to plenty of money. The first few days will be expensive when you are setting everything up. Figure out how much money you think you will need, and make sure you have access to double that in an emergency, including a few hundred dollars in cash (if your bank decided to shut down your card for accessing it abroad). You won't need all of it, most likely, but unexpected things will pop up and you will be grateful that you budgeted extra money.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36519",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27599/"
] |
36,527 |
<p>A couple of months ago I submitted a paper for which a referee review came back recently, recommending minor corrections. There are two methods to calculate some quantities in the literature which do not agree between each other. My paper agrees with one of them and not with the other, which I know is incorrect. However, in my paper I did not point this out (that it is incorrect, I do mention the other method), but simply focused instead on the method I use.</p>
<p>Now, the referee seems to be eager for me to profusely comment on the incorrect method and specifically refer to several papers written by people from the same group using this particular method. I get the impression that this referee is trying to use me to criticize them. I would prefer to be as diplomatic as possible, and remain in good terms with the others who use the incorrect method, who I have met in person several times. However, openly stating their method to be wrong, even if choosing the wording to be as nice as possible, would make that difficult.</p>
<p>What should I do in this case?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36529,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First, remember that the review is not \"the word of (your) god\", it is a professional view of a peer. Now, it is customary to report on aspects that support and do not support your findings. Whether it is reasonable to mention the second, apparently flawed way to do a calculation, cannot be judged here but you should see if it can and indeed should be at least mentioned. In the end, you also have the right to have a different opinion than that given by your peer reviewer. Hence, you should provide your view to the editor on why you think following this particular point is superfluous. It does not appear to change anything in your conclusions and of that is correct it seems as a <em>no-brainer</em>.</p>\n\n<p>So first consider if you can work in a comment to the fact that there are other ways to do a calculation, if need be with an argument why you have chosen as you have done. Second, make your point clear to the editor stating that you do not see a major point in dwelling on the reviewers point since it does not affect the result you have arrived at. How and what you express will of course only be possible for you to judge.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36530,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In your paper, you do need to acknowledge the existence of the other method, especially if it is a frequently used alternative. This is because you need to explain why you chose the method that you chose.</p>\n\n<p>You do not, however, need to criticize the other method as wrong. Instead, you can simply explain what are the advantageous properties of the method that you are using.\nA good way to think about this is to remember that you are not actually choosing between Method A and Method B. Rather, you are choosing Method A as sufficient for your purposes, regardless of the existence of Method B or the opportunity to try to create a new Method C.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36539,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You can contact the editor directly. Explain your position calmly, as you have done here - you feel you have addressed the issue, and that you think the reviewer's approach is too strong, or why it is not a good fit for your paper. In my experience, editors try to be fair, and if the editor will require you to make the change, they will be able to tell you so directly. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36540,
"author": "Korem",
"author_id": 17394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17394",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my opinion, having a proof that a method is incorrect and keeping it to yourself due to diplomatic/social concerns is neither the scientific nor the friendly thing to do. </p>\n\n<p>If I was working in a group which uses a method frequently I'd expect a friend knowing that it was flawed to share his/her concerns with me in a constructive and friendly manner, knowing that the next researcher who discovers such flaws might not be friendly about it. I'd also hate to be putting time and effort based on something flawed.</p>\n\n<p>Once that was done by that friend, we could find out between us whether the method is really flawed. If it is, I won't be offended if it's published in a paper he wrote.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36541,
"author": "kbh",
"author_id": 27423,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27423",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>We're all in the same pursuit in science - we want to understand what's happening on a fundamental level. If there are disagreements in calculated or measured/observed quantities, I should think that the natural response to reported discrepancies in those quantities should be <strong>\"Why do we disagree? What is happening here that we obviously don't understand fully?\"</strong> or similarly. These disagreements can be turned to something constructive and really ought not be seen negatively by anyone worth their salt in academia. Or so I would think. </p>\n\n<p>There was a similar instance in my own work previously. If you're particularly concerned with a personal outcry from these other researchers, what you could do is reach out to them personally to tell them your findings and try to discuss the answers to the questions I stated above. This way, you're free to publish your results and you might even have a \"stimulating discussion\" that would allow for future work or collaborations on similar measurements. After all - these might lend themselves to better comprehension of your field of study, and isn't that your end goal? </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36587,
"author": "Floris",
"author_id": 15062,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15062",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Reach out to the group that has published the \"wrong\" method and discuss it with them. There may be more to their method that you realize. If at the end of that conversation you agree that there is a problem, they ought not to mind if you publish. If you get to see their point of view you can include it in your response to the editor.</p>\n\n<p>Nobody likes to be surprised by a negative publication (so give them fair warning/try to sort it out) and in scientific publishing you should state the truth as you see it, with appropriate language to convey what is fact and what is speculation. Deliberately leaving things out is inappropriate: there is an old saying in Dutch that \"gentle doctors make stinking wounds\".</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36599,
"author": "Dewi Morgan",
"author_id": 27663,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27663",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Seems like there are three possible cases here.</p>\n\n<p>1) Do you get comparable results with your data, using both methods? Then that's a useful thing to say: \"I chose to use this method, but similar results are obtained with the other method\". You can leave it at that.</p>\n\n<p>2) If you get DIFFERENT results, then that's rather more important: you need to describe the difference in outcome, and to explain why your cherry-picked method represents a true interpretation of the data, and why you feel that the differing result from the other method should not be heeded.</p>\n\n<p>3) If the method affects data-gathering, so that you can use only one or the other, then you can't compare them without running the experiment again... which is someone else's job! You have already mentioned the other method, and explained which method you have used. Your method is the mainstream one. Papers exist on the topic of which method is better, and about discovered flaws, but your paper is not <em>about</em> this, so you don't even need to cite those papers: it is an irrelevance.</p>\n\n<p>If it is a bugbear for your reviewer, that's nice for them, but it is not relevant to your paper, and you do not need to go into depth about your selection of the most mainstream method. If you were choosing a minority method, an explanation is relevant, but otherwise it's sufficient to say which method you used, so that people can reproduce your experiment.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36527",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14695/"
] |
36,531 |
<p>I am a Chemical Engineering undergrad, and interested in pursuing a Masters in Artificial Intelligence and/or Machine Learning. I have taken a few courses in the CSE department as a part of my minor curriculum plus a few other courses, and also doing some projects in the same side-by-side. Now in the past I have faced some difficulties while taking some courses in the CSE department, and not really sure if it is going to be easy (if at all possible) to switch my majors. </p>
<p>What challenges am I going to face in terms of application/selection, and how can I get by them?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36535,
"author": "kitty",
"author_id": 27408,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27408",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think pursuing a master in the major that you are interested in would be much easier than doing a PHD in similar area. To be selected and become a PHD student, applicants always got to have very good CGPA results in their Bachelor's degrees.<BR> Some of my former classmates who were doing their PHDs all graduated with CGPA higher than 3.6 something. <br>\nHope this help!</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36699,
"author": "Florian D'Souza",
"author_id": 26958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I assume that CSE = computer science engineering? </p>\n\n<p>Like Kitty said, pursuing a Master's degree in a different area/field might be easier than a PhD, at least in terms of admissions. Many PhD programs like to see applicants with background in the subject so they can tackle the more advanced courses immediately. As such, they might be more reluctant to take a chance admitting a Chemical Engineering major for a PhD in AI compared to admitting one for the Master's degree. In addition, PhD cohorts tend to be much smaller than Master's level cohorts, which means Master's level admissions might be (relatively) less competitive compared to PhD level admissions. You might also want to check out the discussion <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36464/applying-to-a-phd-in-machine-learning-without-much-knowledge-of-the-subject\">here</a> (slightly different, but still relevant).</p>\n\n<p>Personally, I switched fields from undergraduate to graduate school, and I got admitted to most programs to which I applied. I think the biggest challenge is explaining why you want to make the switch. A question that came up during my interviews was why I was trying to switch fields at the graduate level instead of the undergraduate level (i.e., answering the \"if you are interested in this field so much, why did you get a Bachelor's degree in something else\" question). If you have a good answer to this, I think you'll be at least moderately successful. </p>\n\n<p>Reviewers of your application might also want to see that you have the necessary intellectual skills for the degree, but if you did well in your chemical engineering major, you should be fine because the math, science, and writing skills should all be transferable. You mention that you had \"difficulties\" in the CSE classes, which you may need to explain, depending on what exactly those difficulties were.</p>\n\n<p>Other than these, I think you'll just face the same challenges as everyone else applying in terms of making sure your recommendation letters are strong, standardized test scores (if applicable) are good, et cetera.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 40346,
"author": "JP Janet",
"author_id": 28045,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28045",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I was in a similar situation, coming from a chemical engineering background and moving into CSE. I second the advice to do a master's degree first, even if it adds a year to your timeline. I am more in applied maths than computer science but I think it is probably not too different. </p>\n\n<p>I went the master's route, and it really gives you a chance to see what life is like in maths/CS department. This does not need to be a top 10 program as you may not be competitive for admission to such a program from the wrong undergraduate major. I would recommend finding a masters program in your target field that you can afford/ be funded for, and that has a lot of coursework options. In my case, I am doing a 2-year masters in Europe. I won't lie, it is not easy, as suddenly your classmates have 3 years of area-specific knowledge over you - that can make you feel lost and unintelligent. However, after a few months and some hard work you will find that it is not so bad. I think getting some specific technical training (i.e. courses at grad level) in your target area really strengthens your applications going forward. Doubly so if you can spin a paper in your new field out of your master's. </p>\n\n<p>I managed this, and even if it is not the most spectacular work ever done, it shows that you have provable commitment to your new field. There are lots of eng undergrads who say \"I want to go into maths/CS/finance\" etc, and having some actual experience in a relevant department helps show that you are serious. When it came time for PhD applications I got in everywhere I wanted to go and I will be attending a top five US CSE PhD program in September.</p>\n\n<p>One more thing, talk to the people you would like to work with, both at a master's and PhD level. Everyone I met was super helpful and understanding of the difficulties that come with changing fields. For example, my master's program helped make a sensible curriculum that covered, more or less, what I was missing. I was surprised at the number of math grad students (and even Professors) with engineering backgrounds. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36531",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27607/"
] |
36,536 |
<p>As graduate school application deadlines roll around this season, I believe this site would get a lot of questions concerning letters of recommendation, including sending reminder e-mails to professors about this.</p>
<p>My question is now what is the best approach to sending a <em>second</em> reminder to a professor concerning writing an LOR? A couple months ago, after having discussed my graduate school plans with the professor, they agreed to write his letter and have me send them the e-mail link to the LOR. I sent the first reminder last week, but they did not respond. And this professor is normally responsive in e-mails about other things, such as coursework and advising. I suspect the professor is beyond busy, and I hope that is the case; I just hope they haven't forgotten about the LOR or changed their mind about it.</p>
<p>I would like to add further that my two other recommenders have already submitted their LORs. I am still waiting on this professor now. Should I mention this in my second reminder e-mail to them, if I should send that second reminder at all? What should I be saying in the e-mail, to politely remind them for the second time?</p>
<p>Any input helps.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36538,
"author": "Aru Ray",
"author_id": 948,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/948",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A week since your first reminder is somewhat on the short side - personally I would wait a couple more days (maybe two weeks since the last email) to send another email. </p>\n\n<p>A week before the deadline is a good point of time to send a reminder. There is no need to state that this is a second (or nth) reminder. A short email, roughly of the form 'thanks again for agreeing to write a recommendation letter for me. I just wanted to quickly remind you that the deadlines are one week away. Please let me know if you need any more information from me. Thanks again for all your help, etc.' is sufficient. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36626,
"author": "DS R",
"author_id": 27610,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27610",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Send a polite email. Also contact by phone. But do not hesitate to show the needed urgency. You might also want to request a fourth person to be ready to submit a recommendation for you, in case this one doesn't do it, finally, due to whatever reason. Waiting till one week before deadline is too risky.</p>\n\n<p>(P.S. Three years back, I was in a similar situation. Only one professor, who was usually quick to respond to any email, was holding back due to some reason. Ultimately, close to deadline, I had to request a fourth professor who immediately obliged. )</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 78590,
"author": "MissMonicaE",
"author_id": 36330,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/36330",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I wouldn't re-follow up in just a week unless (a) the particular prof usually sends you \"Thanks for the reminder; I'm on it\"-type responses for this kind of thing or (b) the deadline is quite soon.</p>\n\n<p>When you do follow up, I find it helpful to include a specific question (to prompt a response), such as \"Should I resend the link?\"</p>\n\n<p>If you want to give them a bit more of a nudge, send your second reminder as a reply to the first, so that they'll see they already got a reminder.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36536",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
36,543 |
<p>I am a fresh PhD student and I have a question regarding the scientific publication process.</p>
<p>Let's say that I have submitted a paper to a certain journal in Springer, Elsevier etc... and it has been published.</p>
<p>The editor will charge 31.95$ to anyone who would eventually download my article.</p>
<p>How much do I get from it (as the article's writer) ?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36544,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 11565,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11565",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<blockquote>\n<p>How much do I get from it (as the article's writer) ?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<h2>Nothing.</h2>\n<p>Moreover, through subscription fees, your university is very possibly paying a substantial amount of money for access to your work.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36545,
"author": "Buzz",
"author_id": 27515,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27515",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You will not receive any royalties from an academic publisher (for an article---books are different). You may even need to pay to have the article published, although in many fields, the best journals are free to publish in.</p>\n\n<p>You will, of course, get the benefits of exposure and possibly opportunities to network with other researchers. But there are no financial benefits from publishing scholarly articles.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36546,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<h2>You normally get <em>nothing.</em></h2>\n\n<p>Unlike a book, where you retain the rights as author to some of the proceeds from the sales of the textbook, unless you have some very special arrangement in place with the publisher, the publisher normally keeps all of the proceeds from subscription fees.</p>\n\n<p>(Note in part that very few copies of articles are sold through the publisher. That's one of the reasons why they're so expensive. In general, most people who want such an article do so through interlibrary loan agreements or by directly contacting authors.)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36556,
"author": "Geremia",
"author_id": 9425,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9425",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Cf. <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32107/9425\">my answer</a> to the \"<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/19333/9425\">How much do Springer-Verlag authors make per book sold?</a>\" question:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If the Work is sold electronically as part of a Springer e-book package, Author will receive an equitable share of royalties from the income generated by Springer from the e-book package. The share formula for each individual title within the e-book package will be determined by Springer no later than April for the preceding calendar year. This amount will be paid in addition to the royalty described above and shown separately on the annual royalty statement.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The same stipulation might hold for articles, too.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36543",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27619/"
] |
36,548 |
<p>I did a master's degree in computer science and wrote a thesis. I'm interested in submitting the work in my thesis to a second-tier conference in my research area -- if it is accepted, it will be a stamp of quality for my work. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I'm not really interested in presenting the work in case it is accepted, because (i) I've moved on to a PhD somewhere else, and it would be troublesome to ask my former advisor for travel funding or presentation advice, and (ii) I've moved on to a different research area (still within the same broad area.)</p>
<p>Can I submit to a conference and choose not to present? If not, what can I do?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36550,
"author": "ABrown",
"author_id": 27621,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27621",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another route to consider would be journal publication. You can poke around some of their sites to find the submission requirements and to see whether their journal sounds compatible with your work.</p>\n\n<p>Checking with a few other conference FAQs, it seems that if you are accepted, they will ask whether you would like to present. I'm not sure what that will get you, if you say 'no,' other than personal validation that you did good work.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36551,
"author": "o4tlulz",
"author_id": 6978,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6978",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>In many conferences, the work has to be presented in order to be included in the conference proceedings and considered published otherwise a submission, even if accepted, will be removed.</p>\n\n<p>If you really want to have the paper in a conference you can submit it to one that a friend or colleague is attending and he can present your work for you. It is not an optimal situation and might be frowned upon by those attending the presentation, as realistically you cannot expect a decent Q&A session afterwards, but many of the conference organisers tolerate it and it quite a common practice in an environment with budget cuts or less travel money available. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36566,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is somewhat if not outright unethical to submit a paper to a conference with peer review with the intention of not attending and presenting. The program committee and reviewers will have to put in volunteer effort to deal with your paper only to have you withdraw it or simply fail to attend. </p>\n\n<p>You should not do this.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36581,
"author": "DS R",
"author_id": 27610,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27610",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think you should submit and present if it is chosen. If you don't present it, you take away someone else's chance who needs the break in that conference more than you do. Everything is competitive nowadays. Why to create un necessary competition ?</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36548",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27622/"
] |
36,553 |
<p>I want to do a thesis masters with a specific teacher in the field of Antennas. I am supposed to meet with him to discuss about this in 2 weeks. I am undergraduate in electrical engineering graduating this May.</p>
<p>How can I prepare for this meeting?What to expect?</p>
<p>I guess I should bring my CV and transcript. Maybe personal projects.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36555,
"author": "mkennedy",
"author_id": 5711,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5711",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I've never done this, but I would send via email or drop off a package with your CV and transcript now or at the latest a week before the meeting. This is so he can review it beforehand rather than be flipping through it at the meeting. </p>\n\n<p>If you haven't, you should review his recent papers and website, if he has one, to gain knowledge about his current research interests. If possible, you might also try to review master's theses or Ph.D dissertations that he was the advisor for. Try to come up with some ideas on ways to further that research. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36759,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>When I meet with potential students, I am trying to find out whether we have mutual interests and compatible working habits. Sometimes I have a specific project in mind that I'd like to staff, and I am looking for a student with specific skills or background. Hopefully, the student is trying to find out whether he/she wants to work with <em>me</em>. There are a few things you can think about in advance to have a more productive meeting.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Look at some of his recent publications, and recent publications of students he is supervising. You don't have to read every word, but you should get a sense of what the advisor works on. If you happen to think of an intelligent question or potential extension to his work, great, you may bring it up in the meeting if it seems appropriate, but if nothing comes to you, don't force it. </li>\n<li><p>Expect that he may ask questions to find out more about your interests, strengths, and goals, so be prepared to talk about these. I often ask potential students questions like,</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>What kind of work do you like to do? </li>\n<li>What specific areas of research are most interesting to you? </li>\n<li>Are there any classes that you especially enjoyed?</li>\n<li>What do you want to do next (e.g. after the MS)?</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><p>Think about what questions you might want to ask him. For example, depending on your own working habits and goals you might want to know:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Where do his students end up? Do most go on to industry jobs, or PhD programs?</li>\n<li>How does his group operate? Does he have regular one-on-one meetings and/or group meetings with students he supervises? Is his group very collaborative or do most students work individually? Does he have specific expectations about when his students will be their offices, or is he OK with students who work unusual hours or from other locations?</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><p>If you have <em>specific</em> technical skills that you believe will be helpful in your MS research, be prepared to bring them to his attention. (For example, if you have taken a course with a lab component that involves techniques relevant to your research interests.) </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>And yes, it might be helpful for you to bring your CV and transcripts to the meeting, and also email them to him a day or two before. I usually like to look at these <em>before</em> a meeting so that I can see if there's anything specific in them that I want to ask more about. (\"I see you're taking [some course] this semester, how are you finding it? \")</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/09
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36553",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12807/"
] |
36,558 |
<p>I'm applying math graduate program and know that some program reads "gre math subject is not required". Does that mean I can't send gre subject score to them?</p>
<p>And if I also want to apply cs program, can I send gre math sub score to them to exhibit my mathematical ability?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36567,
"author": "user141592",
"author_id": 27327,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27327",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You can still send it in. You can always add more information to your application, but there is no guarantee that they will consider it. I know a few schools have stopped asking for GRE subject scores because they don't feel that it's a good way to predict performance, and if that is the case they will not look at it. Assuming you have a good score, it will not count against you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36579,
"author": "DS R",
"author_id": 27610,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27610",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You can and should send them. Not required means it is not essential; they don't want someone who has not taken that exam to worry. But grad schools would typically want to know about a candidate from as many sources as possible and getting your subject GRE scores is really a good plus point for your candidature. Of course , additional fee for each report has to be borne</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36558",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27477/"
] |
36,561 |
<p>I am writing a few research papers for an upcoming conference and things have been going decently. But I could really use more time to analyze my papers.</p>
<p>I am new to writing and this entire conference process, however - How should I e-mail the organizer requesting a deadline extension?</p>
<pre><code>Hi Dr. Bobster,
I would like you to extend the deadline for the
international conference on procrastination.
