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[ { "answer_id": 4948, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<ol>\n<li>This site has too many complex and arbitrary rules.</li>\n<li>Frame challenges are inherently unwelcoming.</li>\n<li>&quot;moderators a basis for deletions, edits&quot; Moderator action is not needed for frame challenges unless they break an existing rule, such as being rude.</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4952, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Maybe it's helpful to start by laying out (my view of) the status quo, so we can see where (if anywhere) we can improve.</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p>Most frame challenges are done in the comments. Since the goal is to clarify the premise or reframe (improve) the question, this is an appropriate use of comments.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>In rare cases, these go too far and offend or belittle the asker (and sometimes the asker becomes irrationally offended at reasonable questions)</li>\n<li>Sometimes we try to over-constrain the question. For example, if a user unfamiliar with academia just wants a one paragraph overview of how something works (including how it might vary), it can be frustrating when we force them to specify a million different variables before answering.</li>\n<li>Sometimes the frame challenge is technical (rather than about Academia) and so this is mostly off-topic (which is fine, we can move it from the comments into chat).</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n<li><p>In rarer cases, good answers can involve discussion of the framing</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p>This often happens when it is completely clear that a particular misconception has led to the question.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Another such scenario is when we get no responses to our requests for details, in which case we must decide whether to close as &quot;details needed&quot; or to provide answers that give our &quot;best guesses&quot; based on the available facts (usually the latter).</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Answerers sometimes give advice as part of their answer (&quot;you only asked whether this is <em>possible</em>, but just for the record, it is a terrible idea and you shouldn't do it even if it is possible&quot;). This is mostly fine.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>In rare cases, answers fail to answer the actual question (e.g., &quot;I don't know if it's possible, but it doesn't matter, you shouldn't do it&quot;), or include long passages that are relevant to the discussion but do not answer the question. As Catija's <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4946/79875\">answer</a> yesterday reminded us, &quot;the bulk of the answer should focus on the question itself,&quot; and so such answers are susceptible to &quot;not an answer&quot; flags.</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4953, "author": "Allure", "author_id": 84834, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/84834", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Using my own questions as examples.</p>\n<p>Frame challenges are fine if the frame shift answers the question. E.g.</p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/112077/why-do-academics-drink-so-much-coffee\">Why do academics drink so much coffee?</a> Showing that academics don't drink more coffee than average answers the question because it shows the null hypothesis is good enough and the question isn't necessary.</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/131966/why-is-the-uk-such-a-brain-magnet\">Why is the UK such a brain magnet?</a> Showing that the UK isn't a brain magnet renders the question moot.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>Frame challenges are not fine if they challenge something that the OP should know better than the person making the challenge, or if the frame challenge doesn't answer the question even if it's correct. E.g.</p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/123593/in-a-yes-no-question-a-student-gives-the-right-answer-and-an-unnecessary-but-wr\">In a yes/no question, a student gives the right answer and an unnecessary but wrong explanation. How to grade?</a> This question gives an example of a &quot;right answer but wrong explanation&quot;. Showing that the answer is actually right still doesn't answer the question, because it only answers that one example, and there are countless possible other examples that can be used to illustrate the problem.</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/120096/what-should-an-editor-do-if-the-authors-have-guessed-who-the-reviewers-are\">What should an editor do if the authors have guessed who the reviewers are?</a> Arguing that the authors haven't guessed the identity of the reviewers is rude since the editor undoubtedly knows better than someone who hasn't seen the manuscript, plus even if it's true, it doesn't answer the question (see first bullet point).</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4954, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To add to Allure's great answer:</p>\n<p>If the question states that the asker personally experienced a traumatic event, claiming that the traumatic event did not occur, or claiming that the event was not traumatic, is abusive. Comments or answers which deny traumatic events should be flagged as abusive and removed.</p>\n<p>Keep in mind that the sorts of people who ask questions often have a much broader view of what is traumatic than the sorts of people who post &quot;frame challenges.&quot;</p>\n<p>My understanding is that this maintains the status quo.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4956, "author": "Ben", "author_id": 87026, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/87026", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<h4>Frame-challenges for controversial cases (e.g., racism, sexism, derogation, etc.)</h4>\n<p>One particular context in which frame-challenges have occured, and have been controversial (e.g., in the case cited in the Meta post), is where the initial question makes an assertion that some behaviour or some person (or group of people) is bad or evil in some way ---e.g., when a behaviour is asserted to be racist, sexist, etc., or when a person or group of people are labelled with a derogatory term. Another case that sometimes generates controversy is where there are assertions of fact/evidence on university proceedings that may or may not be accurate. In such cases, answers will sometimes devote a substantial amount of space to questioning or critiquing such assertions. Some examples include:</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Disputes over racism, sexism, bigotry, etc.:</strong> Question asserts that a particular behaviour is racist, sexist, bigoted, etc; answer challenges this assertion.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><strong>Disputes over derogatory label:</strong> Question labels a person or group of people with a derogatory name; answer challenges this descriptor.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><strong>Disputes over factual assertions/evidence in proceedings:</strong> Question concerns some kind of (actual or potential) misconduct proceeding and makes assertions of fact/evidence; answer either challenges or questions these assertions or shows sccepticism in the assertions.</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p>I think it would be beneficial to set out clear guidelines for these cases (and other common cases that are drivers for controversy), since they seem to me to be the main drivers for controversial &quot;frame challenges&quot;.</p>\n<p>My view is that answerers must have scope to question, critique, or even &quot;attack&quot; (not my preferred word), premises in questions on these topics. In many cases we give answers that take questioners &quot;at their word&quot;, but a broad diversity of advice also requires this to be tempered with allowing answers that critique premises. <strong>Frame-challenges should be allowed (even encouraged) in these cases</strong>. If this is not allowed, the alternative is that aspects of questions on this site become <em>dogma</em> that is immune the challenge ---e.g., one cannot challenge assertions of racism, sexism, bigotry, etc., or derogatory labels applied to (unpopular) people/groups, or factual/evidentiary aspects of misconduct proceedings. If guidelines were to prevent frame-challenges in these cases, that seems to me to set us in a direction where the site would devolve into &quot;censorship&quot; and a prevailing orthodoxy ---immune to challenge--- would inevitably take over. I can't imagine that this would improve the quality of the site.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4958, "author": "henning", "author_id": 31917, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/31917", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would add another criterion to Allure's useful list: If most of the answer is about issues that are different from that of the question, the frame-challenge is probably not helpful but off-topic.</p>\n<p><strong>A helpful frame-challenge will quickly address the false premise and then return to giving advice on the issue at hand.</strong> If instead it gets lost in long asides, it turns the question into an arbitrary occasion to talk about something largely unrelated, which I find quite rude.</p>\n<p>With more than three quarters of the text devoted to the semantics of &quot;racism&quot; and related terms, I believe the latter applies to one of the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/posts/170131/revisions\">answers</a> that motivated this thread.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4959, "author": "Ben", "author_id": 87026, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/87026", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<h4>An overarching concern --- please consider with an open mind</h4>\n<p>At the risk of being further downvoted into oblivion, let me give a warning to the moderators/senior users of this site. I have noticed that there is an imbalance in rules-based challenges to answers that corresponds roughly to a preference for answers that push a &quot;left-progressive&quot; cultural viewpoint on various topics. When left-progressive views are put in answers, those are not flagged/removed/edited (even if clearly off-topic), but when answers present a dissenting view they are commonly challenged as &quot;off topic&quot; and &quot;rude/abusive&quot;. In such cases, moderators sometimes take the (manifestly biased) view that &quot;where there's smoke there's fire&quot; and flags are treated as gospel, without serious consideration of the actual content of answers.**</p>\n<p>As some of you will know/admit/grudgingly accept, academia has a well documented bias towards left-progressive viewpoints, and it is something that is derogating severely from the reputational legitimacy of the academy, to the point where there will be serious threats to the viability of university funding in the future (in my view). AC.SE seems to me to be following this general trend, where there is an effort to purge viewpoints that challenge the left-progressive hegemony. The vehicle through which this is done here is the &quot;off topic&quot; flag or the &quot;rude/abusive&quot; flag when someone sets a frame challenge to a question that assumes this orthodoxy. In the cases I have seen, the answers so flagged have clearly <em>not</em> been rude/abusive; often they have been extremely charitable to the OP. The reality is that the motivation is not bureaucratic but ideological/political; I have never seen an off-topic pro-progressive viewpoint generate the reaction of the recent posts.</p>\n<p>Ignore my view if you like, but you have been warned. This is a serious issue, and it is not the internal moderators/users who will ultimately be the judges of the quality/legitimacy of sites like this. There is also a broader movement (see e.g., <a href=\"https://heterodoxacademy.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">here</a>) expressing deep concern for the trajectory of the academy, and it is only a matter of time before mass delegitimacy occurs. I already see new users come on here and complain that there is a leftist orthodoxy that is not open to reasonable dissent and then they leave (which seems to be by design). The present efforts seem to me to be less of a genuine bureaucratic response to a problem, and more of an ideological campaign to enforce a specific orthodoxy. If you decide to hem the site in with rules that enforce a narrow orthodoxy, it is going to wreck the site. Guys like me will continue to be a thorn in the side, but others will just turn off and conclude that this site is an ideological/cultural monoculture, unworthy of genuine consideration.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>** <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4955/4957#4957\">This answer</a> by a site moderator openly states that the mere occurrence of multiple flags shows that an answer is problematic; a clear case of pre-emption of any actual investigation of the content of the answer.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4960, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Frame challenge questions may have a useful role to play in relation to some questions. However, they need to be proportional in scope in order to remain on-topic.</p>\n<p>Users must be allowed the right to rebut a particularly contentious frame-challenge answer and be given a reasonable right to reply. This cannot be done in comments. A fairly good indicator of whether an original frame-challenge answer post is on-topic or not in relation to its scope and relevance to a particular question is the following:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Would the addition of a reply to the answer post of a similar length and depth and of similar contentiousness wreck/ divert/ take over the original question?</li>\n</ul>\n<p>To illustrate, one problematic 'frame-challenge' answer to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/170101/how-should-i-address-racist-comments-from-a-superior\">this question</a> was a 2,500 word thesis on race discrimination, basically a reworking of ideas from another pro-race-discrimination paper that the author has written. This in itself was a significant diversion from the intention and thrust of the Original Question, and was out of proportion in relation to the question itself and the other answers. The original question and its several answers did not even approach two thousand words in total. If there had been a corresponding 2,500 word thesis challenging the frame-challenge answer, the whole question would have been completely dwarfed by a side-show and the Original Poster and other readers coming here for similar advice would not have been served.</p>\n<p>Allowing such an inapt and inappropriately long frame-challenge answer here, would have laid open the gates for similar, barely tangentially on-topic, thesis-length frame-challenge defences of race-discrimination (gender discrimination, discrimination based on sexual preference, age etc, etc) on hundreds of other posts, essentially allowing them to be taken over by similar side-shows.</p>\n<p>This may be Academia stack exchange, but this is not an appropriate forum in which to (re)publish one’s own academic work.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4966, "author": "Scott Seidman", "author_id": 20457, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20457", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't see much of a reason to do this.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>The issue only becomes an issue if people are violating the much-discussed &quot;be-nice&quot; rules. If people are violating that, then there are enforcement options in place. We have existing tools that adequately deal with such issues, we do not need new ones.</li>\n<li>As an academician, I've never not benefitted in some way from approaching a problem from a differing viewpoint. The idea of limiting answers assigned to some &quot;frame changing&quot; category is anathema to me. I suggest that &quot;frame changing&quot; might not be the real problem you're trying to solve, and encourage you to spend more time better defining the problematic aspect.</li>\n<li>While I clearly disagree with some of the views espoused in answers in some of the problematic cases put forth here, I found the original answer in at least one case to be largely responsive to the questions, and polite. I learned from the poster presenting their views. Yes, discussion got a little out of hand, but once again, I point you to enforcement of the &quot;be nice&quot; criteria as a way to handle this.</li>\n<li>In some of the examples posted, I can certainly understand how some would view a deletion based on a &quot;framing&quot; issue to be a suppression of an unpopular view (and yes-- the view is unpopular to me as well, though that's neither here nor there).</li>\n<li>Dealing with some unpleasantness every now and again is an aspect of moderation. While I'm appreciative of moderators' time, if a situation like this popping up periodically is taxing our moderation resources, a viable approach would be more moderators.</li>\n<li>I suggest that any moderation time saved by any policy along these lines may well be eaten up by higher level discussion with community staff. (In fact, it might be a good idea to invite community staff into this thread).</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4947", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4951, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think a more appropriate duplicate target would have been <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12346/how-to-address-a-professor-in-letter\">How to address a professor in letter?</a> In fact, maybe we should merge the posts so that the answers to the new question (a few of which are quite good) are transferred to the old one.</p>\n<p>To the title question, no, two questions are not necessarily duplicates just because an answer to one question can answer the other.</p>\n<p>In this particular case, the relevant context is that we get a lot of questions that are variations on &quot;How do I tell a professor that I want to wibble? Or that I don't want to wibble anymore?&quot; We frequently close such questions as a duplicate of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90725/how-should-i-phrase-an-important-question-that-i-need-to-ask-a-professor\">How should I phrase an important question that I need to ask a professor?</a>, just so that we don't have to write a million variations of &quot;tell them what you want clearly and politely.&quot; But your question does not really fall into this category; you are asking about the honorific, which I think is a bit different.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4962, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The question should remain closed because it strongly depends on individual circumstances. Different professors prefer different salutations.</p>\n<p>It has been closed as a duplicate because that is more helpful than closing it for depending on individual circumstances.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4950", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/35909/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4957, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>First, let me remark that controversial cases like this one are always first discussed internally by the moderators' team, sometimes with further advice from the Stack Exchange Community Managers, and the moderator action that you see is virtually never unilateral but it's usually agreed by all moderators.</p>\n<p>As you can see from the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/posts/170131/timeline\">answer's timeline</a>, your answer received two not-an-answer flags and two rude-or-abusive flags. The number and type of flags clearly indicate that your answer is problematic and not up to the standards of the site and the code of conduct.</p>\n<p>We decided to salvage the part that attempted somehow to answer the question because the alternative, given the content and the flags, would have been that of deleting the answer entirely.</p>\n<p>Final remarks:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>When answering a question, try to accept the premises at face value. You can challenge an action or its effect, but questioning what someone has witnessed, knowing that they wouldn't be able to give more details anyway, is rude.</li>\n<li>Don't use answers to propose or discuss theories around topics that are not considered on-topic for this site.</li>\n<li>This <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4946\">meta answer</a>, written by a Community Manager, essentially covers also this case.</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4961, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Obviously I agree with Massimo's answer, but let me add my own reasoning.</p>\n<p>Your answer included a 1500 word (!!) monograph describing your views on the distinction between racism and concern about migration. This long discussion was unrelated to Academia (as defined in our help center) and only loosely related to the question at hand. This occurred a day or two after you wrote 500 words describing your views on the FDA's approval process for the COVID vaccines.</p>\n<p>This is a Q&amp;A site, not your personal blog, and as you know, we are rather strict about closing off-topic questions and not allowing anything but answers in the answer box. There is no magic formula that can unambiguously differentiate on-topic and off-topic answers, so there will occasionally be disagreements like this one, even between reasonable people with good intentions (which I am sure you are). But in this case, I think the consensus will be that three-page treatises on racism -- going back to the Irish Rebellion of 1641 -- are not sufficiently probative of the question, which was &quot;how can racist/offensive comments from a supervisor be addressed?