Sincerely,
Procrastinator
</code></pre>
<p>Also if it helps: I should make this <em>extra</em> polite because this is also someone of high influence.</p>
<p><strong><em>Updates</em></strong></p>
<hr>
<p>It looks like for the past versions of this conference, they gave at least a week extension. This is a fairly well known event, though it doesn't usually end up presenting any ground breaking research.</p>
<hr>
<p>It looks like the past few events had extensions, its a well-known event but not too crazy. There's no way I can finish this with the other things I have..</p>
<hr>
<p>If anyone wants an update, I cut the paper short, finished it on time and submitted it.</p>
<hr>
<p>I asked for an extension. I didn't get a reply - so I thought that they thought I was being stupid. BUT.... they extended the deadline! Phew!! Maybe I didn't have to cut it short..</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36564,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The words you propose are reasonable, but unlikely to have much effect. Usually, you just plain cannot affect the deadlines of a significant conference. If it is a small conference, however, there is a good chance that you can get a one week extension, and even that they may give a blanket one week extension to everybody.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36568,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It is very unlikely that there will be any extension <em>due to your request</em>. If you are <em>\"new to writing and this entire conference process\"</em>, you are presumably not well-known / important enough that a conference organiser will make exceptions/changes to accommodate you specifically.</p>\n\n<p>However, that does not mean that there certainly will not be an extension. In my field, many conferences (especially smaller ones) have the annoying habit of <em>always</em> extending their deadline for a week or more. Contrary, the largest and most prestigious conferences in my field make it a point to never, and for nobody, extend the deadline.</p>\n\n<p>Whether your conference is likely to extend can be predicted pretty accurately by looking at the past. Check out the previous web pages of the same conference - if they extended the last one or two times, they will likely do so as well this year.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36574,
"author": "Charles Stewart",
"author_id": 24914,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24914",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The wording you propose is ambiguous: do you want an extension for yourself or for everybody. It only makes sense to ask for an extension for yourself if the request does not waste the time of the PC member to whom you send, and the PC will be usually be most busy in the timeframe around submission. </p>\n\n<p>And the PC is only likely to grant an extension for the whole conference if many more people will fail to meet the deadline than they expected: to do so is embarrassing for them -- although not as embarrassing as failing to have enough speakers to fill the promised number of days.</p>\n\n<p>The PC for workshops and more informal conferences are likely to be generous in granting individual extensions, but there is only a point in asking if you give them some information that is relevant to them: the minimum should be (i) some information about what kind of thing you will hopefully submit, and (ii) name a deadline that they can grant with the one-word email \"Sure\" or decline with \"Sorry\". And (iii), something to say why you are attracted to the conference is often appreciated. So for asking for an individual extension, I recommend that your email looks something like:</p>\n\n<pre><code>Dear $PCMEMBER,\n\nI won't be able to submit all the materials required by $DEADLINE - does it make any sense\nto submit later? I attach the short version of my abstract below, and will provide the\nrest of the materials by $IMUSTREALLYFINISHBYTHISDATE.\n\nI hope that it will still be possible for me to present my work with you at $CONFERENCE. \n\nBest,\n$ME\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>And something along the lines of <code>$PERSONRESPECTEDBYPROGRAMCOMMITTEE spoke highly of $HISorHER experiences at your past conferences and I would greatly look forward to the chance to present my information with you</code> would be appropriate for the third point.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36561",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26850/"
] |
36,570 |
<p>I have organized several times some international conferences on my field (computational chemistry), where accepted proceedings are afterwards evaluated again for it submission to a special issue of a journal. Now I am thinking that I could create a journal for all those submission, even if at the beginning we have no impact factor (ISI) or if people are not so interested, but I would like this idea very much.</p>
<p>So I wonder of you can point which steps should I follow for creating a journal. I think I could attract many submissions, and I have servers where I could host it, but do not know the other technical and/or legal details.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36681,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Having followed a few new journals from birth to quick success I can see the following steps:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Make sure you identify a scope that has long-term interest (pretty obvious)</p></li>\n<li><p>Make sure the idea is supported by your scientific community; that they see a benefit in yet another journal. Community involvement really helps.</p></li>\n<li><p>Assemble a group of enthusiastic and well-respected scientists in the field of interest to form a group to plan for the journal and who may constitute the nucleus of the editorial board (equiv.). </p></li>\n<li><p>Create a proposal including a description of your goals and target audience for the journal.</p></li>\n<li><p>Decide how the journal should be published. Open Access seems like a safe bet and initiate discussions with an Open Access Publisher. It is possible to publish on your own but using a publisher may provide access to other types of support so a careful assessment of the options are important.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>----Now we assume the journal has passed the planning stages and will be launched</p>\n\n<ol start=\"6\">\n<li><p>Make sure the community knows about the journal. This ground work can be continuous throughout the process but has to be realized by this point.</p></li>\n<li><p>Try to attract as many prominent authors as you can and have them submit high quality work. This will help make the journal attractive. One goal, like it or not, is likely to get an impact factor (if that matters in your field) and that means publishing papers that get referenced. Attracting good papers in under any circumstances a good start.</p></li>\n<li><p>Maintain high standards in your review process and make sure to maintain high publications standards. Good papers attract other good papers when people realize the journal is to be counted.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Only the contributions you can attract determine the success of the journal. Although some of the points above may seem obvious or even trivial, the more effort you add early on the higher the chance for success. In the cases I have seen, having the community on the train from the beginning and following the development has proved to be fruitful.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36719,
"author": "Benoît Kloeckner",
"author_id": 946,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Peter Jansson's answer tackles a good part of the process, but let me add the question of the publisher.</p>\n\n<p>You can go through an existing publisher, in which case you will have to choose one (and then convince it that it is a good idea to start your journal, but if you managed steps 1-5 in Peter Jansson's answer, it should not be difficult). There are several criteria to be considered:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>What service does the publisher provide to the editorial board? Discuss with editorial boards of journals published there to find out. Also, a publisher which is well-known in your field can have an easier time making your colleagues become aware of the existence of your journal, but it seems that this task is largely up to the editorial board anyway.</p></li>\n<li><p>What service does the publisher provide to authors? For example some publishers ask authors to format their papers in their style prior to submission, which can be a pain, or may have painful electronic system that authors must use to submit or to contact the editorial board. Your past experience can give you a good idea. Also, the question of usual cost the journal charges for extra pages or for open-access is crucial. Publishers can also have very different policy with respect to green open access, see the <a href=\"http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/\">Sherpa/Romeo</a> site for info about this.</p></li>\n<li><p>What service does the publisher provide to readers? For example some commercial publishers provide very poor copy-editing; you can care or not. Also, the question of the usual cost of subscriptions for non-open access journal is crucial.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>You could also want to go with your university's press if it exists, so as to be close to the publisher and interact more easily with it.</p>\n\n<p>If you plan on act as publisher as well, things are more complicated. Let's assume that you do not want to manage subscription payments nor article processing charges; you will still deal with quite some stuff.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Your journal should have an owner; it may be you, or your university, or another institution, or you could create a legal body for this (e.g. a foundation), notably if you want some money to flow. For example, I know a journal run by department, with money and one full-time staff from a university and a national research institution.</p></li>\n<li><p>Your journal should have an identification, most notably an electronic ISSN. This is not difficult to get as far as I know.</p></li>\n<li><p>Your journal should be indexed in the databases used in your field (e.g. Zentralblatt and MSN in mathematics). Asking the publisher of the database would be the obvious way to go.</p></li>\n<li><p>You will need a software to track submissions (which need to be assigned to an editor, which need to be assigned to a referee, which await for a decision, etc.) and to host the website of the journal. Most probably you know how to do this part since you did it for your conferences.</p></li>\n<li><p>If you want a paper version, you will have to deal with a printer and with mailing issues, but this is very XXth-century and very likely for a journal that does not charge subscriptions.</p></li>\n<li><p>You may need to use an anti-plagiarism software, depending on your field (sometimes in small fields plagiarism is easily detected, but this is not universally true).</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I certainly miss some points, please free to add in comment and I'll try to keep the list up-to-date.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36570",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/284/"
] |
36,573 |
<p>I am a very recent Ph.D. student (since October 2014), and the deadline date of the conference in which I want to participate is quite near. I don't want to miss the conference, but as I am so new in my Ph.D. program, I don't have something really concrete for the moment. For this conference, however, it is possible to revise the paper until 15 days before the conference.</p>
<p>Accordingly, I am thinking of submitting my M.Sc. dissertation to the conference. As I think I will have an improved version of my M.Sc. in 3-4 months (at least, I really hope), I suppose that it is worth doing this.</p>
<p>Is it really a bad idea to submit a M.Sc. dissertation to a conference? Are there some ethical issues to consider?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36577,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Typically a dissertation is not considered to be a peer reviewed publication. This means that the material in it can be extracted and turned into conference or journal publications. In some fields, this is a typical practice after completing a dissertation, where in others it goes the other way (the dissertation is assembled from peer-reviewed papers).</p>\n\n<p>You cannot, however, just submit your thesis directly as is. A dissertation is generally much longer than conference or journal papers. A dissertation typically also has much more freedom in style, and does not have to be targeted at the biases of a particular community. Thus, to make a credible conference submission, you will need to compress or extract a nugget of contribution of an appropriate size, and may also need to tailor its focus and language to better match that of the conference where it is being submitted.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36591,
"author": "O. R. Mapper",
"author_id": 14017,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I agree with what <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733/jakebeal\">jakebeal</a> says in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/36577/14017\">his answer</a> about ways to make a submission based on your Master thesis, and I would like to add that you could talk to your former Master thesis supervisor. Maybe he or she is interested in drafting a submission together with you. As your supervisor, they are probably more or less interested in the topic.</p>\n\n<p><em>For example, everyone supervising a graduation thesis in my own department is always strongly encouraged to create at least one paper out of that thesis, and while mostly, students are not interested in writing anything themselves and we only present refactored parts of what they created (which ultimately means that their effective contribution warrants co-authorship among the less significant positions), we are always entirely happy and supporting if a student actually wants to become one of the main authors and writes parts of the paper him- or herself.</em></p>\n\n<p>Like this, you could benefit from writing together with someone more experienced who can help you create a submission that has a certain chance of being accepted.</p>\n\n<p>(All of the above is under the assumption that your Master thesis topic is somehow related to your PhD research, so both are somewhat compatible with the conference in question.)</p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, I would like to respond to the following statement you make:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I don't want to miss the conference</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This sounds like your primary objective is to attend the conference. That is a legitimate desire, for reasons such as getting a good overview over the state of the art in your field, getting some first external contacts in your field, or simply for learning how conferences in your field look and feel in general.</p>\n\n<p>You may want to talk to your supervisor exactly about that wish, as there may be various options:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If your department's finances allow for that, you might be allowed to attend without presenting anything. At my own department, new doctoral candidates are often allowed to attend one conference in the very beginning of their career even if they do not have any submission, just to learn how conferences work (preferrably, that is a conference that is attended by at least one other member of the department, so they also have someone to \"show them around\").</li>\n<li>Even though you have nothing \"really concrete for the moment\", if you have started looking into some things, defined something on an abstract level that you are about to try, or have a certain plan, you could think about preparing a minor submission to the conference, e.g. a poster or a workshop paper. On this type of papers, it is often acceptable to present work in progress, as one of the main goals is to discuss and possibly refine an approach or model.</li>\n<li>If your work is not concrete enough for that, maybe you could participate in a doctoral colloquium, which is an event somewhat similar to a workshop that is frequently integrated into conferences, as well. Such events are sometimes meant for doctoral candidates to present and discuss their ideas and plans for their upcoming research.</li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36573",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24694/"
] |
36,578 |
<p>Research articles are often priced at 20-40 USD. I know that typically a researcher's institution subscribes to <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/29923/452">myriads of journals</a>, and that some research articles are accessible online for free either legally or illegally, but I am curious to know some numbers that would help quantify how many / often individuals buy research articles, and how much money journals make from this source of income.</p>
<p>I am not looking for guesses or opinions, but actual numbers. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36586,
"author": "Floris",
"author_id": 15062,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15062",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I tried digging through the <a href=\"http://www.reedelsevier.com/investorcentre/reports%202007/Documents/2013/reed_elsevier_ar_2013.pdf\" rel=\"noreferrer\">2013 annual report of Elsevier</a>. Under "Revenue" (page 111) they list both "subscriptions" and "transactional" - but the latter include not only reprints, but also books etc.</p>\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/wWYKG.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\" /></p>\n<p>As you can see, even if we lump books and reprints together, it is still less than subscriptions.</p>\n<p>To get a more complete answer you may have to ask them directly.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36593,
"author": "Florian D'Souza",
"author_id": 26958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While I can't give actual firm numbers, I know that two (non-academic) consumers of academic articles are law firms and pharmaceutical/life science companies. One of my former classmates worked as a research assistant for a law firm that handles biotech and patent cases, and I recall having a conversation with him where he said they easily spend $20-30,000/year on articles, with the exact amount depending on the cases they see and how much background information they need. These costs are wrapped up in the general legal fees charged. From my own experience, I worked briefly for a life science startup, and we would purchase around $600-1,000 in articles a year (although we tried obtaining articles through academic collaborations as much as possible). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36798,
"author": "Andrew",
"author_id": 27825,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27825",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Speaking as a librarian, <em>very</em> rarely - only if it's urgent and can't be obtained in a useful way through ILL. The cost of journal article purchase is usually three or four times an ILL fee.</p>\n\n<p>More generally...</p>\n\n<p>I <a href=\"http://www.generalist.org.uk/blog/2011/jstor-where-does-your-money-go/\">ran some numbers</a> on this for JSTOR in 2011, based on their public filings - it's hard to be sure, but the answers were \"very little\". In 2008, 0.35% of their income came from pay-per-view, and based on the quoted average, this came to something like seven or eight thousand articles/year. </p>\n\n<p>It later transpired that themselves suggested around twenty thousand a year, but the numbers for this didn't quite add up, as the per-view price would be substantially lower than expected, so either a lot of material was somehow discounted or only the cheapest articles were being purchased. However we sliced the numbers, the easy answer was \"not enough to really be significant\". JSTOR have, to their credit, substantially widened public access since then, so these numbers will probably have dropped further.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 111474,
"author": "Allure",
"author_id": 84834,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/84834",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>An order of magnitude estimate for the revenue a publisher might get from these direct purchases is \"several thousand dollars per month\". For a publisher as large as Elsevier it might reach the low six figures per month. Given that Elsevier's revenue is in the billions, this is literally a rounding error.</p>\n\n<p>Source: I used to work in academic publishing.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36578",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452/"
] |
36,585 |
<p>With a few other professors, I have been working on proving a certain mathematics conjecture. Our solution seems to be working perfectly in computer simulations but we can't find a proof. (..its a very big result if it works!...) </p>
<p>I have been trying pretty much everything I can think of. Nothing is working. </p>
<p>What do you do in such a situation? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36597,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><a href=\"http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_journey_of_a_thousand_miles_begins_with_a_single_step\"><em>A journey of a thousand li begins with a single step.</em></a></p>\n\n<p>Rather than aiming for a big result all in one go, why not break the problem down by aiming at some smaller results that will bridge you towards where you want to go. For example:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If you restrict to a much more limited range (even to a single scenario!), can you show the result for that special case? You may then be able to generalize bit by bit.</li>\n<li>Can you identify some property P such that, if property P holds, the overall result will hold? You can then separately try to show that your system has P and that P implies the desired result.</li>\n<li>Can you break your system into little pieces and take an inductive approach, where you show that if all but one fragment are correct, then the last fragment will be correct too? You can then show that this holds for larger and larger fragments.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Complementarily, if the simulations work but you can't find the proof, it might be the case that the result does <em>not</em> hold, but it appears to because your simulations are all coincidentally close to some special case. I have <em>often</em> seen this happen to people. So an alternate approach that you can take is to try to break your simulation. For example:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>What happens when you hold all simulation parameters constant except for one, and change that parameter greatly, say across a range of a couple of orders of magnitude?</li>\n<li>What happens if you radically alter the initial conditions, e.g. making initial conditions extremely homogeneous or heterogeneous in a strongly correlated way?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If the simulation fails in more extreme conditions then, well, you know why you couldn't find a proof. If it doesn't fail, then you may gain insight into <em>why</em> it doesn't.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36630,
"author": "DS R",
"author_id": 27610,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27610",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You should take a small break, say a week, away from this problem. It will help if you engage in some other creative activity during the break. That will help you genuinely take a better perspective.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36631,
"author": "Noah Snyder",
"author_id": 25,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Have more than one project, so that if you get too frustrated you can switch to a different problem and come back to the other one in a few weeks.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36585",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27646/"
] |
36,589 |
<p>I attained my bachelors degree in computer engineering in January 2014. I was not a prolific programmer as an undergrad, instead focusing on my other coursework and in general completing my degree. I am now paying the price for that. I got a job after graduating that involved writing code, however I had a hard time understanding the programming tasks required. Luckily I had senior coworkers who were very helpful. Despite this I was fired after five months because I was unable to complete my tasks in a timely manner.</p>
<p>Since then I have begun working on my own (basic) projects such as library management and a chat engine.</p>
<p>After a few months I was able to get another programming job. This time I was able to understand the tasks I was assigned, however I still struggled to complete them in a timely manner and my boss was growing quite frustrated with me. I decided to leave the position after two weeks because of this. </p>
<p>I have continued to improve my programming skills since graduation, but I am still very slow at developing my programs and I rely heavily on Google. I suspect that this is because I did very little programming as an undergraduate. I do enjoy programming, and I regret not pursuing it more passionately then.</p>
<p>I have since considered applying to a masters program in computer science in order to improve my programming knowledge. I'm not sure that this is the best route because I believe that most masters programs in computer science are more research oriented. I believe that if I continue my studies and complete all my programming assignments I will be able to do well in industry. I would appreciate any advice on deciding between a MS and an MBA so I can remedy the errors I made in the first two.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36590,
"author": "Alexandros",
"author_id": 10042,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10042",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Although having done a bachelor in computer engineering without doing any coding at all is highly unusual, learning to code is mainly a self-taught art. Even if you had been fully taught many programming languages during your undergraduate years, they might quickly become obsolete. On a perfect world an undergraduate degree on computer engineering must have given you the necessary theoretical base on databases, programming concepts, data structures and algorithms. Then it takes many / endless hours of coding to learn how to successfully apply those concepts on real-world software applications. So, regardless of doing a MSc or not, you must still code on your own \"free\" time, either on your little self-projects, on learning / self teaching new programming languages or participating on open-source projects and communities like Stack Overflow (SO).</p>\n\n<p>The fact that you avoided coding on your undergraduate years is a bad sign though. Successful programmers are usually partly (or fully) geeks who enjoy installing / testing a new linux distribution every few months, hack their laptops to automate tasks, participate on SO by coding and solving other people's problem just for fun. Are you sure that coding is what you want to do for the rest of your life? Programming is really a hard and stressful work (as you saw on your first real jobs) and is very hard to enjoy it, if you do not have any real passion for it.</p>\n\n<p>On answering your core question, most MSc programs I know, are mainly focused on particular aspects of IT science, such as databases, networks, electronic commerce etc and not on teaching programming. If your core motivation is learning how to program, I would suggest to follow (and pay for) some industry certifications (e.g. Oracle for Java and Oracle DB) and their respective structured courses. There is even multiple free educational material for those certifications, so you might even not need to pay for it. Still, to really learn coding you must spend hundreds of hours of actually coding and you should not simply expect to learn programming by studying at yet another course or getting a new degree.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36595,
"author": "Lightness Races in Orbit",
"author_id": 12378,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12378",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I feel like this whole question is a great example of someone taking a Bachelor's course on the assumption that it would open up career doors for them, without ever really considering or understanding how [little] said course related to their chosen career path.</p>\n\n<p>No degree is going to magically make you a programmer or a software developer, surely not a research degree, and certainly not a <em>Computer Science</em> degree. \"Computer Science\" is a misnomer for courses that would be better called \"<em>Computing</em> Science\". It's not about developing software.</p>\n\n<p>Taking a Bachelors course in Software Development/Engineering should have given you a great foundation, but it sounds like it may in reality have been more of a Computer Science course (a contradiction that is unfortunately rather common in the undergraduate academic world). Regardless, whether you took a real Engineering course, decide to go and take one <em>now</em> or just leave it be entirely, my advice is as follows:</p>\n\n<p><strong>If you wish to improve your skills, take up more hobby projects and consider contributing an open-source repository.</strong> It sounds like this is going to be a slow road so you should probably get an unrelated job to tide you over for the next few years until you have become a useful programmer.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36600,
"author": "Mark Harder",
"author_id": 27662,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27662",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You need to frame your question more precisely. What caused your productivity problems in your programming assignments? Saying you were \"too slow\" isn't very enlightening. Why were you too slow? Did you make too many mistakes that had to be corrected? Are you sure your slow coding was the main issue? Why do you say so? To answer this question, you would need to consult your more successful workmates. What did they say?</p>\n\n<p>If you were having problems completing assignments on time, did you seek help or mentoring from coworkers or supervisors? If your employers knew your educational background (and why wouldn't they?), why did they hire you in the first place? If they hired you knowing your weaknesses, did they offer extra help? Jobs are not like academics. Jobs are focused on getting the job done, no matter what. Besides gaining an education, in school your knowledge and capabilities are constantly being evaluated. The job is not about you. For that reason, good managers will help their employees be successful. It's to everybody's benefit.</p>\n\n<p>Without knowing where you attended college, or where you worked, I can't evaluate your poor understanding of English grammar. If you attended college in an English-speaking country, why don't you know the language better? If you were working on an English-speaking job site, I'd say your inability to communicate effectively was a hindrance. I have to differ a bit with you and one previous commenter about the nature of education. Education should not be confused with training. While a form of education, the latter is quite narrow. It consists of imparting the minimum knowledge and skills to perform some function, programming or nursing for examples. There are broader skills that education in seemingly unrelated topics can teach you. From education in the liberal arts and sciences, you learn how to recognize patterns, how to generalize your observations and frame them in more abstract but general ways so that you can apply them to seemingly unrelated problems. You will learn basic logic and how to use it to critically evaluate data and arguments you encounter in work and life. Writing and speaking exercises will compel you to express your thoughts clearly and logically.</p>\n\n<p>How well did you perform when you took these courses? What did your teachers say about your performance? If a college level liberal arts education is your foundation, but you lack specialized training in computer science and coding, then pursuing a Master's degree could be a way to acquire that training.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36601,
"author": "jamesqf",
"author_id": 27365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27365",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Getting a masters COULD improve your programming skills, or not, depending on the work you do, and the use you make of it. There's also a question of exactly what kind of programmer you want to be, because all programmers/programming jobs are not alike. Working on business-oriented software development, perhaps as a member of a large team, is quite a different experience from using programming as a tool in basic/applied research, where you may be one of a few (or the only) real programmer tasked with translating the ideas of non-programmer scientists into code.</p>\n\n<p>I have to agree with others, though, that becoming a reasonably good programmer takes practice. It's a lot like any physical sport: you can study the theory all you want, but unless you actually get out and DO it - and push yourself in the doing - you will never be good at it. That means not just following a recipe (I'm almost tempted to say 'design pattern' :-)) to code something once and turn it in, but taking it apart and learning how & why it works, and perhaps more importantly, why it fails. (Debugging is a highly underrated skill.)</p>\n\n<p>I really think you should have gotten at least a start on this as an undergrad. If your teachers didn't try to force you to, IMHO they shortchanged you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36603,
"author": "sean",
"author_id": 15501,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15501",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If your goal is only to improve programming skills, then doing an MS is just a waste of time and money. If you find it difficult to learn programming by yourself, you can take a free online programming courses in <a href=\"https://www.coursera.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Coursera</a> or <a href=\"https://www.udacity.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Udacity</a>. There are plenty of them, for example:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.coursera.org/course/interactivepython\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.coursera.org/course/interactivepython</a><br>\n<a href=\"https://www.udacity.com/course/cs046\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.udacity.com/course/cs046</a><br>\n<a href=\"https://www.udacity.com/course/ud036\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.udacity.com/course/ud036</a></p>\n\n<p>Note also that there are many career options for a BSc degree in CS that do not require much programming skills. For example:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If you don't know how to code, but you know how to test other people's code, you can become a test engineer.</li>\n<li>If you can talk to customer and convert the discussions into UML diagrams, then you can be a Business Analyst. </li>\n<li>...</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36604,
"author": "kevinbatchcom",
"author_id": 27670,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27670",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A masters degree in computer science will not increase your programming knowledge much, if at all. I earned both a bachelor and master degree in computer science. I did some programming for my bachelors degree, but very little for my masters degree. To my surprise, my masters degree was mostly a higher-level and less in-depth presentation of much of the same material covered in my bachelors degree (at completely different universities). (Lesson learned -- If I had to do it again, I would get my masters degree in a different field from my bachelors degree.)</p>\n\n<p>Computer science coursework (for software development) focuses primarily on teaching the fundamental concepts of algorithms, database theory, graphics theory, etc. At the bachelor level, programming exercises are intended to help the student understand the theory and demonstrate a basic understanding. Degree programs do not provide in-depth training for any particular programming language or platform. Instead, they provide the fundamental concepts that are widely applicable in computer science. When I began professional work as a developer, I quickly discovered that my CS coursework left out many topics that were extremely relevant to the platform I was using and the type of development I was doing. There are so many languages and platforms that no CS degree could possibly cover them all. Many professional training books and courses offer in-depth training for specific platforms or types of work. But even those courses will not and can not cover everything you need.</p>\n\n<p>I have worked with some developers who were great people, but only marginally competent at development. A competent developer (or a professional in any field) will have some amount of both <strong>skill</strong> and <strong>talent</strong>. <strong>Skill</strong> is a combination of training and experience. <strong>Talent</strong> is the in-born ability of certain people to intuitively learn concepts or skills in a field, and understand problems/scenarios in their field. For example, I took piano lessons as a child. While both I and my teacher tried hard to improve my skill, I really didn't have much talent. I finally gave up playing the piano when I realized that my lack of talent made skill acquisition very hard, and I would never acquire enough skill to compensate for my lack of talent and play well.</p>\n\n<p>To put it bluntly, it sounds like you may not have a lot of talent for programming, and are trying to compensate with more skill (education). That may or may not succeed. I am not trying to be unkind, but to encourage you to take a hard look at your own talents. If you are not sure, ask a trusted colleague for their frank assessment. I certainly commend your desire to improve yourself professionally. I would encourage you to consider looking for another type of technical work that may be a better fit for the talents you do have. I have worked with colleagues who couldn't write decent code, but who had great customer service skills, a knack for regulatory intricacies, or an amazing understanding of reporting details. With your drive to improve, there is a position out there that is a good fit for you.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36634,
"author": "Fahad Rana",
"author_id": 27698,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27698",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am myself an undergraduate student of CS and believe me I have realised very early that programming is whats going to matter. i wont be solving Calculus questions in the office. The situation of yours is different but what my Discrete Mathematics teacher told me, might be of your use. He said that after graduating, do masters and if possible doctorate as it opens up your mind towards your field giving you a much more dynamic and wide point of view of your field. So thumbs up for master's degree.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/10
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36589",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27648/"
] |
36,596 |
<p>Following <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7360/how-common-is-it-to-inadvertently-reinvent-the-wheel-in-academia">the answers to this question</a> that it is quite common to inadvertently reinvent the wheel in theoretical/computational research, have there been cases where the decision to accept a paper to a journal/conference has been revoked on this ground, because someone found out later that the results were not actually original? In such cases, how would one distinguish between oversight and plagiarism?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36598,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>By \"revoked,\" I assume that you mean <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retraction\">retracted</a>. I have often heard of papers being retracted for plagiarism, but never for reinventing the wheel. </p>\n\n<p>I believe that the reason is, there are so many different ways to invent wheels, that it is almost always possible to tell if an idea is actually an independent invention. A reinvention will likely use somewhat different terminology, have a different formulation of the problem, use different types of evidence, or whatnot. There will be so many small differences, that it would be clear that the work is original, in the <em>copyright</em> sense, and not an academic fraud.</p>\n\n<p>The fact that is it a reinvention of an idea that was already discovered elsewhere, however, means that it is likely to sink into obscurity once this fact is discovered... except... sometimes, a reinvention is not just a reinvention. Sometimes, the <em>reason</em> for a reinvention is that an idea has not reached a community. In that case, the contribution may not be the reinvention, but the <em>importation</em> of a mature body of work from elsewhere, in which case even a reinvention of a wheel may constitute a legitimate scientific contribution, in the form of bringing together two strands of research that complement one another and allow vital new progress to occur.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36606,
"author": "xLeitix",
"author_id": 10094,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>jakebeal answered most of the question just great, but I would like to comment on this a bit more:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>how would one distinguish between oversight and plagiarism?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think this is no big issue in practice. Typically, people start talking about plagiarism if and only if the similarities (text-wise, or, in rarer cases, idea-wise) are so substantial that it would be very unlikely for the author(s) to have arrived at their text without knowing the original. When authors honestly have \"just\" re-invented the wheel (as it frankly happens all the time in research), it is very unlikely that the end product would be so similar that they get accused of plagiarism.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36653,
"author": "mightypile",
"author_id": 14899,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14899",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>This may differ from computational work, but the concepts overlap, I think. In experimental science, it is traditionally expected that a published contribution is original, to the extent that you often have to sign a document essentially claiming originality upon submission. However, for numerous reasons (nicely explained by John Ioannidis at <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124</a>, and cited 2400+ times!) replication of work is valuable in the sciences. We all have biases and make mistakes. And it is literally impossible to control for everything that may affect the outcomes of your experiments. So doing the same thing someone else has already done is actually a really nice validation of the previous work. It can demonstrate that two (or more) investigators have done the same or similar experiments and (hopefully) arrived at the same conclusions.</p>\n\n<p>The original work will probably remain the exemplar of the phenomenon explained and garner all of the citations. But the \"me too\" experiment will make everyone who comes after more comfortable that the phenomenon is a real thing and not just a statistical fluke because of the weather on the day of the experiment or someone wearing cologne or forgetting to wash their hands.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36596",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27631/"
] |
36,605 |
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YSpFq.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
<p>I am applying this time for graduate admission in physics at Utah. In the online application they require a financial statement. Does graduate admission require it too, even though I must need a TA/RA? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36609,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A financial statement is required by the US for visa eligibility for <em>all</em> international students applying for standard student visas. It is not needed for admissions decisions, as stated in the form you've uploaded.</p>\n\n<p>The purpose of the statement is to show that you will be able to support yourself (and any dependents) while you are in the US. If the university offers funding, you will use that as a source of support on your I-20. If the university funding does not fully meet all your financial requirements, then you will need to show that you can handle the rest of your expenses through other sources.</p>\n\n<p>You don't need to worry about the I-20 until after you've been admitted. The university will give you more information then, including how to submit the necessary documents and what the official program expenses are for visa purposes.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36623,
"author": "user141592",
"author_id": 27327,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27327",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>When I applied, I emailed and asked about the financial statement for the one university that required it (Ohio State), and they told me to upload a document stating basically:</p>\n\n<p>Personal funds: 0$</p>\n\n<p>From university: (Tuition + standard stipend for the given program)$</p>\n\n<p>I suggest emailing them and asking what they prefer you to do.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36605",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
36,613 |
<p>Recently I prepared to submit to a conference of IEEE. In the requirements of submission, it indicated that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>PDF and Postscript files:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>must not have Adobe Document Protection or Document Security enabled,</p>
</li>
<li><p>must have either 'US Letter' or 'A4' sized pages,</p>
</li>
<li><p>must be in first-page-first order, and</p>
</li>
<li><p>must have ALL FONTS embedded and subset.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I have searched for the phrase of "first-page-first", but still did not have an idea of it (sorry my first language is not english).</p>
<p>If anyone can tell me what's the meaning of it exactly I would be very grateful.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36618,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I am pretty sure this is just a ridiculously dated instruction. On some older printers, the pages were ejected print side up and new pages were added to the top. This means that the first page printed would end up being the bottom page of the document when you picked it up. If you then wanted to staple the document in the correct order, you needed to reorder everything. With these printers it was much more desirable to print \"back-to-front\" such that when you pick up the document from the printer everything is in the \"correct\" order. Some computers provided (and maybe some still do) the option to print \"back-to-front\" to avoid this. Some people conceivably, though I have never seen it, produced documents in a first-page last order to help with the printing. I think this instruction just means that the pages should go in the order you expect them in: the first page of your pdf should be page 1 and the last page <em>N</em>. In a first-page-last order the first page would be <em>N</em> and the last page 1, which would be really awful to read on screen.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36657,
"author": "Justin",
"author_id": 27715,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27715",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I asked my wife, who is a professional conference manager and organizes IEEE conferences (the last one she did was the S3SConference) and her response was: \"The first page of the submitted PDF must be the first page of the paper\" and the clarification was \"some papers get submitted with several cover sheets embedded in the PDF before you get to the actual content of the technical paper. I have to edit out the cover pages before they are presented to the selection committee which makes my job harder.\"</p>\n\n<p>Purely an anecdotal answer, but that was her opinion based on her work.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36613",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27581/"
] |
36,616 |
<p>It seems that there is no requirement for professors to serve on even a single dissertation committee. (This is so at least at my US university and I believe is common practice worldwide - please correct me if I'm wrong.)</p>
<p>So why would any of them do it, other than out of the pure goodness of their heart? It seems like purely volunteer work.</p>
<p>(Of course, one can imagine professors being eager to serve on the committee of a John Nash or a Ludwig Wittgenstein, if only so that their names appear as a footnote somewhere in the history of science, but most of us are not Nash or Wittgenstein.)</p>
<p>[Personal anecdote: I am asking this question because I've been having some trouble filling my committee. Many professors simply respond that they have no time, are too busy, etc. I am left feeling like a pathetic beggar grovelling for favors, even though I may be paying hefty tuition fees, which presumably helps pay at least a little for their salaries.]</p>
<p>Addendum: I simply wanted to give a little context for my query, but it was perhaps a mistake for me to add the above personal anecdote.</p>
<p>I'd prefer answers to stick simply to the question itself, which to repeat, is quite simply this: "What incentives do professors have to serve on dissertation committees?" </p>
<p>Perhaps we can leave to avenues other than StackExchange the opinion-based debates about whether the current situation is ideal or whether I personally have a moral defect and should change my "client" mentality. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36619,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have never heard of a department where staff are required to serve on dissertation committees. In some cases committee members are co-authors on the resulting papers, but this is country and field dependent. Similarly in some cases committee members get \"credit\" during tenure and promotion reviews. As in most things academic, it really is about the \"goodness of our hearts\" (or our selfish desire to be involved in research).</p>\n\n<p>Constructing a thesis committee should really be a joint venture between you and your supervisor. Making sure students have the thesis committee they need/want is one of the core responsibilities of a thesis supervisor. If they are unable to fulfil this duty, then you may want to reconsider your supervisor. If you are having trouble finding a primary supervisor, that is a very different issue.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36621,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In my experience, in the U.S., faculty are expected to serve on such committees now-and-then, but there is no specific rule, no specific compulsion to serve on any particular committee, and no reward for serving on more rather than fewer. In fact, such committees are time-and-energy consuming, to various degrees, so such service is easily viewed as a net loss in material terms.</p>\n\n<p>That is, yes, it is fundamentally out of a sense of generosity and service, rather than compulsion.</p>\n\n<p>Even for faculty who are generally inclined to agree to serve on such committees, the possibility of declining any particular invitation allows one to avoid situations that have ill portents: no one wants to be on a committee that has to cope with serious problems in a thesis, or serious problems in a student's attitude or capacity.</p>\n\n<p>In particular, <em>scheduling</em> can often be a decisive problem: faculty will not want to cancel classes or meetings with their own PhD students or trips to conferences or vacation-time ... merely to accommodate lack of foresight about scheduling. Peoples' schedules fill up far in advance, and <em>simultaneous</em> scheduling of several faculty is a highly non-trivial matter. A lead time of _at_least_ a few months is wise, and also gives a more civil window for genuine feedback and critique of a dissertation, as opposed to the sort of last-minute railroading-through that I have seen far too often.</p>\n\n<p>And, given that faculty rightly view such service as volunteer work, if a student approaches them with an attitude that implicitly assumes otherwise (e.g., the \"client\" model), that situation easily falls into the \"ill portent\" case, and is immediately avoided.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36629,
"author": "Chris H",
"author_id": 8494,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8494",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The professors serving on one committee will also have their own students, who they will want to see graduate (even if you assume pure selfishness they want their recrords to look good). Those students will need to be examined as well so in a sense it's <em>mutual</em> assistance, but time-deferred. Also good relationships between academics are how a lot gets done: this is a fairly easy way for an academic to build relationships with other (perhaps more senior) professors. So while generosity is important in this sort of thing, it's not quite that simple.</p>\n\n<p>As an aside, you might like to ponder the effect on such well-established networks and systems of treating academics and their research groups as business units in a corporate entity.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36632,
"author": "GEdgar",
"author_id": 4484,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4484",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>At some institutions, promotions and salary increases are based on certain categories like \"research, teaching, and service\". Dissertation committee service might bolster the \"service\" component. But of course one might serve on other types of committees, or do other types of service, either within the university or outside the university. Refusing one particular type of service (such as dissertation committees) won't hurt you, but refusing all types of service just might.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36633,
"author": "Herman Toothrot",
"author_id": 4050,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4050",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>How about to learn and be exposed to new concepts and ideas? Or to get a publication or two with little effort and time? It can also foster new collaborations with other faculty in and out the department. It can create stronger ties within the department, but also sometimes conflicts in committee meetings. (There are some funny stories about these...)</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36650,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am not a faculty member, but a scientist working in industry. Nevertheless, I have served on university dissertation committees a number of times, and I find it quite rewarding for a number of reasons. In particular:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>I am generally scientifically interested in the work that the student is doing, and get to have a hand in ensuring its quality.</li>\n<li>Good students frequently go on to become new colleagues and collaborators.</li>\n<li>Serving on a committee strengthens existing collaborative relationships.</li>\n<li>It is just plain <em>satisfying</em> to help mentor an enthusiastic young researcher.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Thus, even without the more structured expectations, responsibilities, and quid-pro-quo that comes with a faculty department, I find that there are sufficient reasons to serve on a dissertation committee.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36616",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
36,620 |
<p>Is it possible to determine what percentage of a tenure track/tenured professor's salary is paid for by tuition? At my UK university, our school budget includes income from student fees (we only get a portion of the fees each student pays), grants, and central university funds (presumably some of this is indirectly from student fees). I am curious if a calculation could be made for STEM departments at US R1 type universities. Presumably some of this information may be available for state schools.</p>
<p>I think the answer I am looking for would be something along the lines of the ratio of the total amount of tuition fees (hopefully divided up into undergraduate and graduate fees) given to the department divided by the total costs of teaching (again, ideally divided up into undergraduate and graduate costs). In other words if a department gets $500,000 from tuition fees and the teaching costs are $1,000,000, then 50% of the teaching costs are paid for by tuition. Teaching costs would have to include space charges, IT charges, printing charges, and the cost of staff time. These all seem to be known, well defined, quantities. An exact estimate of the cost of staff time would require going through each member of staff and prorating the salary by the percentage of time allocated for teaching (e.g., 0% for someone who has bought out his teaching and maybe 40% for someone who has not). Presumably, someone in the university/department has access to these numbers.</p>
<p>This is only a guess as to what an answer will include, but if there is a different (more general) way of getting to the answer, that is fine too.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36625,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I think that you'll never be able to sort this out. Most universities cross-subsidize departments to the point that even individual departments don't know how much of their own faculty lines come from the tuition of students majoring in that subject vs. tuition from other departments' students. Does the English department fully fund itself through the fees students pay for English classes? I doubt it. State funding, though a diminishing portion of most state universities' budgets, picks up some fraction of the costs. </p>\n\n<p>Also, departments see level funding in the face of modest fluctuations in class enrollments. If 45 students took Calculus I last fall and 52 sign up this fall, the department doesn't see increased revenue for that. The department has a number of faculty lines coming from the dean's office to teach the projected enrollment. If that spikes or drops off substantially such that more instructors are required, then the department has to negotiate more or fewer lines with their dean. </p>\n\n<p>That being said, I think that most departments negotiate expected breakdowns in effort with the faculty they hire. Of a typical 9 month appointment, a faculty member might be expected to do 35% teaching, 35% service, and 30% research (or whatever), and that might be the expectation regardless of whether the teaching load is a 1-1, 2-1, or 2-2. Where, again, it's entirely unclear whether that 35% teaching is completely funded by tuition or partly funded by tuition, central endowment, and/or a local named chair. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36645,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I agree with Bill's answer, but also want to contribute a few more points:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>In many other European countries, students pay no tuition, and thus there can be no contribution.</li>\n<li>Faculty in the US can be paid according to either a 9-month or 12-month salary scheme. When they're paid for nine months per year, they are expected to raise their remaining salary through external grants. Then you have to ask the question of <em>which</em> salary you're referring to in your calculations.</li>\n<li>Salary differs widely among faculty members at differing levels of pay. </li>\n<li>Graduate tuition is often an internal accounting device, as graduate students themselves (and particularly PhD students) are rarely expected to cover their own tuition costs. </li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36652,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>To the best of my knowledge, my university salary is paid out of what the university calls the \"general fund\". That fund includes the money the university gets from tuition, the money it gets from the state (except possibly for state money earmarked for specific projects, like a new building), and I think also the indirect cost funds from research grants (and maybe other income sources too). Once that money is in the general fund, it gets completely mixed together, regardless of source. And I get the same salary, entirely from that fund, whether I'm teaching my normal course load or whether part of my time is devoted to administrative duties, or whether I'm on sabbatical. So, as far as I can tell, the proportion of my salary that comes from tuition is just the proportion of the general fund that comes from tuition; no finer analysis is possible. (Unfortunately, I don't know what proportion of the general fund comes from tuition, but, since the University of Michigan is a public institution, that information is undoubtedly publicly available somewhere.) [Edit: Deleted the sentence about \"25% quite some years ago but not from an authoritative source\". That 25% was for state support, which has probably decreased since then. Tuition is probably a much larger share of the general fund.]</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 54216,
"author": "sciczar",
"author_id": 40984,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40984",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The average annual total compensation of a lecturer at a public baccalaureate US institution in 2014-15 is $76,893 ($54,223 for salary only) according to <a href=\"https://www.higheredjobs.com/documents/salary/category_affiliation_rank_15.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">higheredjobs.com</a>. You can look on the chronicle, glassdoor, etc. for average information about the type of faculty your interested in at your institution. </p>\n\n<p>\"The average published tuition and fee price for in-state students enrolled full time at public four-year colleges and universities is $9,139 in 2014-15\" <a href=\"http://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-published-undergraduate-charges-sector-2014-15\" rel=\"nofollow\">collegeboard.org</a>. I am sure you can find the tuition at the institution you are interested in. A typical full time student takes 15 credits per semester or 30 credits a year.</p>\n\n<p>Now class sizes are all over (typically from 10 to 200 for intro courses), which is what you would want to know if you are talking about your professor that is teaching your class. However, if you are interested in the total amount of faculty including those that do not teach (research faculty or graduate faculty that do not teach undergrad courses) you will want to look at the student-to-faculty ratio (typically 12:1 to 20:1). For this purpose lets suppose you are interested in a course that has enrolled 20 and the faculty member that is teaching that course (or in general all faculty at an institution with a student-to-faculty ratio of 20:1).</p>\n\n<p>Now we have to consider the teaching load of the faculty member of interest. These can range from 1-0 (tenure track at a research institution) to 4-4 (full time teaching faculty) depending on position (see higheredprofessor.com, I can only post 2 links). Let's assume you are talking about the ever increasingly prevalent full time teaching faculty, which would mean 24 credit hours annually ((4+4)X3) for the typical 3 credit hour course.</p>\n\n<p>Now it is simple math: </p>\n\n<p>$9,139 student tuition / 30 credit hours X 20 students / faculty X 24 credit hours/ $76,893 faculty salary = ~2 </p>\n\n<p>This means that income from student tuition is twice that of what the total compensation to faculty are paid or that half of a tuition dollar goes to pay for the faculty that teach the course. This of course is often much worse, where non-tenure adjunct or part-time faculty are paid less to teach larger classes that may have a lot of students paying higher rates for out-of-state tuition. But to answer the question about salary only, lets look at an instructor's salary at master's institution to teach this load with an average class size of 200 students paying out of state tuition: </p>\n\n<p>$22,958 student tuition / 30 credit hours X 200 students / faculty X 24 credit hours/ $46,878 faculty salary = ~78 </p>\n\n<p>or about 1 cent of a tuition dollar goes to pay for instructor's salary. This is more of the trend of how things are going as tuition and class sizes increase and higher paying tenure track jobs are replaced with low paying benefits ineligible part-time non-tenure instructor jobs.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 54249,