&quot;</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4955", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/87026/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4964, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think the team here does a great job of covering things and it's rare that anything lingers that shouldn't linger, but I trust y'all if you want an extra pair of hands to cover.</p>\n<p>I'd probably put my name in the hat if there were an election.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4965, "author": "Louic", "author_id": 64075, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/64075", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Although I think that there are some excellent potential candidates for the moderator position, with far more reputation on the website than me, I would be happy to help.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4963", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4972, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>[<a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4540\">Imported from the last election question collection</a>]</em></p>\n<p>What question or answer of yours on meta best exemplifies your philosophy on moderation? Why do you feel this is the best example?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4973, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>[<a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4548\">Imported from the last election question collection</a>]</em></p>\n<p>Academia.SE frequently has questions rise high on the Hot Network Questions (HNQ); often these questions are on more controversial topics than the mean question here and attract visitors from across the SE community who otherwise don't participate here.</p>\n<p><em>What do you think the moderators' role should be with respect to HNQ list questions? How do you think presence on the HNQ list should affect moderation decisions?</em></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4974, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>[<a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4545\">Imported from the last election question collection</a>]</em></p>\n<p>What is your stance about the current scope of Academia Stack Exchange and how this is enforced?</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Should we close any question that does not <em>strictly</em> comply with the current scope?</li>\n<li>Should we be lenient and keep open questions that can potentially generate good answers even if borderline off-topic?</li>\n<li>Should we narrow or broaden the scope?</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4975, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>[<a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4540\">Imported from the last election question collection</a>]</em></p>\n<p>As a moderator, I find that comments are a tricky thing to deal with. Under what circumstances will you delete comments?</p>\n<p>Note that there are lots of flags that comments are obsolete/no longer needed.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4982, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>How do you view the balance between &quot;trying to be helpful to an OP&quot; and &quot;strict adherence to the stated rules&quot;?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4983, "author": "The Amplitwist", "author_id": 138536, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/138536", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>How will you handle a disagreement with another moderator over an action one of you has taken (or will be taking) on a post that requires moderator attention?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4987, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Have you ever made a mistake posting on this site? If so, how did you react?</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4971", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/135312/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4977, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>General rules of thumb</h2>\n<p>Before you write a frame challenge, see whether you can answer all of the following with <em>yes:</em></p>\n<ul>\n<li><p>Is the misconception central to the question? If the question can be asked as well without the misconception, it’s better to edit it out or only address it briefly. If on-topic, you can ask or suggest a separate question about it.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Would you write a frame challenge if the question provided <strong>fewer</strong> details?</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Are you confident that the asker did not already consider your frame challenge?</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Does your frame challenge actually help the asker?</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Does your frame challenge respect the asker, in particular their expertise, privacy, and problems?</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4978, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Misconceptions about academic procedures, norms, or similar</h2>\n<p>These misconceptions concern the very topic of this site. For example:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Assertion: You must have a PhD to submit a paper to a journal.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>These are mostly free game for frame challenges. However, before challenging such an assumption, please consider that you may be wrong because academic customs <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4471\">vary a lot between fields, countries, etc.</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4979, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Misconceptions about off-topic aspects</h2>\n<p>Typically this is about the content of academic research or teaching, but it may also be other off-topic things. For example:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Assertion: My newly developed method that makes a very good guess whether a number is prime topples modern cryptography.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Whether such statements are correct is off-topic here.\nIf such an off-topic aspect is central to a question, the question should likely be closed or migrated.\nYou can advise the author to ask about the subject matter on another site or comment why you flag/vote to close the question.\nHowever, if you want to discuss this off-topic material, do it in chat; discussion in the comments or answers will likely be deleted.</p>\n<p>For example, you can write in response to the above assertion:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<blockquote>\n<p>In does not matter for this question, but as I understand it, you misassess the impact of your method. I strongly suggest that you ask on Cryptography SE about this.</p>\n</blockquote>\n</li>\n<li>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I think there is a crucial flaw in the your cryptographic reasoning. I would like to discuss it with you in <a href=\"https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/-1\">this chatroom</a>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n</li>\n<li>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The impact of your discovery on cryptography is off-topic here, but you may be able to ask about it on Cryptography SE.</p>\n</blockquote>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p>However, please do not write why you think that the asker’s statement is wrong as this will start a discussion.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4980, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Wrong goal (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">XY problem</a>)</h2>\n<p>The asker wants to achieve X and thinks doing Y helps them to do this, so they ask how to do Y. However, Y is not a good way to achieve X.</p>\n<p>Most often, we can only suspect an XY problem, since the asker doesn’t talk about X, but only about their outlandish goal Y. In this case, we can only tactfully inquire what the asker wants:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Can you please elaborate why you want to do this, so we can provide better answers? I may be wrong, but this feels like an <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">XY problem</a>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>If X is detailed, you can suggest alternative ways to achieve it, as long as the focus is helping the asker.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4981, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Wrong assessments of individual experiences</h2>\n<p>Here the asker potentially wrongly assessed something that happened to them – as opposed to general facts. For example:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Assertion: The student I supervise does not take my criticism seriously.</p>\n<p>Assertion: My paper was cited for some claim it did not make.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In these cases, we almost always lack relevant information (or it would be off-topic) and cannot make a judgement. The asker should know better than we do, and they are responsible to ensure that such an assertion is correct. Therefore frame challenges about such situations are usually not appropriate.</p>\n<p>However, there are some exceptions, where a <strong>short</strong> and tactful caveat is appropriate:</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p>The misconception is common and applies to many people in a similar situation, e.g.:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Assertion: The referee did not thoroughly review my paper, as they misunderstood the key concept.<br />\nCaveat: Before proceeding please consider that you are very familiar with your work and thus may not have noticed shortcomings in your explanations.</p>\n</blockquote>\n</li>\n<li><p>The asker describes in detail how they arrived at an assertion and this makes it seem unlikely that they are correct. For example:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Assertion: My professor is not satisfied with my work, because X, Y, and Z.<br />\nCaveat: What you describe are normal activities for a supervisor.\nJust by your report I would not assume that your professor is dissatisfied.</p>\n</blockquote>\n</li>\n<li><p>If the asker’s judgement should be incorrect, it may have severe consequences:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Assertion: My professor asked me to fudge some data by applying X.<br />\nCaveat: Please be aware that this is a serious accusation. I am not saying you are wrong, but before escalating this, please consider consulting with an expert whether applying X is really inappropriate in this situation.</p>\n</blockquote>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p>In all such cases, such a caveat should not be much longer than the asker’s description of the assertion and respect the asker’s assessment instead of directly denying it.</p>\n<p>Mind that this does not apply to questions asking us to evaluate a situation, e.g.:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>My professor does X, Y, and Z. Is this normal? Does this mean that she is not satisfied with my work?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<h3>Sexism, racism, discrimination, and other traumatic events</h3>\n<p>A delicate subcategory is when the asker experienced sexism, racism, discrimination, or similar behaviour, usually towards themselves. Such events are often traumatic and denying what happened may easily add to the trauma. Moreover, we almost certainly don’t know all the details (context, tone, gestures) and thus cannot judge the situation.</p>\n<p>In this case, the above exceptions do not apply: We can assume that the asker has already considered alternative interpretations of events and is aware of the severity of the respective accusations. At best, you may very tactfully ask for further details or assess the details if relevant for the question, e.g.:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I am sorry for your experience. To better answer your question, can you please [edit] your question to tell us whether you have any evidence of this? I understand if you do not want to go into the details; it suffices to know <em>how much</em> evidence you roughly have.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4976", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4986, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n<p>But the OP, here, was asking how to get something done, not for a list of things.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>That is not true. It says:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>How do I find the names of all...</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>This is clearly a request for a list, which is not permitted (I do not make the rules.) Asking for a method of getting a particular list is the same as asking for the list.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4988, "author": "jakebeal", "author_id": 22733, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/22733", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would suggest that programming answers in StackOverflow provide a good guideline here.</p>\n<p>If the question can be well-formed as &quot;How do I do X?&quot;, then while there may be many ways to do X, there will generally only be a small number of really good ways to do it, which fits the SE format nicely. In this case, the question may still fail due to being overly specific or too shopping-oriented.</p>\n<p>Take the first example from above, which I will paraphrase:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&quot;How do I find the names of all Asian institutions that offer post graduate programs in computational linguistics? By the way, I already know the standard answers to this question, but they aren't good enough for my purposes.&quot;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I don't think this fails as a shopping question, since it's asking for a resource. However, I believe that it does fail the &quot;individual factors&quot; criteria because it's asking for a resource that is too specific and unlikely to exist.</p>\n<p>If the question really needs a list, however, then it's just a bad fit for the SE format. Taking the second example from above, which I will paraphrase:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>What academic researchers published very few scientific articles (say, less than twenty) but exerted large influences on their fields of study? Also, I already know that Gauss is one of them.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>If this was &quot;Are there any...?&quot; or &quot;Is there a list of...?&quot; then it would be a good fit, because a single good answer is possible.\nAs it is, however, it is a bad fit because there is an open-ended set of possible answers with no particular way to tell which are better than one another. I wouldn't call it a &quot;shopping question&quot; (since there's no choice involved), but would probable use either &quot;needs clarity&quot; or a custom reason.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4998, "author": "Anonymous M", "author_id": 137975, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/137975", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I flagged to close the 3rd question regarding electronic devices (<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/173312/75368\">What is the best e-Ink device for academic paper reading and hand annotation?</a>) as a shopping question. Your question regarding it seems reasonable to me, but I still feel fairly confident about calling it a shopping question. Whether we should necessarily add a specific item to the rule enumeration to cover the eventuality, I'm more ambivalent on. More detailed reasoning below.</p>\n<p>In the first instance, it's fair to say that our enumerated shopping question examples (<a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3657/why-was-my-question-put-on-hold-for-shopping\">Why was my question put on hold for shopping?</a>) don't clearly include &quot;physical goods or products&quot;. I think those should also be prohibited within the spirit of the rule. There are, to my view, better places on the internet to debate or discuss the merit of specific product purchases.</p>\n<p>I think the specific example we're discussing typifies an intrinsic issue: &quot;shopping question&quot; and &quot;opinion-based&quot; have quite a lot of overlap. So there's often a question of which reason to go with. My understanding is that &quot;shopping question&quot; as a reason renders no implicit verdict on whether one can obtain an objective answer to the question. As such, it is often my default reason over &quot;opinion-based&quot; where it applies. In this particular case, my lack of familiarity with the products in the question pushed me away from &quot;opinion based&quot;.</p>\n<p>As another example, consider this hypothetical question that I think largely mirrors the example we're discussing but even more clearly fits within Academia.SE's wheelhouse:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I've done extensive research on chalk. Which is the higher quality chalk: Hagoromo or Crayola?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>It seems to me reasonable people may legitimately disagree about whether this question can be answered in an objective fashion, i.e. there may be quibbling over whether it should be put on hold for being &quot;opinion based&quot;. But I think calling it a shopping question would prove uncontroversial.</p>\n<p>Our prohibition on shopping questions has always struck me as philosophical. I support it, but think it's somewhat in opposition to a collegiate/academic paradigm of &quot;open discussion&quot;. It's not that shopping questions are unreasonable, not answerable, or answers not potentially useful. It's that we've collectively decided that their cost outweighs their benefit in this format.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4984", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5002, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not opining on whether or not your question should be closed, but I can answer the question &quot;why&quot; in a couple ways.</p>\n<ol>\n<li><p>The most proximate reason is that 5 users with sufficient reputation privileges have voted to close your question. 5 others can reopen it. Usually 5 is enough to indicate some level of community consensus; it's fairly rare that 5 people agree a question should be closed here if there isn't broader support for closure.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>The reasons selected for the close votes were a mix of the &quot;Strongly depends on individual factors&quot; and the &quot;Not within the scope of this community&quot; community-specific close reasons. I suspect the voters overall were seeing this as the sort of question that really depends on the specific circumstances and for which there isn't going to be a specific answer that doesn't say &quot;it depends&quot; or &quot;ask your advisor&quot;.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>The other question you linked is indeed quite old relative to how standards for question closing evolve in the community. It's sufficiently old that it shouldn't really be used as a guide, but I do think it's informative that the accepted answer there was &quot;<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/5573/63475\">It is utterly a matter of style. Just put it where it makes more sense to you.</a>&quot; - sometimes closing is more arbitrary than would be ideal due to item (1), but this is indeed the sort of question/answer pair that the &quot;Strongly depends on individual factors&quot; and &quot;the exact contents of some work&quot; are listed as reasons to close a question.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5003, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Your question asks &quot;where do I place a variable legend?&quot; There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this, and your university (or advisor) may have guidelines for how theses should be organized. And, the decision will ultimately need to take into account the nature of your thesis and its organization. So in its current form, the best answer is &quot;ask your advisor / university,&quot; hence the decision to close.</p>\n<p>Now if you like, you can edit to clarify that your university does not specify anything and that you are looking for pros/cons and &quot;best practices.&quot; That should salvage your question -- though, that might turn it into a duplicate of the post you linked, so you'd also need to explain why it's different.</p>\n<p>The old post you linked I think is correctly left open. It asks &quot;is it better to put the glossary at the beginning...or in the appendix,&quot; all other things being equal? This may seem like a subtle difference, but asking about the &quot;best practice&quot; or pros/cons of a particular approach is usually answerable.</p>\n<p>That said, I do agree that the title question on the old post should probably be improved...perhaps I'll do so after this is resolved. As it is, the old post has generated a few correct but useless answers (e.g., &quot;put it where it makes more sense to you&quot;), which is something we try to avoid.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5001", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/111347/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5006, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In general, concern about long-ago transgressions fall into two categories.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Very serious ones, where the misconduct could potentially lead to degree revocation. For these, we have <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/153661/what-are-the-criteria-for-degree-revocation\">this canonical question</a>.</li>\n<li>Less serious ones, where there is no real chance of suffering consequences, but there may be some guilt. In this case, the issue is not really academic, but psychological (&quot;scrupulosity&quot;, perhaps).</li>\n</ul>\n<p>We should avoid playing psychiatrist: we have no particular expertise to offer when it comes to dealing with feelings of guilt. So, questions about how to deal with guilt are mostly off-topic (I would recommend leaving a gentle explanation in the comments, or a link to this discussion). This was the case with the linked post.