"author": "D.Salo",
"author_id": 12438,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12438",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Another wrinkle: different pots of money for different delivery modalities. Where I am, online courses are paid for VERY differently from face-to-face ones. General-fund money pretty much can't be used for online courses, so a much higher percentage of instructor salary for those comes from tuition.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, the mix of online and face-to-face courses for any given instructor varies from semester to semester, so... have fun with that math, I suppose.</p>\n\n<p>Yet another wrinkle: grant funding, for instructors who also pursue research grants. Grants don't last forever, but they may \"buy out\" one or more classes for a given instructor for a while (at which point less of their salary is from tuition).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 63262,
"author": "Daniel R. Collins",
"author_id": 43544,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43544",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While you're not going to get department- or professor-specific breakdowns, there are reports that show proportions for public colleges as a whole. Unfortunately charts in articles below (sourced from GAO and State Higher Education Executive Officers, respectively) for public college funding don't totally synch up (one says 25% funding from tuition, the other 47% in 2012), but all agree that tuition as a percent of total revenue has markedly increased in recent years.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/04/student-tuition-public-colleges-gao_n_6411998.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/04/student-tuition-public-colleges-gao_n_6411998.html</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/04/21/states-increase-higher-education-spending-rely-on-tuition-in-economic-recovery\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/04/21/states-increase-higher-education-spending-rely-on-tuition-in-economic-recovery</a></li>\n</ul>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36620",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929/"
] |
36,624 |
<p>To give credit where credit is due I strive to make it clear where ideas of others, which I use/refer to in my papers/work, are from. For this I cite and quote and this question is about the correct form to do so. Unfortunately I lack the words to describe the problem and like to give two examples.</p>
<ol>
<li><blockquote>
<p>There is this idea (Person(s) 1984).</p>
</blockquote></li>
<li><blockquote>
<p>It has been this idea of Person(s) (1994).</p>
</blockquote></li>
</ol>
<p>While I know that it is possible to use (1.) form I often also encounter the cases in which I would rather prefer to phrase it in the style of (2.) in which the Person(s) cited appear as an <strong>actual word of the sentence</strong>. Now this is where I am lost what to do with the year of the actual cited paper/book/etc of this Person(s). </p>
<p>The question therefore: </p>
<p>Is it possible/legitimate/"okay" to refer to previous works/others by telling about those people directly inside of a sentence (meaning <em>appearing as a part of the sentence</em>)? </p>
<p>additionally:</p>
<p>if yes, how?</p>
<p>if no, reason why not possible/"okay"?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36628,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Both ways are equally acceptable and used in separate instances. Basically if the author(s) names occur in the sentence type (2) should be used and if the name(s) are not then type (1) should be used. The question is then when the two forms result.</p>\n\n<p>Type (1) is a more passive form used when you, for example, are describing general background where the specific reference might not be key. The form is quite common (but not exclusive) to the introduction section. The sense is that the information is more distant from your own study. Version (2) is used when the cited studies are building the story and is closer to your work and thus more important for understanding the details of your study. A good example may be in the discussion where your results are compared with other specific studies. This is just a generalization since both are useful in all parts of a research article.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 49488,
"author": "WBT",
"author_id": 36320,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/36320",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><a href=\"https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/03/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Purdue's page about APA in-text citations</a> indicates that your example 2 is quite acceptable in that style. Your example 1 needs a comma after the authors but otherwise also fits within ADA style rules. </p>\n\n<p>The decision on which to use depends on the main point you're trying to make. If you're just trying to say the idea is out there or that some fact has been proven, etc. it makes more sense to put the authors' names in the parentheses. </p>\n\n<p>If you want to distance yourself a bit from those conclusions, or if you're about to contrast what Person(s) found with what Other(s), possibly including you, found, or if you want to emphasize the person as a part of that idea/discovery, it makes more sense to put the author outside of the parentheses. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36624",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24376/"
] |
36,636 |
<p>I am currently an undergraduate thinking about doing a Bachelor's thesis (and publish one or two papers if at all possible). I have found an advisor in computer science (artificial intelligence). I have begun to review literature suggested by my advisor. Most of the times I can understand the general idea of a paper (and why it is novel or important). However, very often I can't understand all details of it. Sometimes it is the lengthy math proof that I can't follow and sometimes it is the algorithm description that lacks too many details for me to code it up by myself. </p>
<p>So is it necessary or recommended for me to figure out everything in a paper? I can certainly ask for advisor all questions I have about a paper but I do not feel good about it. I think it is a kind of wasting his time to go through all mathematical details that support a major claim which I have already understood. Also I want whether this aspect of literature review is different if I am an undergraduate vs. PhD student vs. professional researchers. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36646,
"author": "seteropere",
"author_id": 532,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><em>This depends on how the paper is related to your problem.</em> Since this is a Bachelor thesis or project I would assume it has a specific problem and doable in couple of months (maybe over one semester or so) and the results hopefully would be published in one research paper. For example, a learning algorithm for structure X. Usually, the number of directly related papers to your problem is very small compared to the number of related papers. So all you need to do is to try understand (in this case the algorithmic part) of one or two directly related papers. You know you understand them if you explained their similarities/differences and write their algorithms in your own way. </p>\n\n<p>If, on the other side, your problem includes proving something then you need to look for how the paper proves something. Advisors are there to help you when you stuck. Moreover, many papers can be understood if we read about their techniques/terms from other sources. For example, a constrained learning algorithm cannot be understood without knowing what is constraint satisfaction/optimization. </p>\n\n<p>I always find it useful to start writing the content of my research paper (at least the section names) before having the results. If my paper is going to be a mathy one then I need to understand the mathematical stuff out there. If not, I would skip long mathematical proofs. </p>\n\n<p><em>In short: i) start writing the content of your paper ii) you will see the gaps iii) read the papers content that would fill the gaps.</em> </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36648,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would posit that there are three general levels of depth to which you need to understand a paper:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><strong>Understanding context:</strong> For anything related to the work that you are doing, you need to be able to understand it well enough to explain how it relates to your work, and why it should or should not be directly compared. This is the \"general idea\" level that you describe.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Direct comparison with other work:</strong> For work that is closely related to your own work, you will likely need to be able to make a direct comparison, possibly even by running instances of the other work on the same problems. Here, you need to understand at least well enough to correctly apply the other work and to make a cogent comparison of the relevant qualitative and quantitative attributes. You'll probably need to understand most of the paper for this, but not necessarily all. For example, you might not need to understand the proof of an algorithm's correctness, but would need to understand its uses and performance characteristics.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Building on top of other work:</strong> For work that you are actually making use of in developing your own work, e.g., by using it as a component or by extending a prior technique, you need to understand it very thoroughly indeed. This is the level at which you really do need to understand everything in the paper.</p></li>\n</ol>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36636",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27699/"
] |
36,640 |
<p>I am trying to write an introduction for a scientific paper. I am not sure, when I am announcing my subject, should I write that this is the subject, or just mention it without announcing it outright?</p>
<p>This is very confusing so here's an example.</p>
<p>a. <em>Man was always interested by aliens. This paper discusses the possibility of alien life.</em></p>
<p>b.<em>Man was always interested by aliens. Currently, scientific discoveries are shedding light on whether it exists.</em></p>
<p>Which phrasing is better? Is the first one too blunt?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36641,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The purpose of the introduction is to focus in on the specific, and likely more narrow, topic of your research from a larger perspective. the \"larger perspective\" is the larger scientific problem to which your study is tied. Therefore you can start the introduction by briefly explaining the larger perspective followed by identifying the existing gaps in knowledge and gradually work towards your own question. </p>\n\n<p>Many books on scientific writing compare the introduction to a funnel where the wider question is focused to the appropriate width of your research question. the main point is to set your study in a wider perspective so that you can tie your results into the gaps of the larger perspective. This helps readers to get a good perspective of your research and evaluate the results <em>vis-à-vis</em> existing knowledge.</p>\n\n<p>Hence, your scenarios <em>a</em> and <em>b</em> look like a way to describe the writing strategy where in reality the two or three sentences usually requires one or a few paragraphs of text.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36642,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You want to \"capture\" your audience when writing—that is, you want to make sure that you hold their attention as long as possible. Getting their attention by telling them what the purpose of your paper is, and what they're going to learn, is a good way to do so.</p>\n\n<p>While the \"funnel\" approach that Peter mentions <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/36641/53\">in his answer</a> is valuable (and is also discussed in general books on writing as well, such as Sheridan Baker's <a href=\"http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0321333497\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><em>The Practical Stylist</em></a>, where it is called the \"keyhole approach\"), the \"key\" to the introductory paragraph is its conclusion—this should be the generating point both for the introduction and everything else that follows.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36644,
"author": "Vector Lightning",
"author_id": 24195,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24195",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The best model for an essay is \"get attention and state idea, explain explain explain, restate idea.\" However, every essay is different and there are countless strategies. </p>\n\n<p>The best idea is to start the essay with something that captures attention and at least hints at the topic. Then at the end of the first paragraph state your claim. You want to snag the attention of the reader, and tell them the thesis statement. Keep the \"hook\" relevant though. A good idea is to start with a shocking fact or tell a quick story, unless its a scientific essay.</p>\n\n<p>The middle is for explaining everything, and maybe a good idea is to use a paragraph to discuss the stuff from the hook paragraph. Then the end is pretty much an inverse of the first one: Restate your claim and tie up loose ends.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36655,
"author": "Jeromy Anglim",
"author_id": 62,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Coming from a <strong>psychology perspective</strong>, I have seen eminent authors adopt both writing approaches.</p>\n\n<p>Introductions to journal articles should generally have an opening. The opening of an introduction should generally introduce the <strong>aim</strong> of the research, the <strong>importance</strong> of the research, the <strong>gap</strong> in the literature that is addressed, and the <strong>method</strong> adopted to achieve the aim. Of course, often these themes are only touched on in the opening, and emerge more completely through the course of the literature review and are also often consolidated at the end of the introduction in a section often titled \"the current study\".</p>\n\n<p>Your question pertains to how to structure the sentences or paragraphs of the opening. The more common model I have seen used is to have a motivating introductory paragraph that relates more to importance or gap and then have a second or third paragraph that culminates in the aim of the research. However, it's also possible to do it the other way around and have a very clear opening paragraph that states exactly what the study aims to do. And then have a second paragraph that touches more on importance, gap, and context. </p>\n\n<p>I have found article deconstruction to be a useful tool to develop ideas about writing structure. In particular I wrote up an article deconstruction of an introduction that used the <a href=\"http://jeromyanglim.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/writing-principles-for-concise.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">\"aim-first\" approach here where the first-sentence started with \"The purpose of this study was ...\"</a> . I also have <a href=\"http://jeromyanglim.blogspot.com.au/2009/12/how-to-write-introduction-section-in.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">more detailed notes about introductions</a> - see particularly the discussion of the opening.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/11
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36640",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27688/"
] |
36,654 |
<p>I am currently enrolled in a distance masters's course in my country as a backup. I will be only applying to some really very competitive schools. If I don't make it through those schools I will apply next year or year after that and continue to do so till I make it in. I am very very passionate about these schools and the research going on in there.</p>
<p>Class for this distance course will begin by the end of this month and I will quit as soon as I get an admit in any school of my choice. Should I mention joining the course in my application forms? </p>
<p>Some of these schools want me to upload transcripts of any course I have attended after school. Considering the fact that the course has not yet begun there is no way I could get a transcript from them.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36672,
"author": "Kimball",
"author_id": 19607,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19607",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Your grammar's a little strange, but as I understood your question: (1) you haven't taken any classes in said program, and (2) you don't plan to if you get into another program. In this case, no, there's no need to and I can't see how it would help at all. If you do plan to take at least 1 class even if you get into the program you're applying to (so you would have extra experience currently not documented before your desired program starts), then you can mention this in a cover letter or other appropriate place on the application.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36673,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>The basic rule of thumb is this: if you're actively involved in something <em>at the time of application</em>, then you should mention it. If you're <em>tentatively</em> enrolled (for example, you've been offered admission, but have not yet officially registered), then it doesn't actually count, and you need not mention it. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36654",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15418/"
] |
36,659 |
<p>How should I fill this information if I have more than one given name and more than one last name?</p>
<p>For example, if my name is Juan Eduardo González Rodríguez. I have 2 given names: "Juan" and "Eduardo", and I have 2 last names (The first one of my father and the second one of my mother because that how it is done in Mexico): "González" and "Rodríguez".</p>
<p>Should I only write:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>First name: Juan</p>
<p>Last name: González</p>
</blockquote>
<p>or should it be</p>
<blockquote>
<p>First name: Juan Eduardo</p>
<p>Last name: González Rodríguez (or González-Rodríguez)</p>
</blockquote>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36662,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The solution that involves the least hassle in most cases is to fill out the form so that it matches your name on your identity documents (e.g. passport).</p>\n\n<p>This avoids problems (annoyances, mainly) that can arise as a result of having \"different\" names in different systems.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36664,
"author": "Miguel",
"author_id": 14695,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14695",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am in your exact same situation: Spanish name with 2+2. I have lived abroad for 6 years now, most of it in Ireland.</p>\n\n<p>There is no way out of misunderstandings, I'm afraid, and your second last name will often be assumed to be your only family name.</p>\n\n<p>Here is a recipe that has worked out for me so far:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>For a non legally-critical situation, e.g. your name on a paper or a name tag at a conference, use your first last name only or hyphen both last names. You can then initialize your second (or even first) given names. People from English-speaking countries often have a middle name, so that's not a problem.</p></li>\n<li><p>For legal and official stuff, use your full name as per your identity document so it cannot be used against you. If they get it flipped over it's their fault.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36665,
"author": "J.R.",
"author_id": 780,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/780",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would say it partly depends on how you want be known at the school where you are applying. Fill it out the first way, and you'll be known as Juan González at that school. That's how your name will likely be printed on class rosters, and that's what professors will see when you've registered for their class. If you'd rather be known as Juan Eduardo, it'll be a constant uphill battle explaining that to your instructors each semester. </p>\n\n<p>However, if you put Juan Eduardo as your first name, most professors will see that in the first name field, and they'll be more likely call you Juan Eduardo on the first day of class. </p>\n\n<p>As for your last name, hyphenated last names are not uncommon in the U.S. Therefore, if you are applying to a U.S. school, it might be worth hyphenating the last name – but not if you feel like you are compromising your own identity to do so. If you feel like your last name is González Rodríguez (no hyphen), then list it that way. People might get confused initially, but they will adapt. Moreover, if they've never seen a 2+2 name before, some might even be thankful to learn something new.</p>\n\n<p>Part of this is a tradeoff between how much you want to retain your name as it is, and how much you want to fit your name into a culture that is more accustomed to First MI Last.</p>\n\n<p>As a footnote, perhaps a university registrar will read this question, and begin to wonder if they should tinker with their institution's online application form, to be more accomodating to people from other cultures.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36674,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I know a number of people who deal with similar situations, and the last name will never cease to given you bureaucratic headaches in English-speaking countries, because no matter what you do, other people will sometimes enter it incorrectly into databases in a variety of different and unusual failure modes.</p>\n\n<p>Most major institutions, however, will be capable of understanding the variety of names in the world, and yours is a fairly common case. As such, for a government form, put down your name exactly as it is structured on your passport. For any other form:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>For the first name, put whatever you want people to actually call you. In America, two first names is actually not uncommon: in addition to the Hispanic population, it's an long-standing Southern tradition.</p></li>\n<li><p>For the last name, put both names, or else you <em>will</em> confuse people.</p></li>\n<li><p>In both cases, you can add a hyphen if you want to reduce confusion by making it clear which name-components go together. It won't stop the corporate screw-ups, though, so don't feel you have to compromise your heritage this way unless you want to.</p></li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36702,
"author": "Ian W",
"author_id": 27760,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27760",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm pretty sure this will get voted down as \"Not answering the question\", but the truth is we can not tell you what's right. </p>\n\n<p>What kind of form is it? Does it have a legal status (ie: passport, Driver's license, academic transcript); something someone will ask, \"How do I know this is really you, because the names do not match?\", which may have consequences. I could share stories where people are at risk of losing government benefits or even their job because the legal names provided (exp. Asian legal + English common names) did not match originating documents. It has caused untold stress and countless hours of effort and expense to correct. One poor soul entered into a form his given name and in the \"preferred name\" box entered \"Same\". You can guess what they called him.</p>\n\n<p>The best advise it to ask the provider of the form. You may also want to read for your amusement and share with them for their information the following:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names</a> \nto help them improve their data systems.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36703,
"author": "orbatos",
"author_id": 27761,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27761",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Anyone who believes this problem to be solved, or is building a system and wants to work with the issue should read this: <a href=\"http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names</a></p>\n\n<p>Essentially you will have to decide based on what you are doing and the longevity of your information in the system how to approach the problem. In most European and American systems this means your last name will be hyphenated, or you can choose one.</p>\n\n<p>The first name will need to be one word as well unless you wish to deal with endless issues with clerks incorrectly entering the information.</p>\n\n<p>In short, come up with a compromise you can live with that will cause the least amount of problems, or there will be constant issues with every entity you run across. This is especially important in academic publications, as you will need to reference them consistently later.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 61362,
"author": "Daniel R. Collins",
"author_id": 43544,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43544",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It may depend on the forms and systems in use at the particular institution you're working with. Taking my university as an example (U.S., large urban community college), our systems work fine with your full name, i.e., option #2. The class rosters I receive routinely have two names per field (i.e., have a space in them; but not any accents or diacritical marks). </p>\n\n<p>If you're filling out a form that has separate fields for first & last, then I would print your full name as given in those fields. If there's only one field for \"name\", then I would insert hyphens to reduce confusion about which parts go together. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 88430,
"author": "gnclmorais",
"author_id": 72520,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/72520",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As a Portuguese person with four names, living in the UK for a few years now, I’ve found that putting my first 2 names as First Names and my last 2 names as Last Names works virtually everywhere.</p>\n\n<p>I got to this conclusion after having a British Airways staff person telling me the system couldn’t find my tickets automatically because I had filled them in with 1 first name, 1 middle name, and 2 last names.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36659",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27242/"
] |
36,667 |
<p>I'm in the process of conducting a systematic literature review and an integral part of this is the definition of inclusion and exclusion criteria for filtering the search-result-publications.</p>
<p>A common criteria for these reviews is that the publication is an academic publication or otherwise academically acceptable. I haven't been able to find a proper definition for this. The ones that I can think of are that the publication fora must exercise peer-review on the papers and that the fora are widely accepted by (inter)national funding agencies.</p>
<p>Hence, my question is what makes a publication or a publishing forum academically acceptable?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36669,
"author": "Arno",
"author_id": 12047,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12047",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I am afraid this is an impossible question to get right: An \"acceptable academic publishing forum\" would be one that is accepted by \"acceptable academics\" - and \"acceptable academics\" would be identified by publishing in \"acceptable academic publishing fora\"...</p>\n\n<p>Peer-reviewed is not a bad criterion, but it falls short: There are peer-reviewed journals for creationists and homeopaths - so the value of peer-review depends crucially on who the peers are. It doesn't even work as a necessary criterion, as missing the arXiv for math-y fields or books for humanities would mean that a literature review is very incomplete.</p>\n\n<p>\"Acceptance by funding bodies\" gets the question backwards: Funding bodies try to approximate what the academic community considers good publication venues, they don't define it.</p>\n\n<p>If formal inclusion/exclusion criteria are important for you (maybe because you do some meta-statistics?), you will need to look for field-specific standards. In medical subjects, I could imagine that \"listed on pubmed\" would be an acceptable one. In this case, looking are published meta-studies and their criteria would be useful.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36675,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Acceptability is in the eye of the beholder. You cannot get this \"right\" for two reasons:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Different scientific communities have conflicting opinions about about the credibility of various publication venues.</li>\n<li>Even \"good\" venues publish rubbish papers.</li>\n<li>Some important papers are published as white papers or technical reports, and will not appear on any list of journals.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>To my eyes, the real question is not about what the \"right\" value is, but about how the boundary that you draw will affect the conclusions of your systematic review. </p>\n\n<p>For example, if you are attempting to perform a meta-analysis on the data within other data sets, then you just need a wide enough scope to be sure to get good statistical validity. Therefore, if your topic is well-studied, you can probably restrict yourself to only those publications listed in some field-appropriate major database, e.g., PubMed for biomedical literature, DBLP for computer science. It doesn't really matter which one, because you're not actually going for comprehensiveness, just for sufficient sampling, and it's more important to get well-curated data than all data. Moreover, the bad publications in the dataset are expected to be drowned out be the good ones in your data processing.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, if you are attempting to summarize all of the credible thinking regarding a topic, then you would want to set a much broader criteria, e.g., any journal or conference with at least 5 years of publication history and not on <a href=\"http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Beale's list</a>. In this case, you can be so generous because you are going to be using a lot more personal discretion in deciding how much weight to give each paper and interesting thinking may turn up in obscure places.</p>\n\n<p>These are the two main cases that I typically see for systematic review; for other cases, you may need to adjust or pick other strategies. In all cases, however, the guiding principle is a) there is no \"right\" answer, and b) your choice should be driven by the effects it will have on your review.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36667",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27732/"
] |
36,668 |
<p>What are the intention of the question ? </p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/nrfiw.png" alt="enter image description here">
<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/MjwlC.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36671,
"author": "Stephan Kolassa",
"author_id": 4140,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4140",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>US state universities frequently charge lower tuition to in-state residents. The form states that if you do not fill in all the information requested, you will be classified as a non-resident and be charged the higher rate. Check the U of Utah's tuition system <a href=\"http://admissions.utah.edu/cost/\">here</a>.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36684,
"author": "NeutronStar",
"author_id": 8975,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8975",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As an alum of the school it appears you are applying to (University of Utah) I can confirm what Stephan Kolassa said about lower tuition for in-state residents. One thing that should be mentioned is that after attending a specific university for a while <em>you may qualify as a resident of that state</em> and thus, after attending a university for a certain amount of time, you can eventually become a resident and be charged in-state resident tuition. I don't know how this works for international students though.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36668",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] |
36,677 |
<p>In my past experiences, I have almost never typeset my manuscripts according to the formats required by the journals to which I would like to submit. I leave my manuscripts as produced by the LaTeX article documentclass.</p>
<p>Recently I am wondering: Would such a behavior generally give handling editors a negative first impression? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36678,
"author": "Bill Barth",
"author_id": 11600,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think there's a balance to be struck here. Some reviewers will be annoyed if there's no room on a printed version to scribble their notes about the paper. This means that typical IEEE/ACM two-column, single-spaced formatting might annoy some people. The argument from them pretty weak if your formatting conforms to the journal style rather than being some tight format that you made up. </p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, using the journal style generally gives you a reasonably readable presentation designed, more or less, that way. It was probably also designed in the age of print to get the most words on the page, so it's not perfect.</p>\n\n<p>The worst thing you can do from a reviewer's perspective is to come up with your own formatting that looks slapdash, unprofessional, sloppy, or is hard to read. Almost no matter what you do, someone will be grumpy, but if you use the journal template, you'll engender the least complaints.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36679,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Speaking as both an editor and reviewer, I am definitely prejudiced against a paper that fails to follow prescribed <em>submission</em> formatting (which may or may not relate to the final published format). It is simply a matter of professionalism and prior correlation.</p>\n\n<p>As an editor and reviewer, you see a wide range of material submitted. Some is really good, and some is really bad. I've even gotten a few that were outright insane. The vast majority of the papers that failed to follow prescribed formatting were definitely not good.</p>\n\n<p>Making a good-faith effort to follow formatting requirements generally isn't hard to do, and especially when doing so just means using the journal's LaTeX package rather than the default. Neglecting it means that the author is being sloppy and unprofessional at something easy. This doesn't necessarily impugn their science, but if they don't care enough to follow professional standards on something easy, it's a good indicator that they are likely to be unprofessional in other places where it matters more as well.</p>\n\n<p>One exception: I am likely to give a pass to particularly aged/emeritus types who have a solid track record but are clearly not comfortable with modern word processing technology. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36680,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Not surprisingly, the best way is to follow the instructions. But, if you for some reason do not then keeping a manuscript very simple is the best second approach. Simple, generic, typography, 1.5-2 line spacing, figures and tables separate from the text works in most cases. As an editor and reviewer I find evidence of special formatting most annoying. It distracts the reading and is also completely unnecessary since the journal will likely reformat the article during type-setting.</p>\n\n<p>There are some aspects where you should try to put some effort in: try to make sure you adhere to the journal's standard fro referencing and make sure your reference format is correct. It is really annoying when references are not complete or the reference list is haphazardly put together. The key is in the details so make sure you get the details correct. You do not want the editor or reviewers to get annoyed by inconsistencies in details, make sure they can read a well prepared manuscript with little effort and disturbing elements.</p>\n\n<p>So, if you cannot follow the exact instructions, just keep it very simple and avoid inconsistencies.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36696,
"author": "Anonymous",
"author_id": 11565,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11565",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'll venture a minority opinion (I'm in mathematics, where the culture is very possibly different than in other fields).</p>\n\n<p>As a referee, I have an instinctive <em>negative</em> reaction if I know that an author <em>has</em> taken the time and effort to conform to a particular journal's style. The grounds for this is that most journals employ typesetting staff for this purpose. Especially considering the very high price of many (if not all) journals, for authors to refuse to do this suggests to me a principled refusal to waste their time.</p>\n\n<p>That said, I can see that many people hold the exact opposite opinion, and even that my own feelings may be a little bit silly. So I certainly don't actually hold this against authors when evaluating submissions. (Indeed, if I receive something formatted, I never know if it is the author or the editorial staff that has formatted it.)</p>\n\n<p>My impression is that most (but maybe not all) mathematicians wouldn't hold it against you if you don't bother. Moreover I believe that most mathematicians in fact don't bother with such formatting guidelines.</p>\n\n<p>I have never heard anyone voice @jakebeal's opinion before. Of course, counting the upvotes, he speaks for at least eight other people! You might take this as evidence that the answer to your question is dependent on what your field is.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36717,
"author": "GEdgar",
"author_id": 4484,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4484",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>What reason might there be for not using the journal's format? Here is the one I have heard of. </p>\n\n<p>If your papers are always accepted by the first journal you send them to, then you might as well format them for the journal. (But it probably means you are aiming too low!) </p>\n\n<p>On the other hand: if you sometimes have a paper rejected by one journal, then send to another (and another, and another...), why should you have to change the formatting for each one? In cases like this, the author would prefer to do the formatting once, for the accepting journal. Sensible journals would allow this.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36779,
"author": "sevensevens",
"author_id": 14754,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14754",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If you are writing your paper in LaTeX, then you should use the LaTeX template provided by the journal (I have yet to submit to a journal that does not provide a LaTeX template). This will take you a few extra minutes.</p>\n\n<p>The LaTeX output is what both the editor and the reviewers will see. Why would you not want to ensure this looks professional? Are you submitting to so many conferences you do not have an extra 20 or 30 minutes to polish your submission?</p>\n\n<p>I don't check for adherence to journal standards during reviews, but I've gotten several papers where the author(s) didn't see what the LaTeX file would look like in PDF form. These papers almost always have other issues, and reading through a poorly formatted PDF discourages me from giving the paper the extra attention it might need.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36904,
"author": "Corvus",
"author_id": 27900,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27900",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Sadly, many journal submission guidelines still request an archaic format in which the figures are all placed at the end of the manuscript. Often the figure captions are themselves separated from the figures. This may have made sense in the days of hard copy submissions, but is pointless -- especially at the review stage -- given current technology.</p>\n\n<p>As a reviewer I find this format intensely annoying and it is possible that my review quality suffers as well; I sometimes read through several figure references before flipping back to look at several figures at once. My personal opinion is that authors' highest priority should be to submit their work in a format that minimizes effort on the part of the referees, and if this conflicts with house style requirements, the author has every reason to ignore those requirements. </p>\n\n<p>This is not to promise that every journal will tolerate such a decision on the authors' part, but I have never seen a harsher consequence than a relatively polite request to reformat. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36918,
"author": "Federico Poloni",
"author_id": 958,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><strong>Beware of what the journal styles put into your paper</strong>. For instance, Elsevier's style file <a href=\"http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/elsarticle\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><code>elsart</code></a> (recommended for instance by <a href=\"http://www.elsevier.com/journals/linear-algebra-and-its-applications/0024-3795/guide-for-authors#23000\" rel=\"noreferrer\">this journal</a> in my field) contains a footer with the words \"preprint submitted to Elsevier\". If I haven't submitted it yet, I don't want to write a <strong>false statement</strong> on an e-print on arXiv. The recommended style file for <a href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291099-1506/homepage/la_tex_class_file.htm\" rel=\"noreferrer\">this other journal</a> in the same field inserts the text \"Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.\" on the manuscript, which is <strong>outright false</strong> and borderline criminal in my view.</p>\n\n<p>So <strong>you'd better not use documents created with these classes for anything beyond journal submissions</strong> (e.g., preprints, which at least in maths are basically a necessary step, or sending manuscripts to a colleague). This means that if you use them you <em>need</em> to prepare at least a second version. </p>\n\n<p>My experience is that changing LaTeX format can be time-consuming, due to various package incompatibilities. So I have started submitting papers using the style which I am already using for the preprint (and for my internal notes --- I typically start to write down a manuscript much before deciding to which journal I am sending it). <strong>No one has ever complained</strong> (editor, referees...). More recently, <strong>Elsevier explicitly authorized this practice</strong> on many journals by launching an initiative called <a href=\"http://www.elsevier.com/yourpaperyourway\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Your paper Your way</a>.</p>\n\n<p>So my suggestion is <strong>just forget about journal styles</strong> unless someone insists on them.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36677",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18107/"
] |
36,685 |
<p>In our research institute, advisors give phd students a lot of freedom and sometimes are not so much involved in the research. This was also the case for my latest research project. I gave him some demos every now and then to show my progress and another phd student helped me out a bit with making some examples and nice figures. However, I came up with the initial idea and step by step made the necessary decissions to come to the point where we are now. We are now in a phase where my advisor and the university want to patent my research and we are discussing all the possibilities with people from the legal departement. However, in all documents the other phd student + my advisor are also mentioned as "inventors". Wheras I'm quite sure that according to the laws related to being an inventor on a patent, they are officially not an inventor of this research project. The research that I did is quite applied so there is some chance that we can make some money with it in the future (selling it or starting a company). The university states that the inventors get 30% of all the profit that comes from the patent. This means that I would only get 10% since we are with 3 co-inventers. Also when I would start a company that does something with these results I would still have to give them some of the profit whereas they did not do something significant in the end.</p>
<p>When I look at researchers at other universities, I notice that it is quite common that all the authors on a paper are also the inventors of the patent that is associated with it. I can imagine that for most of these cases all the people involved at some innovative contribution which makes them a legitimate inventor. On the other hand it is also quite hard to say to your advisor that they should not be an inventor on the patent...</p>
<p>Is this an unspoken rule at many universities that advisors and co-workers are also inventors on a patent (similar to authors on a paper)? Is someone having experience a similar situation? How should I bring this up to my advisor and co-worker or would it bring me into more trouble when I would start this discussion?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36687,
"author": "Alexandros",
"author_id": 10042,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10042",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The fact that \"all the authors on a paper are also the inventors of the patent that is associated with it\" probably protects you more, otherwise an unethical supervisor could easily do the patent by himself behind your back. </p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, wanting to remove the other co-authors from the patent is probably unethical on your side. In any case, you would have a hard case proving that this was entirely your idea when you have co-authored the related paper and cooperated on this project from the beginning. Also, if indeed your patent is that good (which unfortunately most aren't) you will still make a lot of money, regardless of 10% vs 30% (since the bulk of the money will still go to the university). </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36700,
"author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX",
"author_id": 725,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First of all, your legislation is what counts. Patent law differs substantially between legislations. The remainder of my answer is based on the situation in <strong>Germany</strong> - but similar rules may exist for your legislation.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is this an unspoken rule at many universities that advisors and co-workers are also inventors on a patent</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>IANAL, and I'm not even totally sure about the situation in Germany, but I'd look for spelled out rules in</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>the \"employee invention law\" (Arbeitnehmererfindungsgesetz)</li>\n<li>if you are employee as well as PhD student: your work contract or the relevant collective wage agreement </li>\n<li>you may have signed a contract for your PhD that has relevant clauses, e.g. stating that any invention you invent is treated as \"academic invention\" regardless of whether you are also employee of the university or not.</li>\n<li>If you are PhD student but not employee (e.g. paid by a scholarship), things may be totally different. </li>\n<li>If you are in a research institute which is not part of a university, rules again can be different (industrial invention rules instead of academic invention could apply) </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I found a web site dedicated to <a href=\"http://erfinderverguetung.org/verguetungsberechnung/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">\"inventor's compensation\" (in German and for Germany)</a>. \nThey explain rules to estimate how much the invention the inventor's own invention and how much the company contributed (influenced e.g. by whether you used the university lab + instruments, and by your profession: how much of an inventor you are expected to be due to your profession and job).<br>\nThis website explains that for you as well as for your (supposed) co-inventors, a point value (according more or less to a check list plus some common sense) should be calculated, and the percentages of co-inventorship are then calculated as percentages of the sum of all co-inventors' point values. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/12
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36685",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27749/"
] |
36,707 |
<p>I am preparing to give a presentation after few days. Some papers are authored by two people and some are by three. While referring their work during presentation what should I write for two authors. </p>
<p>Suppose there are two authors only - X and Y. Shall I write <strong><em>X et al. proved that</em></strong> ...... or <strong><em>X and Y proved that....</em></strong></p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36708,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>This was addressed on English.SE, <a href=\"https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/23442/is-et-al-acceptable-for-citations-with-exactly-two-authors\">Is \"et al.\" acceptable for citations with exactly two authors?</a></p>\n\n<p>The answers there indicate that major citation styles (MLA, Harvard) do <em>not</em> use \"et al.\" when there are only two authors.</p>\n\n<p>APA style <a href=\"http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/11/the-proper-use-of-et-al-in-apa-style.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">also</a> does not use \"et al.\" for only two authors.</p>\n\n<p>I'm not going to exhaustively check every citation style, but I'm not personally aware of any where \"et al.\" is acceptable when citing a publication with only two authors.</p>\n\n<p>Also of interest to those who happen to like grammar: the <a href=\"https://english.stackexchange.com/a/23444\">English.SE answer</a> also points out that using \"et al.\" for two authors can be considered incorrect, regardless of style considerations (text in brackets is added by me):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The Latinate abbreviation \"et al.\" is short for \"et alii,\" which means, \"and others,\" and always refers to people, not objects. So if you had two authors, adding \"et al.\" would indicate that there were [plural] other authors - and since there are no[t multiple] other authors in this case, it is incorrect to use it.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>While \"et al.\" could also technically stand for the singular \"et alia\" which would be technically correct, that's certainly not a conventional abbreviation.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36709,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While in publications, you should follow whatever the official style is, in presentations you are typically much less constrained. </p>\n\n<p>My own guiding principle for slides is to minimize the amount of visual clutter on screen, and especially to minimize text---after all, I want people to be listening to the talk, rather than simply reading the slides. What's important to communicate is:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>This material belongs to a particular publication (either yours or somebody else's)</li>\n<li>A sufficiently unique identifies that somebody can find it in an associated bibliography.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I go for a fairly sparse slide format, so I tend to communicate references in the tersest way possible on the slides, using [X & Y, YEAR] for 2 authors and [X et al., YEAR] for 3+, and then saying the citation more fully as I talk, e.g., \"X, Y, and Z's paper last year in Annals of Randomology.\" In presentations, however, there is much space for personal style and expression. At the other extreme, I have also seen people include entire full citations on slides, complete with page numbers and DOI. What is important is to give credit while you can experiment with what best suits your own sense of design and the balance between communication and completeness.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36731,
"author": "Oswald Veblen",
"author_id": 16122,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16122",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Follow the requirements of the journal, if they are firm. But let me argue why you should include all the authors, if possible, in many circumstances, even if there are three or four (or more). In particular, I come from a mathematics background, but this applies to many fields. </p>\n\n<p>When you cite a paper as \"X <em>et al.</em>,\", the other author names are invisible. If the paper is good, and gets cited often in this way, people may begin to know it as the \"X <em>et al.</em>\" paper - thus obscuring the contributions of the other authors. Thus X gets, in effect, sole credit in the text, and the other authors are relegated to the references section. The same holds at presentations.</p>\n\n<p>Reputation is particularly important for many authors - especially younger ones, but even well established ones. It helps build their reputation for quality work, which in turn is related to jobs, grants, editorships, etc. The authors whose names are obscured may miss out on recognition that they actually deserve, solely so that an author can save a few characters in an electronic document. </p>\n\n<p>This is particularly relevant in fields where authorships are alphabetical by default, such as mathematics. In this case, the first author only had the luck to have a name that comes earlier in the alphabet. </p>\n\n<p>There have been studies where the effect of having an early-in-the-alphabet name have been investigated. Two of them are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://web.stanford.edu/~leinav/pubs/JEP2006.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">What’s in a Surname? The Effects of\nSurname Initials on Academic Success</a>\nLiran Einav and Leeat Yariv </p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~cm1993/papers/Alphabetical_preprint.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">Alphabetization and the Skewing of First Authorship Towards\nLast Names Early in the Alphabet</a> by Jonathan M. Levitta and Mike Thelwall </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The essay <a href=\"http://sbseminar.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/et-al-is-unethical/\" rel=\"nofollow\">\"Et al.\" is unethical</a> by Noah Snyder was influential in my thinking about this issue. </p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36707",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13294/"
] |
36,713 |
<p>I would like to know if it is an unwritten rule to include the names of the departments of the authors' of a journal submission?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36714,
"author": "Maarten Buis",
"author_id": 14471,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14471",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Strictly speaking, it is usually a written rule, as journals have written rules governing what they expect from submitting authors, and this usually includes information about their affiliation. It is an unwritten rule in the sense that tere is no rule that all journals should follow the same format, but it is very common to include the authors' affiliation. </p>\n\n<p>Sometimes this information is helpful as different departments belong to different \"schools\". So knowing the department alone can sometimes help you \"place\" the article in wider debates. Sometimes, it helps disentangle people with the same last name and the same initials. Regardless, this information only helps when you are an insider to the (sub-(sub-(sub-)))discipline discussed in the journal. However, those insiders are a legitimate audience for a journal, so I don't see a problem here.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36716,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You always need to include your primary institutional affiliation, even if that all the affiliation you've got is \"Me, Myself & I Consulting, LLC\" (and I've seen papers with that sort of affiliation).</p>\n\n<p>Department information, however, is much more optional. After all, many people who are not in traditional university faculty positions may not <em>have</em> a clear or meaningful department. Consider, for example, a strong institution like the Santa Fe Institute, which has professors but doesn't appear to have bothered to subdivide itself into departments. For another example, my department currently has the name \"Information and Knowledge Technologies\", which I'm fine putting down as a departmental affiliation; before the last re-organization though, it was \"Business Unit B\", and before that, it was \"Department 49\", neither of which would have made any sense to write down as a department.</p>\n\n<p>Bottom line: include departmental information if you think it is helpful, or if it is explicitly required. Otherwise, it is up to you.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36713",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18107/"
] |
36,720 |
<p>Theoretical computer science conferences usually have a review period of about two months. Programming committee members have potentially dozens of papers to review, alongside their regular day jobs. How thoroughly are papers usually reviewed? What kind of heuristics are often employed to review papers faster? Does correctness of every proof get verified in detail, or do reviewers put some trust into the authors getting it right?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36724,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If a PC member has dozens of papers to review, then either a) the conference is doing it wrong or b) the PC member is expected to outsource most of the reviewing work to external reviewers. A good heuristic for not over-burdening the reviewers is to expect each reviewer to handle no more than 3-6 papers. With those sort of numbers, it's entirely reasonable to expect that each paper will get reviewed in great detail.</p>\n\n<p>In practice, however, a great degree of variability in the quality of reviewers. Some reviewers will do a very thorough job---my theoretical papers often get back detailed comments from at least one reviewer that makes it clear that they worked through all of the math. Everybody in academia also has \"bad reviewer\" stories about people who didn't take their job seriously. For example, I recently saw a reviewer provide a review which, in its entirety, said, \"Accept as talk.\" Good conferences with responsible program chairs try to mitigate these effects, but there's always a good deal of noise in the process.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36925,
"author": "Ben Bitdiddle",
"author_id": 24384,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24384",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>It varies. As a first year PhD student I was asked to review a theory paper, even though I had almost no background in the field. The professor explicitly said I only had to read the first half of the paper, and I only had to tell him if it looked interesting and correct.</p>\n\n<p>At the same time I'm sure many reviewers do a diligent job and don't outsource their reviewing to inexperienced graduate students.</p>\n\n<p>Related: <a href=\"http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1760\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1760</a></p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36720",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27545/"
] |
36,721 |
<p>I have tried to submit some of my papers on unrelated topics to a journal and gotten rejected, either desk rejection or rejection after peer review, by the journal. Recently I worked out a new paper and would like to submit it to this journal again.</p>
<p>The reasons for rejections have never been elementary ones, say "poor English" or "of poor quality" or something like these (I know all these reasons from my peers). For most of the time parlance such as "the results are not significant enough to warrant publication in ..." is the reason. </p>
<p>Then I would like to know: Does my records in that journal significantly affect the viewpoints of the editors on my current submission? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36722,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>My guess about the situation is that your prior rejections will not significantly affect the editors' opinions on your new submission.</p>\n\n<p>However, the fact of your prior repeated rejections <em>is</em> evidence that you are misjudging the suitability of your papers for that journal, either the aptness of the topic(s), or the level and quality. Thus, if I had to wager, I'd bet that you'll be rejected again... not <em>because</em> you were rejected before, but because the factors in play that led to your prior rejections will most likely manifest themselves in the present case.</p>\n\n<p>So, really, you should get more-specific advice from an advisor or mentor about appropriate venue(s) for your papers, as well as possibly critiques of the writing style.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36723,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The answer lies in why they have been rejected. Papers can be rejected because they are unsuitable for the journal, are of low quality either technically or scientifically or both. You should have received some words of why the rejections came about. There is of course a chance that an editor will tire from seeing papers to be rejected from the same author time and again and that this will lead to preconceived ideas that all output from that author is of the same quality. </p>\n\n<p>So key for a successful submission is to find out why rejection has occurred. Try to avoid any mistakes that can be the grounds for the rejection. Supply the manuscript in exactly the way any Instructions for Authors dictate. Provide a good accompanying letter for the submission that details the importance of the research and the conclusions you have reached as well as why the journal appears to be suitable for your point of view.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36721",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18107/"
] |
36,725 |
<p>Today some of my friends were discussing a motivation letter. One friend's application was rejected. One reason his friends find out is that the letter of motivation is very emotional. So I was thinking: is there no place of emotion in academia? People used to study a lot as a strong feeling works in them, inspiring them to do more and more work. This is the emotion. Can it play harmfully in a letter of motivation?</p>
<p><strong>Edit: I have collected his small letter. It is included. We thought it is very emotional.</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>College XY has best undergraduate mathematics department of the university of XY.
IITX is built upon the basement of the first engineering college of Asia. I completed my B.Sc. from XY and M.Sc. from IITX. Both the times I got first class after each evaluation. I had a dream to continue my PhD studies in a good western university. I tried. My degrees are equivalent to degrees from European universities. I came to the understanding that my knowledge is not much sufficient for their requirements. Currently I am working in a project focussing on a very particular problem. I am out of touch from many interesting topics of mathematics.