</p>\n<p>Similarly, we should avoid playing judge: it is not our role to adjudicate individual cases and decide whether the asker is guilty or not. So, questions asking us to judge their long-ago offense will mostly be dependent on individual factors.</p>\n<p>But, there may be a few questions where there is an actual academic question that is broad enough that it could be useful to others in the future. In such cases, the question is viable and should be left open.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5007, "author": "Arno", "author_id": 12047, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/12047", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I disagree with cag51 on this type of question being off-topic, despite agreeing that this ultimately is a psychological issue, and that we shouldn't play psychiatrist.</p>\n<p>What we can provide for these questions is a rough assessment on how serious the potential transgression is, and whether worrying about consequences or unpaid moral dues is reasonable or not. As an analogy, everyone will perceive a clear difference between &quot;15 years ago I stole a candybar and I'm worrying the law will catch up with me&quot; and &quot;15 years ago I murdered someone and I'm worrying the law will catch up with me&quot;. When it comes to violations of the academic code of conduct, it will be much less obvious for &quot;outsiders&quot; to judge.</p>\n<p>Of course, being told that the worry is unreasonable will not necessarily help the asker to stop worrying; and the question of how to do that is indeed off-topic here.</p>\n<p>A peculiarity of these questions is that whether the asker believes the answer is more of a concern than usual. For this reason, I'd be extra cautious with closing as duplicates here.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5005", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/45543/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5011, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The top-voted answer should appear on top, even if a different answer has been accepted (this is the new behavior on Stack Overflow).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5012, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The accepted answer should appear on top (this is the status quo).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5014, "author": "Allure", "author_id": 84834, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/84834", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Accepted answer should come first, because it is the one that answered the question. The person asking the question knows what kind of answer they need better than anyone else, so they should make that judgment call.</p>\n<p>Here's an <a href=\"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/57177/apparently-many-us-voters-think-their-candidate-supports-their-politics-even-if\">example</a> of a question I asked on the Politics.SE where the top-voted answer turned out to answer something that I didn't mean to ask. I edited the question to clarify that, but the top-voted answer remains the top-voted answer, and it should logically not appear at the top.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5015, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This post does not express a view either way, but provides some data (using queries from <a href=\"https://politics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5976/should-accepted-answers-still-be-pinned-to-the-top-of-the-list-of-answers?cb=1\">this Politics.SE post</a>, which I reran for Academia with various modifications).</p>\n<p>Findings:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>We have 10.0K posts with 2+ answers and an accepted answer</li>\n<li>Of these, there are 1,080 posts (10.8%) where the accepted answer has 3+ fewer votes than the top answer (on most questions, a clear difference).</li>\n<li>For 93 of these 1,080 posts (8.6%), the accepted answer was written at least 3 days after the top answer (and so the discrepency could be attributed to an excellent late answer)</li>\n<li>89 of these 1,080 questions (8.2%) are closed</li>\n<li>19 of these 1,080 accepted answers (1.8%) have a negative score (and there is at least one answer with a nonnegative score).</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5019, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I urge readers to vote to pin the accepted answer at the top of the page. This feature does a lot of silent good work whilst the very few annoying instances where an OP picks a (seemingly) obviously wrong answer are very scarce indeed, however memorable these are (see Cag51's post and the information therein).</p>\n<p>Despite the terms <em>voting</em> and <em>upvoted</em>, there is a severe problem in terms of how democratic the voting system is. Early posts get voted on a lot, later posts much, much less so. Around 48+ hours after a question is first posted, the number of views by active voting members drops off significantly.</p>\n<p>Pinning the accepted answer allows relatively 'late'-arriving but excellent and helpful answers to be recognised and pinned to the top of the page where they currently benefit readers. Without this feature some of the best and most helpful information on the site will languish unseen underneath a list of earlier mediocre answer posts. This current system still retains the benefit of having the highest-voted answer directly beneath the selected one. The new one will see many existing good posts vanish into obscurity.</p>\n<p>Another benefit of the current system is that the Original Poster is the only member who is routinely alerted to new answers, especially those that arrive weeks, months or years after the question is originally posted. Because of this, they are in by far the best position to curate their own question page, and, if appropriate, accept a late answer. Certainly, the slew of voters on the original few answers will not be notified and will not get the chance to vote anew on the full range of answers.</p>\n<p>Lastly, the current system affords some respect and agency to people who ask questions on the site. Whilst there are always vaguely annoying members in every aspect of the daily life of every SE site, we don't allow this to destroy or make us abandon useful and helpful features of the site. Where the odd muddle-headed OP might select the wrong answer, this is rarely anything more than an annoyance, and a rare one. In contrast if we in essence lose the selected answer feature, users will lose the benefit of many excellent posts and the helpful information that they provide. The vast majority of people asking questions here are sensible adults fully capable of making appropriate decisions regarding selected answers.</p>\n<p>Some SE sites, for instance SO, get thousands and thousands of views by active voting members. So, for example, the highest voted answer on SO has over 33,000 votes. On these sites a very high number of votes over a quite sustained period may be the best indicator of the accuracy and helpfulness of an answer. Here, however, this is not the case.</p>\n<p>The voting system on Academia SE is a good thing. However, it is not perfect for many reasons, including those detailed above. The 'accepted answer' feature helps provide checks and balances within the system. In particular it defends against the unintended and unwelcome tyranny of the early upvoted answer. Just like a healthy democracy, where second chambers and the separation of the legislature, the judiciary and the police provide safety in the form of checks and balances, the same is true of the accepted answer feature in its current form. Vote to keep it!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5020, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Among the choices given, I like pinning the accepted answer best. But my far preferred solution would be a change in the UI so that the individual reader can choose, either per-site or overall in their profile.</p>\n<p>I note that it is currently possible to order the answers various ways, of which &quot;by votes&quot; is the default. But a checkbox to pin (or unpin) the accepted answer (or not) along with choice on the ordering would be simple enough to implement.</p>\n<p>Note that with pinning the accepted answer, the top voted answer comes next by default, so it is trivial to find.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5026, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My answer to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/176215/75368\">this question</a> has gathered a ton of down votes and is accepted. It is currently hovering in negative space. Perhaps it is a case study for the question here.</p>\n<p>I stand by my answer there.</p>\n<p>I answered late as I explained in the first sentence. My prediction seems to have been correct.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5037, "author": "Jack Aidley", "author_id": 5614, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5614", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think the change is a mistake for Stack Overflow, because there answers are more clearly <em>objectively</em> right or wrong. I've seen many posts where an answer that simply doesn't work gets most votes, and the asker - who, unlike most voters, has actually tried the proposed solutions - has picked the answer that actually solves the problem.</p>\n<p>Since Academia is a more subjective Stack, where answers more often represent cultural norms or personal experience, I think this is less of an issue. None-the-less, the asker is usually the one who is best placed to judge the answers and most invested in whether they are suitable or not.</p>\n<p>It is natural to be irritated by those cases where a good quality, highly voted, answer appears below a low quality answer that is accepted, usually because it is the answer the OP was looking for from the start. However, these are - in my impression, at least - rare exceptions and it would be a mistake to change the system to account for the uncommon case rather than the common one.</p>\n<p>(As an aside: my preferred system would be to show the top voted answer first if it beats the accepted one by some margin of votes, say 50% more or 100% more, and a minimum of 10 votes or something. I don't think that can be implemented by individual stacks though so it's by-the-by)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5010", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5022, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>(<em>note: I'm writing this in my personal voice rather than with my moderator hat on, nothing here is endorsed or pre-approved by other moderators</em>)</p>\n<p>Generally, accusing others personally of racism, sexism, bigotry, or pretty much anything else is not in keeping with the <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/conduct\">Code of Conduct</a>; the soundness of the foundation of any evidence used to support those accusations is not particularly relevant here.</p>\n<p>However, on this particular site we frequently encounter situations in which it is necessary to describe behavior with one of these labels. I do not see a way around this without denying that behaviors that are racist, sexist, or bigoted exist in the real world. In those circumstances, the better practice on this website would be to ensure that these labels are placed on the <em>behavior</em>, rather than the person. It can be tempting to go a step further and extend those labels to the person, whether the goals in doing so are malicious, rhetorical, or merely sloppy writing; I certainly will not claim to be personally innocent of this though I try to be more thoughtful.</p>\n<p>When encountering content that is itself blatantly racist or otherwise violating the code of conduct, in many occasions better approach would be to flag that content rather than raising an accusation (which is likely to spark an argument). In other circumstances, when it seems someone else may have written something inadvertently or that they have not fully thought through their position, I think it's okay to raise those concerns in a comment, but be mindful of what your goals and intentions are: if you're honestly hoping for the other person to see your point of view, starting with a serious accusation is not likely to be fruitful and put the other party on the defensive instead.</p>\n<p>I'll end by acknowledging that there are counter-arguments to this stance in other venues. There are arguments that it is necessary to call out and name bigotry when it occurs and to refuse to allow people to be separated from their behaviors that impact other people negatively. I think there is room for academic scholarship on both understand why that is so important to people and also to understand what the implications are for making progress on these issues, and it's far from settled. With respect to this particular site, though, we're better off staying away from personal accusations.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5023, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think it's a fairly complex issue. In general, and going strictly by the CoC, the comments as well as the original answer should be removed. The comments for obvious reasons that zabop lays out in their question, but if we are being honest the answer is also a pretty transparent personal attack on the original poster (prior to a recent edit, it plainly said &quot;your behaviour is sexist&quot;).</p>\n<p><strong>That said, I am somewhat against deleting the answer.</strong> Mostly because it <em>is</em> a line of thinking that OP should be prepared for, because like it or not many of his colleagues will be thinking like that (even if few will be as direct about it). Pretending that none of OP's future colleagues will find his religious beliefs highly sexist and disagreeable would be a disservice to OP. So I think it is actually a useful answer for OP, even if other answers provide better solutions to the actual question that was being asked.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5021", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/103617/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5030, "author": "henning", "author_id": 31917, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/31917", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To repeat my comment here: awards are on-topic. We even have an <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/awards\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;awards&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">awards</a> tag. If awards are on-topic in general, major awards like the Nobel prize surely are on-topic as well. Regarding the individual points raised in the meta question about why the Nobel prize should be treated differently:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>there are many Nobel prizes that are &quot;related to academia&quot;. Those are on-topic</li>\n<li>Nobel prizes are often enough awarded to academic researchers and they carry huge prestige <em>in academia</em> (as well as outside)</li>\n<li>award committees and other bodies that matter for academia aren't always populated by members of academia, but that doesn't mean questions about their decisions are automatically off-topic (e.g. publishing companies, accreditation bodies, government agencies in education)</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5031, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My two cents....</p>\n<p>To the title question: <strong>yes, absolutely.</strong> When in doubt, we should try to accept questions, not try to close them.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>There are many a number of Nobel prizes, some of which are only very tenuously related to Academia. Similarly, there are many areas of Academia for which there is no Nobel prize.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Physics, economics, literature, medicine, and chemistry covers a wide swath of academia.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Nobel Prizes are awarded to individuals working in all sectors, including government, academia, industry, and individual work.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>So is this site.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The Nobel Committee is in no way &quot;academia&quot;... it is a small set of people who make decisions based on their own set of criteria, and their metrics don't necessarily align with academia's idea of success.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>This is perhaps the strongest argument; how much &quot;expertise&quot; can we offer about Nobel prizes? I doubt we have any laureates among us. Still, I suspect that we have enough expertise to handle many questions...and if not, the fact that none of the academics here were able to answer a question is probably also a meaningful outcome.</p>\n<p><strong>But, it is less clear to me what we should do with this specific question.</strong> This is a Q&amp;A site, and the Q in this case was:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I'm wondering if the Nobel Foundation has said anything about this.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I guess this is answerable, but the only way to find out is to Google around and then report &quot;I found something&quot; or &quot;I couldn't find anything.&quot; So, this does not seem like a great question to me (what can we do that OP couldn't do themselves?). On the other hand, it's possible that this question will lead to some interesting answers from which we all learn something; if so, then great.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5032, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is a bit of background only. I hope it is more appropriate here than it would be for the question it refers to.</p>\n<p>The Nobel prizes have a couple of problems, the first, at least, recognized from the very beginning. The first issue is that Nobel's original intention was to award it to <em>young</em> researchers at the start of their career, who showed promise, in order to give them funds for their research. But it was immediately recognized that there were a lot of old academics/scientists/etc whose work was so important that it was decided to first start with them. But it never changed back to the original purpose. Note that the prize is only given to living persons and so Stephen Hawking never &quot;earned&quot; one in spite of his contributions to physics and the understanding of the universe. Some of what he theorized was only verified after his death.</p>\n<p>The second problem is that the prizes are heavily, though not entirely, biased towards the sciences, and it is the sciences themselves that have a problem recognizing women's contributions. The imbalance in STEM fields is well recognized. There have been examples of prominent scientists (I think a Nobel winner) whose reputation was due to the work of an female member of his lab and he just appropriated her ideas as if they were his own. Clear plagiarism, unrecognized at the time.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5029", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5039, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One thing we should discuss is: <strong>Are there any places where it makes sense to have one answer that covers multiple countries?</strong> Perhaps countries where grad schools are very very similar? Or countries where our user base is so sparse that a &quot;regional&quot; answer is the best that we can probably do?</p>\n<p>For example: maybe Eastern Europe should be carved into two or three blocks, rather than trying to write 30+ answers? Or maybe even larger countries, like AU/NZ, have very similar grad school systems? I am an ignorant American, so these examples could be totally off.</p>\n<p>At this point, I am reasonably certain that we should have individual posts for the following countries:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>US</li>\n<li>Canada</li>\n<li>UK</li>\n<li>France</li>\n<li>India</li>\n<li>Japan</li>\n<li>China</li>\n</ul>\n<p>And that the following countries should be merged:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Germany / Austria</li>\n</ul>\n<p>Wondering about:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Australia / New Zealand / Oceania</li>\n<li>Eastern Europe</li>\n<li>South America</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5040, "author": "GoodDeeds", "author_id": 68109, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/68109", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There seems to be a potential for a lot of duplication in content between the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/38237/68109\">existing canonical question</a> for the US and the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/176908/68109\">new canonical question</a>. Even though the original focuses on &quot;weak or borderline students&quot;, good answers for the new one should ideally include that aspect as well.</p>\n<p>Since the original has multiple good answers, my suggestion is:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>Include important points from the old question in the answer to the new question.</li>\n<li>Close the old question as a duplicate to the new question.</li>\n<li>Prominently link back to the old question from the answer to the new question, so that the old answers are still easily accessible.</li>\n<li>Close all future duplicates as duplicates of the new question instead of the old question.</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5041, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>GoodDeeds <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5040/79875\">pointed out</a> that the old canonical question and this one overlap a bit in the case of the US. I agree this is an issue.</p>\n<p>My preferred solution is the following:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use the new question to explain <strong>how the admissions process for grad school works.</strong> That you have to apply to a committee and find an advisor afterwords, take the GRE, write a statement of purpose, etc. A lot of this could be migrated from the old canonical answer.</li>\n<li>Edit the old question to focus only on <strong>Will my application to a US grad school be competitive, and how can I improve it?</strong> This one will have the advice for writing strong essays, compensating for weak grades, etc. This will also explain why we can't answer the question &quot;can [my stats] get me into [my dream school]?&quot;</li>\n</ul>\n<p>I think this would be a lot better, because when someone posts &quot;I have a 3.5, can I get into Harvard&quot;, the current duplicate target &quot;How does grad school work&quot; seems like it doesn't really answer my question, but the new proposed title seems like a perfect fit.</p>\n<p><strong>Update:</strong> On closer examination, there was less overlap than I expected; the old question was already tightly focused on &quot;advice&quot; rather than &quot;process.&quot; For now, I updated the title to reflect this; so, perhaps, problem solved. We can discuss further if others see the need for more drastic disambiguation.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5042, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>We should also broaden the title question to include a brief description of what happens after you get admitted. For example: how long does a PhD usually take in country X? Is it all research, or classes too? Do most students who start end up finishing? Do you have to pay, or do you get paid? Etc.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5043, "author": "GoodDeeds", "author_id": 68109, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/68109", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>What should be done if a new duplicate question gets asked, but there is no answer for that specific country in this canonical target?</strong></p>\n<p>I see several reasonable options:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>Immediately close the question as a duplicate, and leave a comment asking readers to provide an answer to the canonical question. This has the advantage of avoiding answer duplication, but would probably prevent the new question from getting sufficient visibility, and it seems wrong to close a question as a duplicate when the target doesn't answer it.</li>\n<li>Leave the question open initially, and if it gets good answers, write a new answer to the canonical question and then close the new question as a duplicate of the canonical question.</li>\n<li>Leave the question open. Write an answer aggregating information from the new question and link back to the original.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>My preference is option 2.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5044, "author": "Lodinn", "author_id": 145124, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/145124", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Should the answer be only concerned with the international students seeking to apply/wondering what is it like?</p>\n<p>I have started putting something together about Russia where I work and in the process of doing so two things have became apparent:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>No one in their right mind would apply unless either:\n<ul>\n<li>Coming from some neighboring countries and speaking Russian freely (and being rich!)</li>\n<li>Escaping some truly terrible living conditions</li>\n<li>Being fully state-funded</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n<li>For those falling under state-backed exchange programs, it varies wildly case-by-case and does not make a whole lot of sense as a general answer. It also has little to do with the rest of academia here. Exchange students coming <em>in</em> as opposed to &quot;our&quot; students going abroad is a fairly alien concept to Russian academia still despite their numbers growing in the past years as a part of <a href=\"https://www.5top100.ru/en/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">5-100 program</a>.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>Is there even a point in the answer, given the circumstances? If yes, should it be focused on &quot;cold&quot; applications outside of these specifically created positions or try to describe what being a 5-100 student would be like?</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5038", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5046, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Thanks for bringing this up! Indeed, it seems like the &quot;canonical&quot; process of waiting for 4 approvals is broken (not enough reviewers), so time to bring out the mod hammers. Some quick thoughts.</p>\n<p>I approved and merged your suggestion about <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/publication\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;publication&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">publication</a> / <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/publications\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;publications&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">publications</a>.</p>\n<p>To me, the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/collaborator\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;collaborator&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">collaborator</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/facebook\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;facebook&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">facebook</a>, and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/twitter\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;twitter&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">twitter</a> examples seem similarly straightforward; barring any uproar here, I would suggest adding those and we'll hammer them through.</p>\n<p>There are only 4 <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mistakes\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;mistakes&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">mistakes</a> questions (and yet a ton of question posted here are about mistakes); my suggestion would be that we retag those questions rather than creating a synonym.</p>\n<p>The other three (<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/bullying\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;bullying&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">bullying</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/review\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;review&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">review</a>, and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/review-process\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;review-process&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">review-process</a>) seem more significant/complicated -- I suspect your suggestion is the right thing, but I would want to study more carefully and/or let others comment before taking any action on these ones.</p>\n<p>There is also an old suggestion about making <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/withdraw\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;withdraw&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">withdraw</a> a synonym of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/retraction\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;retraction&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">retraction</a>; this one is a bit complicated because &quot;withdraw&quot; is also used for withdrawing from studies (not just withdrawing a paper from consideration). This <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/withdraw\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;withdraw&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">withdraw</a> tag seems quite bimodal; we should think about ways to improve it (ideally, without having to retag most of its 116 questions).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5048, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"/questions/tagged/status-completed\" class=\"post-tag moderator-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;status-completed&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">status-completed</a></p>\n<h3><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mistakes\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;mistakes&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">mistakes</a> --&gt; <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/errors-erratum\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;errors-erratum&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">errors-erratum</a></h3>\n<p>I think a &quot;mistakes&quot; tag should not exist at all; virtually anything (e.g., sexual misconduct) could be framed as &quot;mistake.&quot; So, I suggest retagging those questions (there are only 4) and not creating a synonym.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5049, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"/questions/tagged/status-completed\" class=\"post-tag moderator-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;status-completed&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">status-completed</a></p>\n<h3><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/review\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;review&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">review</a> --&gt; <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/peer-review\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;peer-review&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">peer-review</a></h3>\n<p>I think this &quot;review&quot; tag should not exist. There are only 3 questions with this tag: one should be <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/peer-review\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;peer-review&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">peer-review</a>, one has to do with &quot;reviewing&quot; for a test, and one has to do with &quot;when a limitation is limitation and when its not&quot; (whatever that might mean). Thus, it seems there is no real historical need for this tag, and if we make it a synonym, people will likely use it on situations that don't involve peer review.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5050, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"/questions/tagged/status-completed\" class=\"post-tag moderator-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;status-completed&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">status-completed</a></p>\n<h3><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/bully\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;bully&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">bully</a> &amp; <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/bullying\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;bullying&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">bullying</a>--&gt; <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/abuse\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;abuse&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">abuse</a></h3>\n<p>To me, this is the hardest one. &quot;bully[ing]&quot; is certainly a form of personal misconduct, but it seems like a very distinct subset.</p>\n<p>GoodDeeds wrote in the comments:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I think [bully] should be desynonymized from [personal-misconduct] and made a synonym of [bullying] instead.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I suspect this is the best way to go. And, maybe we should make both <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/bully\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;bully&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">bully</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/bullying\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;bullying&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">bullying</a> a synonym of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/abuse\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;abuse&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">abuse</a>. It's true that abuse is broader than just bullying (e.g., torturing lab rats is abuse but not bullying), but the vast majority of the questions tagged with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/abuse\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;abuse&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">abuse</a> are about mistreatment by a supervisor.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5054, "author": "Sursula", "author_id": 133549, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/133549", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Update:</strong> This is now being discussed in <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5056/\">this thread</a>.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>While we're at it: let's delete the tag <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/undergradute\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;undergradute&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">undergradute</a> altogether, since it is just a mispronunciation of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/undergraduate\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;undergraduate&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">undergraduate</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5055, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<h3><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/withdraw\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;withdraw&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">withdraw</a> --&gt; <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/quitting\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;quitting&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">quitting</a></h3>\n<p>For those questions using the withdraw tag in the sense of withdrawing from a program, rather than withdrawing a paper prior to a decision. The quitting tag exists for several question already. This may not be a synonym addition, but just a scan through the questions and tag updates. Painful though. But the tag wiki needs to be clear - even in the short version, though not everyone pays much attention.</p>\n<p>Making the necessary tag changes to a number of the 116 questions with the withdraw tag will mess up the active questions list for a while.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5045", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/68109/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5051, "author": "EarlGrey", "author_id": 128758, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/128758", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>ADHD is defined as a mental illness or a mental disorder, so it should fall under the health category.</p>\n<p>Since we are discussing ADHD in relation to the academic life of a person in his adult age, I would like to add a side consideration (and somehow a darker tone). In the recent past women were declared insane during the menopause. And for this reason they were forced to go to mental institution, as late as in the 60s.</p>\n<p>Menopause mental disorder, on the other hand, is now a recognized mental disorder (perimenopausal mental disorders, to be more precise).</p>\n<p>Long story short: would you conisder having a menopause tag?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5052, "author": "Scott Seidman", "author_id": 20457, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20457", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Personally, I think that <em>most</em> of the questions concerning psychological disorders should be closed as dupes, and pointed to some <em>good</em> grand answer on the issue.</p>\n<p>The counter to that argument would be that individuals can be helped by being responsive to their special issues. I'd counter that by saying if that's the case, then the question should be closed as being strongly dependent on individual factors.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5053, "author": "Alexander Gruber", "author_id": 4545, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4545", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I recommend keeping these questions. School is not designed for (and often hostile to) people with ADHD, thus <a href=\"https://chadd.org/about-adhd/long-term-outcomes/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">many underachieve</a> and do not make it to higher levels of academia. Therefore, most academic advice out there on the internet for people with ADHD tends to be geared towards children, high school students, or college freshman. This is one of the only places I can think of that could host advice for ADHD folks trying to do serious academic work. There are a lot of novel problems that come with that which are inherently on topic.</p>\n<p>I'd also like to push back on merging the tag with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mental-health\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;mental-health&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">mental-health</a>, because the experience of ADHD is very different from things like depression or imposter syndrome or burnout. It really doesn't belong with those-- and while we're at it, neither does autism. It would be more appropriate to create a <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/neurodivergence\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;neurodivergence&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">neurodivergence</a> tag for these, if you must have an umbrella. These are not health problems, and there are many who would be fairly cheesed to see them considered as such.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5063, "author": "Azor Ahai -him-", "author_id": 37441, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/37441", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Let me suggest an idea, based on conversations on this page, and also the <a href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/help/tagging\">function of tags</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A tag is a word or phrase that describes the topic of the question. Tags are a means of connecting experts with questions they will be able to answer by sorting questions into specific, well-defined categories.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>So let's imagine someone comes to this site looking for help with their (a) chronic illness; or (b) ADHD.</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p>Separate <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/health\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;health&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">health</a> from <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mental-health\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;mental-health&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">mental-health</a>. That never sat very well with me earlier.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Let's say person A wants to read about other people's health problems, well half of them are about mental health or ADHD (or similar), that's no use to them, or vice versa.</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n<li><p>Leave <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mental-health\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;mental-health&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">mental-health</a> for things like depression, and burnout. I also frankly have no issue creating tags for common mental health problems (they aren't a limited resource). Even if you tag your country, level, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mental-health\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;mental-health&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">mental-health</a>, and the problem, that's four tags.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>I can see person B perusing this tag to see what else has worked for other people.</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n<li><p><strong>Suggestion:</strong> To encompass both diagnosed disorders¹ and just general quirks, why don't we try <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/personal-psychology\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;personal-psychology&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">personal-psychology</a>. Again, I have no issue with creating sub-tags like <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/adhd\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;adhd&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">adhd</a> as needed, so that someone who has learned to succeed in academia with their ADHD can follow it and be helpful, but not also be bogged down by <em>every</em> question in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/health\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;health&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">health</a>.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>This can cover questions like <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/177046/help-with-becoming-overly-obsessive-about-mathematics\"><em>Help with becoming overly obsessive (about mathematics)</em></a>, which is currently tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/health\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;health&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">health</a>, which is borderline IMO.</li>\n<li>But in conjunction with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/adhd\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;adhd&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">adhd</a> you could use it on suggested questions <em>Avoiding ADHD stigma as a grad student</em>, or <em>Will it reduce my authority to tell my students I have ADHD so they don't interrupt and derail me during lecture?</em> or <em>My PI doesn't believe in ADHD and wants me to resist giving students accommodations</em> (thanks <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4545/alexander-gruber\">Alexander</a>).