Many advanced parts of mathematics are till unknown to me which shall be very useful in my work. So I am thing for a better opportunity to revise my
mathematical concepts in a better way and to collect new knowledge. I wish to build myself in a way that I can continue my PhD work in a good university and I can be a successful researcher. If I get the opportunity to continue the diploma hope I reach my dreams.</p>
</blockquote>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36726,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is most certainly a place for emotion in academia.\nThat place is amongst your most trusted friends and closest colleagues.</p>\n\n<p>Science works by identifying truths that hold regardless of whether we care about them or not, regardless of whether we desperately want them to be true or fear that they might be.\nScience is funded by agencies who don't care how much your work means to you, but rather how its outcomes might support the agency's mission.\nProfessors are hired by other faculty who don't care whether working there will fulfill your dreams, but rather how your skills and abilities will fit the needs and goals of their department.</p>\n\n<p>So by all means, have emotions, share your emotions with people who genuinely care about you as a person, and allow your emotions to direct your passion in research and teaching. But know that you will be judged not by your passion, but by the fruits of your labor, and make sure that those are at the forefront of how your present yourself to strangers.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36728,
"author": "Robert Buchholz",
"author_id": 19905,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19905",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Emotion in academia is a double-edged sword. On one hand, emotion (e.g. curiosity, drive) is usually what drives us to conduct research in the first place. But as research should always be targeted at getting closer to a objective truth, emotions must not interfere with your struggle for the truth. Yet there are many emotions (e.g. fear, faith, trust) that can cloud your judgement and lead your research down a wrong path.</p>\n\n<p>In short, emotions can be a good reason to conduct research, but must not affect its results. If your friend's motivational letter was suggesting that he might be affected by emotions in the latter way, this may justly be held against him.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36730,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is a wonderful quotation by Bertrand Russell that perfectly sums up the nature of emotions in academia:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Nothing great is achieved without passion, but underneath the passion there should always be that large impersonal survey which sets limits to actions that our passions inspire. [1]</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You should definitely show a sense of inquisitiveness, drive, enthusiasm, and eagerness; the \"catch\" is that we want to see that <em>in your work</em>. Dazzle us with your papers and presentations. Wow students in your lecture. But what we don't want is for <em>you</em> to tell us that you're enthusiastic and passionate. Leave that for others, such as the people writing your letters of recommendation, to tell us that. </p>\n\n<p>[1]: <em>The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell</em>, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., p. 536 (1961).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36732,
"author": "paul garrett",
"author_id": 980,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In brief, even after imagining that text's language cleaned up, the problem is not about \"emotion\" but about lack of verifiable substance. As in @aesmail's good answer, insubstantiated claims, or, worse, claims which appear to be counter to any documentable reality, are at best unpersuasive. For example, unsupported claims about the quality of one's university or department are at best pointless, and suggest that one does not know how things work. Proposing to \"collect new knowledge\" gives a very strange impression, as though the writer believed that learning new things was somehow unusual... while being remarkably inspecific. </p>\n\n<p>That is, if I were to receive such a letter, I'd consider it basically content-free, for all practical purposes. \"Emotion\" is not the issue. The problem is that such letters should <em>not</em> be content-free, but should include tangibles, past accomplishments and connections with the future, etc. A content-free letter competes very badly with content-ful letters.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36733,
"author": "Massimo Ortolano",
"author_id": 20058,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>As others have said, the main problem of that letter is not its emotionality, but the lack of content and the presence of unnecessary details. Let me analyse a few example sentences:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>College XY has best undergraduate mathematics department of the university of XY.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>According to whom or according to which criteria?</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>IITX is built upon the basement of the first engineering college of Asia.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is unnecessary: it does not actually strengthen the previous claim, nor it gives useful information to understand the background of the applicant. It's just a historical curiosity. Probably briefly listing the main research topics of the department would have been more useful. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I completed my B.Sc. from XY and M.Sc. from IITX. Both the times I got first class after each evaluation. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>What was he evaluated on? Typically students have to write a dissertation at the end of their degrees, it would have been better to add information about these: objectives achieved, feelings about continuing on the same topics or moving to other topics.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Currently I am working in a project focussing on a very particular problem. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Which problem? Is it a toy problem or a research problem that can be suitable for a publication?</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Many advanced parts of mathematics are till unknown to me which shall be very useful in my work. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Indeed, many advanced parts of mathematics are also unknown to mathematicians. So which are these parts that are needed for his work? </p>\n\n<p>Therefore, on the basis of the above, I would have rejected his application too. You can write an emotional letter, but the emotions should be just an addition to the information needed by the application board to correctly assess the level of the applicant. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36814,
"author": "Developer63",
"author_id": 26795,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26795",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The original poster is asking totally the wrong question. The problem isn't his friend's level of \"emotion\"; it is his friend's utter lack of social intelligence at how he will be perceived in writing such a thing. The answer is not for his friend to become a smoother wordsmith; the answer is for his friend to get out into the world more, and actually develop a functional level of social intelligence.</p>\n\n<p>The intended reader of this letter is a HUMAN, probably a group of them. Each of them can be expected to be a very, very smart human, who will analyze the letter on many different levels, but nevertheless, a human, with emotions, from which the writer would like a particular (favorable) response. My immediate emotional response, as a human, after reading this, is disbelief, annoyance, and disgust. Disbelief at how clueless the writer is, annoyance at how little useful information he provides me, disgust at how little he must have thought about me and what I might want to see in such a letter, and then a bit more annoyance at what a waste of time it was to even read it. This letter is so poor on such a fundamental level, it's hard to wrap my head around the idea it was written by someone seeking entry into a PhD program.</p>\n\n<p>The primary emotions being expressed in the letter are anger at the injustice and victimhood of being denied, and bewilderment at not understanding the reasons why, and then more anger at finding out his prior education, is, apparently \"worthless\" in the eyes of these institutions.</p>\n\n<p>So, the reader of the letter should admit into their PhD program, an angry victim of rejection, a victim who seems to believe the fault was with the evaluators, not himself, yet does not show any understanding of WHY others rejected him? A candidate with this lack of awareness does not inspire confidence, doesn't seem like a good bet.</p>\n\n<p>And instead of telling us even what area the \"very particular (mathematics) problem\" is in, we are left to guess? Why doesn't he just say it's a \"problem in the area of (some mathnobabble area, I'll say \"online reputation management\") involving (slightly more particular considerations, I'll say \"mathematical models for detecting falsified reviews\"). What is he hiding from us by being vague? Maybe he's hiding... that he actually knows NOTHING! Yet, perhaps he knows a great deal. The reader cannot tell anything useful about what he does and does not know in the relevant area. </p>\n\n<p>A socially intelligent writer would have gone to great lengths to find out why his qualifications were perceived to be unsuitable by other institutions, and then calmly but briefly explain it. How could he appear to not know WHY those other institutions rejected him? Was he so lacking in motivation, he did not bother to find out the specific, detailed reasons for his rejection? I submit that much academic work is about figuring out what the problem is that needs to be solved, and then applying thinking and action to solve it. How is it possible to have confidence in a candidate who accepts rejection without clearly figuring out the reasons, what the PROBLEM was? How can this man be trusted to take effective action to identify problems, and then solve them, as part of a a PhD program? To address this issue, he must be able to briefly and calmly explain what the problem was, and preferably why it will not be an issue at the desired institution. For analogous examples from Finance and Economics, \"European institutions require an EU-accredited course in Financial Derivative Models, which was neither required nor available at my prior institutions.\" Or, \"European institutions prefer graduates of the Austrian school, while my coursework was centered around the Chicago school\". Explaining why the problems other institutions cited won't be an issue at his desired institution is an exercise I will leave to him.</p>\n\n<p>And overall, there is little to no mention of anything substantive he has done, nothing that can be verified; the primary mentions are of the injustice he feels has been done to him by having his degrees ignored and disrespected by other schools he has applied to, schools who are obviously arbitrary, mean-spirited, and just out to get poor little him.</p>\n\n<p>I hope I reach my dreams? What ARE his dreams, maybe a little statement of them would help? His dreams are so vague he can't even briefly state them? And he HOPES he reaches, not he \"is determined to do the work to reach\", his dreams? But don't just try to be more smooth; invest time, attention, and emotion to figure out what his dreams actually are, so that he can clearly and compellingly express them in a sentence or two. \"My dream is to...\" (I'll say, \"help the online world become a more honest place\") \"...and being admitted into this program would bring me closer by...\" (\"being around brilliant mentors who can help me devise and improve mathematical models for detecting patterns of deception and fraud\"). </p>\n\n<p>Such a letter should be written to show an awareness of, and caring for, the point of view of others. As it stands, it loudly conveys a lack of awareness in those areas. The readers would be likely to conclude the writer is unaware, a bad thing in itself, or, even worse, uncaring.</p>\n\n<p>The writer of the letter would be better advised to take up some hobby or activity, take a year off from school if necessary, to work on and improve his social intelligence. Maybe go to a university and work as a mathematics tutor for students in the areas he has learned, while taking classes or doing other work that involves interacting with people a lot. It should be an area that requires a level of social intelligence skills to be successful, provides opportunity after opportunity to develop them, and provides immediate and direct personal feedback on how well he is doing. A quick list of ideas could include doing commission sales work, working as a bartender, and volunteering to canvass and advocate for political candidates and their campaigns.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36838,
"author": "silvado",
"author_id": 3890,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The problem is not about emotions. Other answers have pointed out a lack of substance, but I'll make a different point. It's that your friend draws a very bad image of him/her-self. Your question title should really be \"Can a letter of motivation that highlights weak points be harmful in a PhD application?\"</p>\n\n<p>Just isolate these four parts of the motivation letter:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I tried.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><em>And then?</em></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>my knowledge is not much sufficient for their requirements</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><em>So no surprise you're not admitted.</em></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I am out of touch from many interesting topics of mathematics.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><em>Not good if you're to pursue cutting edge research for a PhD.</em></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>advanced parts of mathematics are till unknown to me</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><em>ditto</em></p>\n\n<p>This is an application. It needs to draw a good image of the applicant, <strong>not</strong> show the weak points.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36855,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Here is my cruelly honest translation of the letter. I am not trying to insult you. I have received many similar messages as unsolicited emails (always from India), and this is essentially how I read them.</p>\n\n<p>College XY has best undergraduate mathematics department of the university of XY. - I am aware that my university isn't particularly good, so I am making a desperate attempt to argue that my education wasn't as poor as the general standard for my university.</p>\n\n<p>IITX is built upon the basement of the first engineering college of Asia. - If something isn't actually good, point out how big, old or expensive it is and maybe people will be fooled.</p>\n\n<p>I completed my B.Sc. from XY and M.Sc. from IITX. Both the times I got first class after each evaluation. - Hard to tell due to the bad English, but apparently the applicant is claiming to have had good grades. Impossible to tell whether this means top 10% or top 90%.</p>\n\n<p>I had a dream to continue my PhD studies in a good western university. I tried. - What is this supposed to mean? Applicant once was accepted and started a PhD at a European university, but failed?</p>\n\n<p>My degrees are equivalent to degrees from European universities. - According to whom?</p>\n\n<p>I came to the understanding that my knowledge is not much sufficient for their requirements. - Contradicts the previous claim.</p>\n\n<p>Currently I am working in a project focussing on a very particular problem. - Currently I am doing some research that I am not at all interested in and that I am not even prepared to explain in detail if someone asks me about it, because I don't understand it myself.</p>\n\n<p>I am out of touch from many interesting topics of mathematics. - In an application I was once asked about some basic (first year level) knowledge related to what I was applying for and didn't even have an idea what the words meant.</p>\n\n<p>Many advanced parts of mathematics are till unknown to me which shall be very useful in my work. So I am thing for a better opportunity to revise my mathematical concepts in a better way and to collect new knowledge. - Maybe I could become a mathematician by doing my undergraduate degree all over again, this time at a proper university.</p>\n\n<p>I wish to build myself in a way that I can continue my PhD work in a good university and I can be a successful researcher. - Because I underestimate the effort involved in learning things properly, I think that I can do this on the side, while officially working on a PhD, and even get a PhD too.</p>\n\n<p>If I get the opportunity to continue the diploma hope I reach my dreams. - Diploma or PhD, what's the difference? It's all the same to me.</p>\n\n<p>Besides, my English isn't good enough to study in English, and since I am blissfully unaware of the fact it is not likely to improve. Sorry that I can't mention the special strengths of the university I am applying to. I have no clue what they are, and anyway, I am sending this to several hundred. It would be too much work to adjust the text for each.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36725",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8569/"
] |
36,735 |
<p>A professor of mine, who's native language is German and who is teaching a class in English in a German speaking country, suddenly answered an e-mail which I wrote in German (I'm a native German speaker too), in English. I'm wondering why he does that? What the proper way for me to react is, i.e., should I use English when sending him e-mails from now on? </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36738,
"author": "Massimo Ortolano",
"author_id": 20058,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>suddenly answered an e-mail which I wrote in German [...], in English. I'm wondering why he does that?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>He might think that since the official language of the class is English, all communications should be carried out in this language. Or, maybe, if you're asking a technical question, he prefers to use English to avoid confusion between the technical terms employed during the lessons and the corresponding German terms.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>should I use English when sending him e-mails from now on?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Given that the official language is English, this should arise no complain on his part. But you can also ask which is his preferred choice between the two languages, given that you are a native German speaker.</p>\n\n<p>In Italy, I teach in a couple of courses which are taught in English: many of the emails I receive from Italian students are written in English, and I typically answer in that language. It's a good practice for both.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36739,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I wouldn't worry about it too much: given the bilingual nature of his work, your professor probably context-switches back and forth between languages frequently. If the professor is very comfortable in both languages, they might not have even realized the switch, e.g., if responding to your email in the middle of a large block of work in English with their head in \"English-mode\".</p>\n\n<p>If you want, however, next time you see the professor in person, you might ask if they have any preference for language in their communications with you: it could easily go either way (e.g., in English to make forwarding to non-German speakers easier, in German for personal comfort, or even no preference at all).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36757,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Explanation 1. For some reason the professor finds it easier to express a certain thought in English. As a native speaker of German myself, I often find myself in this situation. For some reason I can think of a nice formulation in one language but am unsure how to put it in the other. Also, e.g. when dealing with a student who could also be considered a colleague (student has a PhD or wrote a joint paper with the professor's colleague), in some fields the professor might be unsure whether to use <em>du</em> or <em>Sie</em> - a problem that doesn't exist in English. Or the professor wanted to reuse part of an email sent to another student. Or the email uses technical terms whose German translation sounds awkward.</p>\n\n<p>In this case you can just answer in whichever language you prefer.</p>\n\n<p>Explanation 2. The course is taught in English at least in part to make the German-speaking students get used to using English. Or at least the professor thinks so.</p>\n\n<p>In this case it may be better to reply in English.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36773,
"author": "damian",
"author_id": 27812,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27812",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would not interpret too much into this. I have to deal with such questions (in which language should I write an email?) almost daily in my function as an assistant professor. My native language is German, but I teach at a Dutch university (some courses are in Dutch, some are in English). With Dutch students, I usually communicate in Dutch (a language which I speak at near-native level), with international students in English - but when it comes to Germans, it already becomes complicated: It seems natural to communicate in German, but at the same time, although German is my native language, it is sometimes just <strong>easier to express a thought in a language I use daily in research</strong> (English) <strong>or teaching</strong> (Dutch or English). </p>\n\n<p>Second, I sometimes write in a specific language in order to be able to <strong>forward, (B)CC or archive</strong> the mails. It's just not very practical if you cannot share something with a colleague because of language issues. Also the other way round, you sometimes <strong>copy/paste</strong> things without wasting time on translating things.</p>\n\n<p>Third, I honestly am sometimes just <strong>unaware of the language i use</strong>. If I just have been talking in one language with a colleague, I might use that one in a mail that as well, without it being a concious choice. The hard part of working in several languages are not the languages themselves, it's switching between languages.</p>\n\n<p>So, I would not put too much weight into this issue. However, it might also be that the professor wants to make a statement: I have some colleagues who want to make a statement by communicating only in a courses \"official\" language to avoid the impression that they would differentiate between students. </p>\n\n<p>But, of course you can just ask what language the professor prefers. I get these questions occasionally, and - to be honest - I usually don't care too much.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36833,
"author": "peterh",
"author_id": 10234,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10234",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I live in Germany since long ago.</p>\n\n<p>On my experience, German are doing this mostly because 3 reasons:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>they won't worry because of your (for them) bad German.</li>\n<li>they are suspecting, your German is bad and maybe your English is better. It happens mainly on noisy phone lines, where they suspect mostly lingual problems and seldom acoustic.</li>\n<li>they only want to train their English (which they can't do with other Germans, but with a foreigner). Talking on German with a foreigner doesn't have any benefit for them, but talking on English means a possibility to a little bit of free training.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I think that the difference between the native and a non-native language is always very strong and prof always knew if they changed it. Maybe it is possible if he replied his twentieth mail on the day to his undergrads and all of them communicated with him either of German or on English with various levels.</p>\n\n<p>In your place I replied to the prof on English, but mentioned on the first row some like this: \"Ich würde gerne weiters mit Ihnen auf Deutsch kommunizieren\" (I would be glad to communicate on German with you).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36834,
"author": "AncientOwl",
"author_id": 27850,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27850",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's standard to respond in the language being taught to give the students opportunities to practice the use of said language.</p>\n\n<p>This is even more important if the students feel uncomfortable using the language.</p>\n\n<p>No pain no gain, as they say.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36735",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13427/"
] |
36,737 |
<p>While offering an answer to another question on this site (<a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36531/what-challenges-to-expect-for-admission-to-masters-phd-in-computer-science-and-e/36699#36699">this one</a> if you're interested), I was reminded of a particularly challenging experience that occurred during my interview process that might generalize to others.</p>
<p>I went to a decently well-known and respected undergraduate university, and while I was interviewing for a PhD position at various schools, at least one of my interviewers usually asked me how I could help his son/daughter/nephew, etc. get into my undergraduate university. This was not at the end of the interview when all other questions (both his and mine) were answered, but rather it was at the very beginning of the interview (e.g. "Oh, I see you went to university X. My [insert familial relationship] is applying there this year/next year. How can s/he get in?")</p>
<p>Not knowing if I was in a position to decline to comment, I gave some brief, generic suggestions and then tried to steer the interview back to my own application and admissions. </p>
<p>I can see this possibly happening in many scenarios, from graduate admissions (like my own experience) to possibly postdoc or faculty job interviews. Has anyone else faced this sort of situation before (off-topic questions that while not "illegal" are somewhat uncomfortable to answer), and any suggestions on how to diplomatically handle it?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36751,
"author": "Floris",
"author_id": 15062,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15062",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Such a question at the start of an interview sounds to me like a poor \"warmup\" question - meant to be an easy lowball, and failing miserably. As such I think a light answer is all that would be expected - they are not asking for help, but thinking this is one you could easily answer. Your reply should demonstrate you can think on your feet, without appearing to put the interviewer down and without really engaging in an answer. For example</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I met such a variety of people there that I really can't tell you what they had in common - I guess you would have to ask the admissions office</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That's probably quite truthful, while being completely evasive. And then you can move on.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 40340,
"author": "ak001",
"author_id": 30746,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/30746",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Well, if I am on that situation, I would first try to think positively instead of realizing that it's an off-topic question. Maybe they are asking that to know how competitive the university is and hence, how competitive I am. By having a positive mind, I think we can answer the question in a quite diplomatic manner, such as explaining approximately how many students get into the university each year (particularly in our class) and telling them how we could get into that university (for instance our high school grades or our SAT score, etc.).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 40347,
"author": "Daniel Wessel",
"author_id": 26614,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26614",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Is it possible to reframe the question, a bit akin to ak001, make it about what got you into that university. \"I don't know your [...]. When I applied, I ...\" and then highlight the strengths (diplomatically and without bragging).</p>\n\n<p>In any case, I wouldn't take that question too seriously. Could simply have been poor impulse-control (perhaps the person had had a stressful day so far) and s/he did not think too deeply about what s/he was saying.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/13
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36737",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26958/"
] |
36,741 |
<p>Currently, I am in second semester of Master's program in Computer Science and Engineering. Even though I am yet undecided, I lean a little bit more towards pursuing PhD program rather than getting into industry.</p>
<p>Many people tell me that research experience is the only factor in getting accepted to PhD. The problem is that I have a summer internship offer from an established industry, and I do not have any professors that will accept me as a summer research intern at this time.</p>
<p>Personally, I do want to try out the internship to see what it is like, possibly helping me decide whether to definitely pursue PhD or look for more industry options. However, as of now, I feel that it will be a bad move in terms of applying for PhD next semester, where I will probably lack research experience that other candidates might have. Meanwhile, I am trying to build research experience through course projects and directed research within academic semesters.</p>
<p>How much adverse impact will it have in PhD application if I were to choose summer internship at the industry?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36742,
"author": "marcman",
"author_id": 11819,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11819",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I was in the same boat. What I found is that it doesn't hurt, but it doesn't really help much either unless the internship is in like R&D or some area where you're doing novel work. When push comes to shove, professors/admissions committees want to see strong letters of recommendation and a strong (or at least extant) publication record. If your summer industry internship can at least garner a strong letter or recommendation then you have something.</p>\n\n<p>What I did was to take the industry internship position and join a research project in my extra time. I worked an 8-6 position at a tech company and worked out optimization functions and ran simulations and such on my lunch break and at night. It wasn't a full throttle research summer, but I got a decent publication (and a great letter of recommendation from my research collaborator) out of it...and I still pulled in a nice tech company internship pay too ;-)</p>\n\n<p>After the summer, I decided I liked research more anyway so I went ahead with the PhD application. Turns out doing both simultaneously helped me make the decision.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36745,
"author": "Floris",
"author_id": 15062,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15062",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>A person who has had his finger in both the academic and industrial pie, and then tells me that they want to do a PhD, comes across as more credible. You understand what each has to offer and you are more likely to stick with your choice. As for research ability - it has to be quality, not quantity, at this point. The rest surely will come in the course of a good program. </p>\n\n<p>If the internship is interesting I would take it. Just make sure you learn something while you are there - do more than \"just your job\".</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36741",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27791/"
] |
36,743 |
<p>If a prospective student contacts a professor about his/her work or group and the professor engages (asking for more info, acknowledging the student's existence ;-), etc), is it common for the replies to just stop? I would think courtesy at least calls for the standard easy let down, e.g "Perhaps we should talk after the admissions process," but on the other hand I understand how busy professors are and how spammy prospective students can be.</p>
<p>So I ask those of you "in the know," if you've engaged a student, do you feel inclined to at least let them know you will not be responding anymore? Or do you ultimately just find it easier to not respond (for example if the info you asked for isn't up to snuff)?</p>
<p>(I'm specifically asking about CS/ENG people, but any discipline is free to respond)</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36756,
"author": "NDEthos",