</li>\n<li>No, it wouldn't probably be a big follow target, but it declutters <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/health\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;health&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">health</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p>This avoids the issue with calling certain things &quot;disorders&quot; (which wouldn't be relevant for the above question anyway). This paradigm would also mean we don't have to create a fuzzy tag like <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/neurodiversity\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;neurodiversity&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">neurodiversity</a> which, if applied to the question above, makes it almost useless as a category when asking questions about how to deal with your own brain.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>1: I'm going to use it for now because, after all, it is what the &quot;D&quot; in ADHD and ASD stand for. While I concede there is a school of thought (which I support) and that individuals living with these may not consider them disorders, others <em>do</em> and so instead of coming down on one side of the debate, let's use a different term.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5047", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5059, "author": "GoodDeeds", "author_id": 68109, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/68109", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Currently, the fourteen questions tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/guaranteed-admissions\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;guaranteed-admissions&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">guaranteed-admissions</a> seem to roughly lie in one of the following categories:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>&quot;What are my chances of getting admitted to program X?&quot; - 6 questions</li>\n<li>&quot;Does X matter for graduate admissions? Will focusing on X make my application stronger?&quot; - 5 questions</li>\n<li>Completely off-topic / unclear - 2 questions</li>\n<li>A question about a Guaranteed Admissions Program, that likely created the tag, as you pointed out.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>So I agree that the tag is inappropriate for the first three categories, since admissions are not <em>guaranteed</em> in those contexts. And questions like <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/145426/68109\">this</a> asking &quot;Am I guaranteed to be admitted because of X?&quot; are (1) almost always off-topic due to depending on individual factors, (2) do not need a separate tag beyond <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/graduate-admissions\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;graduate-admissions&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">graduate-admissions</a>.</p>\n<p>Regarding the fourth category, I am not very familiar with such programs, but it seems having a tag could be useful <em>if</em> the scope of usage is restricted and made clear. One aspect I am not sure about is that such some universities seem to have such programs for undergraduate admissions, which would be off-topic here, and so should be left out of the scope.</p>\n<p>My vote on this is:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>Remove the tag from all the questions currently tagged except the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/115225/68109\">original one</a>.</li>\n<li>Either:\n<ol>\n<li>Rename the tag to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/guaranteed-admissions-programs\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;guaranteed-admissions-programs&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">guaranteed-admissions-programs</a> with a clear and narrow scope.</li>\n<li>Delete the tag.</li>\n</ol>\n</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5060, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My preference would be to <strike> remove the tag all-together . Make it an orphan by removing it from some questions and retagging as necessary. It seems too specialized with only one really relevant question and not much chance of getting more. Out. Out, I say.</strike></p>\n<p>... retag some of the questions as necessary and keep this one for things that truly apply. This has just been accomplished, I think. Perhaps &quot;open-admissions&quot; and this one will wind up as synonyms. See the new wiki for the tag.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5058", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/77878/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5065, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<blockquote>\n<p>misspelling</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Agree that this is a misspelling. I expected it was a valid alternate spelling in some corner of the Anglophone world, but it appears to be a simple error.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Can this be fixed?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Not by Academia.SE mods. This seems to be a site-wide issue, and if there is any client-side control over this text, it is not something we have access to either. As Bryan said in the comments, the next step would be to make the request on Meta.SE, if it hasn't already been requested (but these types of bugs tend to be considered low priority).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5090, "author": "KyleMit", "author_id": 40878, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/40878", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Thank you for the report! This has been fixed sitewide, along with another 21 other &quot;<em>occurrences</em>&quot; of the same misspelling.</p>\n<p>Interestingly, this is one of <a href=\"https://www.englishclub.com/spelling/misspellings.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><em>the 100 most common misspellings</em></a> and not a single person in my house could spell it either.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5064", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/148795/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5067, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Thanks for bringing this up. I suspect a few of our tags have similar issues, including <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/professors\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;professors&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">professors</a>. But let's start with this one for now. My two cents....</p>\n<p>So first, we already have an <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/undergraduate\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;undergraduate&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">undergraduate</a> tag. This is for questions related to providing teaching, advising, or research mentorship to undergraduate students, and excludes questions that could also be relevant for post-graduate students.</p>\n<p>We do not have a corresponding <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/graduate-student\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;graduate-student&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">graduate-student</a> tag. However, we do have a <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/supervision\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;supervision&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">supervision</a> tag, which in practice covers most of the academic services that faculty provide to grad students.</p>\n<p>So, I am not sure why we need a <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/students\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;students&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">students</a> tag at all. Most questions &quot;about students&quot; (e.g., their characteristics and preferences) should use the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/undergraduate\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;undergraduate&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">undergraduate</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/supervision\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;supervision&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">supervision</a>, or <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;teaching&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">teaching</a> tags. Questions from students should use the appropriate tag (e.g., <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/advisor\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;advisor&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">advisor</a> or <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/academic-integrity\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;academic-integrity&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">academic-integrity</a> or <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/grades\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;grades&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">grades</a> or whatever the issue is). If there are on-topic questions from students about issues not covered by our existing tags, we should create those tags rather than falling back to a generic &quot;students&quot; tag.</p>\n<p>Sadly, the only way to implement this would be to remove the tag from all 449 questions (which will bump each of the old questions back to the front page). We could do a couple per day for the next few months, but this is a major decision; we should make sure we want to do this before we commit to it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5120, "author": "Daniel R. Collins", "author_id": 43544, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/43544", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It would have been better if we'd left this well enough alone. As @cag51 said in their answer, &quot;Sadly, the only way to implement this would be to remove the tag from all 449 questions (which will bump each of the old questions back to the front page).&quot;</p>\n<p>So it's somewhat surprising that this was in fact the course that's been taken, for an issue that apparently only two people cared enough to speak about previously. Sure enough, the front page of SE Academia has been churned on a daily basis since then, with lots of half-decade old questions returning to the front page, and lots of clearly-confused posters writing comments and answers to questions that had already been settled years ago.</p>\n<p>At a minimum, I recommend that very old tag-editing like this include a comment on the changed questions about why the edit in question has been made at the present time.</p>\n<p>And I recommend that we not go through this again for other tags.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5066", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5071, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The question had 2 upvotes and 1 downvote the day before it went on the Hot Network Questions (HNQ) at 06:00; on that day it got about 20 upvotes, though I can't say how many came before or after that 06:00 time, I'd be comfortable guessing that most came after.</p>\n<p>It was in the close votes queue where it received Leave Open × 3 and Close × 2, which took it out of the queue. Later it attracted 4 close votes, but they were spaced out in time and didn't reach the 5 vote threshold for closure.</p>\n<p>In summary, it seems this was perceived as a borderline question by the community, and got most of the voting support after it was on the HNQ, where people from around the network are attracted to visit and vote on a question.</p>\n<p>Overall the question did attract a lot more close-vote activity than most well-received questions here, but it wasn't enough to close the question and a simple majority (3/5) of people in the community who voted during review chose to leave it open.</p>\n<p>I think now it's worth considering how we should treat questions going forward, but I'm not sure what the value of closing this question <em>now</em> is. It's already attracted lots of answers, which is what closing is meant to prevent. We could delete it but that would cover up a lot of work people put into answers and discussion. We could give it a historical lock if it was continually being bumped or otherwise causing long-term problems, but that doesn't seem to be happening.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5072, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The question should be closed. There is no need for more confusing rule exceptions.</p>\n<p>Brian Krause's description shows the question has not been closed yet because very few people have participated in close voting.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5073, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I have a problem with the whole notion of a general &quot;shopping question&quot; issue. I agree completely that we should not be making recommendations of specific universities and educational programs, but, while it is generally interpreted as prohibiting &quot;listy&quot; questions, there are formal exceptions - software recommendations for example.</p>\n<p>That seems inconsistent to me. I've been caught once or twice recommending closure when most others disagree.</p>\n<p>While the linked question is stated in a way to be &quot;listy&quot;, I think the intent of the OP was really just to understand how heat index and citation count works in the real world. I don't care much about such things so didn't get involved, but I don't see that intent as improper here. The OP doesn't have an action in mind, but just understanding. We should be able to honor that.</p>\n<p>Perhaps what we really need is to rethink the concept of &quot;shopping&quot; so that it is more consistent in application. The fact that this post exists points to the need to rethink it. And note that other sites don't (all) have such a restriction.</p>\n<p>FWIW, I'm somewhat uncomfortable allowing software recommendations. Those also have an &quot;action&quot; component to them, not just one of understanding how academia works. But avoiding recommendations of schools/fields seems to me to be an important thing to keep.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>Some seem to adhere to the principle that questions need to be amenable to a &quot;best&quot; answer. But the best answer for an OP may be far, far, suboptimal for others. And academia, being a human endeavor, has enough variability that &quot;best&quot; is elusive (at best). There are too many variables and the fit together in too many combinations for universal answers to many things. We should recognize and honor that.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5070", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/133549/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5075, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'll add to this as I consider further.</p>\n<p>I think <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/nursing\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;nursing&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">nursing</a> should stay provided there are any questions validly using it - even if closed. It is a valid field even if not common here. There are both research and practice (clinical) doctorates: <a href=\"https://www.gradschools.com/doctorate/nursing\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.gradschools.com/doctorate/nursing</a>. Also <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doctoral_degrees_in_the_US\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doctoral_degrees_in_the_US</a></p>\n<p>I think <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/industrial\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;industrial&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">industrial</a> should go or be a synonym to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/industry\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;industry&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">industry</a>.</p>\n<p>I <em>really</em> think that all the country tags need to stay since many of our questions depend on country specific policies. Even <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/eu\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;eu&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">eu</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/europe\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;europe&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">europe</a> can be distinguished.</p>\n<p>I'm worried about <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/minority\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;minority&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">minority</a> being a synonym of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/inclusivity\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;inclusivity&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">inclusivity</a>. They don't really mean the same thing.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/socializing\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;socializing&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">socializing</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/interpersonal-issues\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;interpersonal-issues&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">interpersonal-issues</a> are used very differently. One has a positive impulse and the other almost always negative. Maybe they both need to be synonyms of something else like <em>personal-relations</em> or such.</p>\n<p>Note that I've been scanning for single question tags and editing where it makes sense. The mobility tag is now moot (not my fault). I also scan frequently for new tags and try to replace/remove them.</p>\n<p>More....</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5094, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I had a look into the few questions tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/minority\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;minority&#39;\" aria-label=\"show questions tagged &#39;minority&#39;\" rel=\"tag\" aria-labelledby=\"minority-container\">minority</a>, which is the only tag not yet handled in the list:</p>\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/157547/20058\">How can faculty best telegraph work-life balance challenges under COVID to our administration?</a> For this one, I think that the tag is unnecessary.</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/124042/20058\">Gender, Independence, and Authorship</a> This one is closed as opinion-based.</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/102851/20058\">Non Anglo and older grad school applicant</a> This one is closed as duplicate, it doesn't have any answer, and the duplicate target doesn't have the tag.</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/115217/20058\">Do US universities publish an official definition of what constitutes a particular race/ethnicity in the context of scholarships or admissions?</a> For this one, it seems to me that the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/inclusivity\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;inclusivity&#39;\" aria-label=\"show questions tagged &#39;inclusivity&#39;\" rel=\"tag\" aria-labelledby=\"inclusivity-container\">inclusivity</a> tag would be OK.</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/94581/20058\">How do I incorporate/emphasize my experiences teaching at an HBCU?</a> Here's the tag seems OK (thanks to Buffy for clarifying the usage in a comment).</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/94553/20058\">Are universities strongly associated with ethnic minority groups a thing outside the USA?</a> For this one, there are also the tags <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/ethnicity\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;ethnicity&#39;\" aria-label=\"show questions tagged &#39;ethnicity&#39;\" rel=\"tag\" aria-labelledby=\"ethnicity-container\">ethnicity</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/diversity\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;diversity&#39;\" aria-label=\"show questions tagged &#39;diversity&#39;\" rel=\"tag\" aria-labelledby=\"diversity-container\">diversity</a>, and probably <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/minority\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;minority&#39;\" aria-label=\"show questions tagged &#39;minority&#39;\" rel=\"tag\" aria-labelledby=\"minority-container\">minority</a> is redundant.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>In view of the above, I'd be in favour of deleting the tag <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/minority\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;minority&#39;\" aria-label=\"show questions tagged &#39;minority&#39;\" rel=\"tag\" aria-labelledby=\"minority-container\">minority</a>—replacing it with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/inclusivity\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;inclusivity&#39;\" aria-label=\"show questions tagged &#39;inclusivity&#39;\" rel=\"tag\" aria-labelledby=\"inclusivity-container\">inclusivity</a> in the very few instances where it is appropriate—because at the moment there's not enough base of questions to have it around.</p>\n<p>If in the future questions genuinely needing the tag appear, we can always reintroduce it.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5074", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/133549/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5077, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I downvote answers as &quot;not helpful&quot; if they are nothing but a superficial repeat of existing answers, especially when they are particularly low-effort. However, it's worth taking care that sometimes there are multiple ways to say the same thing, and some of those ways can be better than others. That can include answers that are <em>brief and direct</em>, even when other answers provide more context and detail. Synthesizing multiple other answers into one answer can also be useful. I've frequently added my own answer to a question that's more or less the same as other answers but I feel needs to be more clear on a key point.