"author_id": 7705,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7705",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>My experience as a PhD student would lead me to believe that sometimes professors get bogged down in the process of teaching classes, writing research grants, doing/planning research and all the other day to day activities that their institution demands of them. </p>\n\n<p>I would think you are the low person on the totem pole at this point. That might be different if you were a rising star but the vast majority of us are not recruited, we apply for admission. I might send one last email and in it let them know that you just wanted to check in and relate that you completely understand the time constraint they are under but you would like to make sure they had received what ever you had sent and if they were to busy that was fine and to just contact you when they had the time at a much later date. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36761,
"author": "RoboKaren",
"author_id": 14885,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>As a faculty member, I try to respond to all prospective students but many times the questions are too vague, tautological, or impossible to answer:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Will I get in? Impossible to answer.</p></li>\n<li><p>Will you work with me if I get in?\nTautological. If you are in my field of study and you get in, it's likely because I want to work with you. But I don't want to say yes because that may be misread as saying that we <em>will</em> accept you. </p></li>\n<li><p>What are the strengths and weaknesses of your program? Not easily answerable, self-serving if I deem my own area strong and likely to insult faculty in the areas I deemed week.</p></li>\n<li><p>Tell me more about your research. Too open ended. My CV is online.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I don't mean to sound harsh but questions that can be easily answered are the most likely to get responses. </p>\n\n<p>Faculty do welcome e-mails from prospective students, especially those in our fields. When you get 150+ applications, it might be easy to miss someone in your specific area, so a personal message saying that you are applying is always welcome (especially early in the semester --- Sept or Oct -- before things get crazy). Questions that aren't answerable on our website are also welcome (for example, not all department websites list which students are associated with which faculty; asking about our team members in those cases is welcome). </p>\n\n<p>If you pique our interest (and we have the time), we may ask for further info from you -- for example, a paper you wrote or other writing sample. While I try to send a simple \"thanks\" ack message to these responses, I may be asking for something in November that I won't look at seriously until February with the other application material. So don't take the lack or brevity of acknowledgement to mean anything significant.</p>\n\n<p>Note that we may not want to send an e-mail prematurely closing down discussion as we may feel that this is rude to an applicant who may have more questions. So we are in essentially a typical asynchronous communication hang condition.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, I do often wish that I could respond in http status codes:</p>\n\n<pre><code>100 continue\n200 ok\n303 see other\n307 temporary redirect\n402 payment required\n404 resource not found\n406 not acceptable\n412 precondition failed\n417 expectation failed\n503 service unavailable\n</code></pre>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37990,
"author": "EBS",
"author_id": 28771,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28771",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<blockquote>\n <p>If a prospective student contacts a professor about his/her work or group and the professor engages (asking for more info, acknowledging the student's existence ;-), etc), is it common for the replies to just stop? I would think courtesy at least calls for the standard easy let down<BR>\n do you feel inclined to at least let them know you will not be responding anymore? Or do you ultimately just find it easier to not respond (for example if the info you asked for isn't up to snuff)?<BR>\n <P>\n In an ideal world, yes, but you are contacting us, asking us to take time to engage with you. If we did this for every applicant, it would require many hours per week of work, on a task we did not initiate. Declining a student is also not pleasant and a non-answer is often substituted.<P></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Some information you, and others, might find helpful:<P></p>\n\n<p>Professors, like most people these days, receive many emails daily. We would love to receive emails from prospective students looking to work with us when they are high quality students and a good fit to our needs. The problem is that too many of the emails are \"fishing,\" and are a waste of our time. That sours us (or at least me) on the others before we even read them. Sometimes I try to be courteous and reply before filing the email, and hope to receive some information that indicates this student is a good fit. Sometimes I have nothing more I can add at that point in time, and am waiting hoping that I will later. Sometimes the emails just get lost in the queue after the student responds. <P></p>\n\n<p>From my experience:\n<UL>\n<LI> Many of these prospective student emails are written using poor grammar, or very informal speech. This indicates the student is not serious about this pursuit. I only want students capable of high quality professional work. If the letter asking for a position (=asking for a job) is poorly written or very informal, what will the student's work be like if invited to join my team?\n<LI> Many emails indicate the candidate has not done his/her homework. I am a female professor (in \"CS/ENG\") and receive many emails addressed \"Dear Sir.\" Those students never looked at my webpage. My picture is there. I want a student who is capable and motivated enough to do his/her homework. If he/she isn't going to work hard when asking for admissions/funding, what does that indicate about the level of effort the student will expend when pursuing the degree?\n<LI> Many emails say the student wants to work in my field, but the listed area of interest, or the examples of areas of past work, are not in my field. Some students write to every professor in the department saying that field is his/her interest (we do talk with each other). Being flexible is good, but the PhD is a targeted field of study. This also indicates lack of sincerity, and lack of industriousness.\n<LI> Many emails are simply trying to get past the admissions committee hoping for funding. I usually don't know if I will have funding in the coming year. I am not in control of the funding the department will offer. I certainly can't promise anything far in advance, and won't promise it right away. I am much more likely to take a student who has applied and has passed the admissions committee and fund that student, if I have funding available to grant. If the student has really impressed me by a good introduction, and follows up professionally, his/her chances greatly improve.<BR>\nHint: Often funding comes right when the school year starts, or a student who was in line to receive funding doesn't come opening a department funded slot. Unfunded admitted students are likely to be funded at that time.\n<P>\n</UL></p>\n\n<p>Suggestions:\n<UL>\n <LI> Write a very professional letter.\n <LI> Do your homework:\n<UL>\n <LI> In what area does the professor work? \n<LI>What courses does the professor\n teach? \n<LI>What papers has the professor written recently? \n<LI>What work is\n still open related to those papers?<br>\n<LI> Is it an area you are truly\n interested in?<br>\n<LI> What skills and background do you offer that would\n make it worth expending more of our effort to recruit you, and the significant effort to advise you once admitted? This needs\n to be more than just having earned a BS or BS/MS with decent grades. \n <LI> Can you show me that you are industrious and capable of advanced work by showing an interest that is not superficial?<br>\n</UL>\n<LI> Write a targeted letter.\n<LI> Proof read the email.\n<LI> Have a friend proof read the email.\n<LI> Proof read the email again.\n</UL>\n<P>\nGood luck.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36743",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11819/"
] |
36,744 |
<p>I am currently a M.Sc. student and I was planning to apply for PhD programs. I asked my adviser to write me a letter of recommendation two months ago, and he agreed to do that. However, now that the deadlines are approaching (in 2 days) he has refused to write a letter, and basically he says that he wants me to stay in his research group and do a PhD under his supervision. In other words, he is forcing me to stay in my current school. I have been rejected from one of the PhD programs that I had previously applied, because he did not submit the letter of recommendation.</p>
<p>My first question is: what should I do? I do not want to create conflict, because he is my adviser and I need to defend my thesis in peace in the next two months.</p>
<p>My second question: If I do not send a letter of recommendation from my adviser, will it affect the decision of admission committee?</p>
<p>This is a time-sensitive manner and I really appreciate it if you could give me some insights, I am absolutely stuck here. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36747,
"author": "user141592",
"author_id": 27327,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27327",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>First point: what your professor is doing is absolutely not OK. There are valid reasons to back out of writing a recommendation letter late (illness, family emergency to name a few), but what he is doing is intentionally sabotaging your PhD applications.</p>\n\n<p>Second: ask for a meeting with your advisor, where you can have some uninterrupted time to explain your motivation for wanting to go elsewhere for your PhD. Focus on things like wanting to diversify your interests, work with a large variety of people, maybe work on a research project that is not available at your school. Feel free to add in things like how working with him has helped you realise how many opportunities are out there and prepared you to undertake studies at <em>insert name of university you are applying to</em>. Ask him if he could write you the recommendation letter and tell him that when you have your acceptances you will make a choice of where to go, and you will not rule out your current institution until you have all the answers. Explain that you feel that he is limiting your options, and feeling shut in is not a good place to be when you are trying to make serious decisions about your future. In short, flatter him and the current programme, explain your motivation in a way that doesn't come off as \"this place sucks\" and hope for the best. Keep the tone of this conversation calm and non-confrontational. You don't want to destroy your last few months there, and even if he says no, thank him for his time and explain calmly that you hope he understands why you will still go on with the application with another recommender, and that you hope there will be no hard feelings between you.</p>\n\n<p>If this doesn't work I would go to the professor that knows you the second best in your master's program, or maybe even from your undergrad, and explain the situation to them (confidentially) and ask if you can get a letter of recommendation from them instead on short notice. It will probably be seen as a little strange that your advisor isn't writing you a letter of recommendation, but at that point it's your best option.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36774,
"author": "sean",
"author_id": 15501,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15501",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>While this is unacceptable behaviour, it it not uncommon at all. Many of my friends doing Master in Korea were in exactly the same situations as yours when they wanted to apply for a PhD in the US. Even worse, their advisers wrote for them bad LoRs, so that they could be rejected. Somehow they were all accepted, because doing Master in Korea often results in lots of publications.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Your first question: there is nothing you can do with your adviser. Your LoR should come from a prof. who really wants you to be accepted, and writes a LoR with his best effort. A bad LoR is much worse than no LoR at all.</p></li>\n<li><p>Your second question: do not worry about what you can't control. Instead, try to make the best application with all you have.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>When I wrote my Master thesis, I was having a family problem and couldn't focus. As a result, my adviser didn't satisfy about my work. Of course, he didn't want to keep me for a PhD, and was willing to write a LoR for me. But I thought his LoR would not be strong, so I chose not to get a LoR from him. This is not really a problem for me when applying for a PhD in EU, because most of positions required a Skype interview (and some followed by on-site interview).</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36744",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27795/"
] |
36,746 |
<p>I'm a math TA and I find that my most consistent comment for improvement involved my board handwriting. Anybody have some tips or techniques I can use to make things a little neater on the board?</p>
<p>There are, of course, time constraints with teaching any course, so I don't want to simply write more slowly in order to assist in writing more neatly. Thankfully in a math course much of what I write is symbols which are easier to (borrowing a typography term) kern than sentences, but I still feel like I need to vastly improve my handwriting on a board if I plan on teaching for any length of time.</p>
<p>This is a sample of my handwriting:
<img src="https://i.imgur.com/Nb4IE3j.jpg" alt="sample handwriting"></p>
<p>Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!</p>
<p>EDIT: After checking the room in which I'm assigned to teach this semester, it turns out I do actually have a whiteboard instead of a chalkboard. Like I commented below somewhere, I'm sure 90% of the answers mentioned (those not expressly about chalk, anyway) will be completely cross-transferable and I'll try to make them all work. Thanks again for all the great answers!</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36748,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I have struggled with this too. Two things that I find help are:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Write much bigger than you think you should. It's easier to be neater with bigger letters. You can fit less on a board, but honestly that's generally a good thing.</li>\n<li>Move your body along with your writing as you go. My writing gets worse the farther my hand is from my center of mass, and tends to trail downward too.</li>\n</ol>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36752,
"author": "user141592",
"author_id": 27327,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27327",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to Jake's great answer, what helped me was a chalk holder (you can find them online for $5-10). One reason people write terribly badly with chalk is that either the pieces feel like the are about to break, or they are tiny. Using a chalk holder makes writing with chalk more like writing with a pen.</p>\n\n<p>I'd also recommend having two or three loaded chalk-holders waiting in reserve; having to pause mid-lecture to empty out small fragments, reload a new piece, and regain the thread of your discourse is terribly awkward.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36755,
"author": "Kimball",
"author_id": 19607,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19607",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I would say the biggest thing that makes my boardwriting messy is rushing. I know you said you don't want to write more slowly, so my suggestion is to try this: <strong>write (and speak) more judiciously</strong>. Then you can write slower and more neatly, when you don't need to hurry. It takes practice, and requires more preparation, but with a little more thought and planning, you can often be more clean with your presentation, which allows your writing and speaking to become more clean. [Disclaimer: I don't always practice this, particularly when I'm in a hurry before class.]</p>\n\n<p>Also, jakebeal's answers are good. The angle at which you write (both side-to-side and up-down) is also important, and when you're not in a hurry you naturally adjust your body to write at a more comfortable angle.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36758,
"author": "nivag",
"author_id": 14115,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14115",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The first few lines are quite legible if not that neat, but as you go on the font gets smaller. If someone was at the back of the room they would have a hard time reading it.</p>\n\n<p>I would try and keep the first lines as the minimum size for your writing, but if you are in a large lecture theatre it probably needs to be larger.</p>\n\n<p>I think this is a problem lots of people have. I don't know of an easy solution other than to consciously make your writing bigger than you think it needs to be.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36764,
"author": "sjb",
"author_id": 27805,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27805",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You say that you can read the text at</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/acEcv.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/acEcv.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\" /></a></p>\n<p>but is that partly because you're familiar with what it <em>should</em> say. There has been a meme over the last few years something along the line of:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.</p>\n<p>i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghi t pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>It's the same for other presentation skills too. I know I tend to speed up a bit when talking in public, probably due to nerves, etc., which doesn't help sometimes.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36768,
"author": "Amol L",
"author_id": 27809,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27809",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to good suggestions above, I can suggest one improvement seeing your writing.</p>\n\n<p>Alphabets like a, p, e, g d, all have very small 'compressed' circles. If you consciously try to make them larger(while of course, keeping the circle proportionate to alphabet size), the writing will be more readable.</p>\n\n<p>You can write a paragraph on board which has all alphabets in it. You can then observe which alphabets have the problem I mentioned above, and improve on that.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36785,
"author": "Raphael",
"author_id": 1419,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1419",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Looking at your sample, I notice a couple of things.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Size:</strong> Some of the writing, e.g. all but the first bullet in the right half, is too small, in particular non-capital letters.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Whitespace:</strong> Be mindful of spacing letters, words, formulae, paragraphs differently and consistently. For instance, \"factors over R\" has more space between \"fac\" and \"tors\" then between \"factors\" and \"over\".</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Font:</strong> Curved lines are harder to draw with chalk than straight lines. Many small letters and some of your big letters contain curves; try to use a more block capitalish style. </p>\n\n<p>Whichever font you use, make sure that letters/symbols are clearly distinct.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Consistency:</strong> Make the same letter or symbol look as similar as possible between instances (note your equivalency arrows and small \"n\" in formulae). Space structure elements consistently.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I think spacing is the biggest issue here, followed by consistency. Note that the basic rules are mostly the same as in typesetting for print, for which lots of literature exists.</p>\n\n<p>As for general advice for avoiding writing yourself in a position where it is hard to write well, these come to mind.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Keep your hand approximately at eyelevel. That means moving the board a lot.</li>\n<li>Break new pieces of chalk in half; that way they are easier to hold and do not screech.</li>\n<li>Rotate your piece of chalk frequently so you have a somewhat symmetric tip at all times.</li>\n<li>Disregard pieces of chalk that have become smaller than your first digital bones.</li>\n<li>Do not squeeze. If there is not enough space, switch to the next board.</li>\n<li>Write with enough pressure. If you apply too little you do not get enough chalk on the board for clear lines. The necessary amount of pressure depends on chalk and board surface.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>As for writing speed, note that at least when you change your font you will have to write more consciously, hence slower, for a while. Train slowly, speed will follow.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36791,
"author": "Flyto",
"author_id": 8394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8394",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In addition to everything above: write with your arm, not with your hand. The movement needs to come from shoulder and elbow, not from wrist. Some people write on paper this way anyway, but some (including me) tend to keep their arm still except for moving along the line, and use their wrist. This simply does not work on boards. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36813,
"author": "Superbest",
"author_id": 244,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/244",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Practice makes perfect.</p>\n\n<p>My own handwriting (on paper) went from hideous to beautiful enough to get me compliments. I accomplished this by making a conscious effort to write neatly when taking lecture notes (even if it meant writing slowly), as well as writing things over and over until it was satisfactory (often compared to a sample).</p>\n\n<p>I don't feel like it really slowed me down all that much. Occasionally, during exams or fast speeches, I still revert to uglier handwriting in hopes of saving precious seconds, but rarely gain all that much. Conversely, I doubt you will really end up losing significant lecture time by writing neatly during real lectures, but of course you can always try it out in a mock lecture (note that writing neatly the at first will be much slower because you are not used to it). However, it did take me time to get better: The bulk of the improvement was over several months, and even after several years the quality of my handwriting was changing, though not as noticeably. Keep in mind that I would spend several hours taking notes in lectures every day, in addition to writing in my free time. Perhaps you can be a more diligent student than I was, but I would still say don't expect big changes overnight.</p>\n\n<p>That said, I don't see why my experience wouldn't translate to board writing also. If you want your handwriting to be better, find a board and keep writing on it until it <em>is</em> better. It helps to actively force yourself to write neater.</p>\n\n<p>As I said, lectures are a great opportunity for getting some regular, intense practice. If you can at all afford to slow down even a little bit, you should do so and you can get results sooner.</p>\n\n<p>Regardless of whether you decide to risk slowing down your lectures, you can always practice by yourself. As a grad student you will almost certainly have access to a blackboard. Go up there and write on it until your hand gets tired. Then erase and do it again. Keep an eye out for motions that make letters come out particularly ugly or pretty.</p>\n\n<p>Small children learn to write by tracing dashed lines of letter shapes. You could simulate this by using some kind of projector to project \"worksheets\" on the board (with a blackboard, <a href=\"http://youtu.be/YOxSx7B5Huc\">white on black would probably look better</a>, and a dim room helps).</p>\n\n<p>If you feel like this is too much of a waste of time, write out material that you are having difficulty learning, research ideas and notes of future lectures. That way you are both practicing your handwriting AND doing some useful work.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36826,
"author": "Aaron Brick",
"author_id": 14140,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14140",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>you could counter your tendency towards cursive ligatures by trying block capital letters for natural language text. the height of those letters is consistent, they are less likely to disappear among their neighbors, and the text fills out a rectangular block. i do it that way, but admittedly, i am used to handwriting in all caps.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36854,
"author": "Andrei",
"author_id": 27859,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27859",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The calligraphy - well that is fixed with paper, pencil and patience.</p>\n\n<p>On the chalkboard it tends to be just slightly different.</p>\n\n<p>The main trick that helped me was just to push the chalk into the chalkboard instead of pulling it, like we do it with the pencil on paper.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36892,
"author": "David Richerby",
"author_id": 10685,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Use simpler letter-forms. In particular, your upper-case 'L' and lower-case 'f' are very intricate: compare them to the shapes of those letters in a simple sans-serif font, such as Arial or Helvetica. And make sure you finish writing every letter: many of the ones in the sample just deteriorate into a squiggle, as if you got half-way through the letter and were so eager to start the next one that you abandoned the one you were writing.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 73366,
"author": "Ashutosh Rana",
"author_id": 57601,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57601",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I think most people have already covered the important points.</p>\n\n<p>For me the main items are 4 - </p>\n\n<p><strong>1) Size:</strong>\nWrite <strong>BIG</strong>! Then go back to the last bench and see if you can read it without squinting.\nAt the beginning, a good way is to write a sample in a corner, go to the last bench, and if that is ok, dont rub this throughout the course. Use it as a reference all through till you get the hang of it.</p>\n\n<p><strong>2) Write in capitals</strong> </p>\n\n<p>Avoid cursive. </p>\n\n<p>A bad capital handwriting is far better than a bad cursive. and sometimes better than a mediocre cursive too.</p>\n\n<p>Added edit: exception - If you write in small letters, write spaced out and avoid running handwriting. I write small letters like a child on the blackboard so that it is readable. It is much different from the cursive that I normally use for writing on paper.</p>\n\n<p><strong>3) Use a little more space between letters and words</strong> \nIt tends to make your existing writing neater and nicer! A useful illusion.</p>\n\n<p><strong>4) Use flow charts and text boxes -</strong> \nJust like 3, they create the illusion of neatness and order.</p>\n\n<p>PS: I think 1 and 3 have already been mentioned by many others, but that just reminds you how important it is :)</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36746",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10086/"
] |
36,766 |
<p>A year ago, I finished my Master's degree and ended 6 months of working for an incredibly manipulative and demanding supervisor. We started working on a publication of my Master's results, which is awaiting final approval (post-corrections) at the journal we submitted to.</p>
<p>Last week, I read a paper this supervisor had published recently, which had a figure taken directly from my Master's dissertation. Our in-press article wasn't cited, and I wasn't co-author, referenced, or even mentioned in the acknowledgements. No direct reference was given for the figure, but the text surrounding it made it sound as if it had come from another article by my supervisor from last year.</p>
<p>It seems pretty clear to me that this is plaigarism - we worked on this project together, certainly, but the final product was a result of my work and their guidance. </p>
<p>My problem is, I don't know how to deal with it. We are currently co-authoring a paper, so I don't want to cause a rupture. I also plan to continue working in this field, and would like to avoid having a senior researcher and previous supervisor to be angry. At the same time, I don't want them to get away with using my work, and taking all the credit for it.</p>
<p>I will certainly tell them that I feel uncomfortable with how they used my work, but realistically, what can I expect/hope to happen here? </p>
<p>UPDATE - the figure in question is an overview of a simulation model I created, so is pretty much the core part of my Master's work.</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36767,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>The issue here is somewhat thorny. Relative to you, however, there is unfortunately not much benefit in any event, because citing the figure is not normally enough to merit authorship. All you would have is one extra citation, which would likely get \"lost,\" because the publication with which it corresponds doesn't exist yet.</p>\n\n<p>So I would make sure that your <em>new</em> paper cites the old paper, since it is the first to publish the figure. I would also make sure that you mention <em>politely</em> the concerns that you have over the use of the figure without citing.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36781,
"author": "David M W Powers",
"author_id": 6390,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6390",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It's hard to fix the past... Rather think of the future... I would (and in past case have) let the person know that you feel you should have either been a coauthor on the paper (preferred outcome usually) or been acknowledged as contributing to the paper (specifically all non-original figures must be acknowledged as to source for copyright reasons and there is the right to be known as author and originator in relation to all aspects of the paper you have contributed to).</p>\n\n<p>If you are one of many students this supervisor has in this area, and/or the figure just encapsulates ideas that your supervisor has provided, then the shoe could be on the other foot, and the supervisor may not even be aware that you feel ownership of the figure (or other aspects of the \"joint research\"). In your thesis/papers you need to acknowledge where ideas have originated from other people - in a thesis this is likely to be restricted to a specific acknowledgements section.</p>\n\n<p>If a figure is likely to be needed in future papers, I tend to note that it is copyright by me and reproduced with permission in all papers, and thus copyright is not transferred to the first publisher of such a paper. When I circulate things (even just charts and figures) I sometimes add a copyright if it is something that I am particularly proud of and/or want to retain control of.</p>\n\n<p>If I were in your shoes my aim would be to ensure that I was consulted about future papers (given the opportunity to be an author, or acknowledged, or to waive my rights).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36786,
"author": "DVK",
"author_id": 20300,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20300",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>One possible approach is to discuss this by presenting it as a favor to you (e.g. \"I'd have been neat if that number could have been cited to this thesis, because that would help me have more citations a the beginning of my research career\") as opposed to accusatory approach of \"You ripped me off\". </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36828,
"author": "Vic",