</p>\n<p>Mods can &quot;protect&quot; questions to prevent no-rep users from answering; often HNQ-featured questions get this protection (though it isn't supposed to be a reason to protect by itself, HNQ tends to go hand-in-hand with the reasons a question <em>should</em> be protected) which helps avoid these answers. <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/52764/what-is-a-protected-or-highly-active-question\">High rep users can also protect questions (with a couple limiting criteria)</a>, and I think you can be fairly loose with this option when it is available to you and you're seeing people chime in with non-answer answers.</p>\n<p>If an answer consists of &quot;I agree with Buffy's answer, but (wanted to make a side comment or contribute to discussion)&quot;, you can flag as &quot;not an answer&quot; and it will likely be converted to a comment or removed. Answers should stand on their own, and while it's fine to reference other answers in your own answer, it shouldn't be necessary to <em>read</em> other answers to get to a complete one. Feel free to flag outright plagiarism of other answers, as well (better to use a custom flag for that so a moderator knows what to look for); these can be machine-automated attempts at gathering rep to use for spam or other nefarious purposes.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5078, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n<p>One possibility would just be some advice in the help pages</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The best help page to give this piece of advice would probably be in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer\">How do I write a good answer?</a> However, this page is the same network-wide and not customizable by site moderators. Within the pages that are customizable, I don't see a good place for that addition. Furthermore, help pages are likely only read after someone points out issues with a post.</p>\n<p>About what to do, I agree with <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5077/20058\">Bryan's answer</a>, but let me stress that flagging could be particularly useful in case of repeated instances from the same user, so that in case we can advise them with a moderator message.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5076", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5077, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I downvote answers as &quot;not helpful&quot; if they are nothing but a superficial repeat of existing answers, especially when they are particularly low-effort. However, it's worth taking care that sometimes there are multiple ways to say the same thing, and some of those ways can be better than others. That can include answers that are <em>brief and direct</em>, even when other answers provide more context and detail. Synthesizing multiple other answers into one answer can also be useful. I've frequently added my own answer to a question that's more or less the same as other answers but I feel needs to be more clear on a key point.</p>\n<p>Mods can &quot;protect&quot; questions to prevent no-rep users from answering; often HNQ-featured questions get this protection (though it isn't supposed to be a reason to protect by itself, HNQ tends to go hand-in-hand with the reasons a question <em>should</em> be protected) which helps avoid these answers. <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/52764/what-is-a-protected-or-highly-active-question\">High rep users can also protect questions (with a couple limiting criteria)</a>, and I think you can be fairly loose with this option when it is available to you and you're seeing people chime in with non-answer answers.</p>\n<p>If an answer consists of &quot;I agree with Buffy's answer, but (wanted to make a side comment or contribute to discussion)&quot;, you can flag as &quot;not an answer&quot; and it will likely be converted to a comment or removed. Answers should stand on their own, and while it's fine to reference other answers in your own answer, it shouldn't be necessary to <em>read</em> other answers to get to a complete one. Feel free to flag outright plagiarism of other answers, as well (better to use a custom flag for that so a moderator knows what to look for); these can be machine-automated attempts at gathering rep to use for spam or other nefarious purposes.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5078, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n<p>One possibility would just be some advice in the help pages</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The best help page to give this piece of advice would probably be in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer\">How do I write a good answer?</a> However, this page is the same network-wide and not customizable by site moderators. Within the pages that are customizable, I don't see a good place for that addition. Furthermore, help pages are likely only read after someone points out issues with a post.</p>\n<p>About what to do, I agree with <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5077/20058\">Bryan's answer</a>, but let me stress that flagging could be particularly useful in case of repeated instances from the same user, so that in case we can advise them with a moderator message.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5079", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8760/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5085, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Most questions about academia that are not allowed on this site are best answered by an academic at your university. Ask one of them, or ask them who to ask.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5086, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p><strong>Probably not on StackExchange.</strong> Note that SE makes no claim to &quot;span the space&quot;; there are many questions that do not fit on any SE in the network. These include both questions that &quot;could&quot; belong on a SE (for example, we currently have no SE about the Persian language, though other languages do have an SE and a Persian one might be created in the future), and questions that are not a good fit for our format at all (e.g., &quot;What is the best kind of apple?&quot; will never be on-topic, regardless how many SEs we open).</p>\n<p>Off site, I sometimes see people get directed to reddit, though I personally have no idea which of the subreddits are complementary to us.</p>\n<p>Regarding undergrads: these days, our stance is that we don't take questions about undergrad admissions, life, or culture. Everything else is OK, including questions about coursework, advising, ethics, graduate admissions, etc.</p>\n<p>But I suspect the real problem might not be that your questions are off-topic, but that you are not phrasing them in a way that is likely to generate answers. Looking at <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/178424/asking-for-a-recommendation-letter-when-i-am-only-close-with-professors-that-ha\">this</a> one as an example, let me give some hints:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>This seems like a duplicate; we have many, many questions in our archives about how to handle letters of recommendation when you don't have many strong relationships with professors. <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/107823/recommendation-letter-from-professor-who-doesnt-know-me-very-well\">This</a> one, for example. If you've already read these questions but your issue is not resolved, you should make sure the difference between your question and the existing ones is clear.</li>\n<li>The title doesn't have a question mark, and when the question finally appears (in the third paragraph), you ask &quot;is the assertion above true?&quot;. Being crystal clear and very direct about what you're asking is very important (both here and in real life).</li>\n<li>We also recommend posting one question per post. Adding another question in the last paragraph tends to make things incoherent.</li>\n<li>Counter-intuitively, shorter tends to be better. I would challenge you to rewrite the question using half as many words. People can always ask for more details in the comments.</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5084", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/141751/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5096, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>These answers should not be allowed.</strong> We already have flags for &quot;not an answer&quot;, and a response to a reference request that doesn't provide a reference is certainly &quot;not an answer&quot; to the actual question. Thus, under existing policy, such answers should be deleted. There is no need for &quot;zero-tolerance&quot; -- flaggers and mods can handle cases individually -- but in most cases, such answers should be deleted.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5097, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>These answers should be decided by upvotes/downvotes, as now.</strong> Upvotes and downvotes will reward and punish the best answers. Often the answer to a reference request is &quot;there are no references,&quot; and so empirical answers are the best we can do. Of course, flaggers and mods can decide on cases individually -- but in most cases, we should not delete such answers.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5098, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Note that many questions on the site have partial answers and even answers that don't, precisely, follow the instructions of the OP. Too many questions, IMO, are of the Yes/No variety, so, technically, a one word answer would follow the OPs instructions, and be useless.</p>\n<p>But the site isn't intended as a resource pool like a library is. It is a site that offers advice to academics on their questions and often enough the question they ask are subtle enough that explanation is needed, even redirection. Academics have misconceptions like anyone else.</p>\n<p>I'll admit that I'm one of the &quot;offenders&quot; here. I try to label my answers as partial or advisory when they aren't technically answers. For such resource requests I might answer when I think that the existence of the resource is very unlikely but that orthogonal thinking might resolve the OPs need for the resource.</p>\n<p>I think we are fine without disadvantaging such answers. The OP can ignore them, and others with similar concerns might benefit from them.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5099, "author": "Federico Poloni", "author_id": 958, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/958", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Downvote and add a comment</strong> to make it clear what the problem with that answer is.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5100, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>These answers should not be allowed, but we should not delete them retroactively and for new questions we should first notify the post author with a post notice.</strong></p>\n<p>In case we decide to no longer allow these kind of answers, I think it would be unfair to the answerers of the already existing questions to delete their answers after the policy has become effective.</p>\n<p>For newer questions, I think that before deleting an answer, moderators should invite the author to add references by adding the following post notice and wait a few days before deleting:</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/9bTE2.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/9bTE2.png\" alt=\"Post notice for reference requests\" /></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5106, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Questions which request references should be checked to see if they question is about the &quot;content of research.&quot; If it is, then the long-standing practice is to close the question.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5110, "author": "jakebeal", "author_id": 22733, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/22733", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The appropriate response depends on the &quot;hardness&quot; of the reference request, which depends on how the tag is interpreted.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>&quot;Hard&quot; reference requests give clear reasons why an experience-based answer is not acceptable, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/61383/why-has-the-time-spent-studying-declined-so-sharply-in-the-united-states-over-th/61409#61409\">as in this well-received example</a>. In the case of a &quot;hard&quot; reference request, an answer without a reference is not an answer and should be downvoted and/or deleted.</li>\n<li>&quot;Soft&quot; reference requests bundle &quot;have there been any studies?&quot; in with a larger question that can often be answered without references, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/45401/to-what-extent-do-the-religious-beliefs-of-an-author-affect-a-papers-chance-of/45452#45452\">such as this example where my answer was accepted with no references</a>. In this case, references are optional and reference-free answers are entirely reasonable to consider.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>The distinction between &quot;hard&quot; and &quot;soft&quot;, however, is a matter of interpretation and may change as the question is edited.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5095", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5102, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Thank you for removing the tag!</p>\n<p>There is a daily script that automatically removes the unused tags, so no need to take any further action.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5109, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I tend to look at the &quot;New&quot; tags every day. Often enough there is a tag there with a single question but no tag wiki. Sometimes I'll leave it (and think about appropriate wiki). Sometimes I'll edit the question and supply other tags instead, deleting that one.</p>\n<p>I left <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/persistent-identifiers\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;persistent-identifiers&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">persistent-identifiers</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reprint\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;reprint&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">reprint</a> as they seem to me to be useful, though the latter still has no wiki.</p>\n<p>Not every keyword in a post should be a tag (IMO).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5101", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/133549/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5104, "author": "Federico Poloni", "author_id": 958, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/958", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<blockquote>\n<p>can we do something about all those answers not meeting [the criteria]?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Just click on that button with a triangle pointing down. That's the Stack Exchange way.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5105, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This question violates the spirit of the ban on &quot;shopping questions&quot; as defined in <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3658/13240\">https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3658/13240</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5107, "author": "Allure", "author_id": 84834, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/84834", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think this kind of misses the point, for several reasons:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>It's impractical to prove that an example doesn't exist.</li>\n<li>Given that it's impractical to prove that an example doesn't exist, unless an example meeting all criteria is available, the next-best answer is an example that meets some of the criteria, i.e. partial answers.</li>\n<li>It's probable the OP will be interested in partial answers, since they are after all the next-best available answer.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>Ultimately it's for the OP to decide if the answers are helpful. If they don't object, then others shouldn't either.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5108, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The question is a distraction, perhaps, but a pleasant distraction. If it gives the users (and those providing early answers are frequent users) a bit of room to stretch their mental muscles then it does little harm. And it informs the rest of us about an interesting topic. Too rigid adherence to the rules can make the place dull. Leave it be, please. Keep calm and carry on.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5103", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/12047/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5112, "author": "Ian", "author_id": 120956, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/120956", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<h4>Yes, we should allow questions requesting recommendations for software which focus on completing tasks important in academia, including drawing software.</h4>\n<p>As <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958/federico-poloni\">Federico Poloni</a> mentions in the linked <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4675/what-are-the-limits-of-shopping-questions-when-it-comes-to-software\">Meta post</a></p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Using software to teach, do research and write papers is a part of our work....Suppose you need to find a good linear algebra book; would you ask a linear algebra expert, or a &quot;book expert&quot;?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>To be considered on topic, such questions should be properly scoped as <a href=\"https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic\">outlined by SoftwareRecs.SE</a>. Questions should include:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<ol>\n<li>A purpose — a task to accomplish, a user story</li>\n<li>Some objective requirements — a minimum set of features</li>\n<li>Manifest relevance to a large swath of academia -- i.e., questions about drawing figures generally would be disallowed (not specific to academia), as would questions about diagrams showing submerged baskets (only relevant to a certain subfield).</li>\n</ol>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5114, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This site should continue to be limited to topics <em>specific</em> to academia. Drawing, and drawing software, are part of academia, but they are also part of all other industries. Questions about drawing software should go where they have traditionally gone: <a href=\"https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/drawing?tab=Votes\">https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/drawing?tab=Votes</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5111", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5118, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>My understanding is that we already take questions about the &quot;practical undertaking of research&quot; so long as it can be addressed by academics generally rather than requiring knowledge of a particular subfield. This question comes to mind as a well-received, on-topic question about research: <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/124654\">How to by-pass bioethics for a trivial bio-experiment?</a></p>\n<p>I agree that the list you linked doesn't indicate that these questions are allowed. Perhaps we should add:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<ol start=\"6\">\n<li>the academic research process</li>\n</ol>\n</blockquote>\n<p>we could add add a qualifier &quot;(but not domain-specific questions about research)&quot;, but the more concise sentence seems to better fit with the existing list.</p>\n<p><strong>Update:</strong> I added bullet #6 as written to the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic\">linked page</a>; this seemed to be the common denominator that (most) everyone liked. Some alternative phrasings and other potentially good ideas were raised in the comments -- if anyone would like to pursue any of these further, please make a new meta post with a specific proposal so that the community can consider.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5119, "author": "Lodinn", "author_id": 145124, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/145124", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I was prompted to ask nearly the same by the discussion under the academic grants question as well and believe that if not for the scope, the community would benefit from a clearer guidance.</p>\n<p>That is, it is obvious that if shopping questions (and overly specific questions in general) are allowed, they would overtake the site and would be of not much use to most people reading, which is not the SE way. However, I find it a bit baffling to not be provided with any directions whatsoever.</p>\n<p>To be clear, I do not mean that academia.SE should massively expand its operations all of a sudden - rather, the scenario of someone asking a question and being bounced back to their academic network is way too common. They obviously do not have a strong network in place, maybe their advisor is utterly unhelpful or even useless, maybe their university does not provide the required infrastructure and yet the advice they get is akin to &quot;just stop being poor&quot;. Personally, that leaves a bad taste - it does not seem to be at all impossible to help those in need of the actual networking they have probably hoped to find here in some shape or form, although it is also obvious this could not possibly fit the SE format.</p>\n<p>To that end, I would suggest adding a collection of links to external resources in a form of community question. Maybe a &quot;guide to finding academic connections online if your on-site facilities are lacking&quot;. Anything better than &quot;you get to a good place or die trying, this is the way of academia and has been by generations, follow the same path&quot; would be an improvement, IMHO.