"author_id": 6928,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6928",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I have had a couple of similar cases before. This is a form of both plagiarism and copyright breach (these two are not necessarily always the same). They had to do 2 things before using your figure in their article: (1) cite you; (2) Provide the journal with the written permission obtained from you, for using your figure in their paper.</p>\n\n<p>The failure to do any of the above 2 items is problematic. In <strong>theory</strong>, you can (1) write to the journal and ask for the retraction of the plagiarizing article after providing sufficient evidence. (2) write to the publisher and ask the same. (3) write to the authors and ask them to send an erratum to the journal (or ask the journal to ask them). (4) If they did not do anything, sue the irresponsible parties.</p>\n\n<p>What happens in <strong>practice</strong> though? An article stole a figure and even a table of my article. Interestingly enough, they had not even bothered to re-write the content of my table, but had only take a snapshot of it, and had put it exactly as is, in their own article. They had not stated at any point of their article that those figure/table were picked from my article, nor had they contacted me previously. So I contacted the journal for many times, to no avail. Then I contacted the authors (there was no independent publisher to contact). They did not respond as well! So if I wanted to sue them, I had to fly abroad, and I doubt the court in their country had any stringent rules against such copyright breaches.</p>\n\n<p><strong>So in practice, there is usually little you can do, as journals heavily tend to sweep these issues under the carpet.</strong> Another article had plagiarized most of the content of my article, without citing me. I contacted every one (journal, publisher, authors)... After numerous emails, the journal told me they will not retract it, and if I want to sue them, I can go to the court in their country!!!!</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>I now understand the complexity of the case, in which the author of the copied figure is also the author of the original figure.</p>\n\n<p>Because <strong>the journal owns the copyright</strong> of the article content, not the authors themselves. So eventhough the author can claim that (s)he has used their <em>own</em> figure twice, the journal still has the right to sue them, since (s)he has breached the copyright of the journal.</p>\n\n<p>But if the original article was an <strong>open access</strong> one, I think it is fine to use the image twice as its copyright belongs to the author (although it is not a good practice to use repeated content).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37225,
"author": "Felipe G. Nievinski",
"author_id": 28125,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28125",
"pm_score": -1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You could make an anonymous tip about your case to <a href=\"http://retractionwatch.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Retraction Watch</a>.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36766",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27808/"
] |
36,776 |
<p>Some co-authors and I are currently writing a position paper that aims to introduce Community A to a set of problems in Community B, in which collaboration between Communities A and B is likely to be helpful. This paper is intended for submission to a peer-reviewed special issue that has invited such position papers.</p>
<p>There are already some meeting series that are intended to help foster such collaborations, but they are not very widely known. In our concluding recommendations, we are thinking of including a list of them (perhaps as a table), as an aid for readers who are motivated by our paper to seek out A/B collaborations.</p>
<p>Is such "advertisement" appropriate for a peer-reviewed publication, particularly given that some of the authors are involved in organization of some of the meetings?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 37062,
"author": "410 gone",
"author_id": 96,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>As far as the <em>journal</em> is concerned, this would be a thing to ask your editorial contact at the journal.</p>\n\n<p>As far as the <em>readers</em> are concerned, I'd ask myself: what's most useful to the reader? I'd have thought that pointing to an online resource elsewhere, is more useful than a list within the article itself. In an article, the list is frozen in time, and quickly outdated, with no option of maintenance. As a linked external online resource, then there would be the option of updates and maintenance - and even if you don't expect to have the resource yourself to maintain it, someone else might take over the upkeep.</p>\n\n<p>Now, you <em>would</em> need to be careful in how you present that online resource, so that it didn't look like spamming (it will help considerably if the resource is not seen as promoting a particular business or university). Precedent is your friend: have a look through recent articles in your target journal, and discuss with your editorial contact at the journal, to find a presentation that will be acceptable to all.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37085,
"author": "Piotr Migdal",
"author_id": 49,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In acknowledgements you can put pretty much anything, as long as it is not too long. </p>\n\n<p>However, if it is anything lengthy (e.g. more than 3 recommendations) I would strongly encourage to put it in a different form than a research paper. Eg. a column in this journal (if it is a applicable), or (in acknowledgements) a link to a website listing opportunities.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36776",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733/"
] |
36,783 |
<p>I submitted a paper to a decent mathematical journal more than six months ago. Later, after communicating with several people, I have come to find the notation that I used in the paper very confusing, and thus fear that people may have serious difficulty in understanding my work. </p>
<p>I have since revised my paper by eliminating some notations and adding more examples and explanations. I think the revised version is much better than the previous one, even though there are no changes affecting the results of the paper, and I haven't found anything wrong in the proof.</p>
<p>I am worried that the referees will be annoyed by the notation that I previously used, and thus lose interest in my paper. So, I am considering submitting the revised paper to the editor to help the referees better understand my work. But some people say the referees would be unhappy to see the revision if they do not ask me to submit one.</p>
<p>Two weeks ago, I got a reply from the editor saying the paper is still under review, but he did not say when the review would finish, saying something like "it is difficult to put excessive pressure on the reviewers." So, I guess the review may still require some time to finish. </p>
<p>Should I submit the revision or not?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36789,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>You should <strong>not</strong> submit your revised version at this time. If it had been just a day or two since you submitted, it would be a different matter. However, more than six months later, it is quite likely that the reviewers <em>will</em> be angry to receive a new version of the paper, particularly since you have made a great deal of changes. This will be even more so if they are a substantial portion of the way through the review process. (It is also unfair to the reviewers and editors if the author can keep changing and revising the paper while it is under review.)</p>\n\n<p>Your best bet will be to wait until the reviews have been returned, and use your revised version of the paper to \"jump-start\" the revision process. </p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36871,
"author": "Kevin Walker",
"author_id": 27870,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27870",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm a mathematician who sometimes referees papers for math journals. If I were the referee for your paper, I would prefer to receive the revised and improved version. Quite possibly your referee has not started yet. If they have started, they can choose to ignore the new version, or use the new version to make the refereeing process easier.</p>\n\n<p>(For what it's worth, a shorter version of this answer received at least six up-votes on mathoverflow in the brief time before the question was moved to here.)</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36783",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27821/"
] |
36,787 |
<p>Might it be odd for a student to love and have excellent academic performance in all subjects—I am that student. I am really confused what to study in the university. My grades are similar (high) in all subjects, and I prefer both scientific and non-scientific subjects. It's like I want to get a degree in all fields. How can I decide what I should choose? What can I study? I have tried a lot of tests, even paid ones, but I get similar percentages for all choices. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36793,
"author": "Ben Bitdiddle",
"author_id": 24384,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24384",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>I would pick a major that maximizes your future options. Not necessarily one that will get you a job, but one that gives you a strong foundation so it's easy to pick up knowledge of other subjects.</p>\n\n<p>One good major for this is <strong>math</strong>. Once you have mathematical sophistication it's a lot easier to learn other fields, like physics, engineering, computer science etc. In general, I think it's a lot easier to switch from math to a more applied field than it would be to switch from an applied field to math. (Personally I majored in math, and then switched to computer science, which is another major I highly endorse.)</p>\n\n<p>Besides, it is a very fun major. At any reputable university the homework assignments require original thought and no two problems are the same.</p>\n\n<p>In terms of career options, most math majors I knew either (1) went for their PhDs (2) became traders/took other jobs in the financial sector (3) branched into software engineering or data science.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36797,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Performing well in every subject is simply impossible past the high school level. Conversely, I would argue that a strong high school student in a US-style system <em>should</em> be able to perform acceptably in every subject (excepting effects of disabilities), since studies in high school are typically designed to give the sort of general grounding that will be required in most professional careers (critical thinking, analysis of written ideas, clear exposition of your own thoughts, creative expression, foundational mathematical and scientific knowledge).</p>\n\n<p>Beyond high school, one might still have the potential to be good at any particular thing. It is just that this is the time when one begins to study specialities more deeply, and there are simply too many of them to be an expert in all of them. This happens in a fractal manner at each level: in undergraduate, you can be excellent at whole major, but cannot study all the majors; in graduate school, you can be excellent at a sub-discipline, but cannot study all sub-disciplines; as you establish a career as an academic, it is important to identify a small scope of contributions within the disciplines you work where you can contribute uniquely well.</p>\n\n<p>These realities also imply an answer to your dilemma. You don't have to pick the \"right\" academic focus, you just have to pick one that you will enjoy. And you can even afford to be wrong a couple of times, as long as you figure it out and shift to something that suits you better. Moreover, it's possible to do this at every level (though it's harder to make large shifts the deeper you go), undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral, and even beyond.</p>\n\n<p>In short, you can think of academic areas like the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Minchin\">Tim Minchin</a> love song says: \"If I didn't have you, someone else would do.\"</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36808,
"author": "James T",
"author_id": 13203,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13203",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>It may help your search if you change the question slightly. You have been doing very well in all subjects, and you enjoy them all to some level. So the questions \"Am I capable of passing exams in (subject)?\" and \"Would I enjoy studying (subject)?\" are not giving you very informative answers.</p>\n\n<p>Rather, consider asking: \"Could I imagine <em>not</em> studying (subject)?\" For me, this helped eliminate a few options from consideration when I was choosing school subjects, and has continued to be a useful guide. At the school level, I decided not to continue with studying chemistry - not because I was bad at it, or hated it, but because it didn't grab my interest for further study. Likewise, when applying for university study, I decided not to go for French, because although I like the language and literature, I felt that I didn't need a degree in French in order to satisfy my interests. And so on. On the other hand, the things that I have chosen to pursue are topics that I can't imagine being without.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36787",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27822/"
] |
36,790 |
<p>I have received an email from a journal in the field of engineering saying that they found an article of mine and want to feature it in their own publications for a fee. I cannot tell if this is something legit or something they send to everyone they can find. I have Googled, but there is not much information on them. How can I tell?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36792,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<h3>Absolutely not.</h3>\n\n<p>While open-source journals can charge authors to help recoup the publishing costs in the absence of paid subscriptions, it is completely dishonest for a journal to \"republish\" a work that has <em>already</em> appeared in print. It is even <strong>more</strong> dishonest for them to charge you to do it. At best this is just an advertising service; at worst it's a scam.</p>\n\n<p>I wouldn't even dignify the email with a response. Send that email into your junk folder.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36796,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/36792/11365\">aeismail's answer</a> is 100% correct in general.</p>\n\n<p>However, the place that emailed you isn't a journal, and doesn't claim to be (at least, not on their website). It's a website that prints the citation and abstract of articles published in other journals, with a link to the original article on the original publisher's website. Presumably (based on your experience), they allow people to pay to have their abstract \"featured\" on the website. </p>\n\n<p>This is not necessarily dishonest on their part - <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26479/can-i-collect-meta-information-on-papers-and-put-this-online\">they may be permitted to reproduce the meta-information of a published article</a>, which is what they are putting on the website.</p>\n\n<p>However, it will be of zero benefit to you to pay to have your article \"featured\" in this way.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36790",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5958/"
] |
36,794 |
<p>Negative results are sometimes seen as failures, and confirmatory results as lack of creativity, even though both kinds can be useful. Have researchers any incentive to publish negative or confirmatory results (put aside the cases when they are forced to, e.g. certain registered clinical trials)?</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36795,
"author": "jakebeal",
"author_id": 22733,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There is certainly incentive to publish negative results: a good negative result that clearly establishes, \"X is not possible\" or \"X is not true\" can be extremely valuable. I've published some negative results myself, and am proud of the work.</p>\n\n<p>Negative results, however, typically must hew to a much higher standard of evidence than positive results, in order to distinguish between \"X is not possible\" and \"I can't figure out how to do X.\" For positive results, showing \"I can do X\" automatically implies \"X is possible,\" but the syllogism does not hold in reverse. I think this is one of the main reasons why publishing negative results is so difficult. Also, it's easier for reviewers to argue with negative results, and harder to argue with positive: with negative, it matters strongly <em>why</em> they are negative, while with positive the \"why\" can be relegated to discussion and hypotheses for future investigation.</p>\n\n<p>Confirmatory results, however, are much harder to justify in absence of an explicit mechanism requiring them, as for medical studies. Typically, we get confirmatory results not directly, but indirectly through the development of new results building on the prior results: the prior results get confirmed through their use in the controls in the new study.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36800,
"author": "Stephan Kolassa",
"author_id": 4140,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4140",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>There are <a href=\"https://duckduckgo.com/?q=journal+of+negative+results\" rel=\"nofollow\">journals dedicated to negative results</a>. If you have spent time and money trying to replicate a result but were not able to do so, you can either throw the data away or publish in one of these venues.</p>\n\n<p>In addition, <a href=\"http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124\" rel=\"nofollow\">John Ioannidis' classic \"meta-negative\" paper</a> achieved a minor sort of fame.</p>\n\n<p>There are also journals that \"encourage replication\" (whatever that means in the context of high rejection rates), e.g. the <a href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01692070\" rel=\"nofollow\">IJF</a>.</p>\n\n<p>(Of course, negative results have value from a purely <em>scientific</em> point of view.)</p>\n\n<p>So, overall you can certainly get citations by replicating results and/or publishing negative results.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36794",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452/"
] |
36,804 |
<p>I am limited to a set number of pages for a research paper I am writing. One trick that I thought of was to find large 'review' papers that talk about a lot of things.</p>
<p>For instance:</p>
<pre><code>Bubble sort [1] is a great tool for sorting.
So is merge sort [1] and also quick sort [1].
Make sure to understand the type of data you
have, because certain algorithms can take
advantage of that [1].
[1] Comparing different sorting algorithms - Peter
</code></pre>
<p>This is a bit of an exaggeration but - would my paper be negatively reviewed if I cited a single paper too many times? Again, I am really pressed for space.</p>
<p>Note: I am new to writing btw</p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36805,
"author": "Massimo Ortolano",
"author_id": 20058,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>For (real) reason of space you can surely cite a review paper or a book, but, to reduce the number of citations, I would do it in a different way with respect to your example. </p>\n\n<p>For instance:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Common sorting algorithms are the bubble, the merge and the quick sort\n (see [1] and references therein for more details).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>or</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Common sorting algorithms are the bubble, the merge and the quick sort\n (see [1] for a review of their properties).</p>\n</blockquote>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36806,
"author": "Peter Jansson",
"author_id": 4394,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>First of all you should cite original sources. The review paper can be cited for whatever conclusions or original work stem from it, not for whatever sources it, in turn cites. In your example, citing the same sources over and over again in a single paragraph is unnecessary. You are better of starting the paragraphs stating that the information is sourced from [1] in some way.</p>\n\n<p>In general, citing a single source can be reasonable if it is a really original work and the only possible source for much information. This is, however, rarely the case and so my thought is that regardless of the situation, most will see it as somewhat suspicious. It all depends on whether the paper really <em>is</em> the only source for the information.</p>\n\n<p>So, general advice is: avoid doing what you outline, unless it is the only possible way (from the point of view that no other sources exist. </p>\n\n<p>Despite having constraints on length, you should be able to fit a reasonable number of references in. I am sure that you may have to really think twice about your text. I have certainly been in situations where I have has to ask myself if each end every sentence written is () necessary and (b) concise enough.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 71524,
"author": "jessingrass",
"author_id": 49420,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49420",
"pm_score": 0,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>Depending on the field, you can often find several pieces of research to support your point. Making your point by citing several pieces is probably stronger, in fact. Following your sample, if there were three pieces of research that supported bubble sorting, and two different pieces for quick sort, you might say this instead:</p>\n\n<p>Bubble sort [1, 2, 3] is a great tool for sorting. \nSo is merge sort [1] and also quick sort [1, 4, 5].\nMake sure to understand the type of data you \nhave, because certain algorithms can take \nadvantage of that [1].</p>\n\n<p>[1] Comparing different sorting algorithms - Peter\n[2] Bubble sorting algorithms - John\n[3] More bubble algorithms - Leanne and Yari\n[4] Only Quick sort - Paul\n[5] Quick Sort is Great - Julia</p>\n\n<p>^^ In the above, you maintain brevity, while keeping a strong argument. Hope this helps. Good luck.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/14
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36804",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26850/"
] |
36,824 |
<p>I am applying for a fellowship so that I can pursue a PhD in the US. The selection process includes an interview for shortlisted candidates.</p>
<p>I like to save the best for the last in order to surprise the audience. I think surprise, wherever it is used, has a good effect. I have a poster based on my undergraduate dissertation, which is said to be very attractive. It is inspired by <a href="http://www.bioinformaticszen.com/post/manchester-life-sciences-symposia/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the poster of Michael Barton</a>, which is introduced by the <a href="http://betterposters.blogspot.com/2013/02/critique-protein-biosynthesis.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Better Poster blog</a>. I think I can use it to surprise the fellowship selection committee.</p>
<p>Now, should I apply this strategy to the interviewers? That means I will keep the information of what I've done in the SOP as minimal as possible, just enough to pass the first selection round to get to the face-to-face round. At this round, I will show them my poster and <em>hope</em> they will be favorably impressed.</p>
<p>Should I use this strategy?</p>
<hr>
<p>I think I should quote <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36824/should-i-omit-some-of-my-qualifications-in-my-application-materials-to-surprise#comment81168_36853">my comment on Hans Adler's answer</a> here:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I just take my A0 size poster in to the interview room. During the interview, professors will test my knowledge, ask me what I've done and judge that if I'm adequate to the fellowship. In the room it will have a white board for you to outline what I've done, and this is what is poster born for. Instead of drawing figure or chart by myself, I just need to open the poster and show what's what.</p>
</blockquote>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36825,
"author": "ff524",
"author_id": 11365,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"pm_score": 7,
"selected": false,
"text": "<h3>No.</h3>\n\n<ul>\n<li>How will you know exactly what's \"just enough to pass the first selection round\"? You won't. You can't.</li>\n<li>Don't \"surprise\" by withholding helpful information. I believe most people find it annoying and inconsiderate when someone deliberately withholds information that they need in order to do their job (which is what you are proposing to do to the selection committee).</li>\n<li>It's harder to change someone's opinion of you than it is to confirm it. Even if you manage to get an interview using this strategy, convincing the interviewer that the candidate he thought was mediocre is really exceptional is more difficult than making him think, \"This student is just as exceptional in person as I thought he would be!\" (Also see: <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias\">confirmation bias</a>)</li>\n<li>Presenting yourself badly on paper can lead the committee to think that you don't know how to present yourself well, or didn't bother to find out how, or didn't care enough to put effort into your application. These are not qualities that people look for in an applicant.</li>\n</ul>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36837,
"author": "silvado",
"author_id": 3890,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890",
"pm_score": 5,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I fully agree with ff524's answer. As you still seem to think that your question outlines a good strategy, let me offer an additional point.</p>\n\n<p>One purpose of having two rounds of selection is that the paper application focusses on different qualifications than the interview, and the committee wants <strong>both</strong> to be tested. So yes, by all means, do surprise the interviewers, but do that with <strong>points that couldn't be shown on paper</strong> due to their nature. Examples for these are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Give a convincing oral presentation about your results or plans.</li>\n<li>Show confidence even when asked critical questions.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The poster you mention may not be a good fit for the paper application anyway, but do not withhold any information about your research that would fit into the paper application format. </p>\n\n<p>If you can show the poster at the interview, you would want the interviewers to be surprised by thinking \"This guy has very nice research results, <strong>and</strong> he can present it in an innovative format.\"\nYou don't want their evaluation to be \"This guy cannot write clearly about his research, <strong>but</strong> ...\" (nothing follows because you're not invited to the interview).</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36853,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>I'm a bit puzzled by the question. Posters are one medium for presenting your research. Other options include talks (or the associated slides), articles and abstracts. A poster only really makes sense in a poster session, when there is actual space for putting it up, and ideally some time has been allocated for authors standing next to their posters and presenting them to interested people.</p>\n\n<p>Sending in a poster as part of an application in general doesn't seem to make much sense, just like sending in the slides to a talk you have given. It's not really the right medium for the purpose. And the same principle applies to your presence before the selection committee, <em>unless</em> they are doing a poster session.</p>\n\n<p>You should prepare a presentation of your work in a suitable format (probably an abstract, maybe in somewhat extended form, along with a URL to a preprint or published article) and send that along with your application. You can still bring your poster in case there is a situation in which you can use it. And slides in case you get the opportunity for a little talk. Don't think of any of these things as a magic bullet just because someone has complimented you on it. Choose the right medium for the occasion; if you have material in a less optimal medium such as (presumably) your poster, keep it in your sleeve as an ace to be presented <em>in case</em> an appropriate occasion should arise.</p>\n\n<p>In my opinion, a poster would have to be truly extraordinary in a way that cannot be captured in another medium to justify sending it with your application. Besides, I am not even sure how you would send it. By snailmail would be slow, unusual and a hassle. If you send it electronically, most recipients probably wouldn't know how to print it in an appropriate size, and reading it on the screen is probably not much fun.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36909,
"author": "Colin McLarty",
"author_id": 27912,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27912",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>No. Too often, interviewers will be surprised anyway by things you did put in the application and even things you said in an earlier interview. They are reading a lot of applications. The interviewers who do carefully retain all the information they've gotten are people who do not prefer surprises.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 37019,
"author": "Lightness Races in Orbit",
"author_id": 12378,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12378",
"pm_score": 6,
"selected": true,
"text": "<p>Absolutely not.</p>\n\n<p>Even if you turned out to be a good candidate, I would reject your application on this basis alone. You're completely wasting my time by failing to be up-front about your qualifications when you know that I have a lot of work to do in prioritising applications and arranging interviews accordingly.</p>\n\n<p>If I find out, after doing all of that work, that by hiring you I will be hiring someone who routinely withholds relevant information because he wants to \"surprise\" me, then I know I am only hurting myself in the long run. I would instead pick an individual who is capable of being up-front and honest — someone with whom I can work without constantly wondering what he's not yet bothered to tell me.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 184219,
"author": "Deipatrous",
"author_id": 119911,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/119911",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>No. In addition to reasons given above, the following story illustrates the folly of witholding. I once turned down a candidate, i.e. did not invite him for interview.</p>\n<p>He then demanded to know why.</p>\n<p>I said such and such were essential.</p>\n<p>But I have such and such, he said (in, however, not too convincing a manner, otherwise I would still have invited him at this point).</p>\n<p>It is not on your CV, I said. It really should have been there.</p>\n<p>There was no room, he said.</p>\n<p>You managed to find room for... [activities that were not relevant] I said.</p>\n<p>Yeah but I sent you the same CV I send to everyone, he said.</p>\n<p>There's your mistake, I said, in future remember to tailor those few pages to the job you are looking for at that point in time.</p>\n<p>Thank you for your kind advice, he said, welling up. (Of course he didn't!)</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/15
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36824",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14341/"
] |
36,829 |
<p>I had a colleague who asked a professor to write a letter of recommendation on his behalf. The professor agreed and wrote 3 letters for this colleague. The colleague had an interview with one of the colleges he applied to and he came to know that the professor wrote that he doesn't know him very well. </p>
<p>My questions are: why would a professor agree to write a recommendation in the first place?! And what is the effect of this letter on one's application?</p>
<p>I asked him to write one on my behalf, and he might have written similar statement. </p>
|
[
{
"answer_id": 36845,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>In many cases professors agree to write letters for students we do not know well because we are the best option, according to the student, for them. Some students do not have good enough relationships with enough professors to get all the letters of reference they need. They may approach a professor and say, \"I know we do not know each other very well and I only took a class with you/worked in your lab for two weeks/etc, but I need someone else to write a letter and I think you are in the best option I have\". At which point, the professor may agree. If the student is not as up front, hopefully, the professor was clear and said something like \"I don't know you very well, but I can write you a letter and talk about X.\" Again, some students will agree.</p>\n\n<p>While it is not desirable to have references from people who do not know you well, including in a reference that you do not know the person well is not inherently bad. In fact, it probably is better to be up front about the relationship because it explains why the letter is so narrowly focused.</p>\n"
},
{
"answer_id": 36849,
"author": "Andreas Blass",
"author_id": 14506,
"author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "<p>If a student whom I don't know very well asks me for a recommendation, then I point that out to the student and suggest that it would therefore be better to ask someone else for a recommendation instead. But if the student, aware of the situation, still wants me to write the letter, I do it, and I include in the letter the information about how well (and in what circumstances) I know the student.</p>\n"
}
] |
2015/01/15
|
[
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36829",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18244/"
] |
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