</p>\n<p>Wrapping it up: expanding the scope of the community - no, looking for ways to provide help when we could not answer these questions - yes.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5117", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/147829/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5132, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There has been some tension on this across SE. One view is that as a repository of questions and answers, the entire <em>point</em> of SE is to be the most useful/top Google result for whatever question you would ask. Even if you can get the answer on Google easily, if it isn't on SE yet <em>it should be</em> because this format is thought to be the best way to get people to the information they need from the question they have. Certainly for many programming questions SO serves that role well; other SE sites fall at different points.</p>\n<p>Another view is that askers should put enough effort in their question such that if it's easily answerable from some simpler references they haven't really put in that effort. This has been a big issue on the other sites I moderate, Biology and Psych&amp;Neuroscience, in part because those sites are also trying to avoid being &quot;homework cheat&quot; sites and give students answers that they can write on their assignments directly when they should be learning how to find the answers independently (paradoxically, it's not as big of a problem if the way they find an answer is through an <em>existing</em> Q&amp;A post). I think that specific issue isn't as important with the sorts of questions posted here, of course.</p>\n<p>I don't think there's a need for a &quot;let me google that for you&quot; close reason. I'd recommend using the &quot;needs details/clarity&quot; option when an asker has not sufficiently supported the basis of their question, for example by explaining why a dictionary definition wasn't sufficient for them to understand in a particular context. I'd recommend using the &quot;depends on individual factors&quot; close reason when the answer is some form of &quot;look it up on that institution's website&quot; (or use a broader search engine to find it directly).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5137, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The downvote button is labeled &quot;Does not show any research effort.&quot; Use it for questions that can be googled easily.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5131", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5134, "author": "Jon Custer", "author_id": 15477, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15477", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The question, even in its current form, is asking us to give insight into why somebody has made certain life choices that the OP deems inadvisable or incorrect. It invites uninformed speculation into whether or not monetary gain may explain that person's behavior. Since such choices are seen across all employment areas that I have encountered, it is not specific to academia.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5136, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The answer depends on the funder, and potentially also on the university or individual employee's contract. Therefore, the question could be closed as either lacking details of those things, or as strongly depending on individual circumstances.</p>\n<p>As written now, the answer should be &quot;Yes, but the details vary.&quot; That's not a helpful answer.</p>\n<p>The comments on a professor's behavior didn't belong in the question.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5133", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5163, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Different issues need different responses.</p>\n<p>I’ve locked today’s post not because it is controversial, but because in a few hours it was edited twenty times in a way that completely changed the core question and context, thus invalidating existing answers and making it impossible for users to answer.</p>\n<p>The lock lasts for one day, and it does not correspond to the closure of the question: it is meant to prevent further rushed changes (closing a question does not prevent this), but it can be removed by us moderators any time the author reaches a final decision on the content (as it happened shortly after I wrote this). It also (again <em>temporarily</em>) prevents further answers because such answers would be at risk of being invalidated by new edits.</p>\n<p>The January’s question didn’t have this issue: it was edited just six times and none of the edits changed the core question.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5164, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>To the title question</strong>: The only difference in policy between a &quot;controversial&quot; question and a regular question is that the former have a post notice reminding people of the rules. Specifically, this notice reminds people (especially new users or hot-network-question users) that this is not a discussion site, and we do not welcome arguments, debates, or opinions, only authoritative answers backed by personal expertise in academia and/or references.</p>\n<p>With respect to your first example, you say:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&quot;the moderation philosophy was aggressively focused on deleting comments (even those that weren't consulted).&quot;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I'm not sure what &quot;consulted&quot; means in this context. But as you know, the purpose of comments is to suggest improvements or request clarification. Comments that do not do either of those things may be deleted without notice. In many cases, we do give grace periods or move comments to chat rather than just deleting; we do not want to be obnoxious with deleting comments that are just a hair over the line. But when the controversial post notice has already reminded people about the acceptable uses of comments, we are less likely to give the benefit of the doubt.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&quot;and on keeping the post open&quot;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I'm not sure what you mean by this; the mods did not take any special action to keep this post open. I suppose we could have unilaterally closed it, but we normally leave such decisions to the community.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>the response was to issue a 24 hour lock because a moderator was unhappy with the original poster's edit strategy</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Locking a question is pretty unusual; I don't think this is a routine &quot;strategy.&quot; But I also don't think it's exactly a mystery why a moderator took this action -- this post has been through 20 revisions, many of which substantially change the question being asked, which will lead to a bunch of answers that address different questions. As the moderator said in the comments, this lock will be lifted as soon as OP tells us that the question has stabilized.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I feel like we could have just let a regular close vote of one sort or another execute on the second question</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>For this specific problem -- a constantly-changing question -- I doubt it. Getting five close votes takes some time, which will lead to confusion and delay. Further, closing the question is not really appropriate if the question itself is on-topic. This is the sort of &quot;exceptional case&quot; that moderators were designed for -- and indeed, a user correctly flagged this post so that we could intervene.</p>\n<p>Anyway: thanks for asking, it is good to be able to explain our actions and get feedback. But I'm pretty comfortable with how our team handled these two cases.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5165, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is no relationship between the two questions.</p>\n<p>I requested moderator intervention in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/185707/was-it-appropriate-to-discuss-the-reply-all?noredirect=1\">Was it appropriate to discuss the reply-all?</a> because there were an unreasonable number of edits to the question, making it impractical to tell what had been changed. This seems like abuse to me.</p>\n<p>I do not think the question should have been closed as &quot;opinion based&quot; because the several answers and most voters were in general agreement.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5162", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/137975/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5176, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>First, beware that sometimes votes—whether up or down—are not really indicative of the quality of a question, but more of the preferences of the voters: some are just irritated by certain types of questions, typos, topics etc.</p>\n<p>Then, what it is generally suggested in answers and comments about the publication process, and something we should probably add to the canonical answer, is to avoid interpreting or guessing every single detail of what appears in the manuscript status. Every journal has its own internal idiosyncrasies which are totally irrelevant to the authors: sometimes such details are hidden to the authors, sometimes the web interface provides pieces of information which are best ignored because without knowing the actual internal processes they might just lead to anxiety (<em>why is this happening to my manuscript? did I do anything wrong?</em>). What you're asking about falls essentially in this category: whether 3+ means 3, 4 or more is irrelevant to the authors and the actual number depends on the editor handling the submission, something we cannot know. Moreover, this kind of information might vary at every update of the web interface, and questions of this type may quickly become obsolete.</p>\n<p>Finally, it can be argued that the answer to your question is in the linked duplicate target:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The editor selects a number of potential referees to review the\nmanuscript. Should a referee decline to review or not perform the\nreview in a certain time (as given by the editor or journal), the\neditor usually has to select a new referee. The main exception to this\nis if the other referees already provided sufficient reviews at this\npoint.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5179, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The question is a duplicate of &quot;<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55665/\">How should I interpret a particular submission status</a>?&quot;</p>\n<p>The answer says &quot;The editor selects a number of potential referees to review the manuscript.&quot; That happens to be the best answer; the editor can select the number.</p>\n<p>Questions like this are closed <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/linked/55665?lq=1\">very frequently</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5180, "author": "Anonymous M", "author_id": 137975, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/137975", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As one of the down-voters on this one, a couple things:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>It's certainly not a personal judgement directed at the asker, but...</li>\n<li>I personally downvoted rather than flagged to close because I'm not\nentirely positive the question is a duplicate or needed to be closed\nfor another reason, but I do think it's not a great question for the\nsite.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>It's just a question that is hard to give a good answer to. As seriously, even if a precise answer to the question asked was available (e.g. &quot;exactly 5 every time&quot;), it's hard to avoid the admittedly subjective judgement that the question misses the forest for the trees as far as the peer review process is concerned. Another way to put this is that the question seems really to need a frame challenge. There's some hesitancy against frame challenges in answers and they take longer to write up for basically the same outcome as downvoting the question, so the down vote seemed better than e.g. waiting or writing a frame-challenge answer.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5175", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/35909/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5182, "author": "Anonymous M", "author_id": 137975, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/137975", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My suggestion: Yes, but with some type of PSA in the question regarding how to use it as a duplicate target. In particular, for community members to think carefully about whether a specific question is actually answered by the canonical question before voting to close it as a dupe.</p>\n<p>I think this is a fair canonical question but a bit fraught. As a matter of format, I agree that it makes sense that a canonical question would aggregate common considerations in a few broad categories. Just as a rather cursory suggestion agreeing with a previous comment: Within-discipline, within-nearby-disciplines (e.g. math &lt;-&gt; CS), between somewhat related disciplines (STEM-STEM, humanities-humanities), and completely different disciplines.</p>\n<p>My major concern about whether this is advisable is more about how our community will make use of the duplicate target. As an example, suppose we had a question about a math PhD ---&gt; computer science postdoc transition. There could be some useful specific answer depending on the question that goes beyond general advice.</p>\n<p>If a canonical question results in every question of this genre being closed without comment that seems like we're losing something this site could handle for the sake of reducing clutter. In an ideal world we'd have the canonical question. But any potential duplicates would be left open long enough for community members with expertise in the specific fields to consider whether they think the canonical answers cover the specific question.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5183, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Following up on the discussion in the comments,</p>\n<p><strong>Is there any field-specific advice (about changing fields post-PhD) that we would want to preserve / curate / generate / leave placeholders for? Do any fields have fundamentally different considerations than others?</strong></p>\n<ul>\n<li>If so, please leave a comment on this answer explaining which field needs handled separately and why it has different considerations. If this field-specific advice already exists in an answer somewhere, please link to it.</li>\n<li>Otherwise, my assumption is that it's possible to write one answer that addresses most/all possible switches (the advice for intra-field switches vs. switching to a remote field might be different, but we can address both in one post).</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5181", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5185, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Thanks for your suggestions. I'll write my responses in two different answers, so people can upvote/downvote individually.</p>\n<p><strong>I agree we should add some version of the quoted text to each canonical question.</strong> Naturally, we'll have to think a little bit carefully about phrasing these: we should try to be clear about which questions are merely &quot;specific instances&quot; of the canonical question (and should be closed) and which are asking for general information that should be in the canonical answer but isn't.</p>\n<p>Along similar lines, I like how the newest canonical question's &quot;notice to readers&quot; paragraph gives a brief explanation for why questions about switching from X to Y are now considered duplicates of the canonical question; this should reduce confusion / annoyance when someone's specific question is closed as a &quot;duplicate&quot; of the much broader question. We should make sure the other canonical questions have something similar.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5186, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Thanks for your suggestions. I'll write my responses in two different answers, so people can upvote/downvote individually.</p>\n<p><strong>I agree the &quot;canonical question&quot; tag is probably a good idea. But, there are some potential issues we should be aware of.</strong></p>\n<p>First, meta-tags have been <a href=\"https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/08/07/the-death-of-meta-tags/?_ga=2.193700142.2027830398.1658846982-513819996.1593103406\">banned from Stack Overflow</a> and are explicitly discouraged elsewhere. Looking through the rationale, many of the concerns would not apply to a <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/canonical-question\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;canonical-question&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">canonical-question</a> tag, but this ones does: &quot;The reason meta-tags are a problem is that they do not describe the content of the question. They describe some other aspect of the question, like the author’s skill level, or the author’s motivation for asking it, or generally what 'kind' of question it is (poll, how-to, etc.).&quot; I think creating a singular meta-tag is probably not a terrible idea notwithstanding the above, but we should be clear that this is a singular event and not a precedent.</p>\n<p>Second, there is concern that novice users will misuse this tag and make random questions &quot;canonical.&quot; <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4991/\">Mod-only tags</a> were suggested a year ago; I think mod-only tags are a fine idea, but they would have to be implemented by the StackExchange developers, which would take years (if they agree to do it at all, which I think is unlikely given the above). So, we would have to manually detect and remove incorrect applications of this tag; this is a bit of a maintenance burden (though I think it's probably worth it in this case; people have been complaining about how difficult it is to find canonical questions for years).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5187, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>We already have <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3824/7734\">a list of canonical questions</a>. The advantage of this (over a tag) is that it can be sorted by category and similar. The obvious problem is that users are not sufficiently aware of this list or otherwise don’t know where to look for canonical questions.</p>\n<p>If we add a banner to canonical questions, we can also include a link to this list. This should obviate the need for a specific tag, as it is then visible on every canonical question, just like the tag. This way we avoid the problems of a tag, like mistagged questions, the tag being removed, etc.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5193, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n<p>However, please be sure that the <strong>below answer</strong> actually answers OP's question before voting to close!</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>This is wrong.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>When voting to close, you are voting for a duplicate <strong>question</strong>, not a duplicate answer.</li>\n<li>If two questions are the same, or should have the same answer, then they are duplicates, <strong>even if no answers exist</strong> in the site. This rule should apply to all questions, canonical or not.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5194, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n<p>canonical questions do exist, they are not easy to find</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>My suggestion is: This is not a bug. Canonical questions are the same as every other question, except that they have been discussed on the meta site. They do not need special treatment.</p>\n<p>The good ones are easy to find because there are many duplicates pointing to them.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5184", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/133549/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5189, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>See <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/86997/401068\">What can I do when getting &quot;We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account&quot;?</a> which answers your questions about how this happened and how to undo it.</p>\n<p>This is an automated system and we cannot intervene to override it.</p>\n<p>The specific algorithm is a secret to make the system more difficult to abuse, but in general you get an answer ban when you receive mostly downvotes and few upvotes across multiple posts, including deleted ones.</p>\n<p>Although you say you are an expert in some aspects of copyright, it seems all of the answers you link were likely downvoted for confusing plagiarism and other academic ethics concepts with copyright, which are separate concepts that are nonetheless often confused, and I think that makes people fairly aggressive about emphasizing when they are incorrectly interchanged.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5192, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n<p>I am wondering, whether the modus of right/wrong is suitable for most of the questions asked on this platform, because the questions seem to be very often rather vague, which makes answer suggestions.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In that case, you should refrain from answering the question. If you had sufficient reputation, you could vote to close the question using the &quot;opinion&quot; reason.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5188", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/149678/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5191, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I was under the impression <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9542/is-ignoring-emails-acceptable-in-academia?noredirect=1&amp;lq=1\">we already had a canonical question.</a></p>\n<p>I do not see a need for a change.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5199, "author": "Anyon", "author_id": 17254, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/17254", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is a well-written older question, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/45616/17254\">How to get people to reply to emails and what to make of a no response?</a>, that is quite general, and should be a good duplicate target for at least some of these questions. It does not currently address how to interpret a sudden switch from open communication to apparent radio silence, but could potentially be modified to cover this.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5201, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I dug around a bit. It seems like there are a few different question types under the same umbrella:</p>\n<ol>\n<li><em>I am an e-mailing someone about an academic matter (research or teaching). Why am I not getting responses to my e-mails? How can I improve my likelihood of getting a response?</em> For this one, I think <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/45616/how-to-get-people-to-reply-to-emails-and-what-to-make-of-a-no-response\">this question</a> already covers the ground well, as Anyon suggested. Perhaps we could also edit it to add a link to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9542/is-ignoring-emails-acceptable-in-academia?noredirect=1&amp;lq=1\">this</a> one that AP suggested.</li>\n<li><em>I am a student e-mailing professors I'd like to work with. How to interpret lack of response? Should I e-mail again?</em> <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5330\">Here</a> is an example.</li>\n<li><em>I am a student e-mailing professors I'd like to hire me. Is my way of writing e-mails good?</em> This isn't exactly what you suggested in the proposal, but I think a good answer to #2 will need to cover this ground, or link to a post that covers it. <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/173122/\">This question</a> seems like a good example, as it explains the most common mistake people make and how to avoid it. We can also add a note explaining that this only applies to countries where you apply to supervisors directly (i.e., not the US).</li>\n<li><em>I have a PhD and am e-mailing people about post-docs or jobs, but not getting responses</em>. <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/161884/i-didnt-hear-back-after-a-postdoc-interview-can-i-set-a-deadline-for-a-respons\">This one</a> is an example.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>My empirical sense is that #2 (and by extension, #3 also) is by far the most commonly-recurring question. If we were going to make a new canonical question, I would suggest focusing it on this. But I suggest we start with the following:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>Clean up these four posts by editing, perhaps merge in any other good answers from duplicate posts and add links to related post, and</li>\n<li>Close questions that are duplicates of these four questions. That will make these four questions easier to find, and will prune some of the questions that cover the same ground less thoroughly.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>After that, if we want to make further changes, or want to raise any of these four to &quot;canonical&quot; status, we can discuss in a separate thread.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5190", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/133549/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5196, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>These instructions should be removed because:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is impractical to determine the contents of a long and changing community wiki for each potential duplicate.</li>\n<li>Voting to close a question as a duplicate of another question should be based on the content of the question, not the content of answers.</li>\n<li>Merging answers is impractical and undermines the answer voting process.</li>\n<li>Redoing close voting after merging answers is also impractical.</li>\n<li>If it is unclear if a question is a duplicate, the meta site provides a good mechanism for resolving any uncertainty.</li>\n<li>We do not need more rules and special cases.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5197, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>The instructions are stating what should be obvious: don't hammer a question for being asked-and-answered unless it has actually been asked and answered.</strong></p>\n<p>It is understandably infuriating for the asker when they ask &quot;how does X affect Y&quot; and it gets closed as a duplicate of &quot;how does Y work?&quot;, but the linked question does not address X, does not address any generalization of X, and does not explain why we're not addressing X.</p>\n<p>Moreover, this is a problem for the site: if the canonical question should address X, but it doesn't, and we close all questions that ask about X, then there's no way for askers to learn about X or for answerers to realize that their expertise on X might be valuable.</p>\n<p>I won't go line-by-line through your points, but I want to address the first two:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>It is impractical to determine the contents of a long and changing community wiki for each potential duplicate.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Disagree completely. If you are going to close someone's question as a duplicate of another question, it is <strong>your responsibility</strong> to verify that it is actually a duplicate. It is not good enough to say &quot;well, they're basically the same, it's too much work to make sure it actually contains an answer.&quot; No one is forcing you to exercise your close votes or reopen votes, but casting a duplicate vote means telling a human being &quot;your post should be deleted because it's been asked-and-answered elsewhere.&quot; If you're going to do this, you should take the time to make sure that you are correct.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Voting to close a question as a duplicate of another question should be based on the content of the question, not the content of answers.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>If the two questions are identical, then there is no issue: close away! The instructions don't state otherwise. As discussed above, the issue is where to draw the line when the questions are close but not identical (most often, the new question asks about a specific case of the canonical question).</p>\n<p>[By the way, I did not invent these instructions out of the blue, they were specifically requested <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5181/\">here</a>].</p>\n<p><strong>Update, 6 mos later</strong>: I decided to reword these instructions to make them a bit more concise. The &quot;question closure instructions&quot; have now been edited into the main canonical question intro paragraph. This is just wordsmithing and does not imply any change to our closure procedures.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5198, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Here's a possible alternative wording:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Note to close voters: please consider <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5181/should-we-have-a-canonical-question-about-changing-fields-after-phd\">this meta discussion</a> before closing a question as a duplicate.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5200, "author": "Anonymous M", "author_id": 137975, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/137975", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I do not have moderator powers and don't anticipate earning enough rep for them, so I'm hesitant to comment on the precise wording of the preface text.</p>\n<p>But as I requested it, maybe some further explanation as to why would be useful.</p>\n<p>As a totally anecdotal observation, this Stack closes questions more often compared to some others. I think this is good-- we have relatively low volume, so can afford the time to try to help askers find an answer to their question. The busier Stacks seem to rely more heavily on downvotes in contrast, which can be pretty frustrating for the asker since they don't necessarily get to know what the issue was.</p>\n<p>The downside of our predisposition is that borderline questions are more likely to be closed on balance, which is final in that it stops answers from accruing and is still jolting to proactive askers. Once a question is closed as a duplicate, the burden of making an argument convincing enough to reopen it usually falls on the asker. But the close voters are more likely to be familiar with that context in the first place, so clearly should have more responsibility for knowing the answer base.</p>\n<p>I suggested some form of warning for this specific canonical question because it seems to me there are a lot of related questions and answers in the genre that are within scope and unlikely to be consulted by general advice answers. The way this concern arose was straightforward: When I tried to think of a simple typology from which to construct answers to a canonical question, I had difficulties.</p>\n<p>Cag made a compelling case, however, that we have a history over time of receiving essentially identical questions and producing essentially similar general-advice answers. A preface warning's content may seem obvious, but my thought was it represented a reasonable PSA in a likely-to-be-seen place that succinctly highlights this tension to flaggers and voters.</p>\n<p>On a particular point:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We do not need more rules and special cases.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I agree with this and do not think the preface is either a rule or a special case. It is not a special case because all duplicate voters/flaggers should make the suggested consideration in every case. It is not a rule in the same sense that almost every moderation decision on Stack doesn't arise from an explicit rule but from some consensus amongst the users who have moderation powers. In particular, none of the diamond moderators suggest they will user &quot;superpowers&quot; to enforce it.</p>\n<p>That being said, I wouldn't be bothering with these replies and suggestions if I didn't think they were useful. I hope Stack members will at least give them a thought if they interface with this particular genre of question.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5195", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5203, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Not a full explanation, but some general information:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>This is a site-specific setting.</li>\n<li>This was activated earlier this year and successfully put an end to a very annoying spam wave. So, it was arguably necessary at the time.</li>\n<li>Whether this is still necessary now is up to debate and something we will naturally only truly know after deactivation.</li>\n<li>A welcome side effect of this was that it reduced other unwelcome contributions.</li>\n<li>Naturally, it’s difficult to estimate to what extent this reduced welcome contributions.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>I initiated a discussion with the other mods and CMs as to whether we want to change this setting.</p>\n<p>Mind that we will likely not just put this up to a vote here on meta, because you (the community) do not have access to a considerable amount of information factoring in this decision.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5207, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>We moderators conferred with the staff and decided to leave unregistered posting disabled for the following reasons (summarised):</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Before being disabled, the vast majority of posts from unregistered users had been bad by objective standards (votes, closure, etc.).</li>\n<li>Since unregistered posting was disabled, we have seen a subjective reduction of abusive behaviour and other nastiness. This is stuff that causes disruption and requires moderator work to a significant extent.</li>\n<li>It reduces blatant spam. This doesn’t require much moderator work, but it may be visible for some hours if no moderator is around, causing disruption.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>Mind that we do see the upsides of enabling unregistered posts, such as lowering the entry barrier.</p>\n<p>We decided not to actively put this to a vote by the community. <strong>However,</strong> if anybody feels sufficiently strongly enough about this to make a meta post soliciting a community consensus on this, we see this as an indicator that the downsides of disabling registered voting may need more attention.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5208, "author": "Scott Seidman", "author_id": 20457, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20457", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I <em>think</em> this policy is OK moving forward, but consideration needs to be given to the multiple-account approach that would be required to &quot;anonymously&quot; post.</p>\n<p>Multiple accounts are allowed for valid reasons (<a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/57682/how-should-sockpuppets-be-handled-on-stack-exchange\">How should sockpuppets be handled on Stack Exchange?</a>), which would facilitate anonymous questions, but at the cost of a little more trouble for the person asking.</p>\n<p>Personally, my assumption is that there's <em>always</em> a risk of account info being compromised, and the user doxxed -- so my policy moving forward would be to <em>not ask</em> any questions that I wouldn't want associated with my personal identity, unless I could ask it completely anonymously, without any potential link to any identifying information. I don't know enough about SE user policies to know if that's possible.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5202", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1244/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5205, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>I was not involved in the deletion of your question. But here is why I would arrive at the same decision:</em></p>\n<p>Taken out of context, your last paragraph is misogynistic victim blaming.</p>\n<p>Within context, I have the problem that your post is not really clear (it has too many unclear references and does not describe its line of thought well) and thus I cannot tell why that paragraph is there.\nThus, I turn to the most lenient interpretation (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_dubio_pro_reo\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">in dubio pro reo</a>) of why that paragraph is there:\nYou want to illustrate the concept of victim blaming to somebody who never heard it.\nBut even then, the word choices and tone of the paragraph are totally out of place and re-iterate the victim blaming itself, thus violating the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/conduct\">Code of Conduct</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>No bigotry.</h3>\n<p>We don’t tolerate any language likely to offend or alienate people based on […] gender, […]. […]. When in doubt, don't use language that might offend or alienate.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5206, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Posting incomprehensible text is abuse. Please consult the help before posting questions.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5204", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/21026/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5216, "author": "Massimo Ortolano", "author_id": 20058, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I think we should be realistic. Certain practices, whether one likes it or not, are common across many fields and actively encouraged by certain selection criteria, and by not recognizing and accepting them in answers, we would just promote an idealistic view of academia that doesn't exist in practice, <em>possibly damaging young researchers</em>.</p>\n<p>And I'd like to stress further the last point: for a well-funded tenured researcher, it's easy to promote the best ideals, but this should not be done at the expenses of younger untenured researchers, who typically have to face and advance in a much less-than-ideal world.</p>\n<p>So, yes, I think we should allow answers like that one because they're anchored to reality.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5217, "author": "Bryan Krause", "author_id": 63475, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>First, we don't moderate like this. We don't delete answers for being <em>wrong</em>, that's what voting is for. Each user gets a lot of leeway in how they use their votes, as long as they vote for <em>content</em> rather than users. Your judge of content is your own; if you want to downvote answers that suggest doing things that you think are bad, that's your prerogative. The tooltip on the downvote button for answers states &quot;This answer is not useful&quot; - you decide what &quot;useful&quot; means.</p>\n<p>For this particular case:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>However, it suggests to the author that they adopt practices that are harmful to acadaemia as a whole purely for their own career advancement.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I disagree; this answer tells the question asker how their applications will likely be evaluated, and makes clear that this is not an ideal state of things.</p>\n<p>I expect the same user would give a very different answer if instead of a postdoc asking how to make their job applications competitive it was a hiring committee member asking how they should evaluate job applications.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5218, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n<p>it suggests to the author that they adopt practices</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>You are mistaken. The answer does not advocate for any particular course of action.</p>\n<p>An answer that did suggest adoption of bad practices should be down voted. Deletion would only be appropriate if there was a possibility of immediate harm.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5215", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/72211/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5220, "author": "Jon Custer", "author_id": 15477, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15477", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I believe we should have a firm policy that things like ChatGPT are not allowed. For most of our questions, the personal experiences of humans are critical to a good answer. Some auto-generated pablum in no way is useful to the users of the site. If anything, it is more harmful than spam.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5221, "author": "Anton Menshov", "author_id": 56594, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/56594", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I <strong>do not see any value</strong> in posted answers generated by ChatGPT-like services.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>If the answer is bad -&gt; the answer should be deleted.</li>\n<li>If the answer is somewhat good -&gt; then, ChatGPT-answer can be looked similar to search engines; thus, a user could have asked ChatGPT the question directly without asking it on Academia SE. Nobody would find posting a &quot;screenshot&quot; of Google search results as an answer useful.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>Therefore, I completely do not see a place for ChatGPT answers, <strong>particularly at Academia SE</strong>, where, in my opinion, there is a very small percentage of questions that can be answered adequately by an AI. Thus, regardless of the decision on the network-wide ban on ChatGPT-like answers, Academia SE should adopt a strict policy against ChatGPT answers.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5224, "author": "Anonymous Physicist", "author_id": 13240, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13240", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I see no value in making new rules before we have precise information about the difference between ChatGPT answers and human answers.</p>\n<p>Excessive posting of bad answers should continue to be punished, via downvotes, with revocation of the ability to post questions and answers.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5219", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5226, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<h3>Policy: Questions, answers, and comments may not be auto-generated on Academia.SE.</h3>\n<p>While the technology is impressive, these answers are not based on references or personal expertise in academia. Rather, our experience is that they only contain contain common sense advice that is often off-topic. There is also significant potential for harm since the AI might produce plausible-looking answers to difficult questions; these might attract upvotes and give the impression of credibility when in fact the answer could well be incorrect.</p>\n<p>If there is some reason why you feel that you need to auto-generate text, it's probably best to seek pre-approval on meta. Note that simply citing the AI model used or disclosing that the text was auto-generated is not sufficient under this policy (though it's a step in the right direction).</p>\n<h3>What should I do if I see something that I think was written by a chatbot?</h3>\n<p>Flag it! Good-faith flags on questions or answers will usually be marked &quot;helpful.&quot; Good-faith flags on comments are also appreciated, but mechanically such flags are always marked as &quot;declined&quot; unless the comment is deleted.</p>\n<h3>How will you know if someone has used a chatbot?</h3>\n<p>We deliberately don't reveal our entire bag of tricks. It is possible there will be some false positives. However, answers that are sufficiently low-quality as to be indistinguishable from a chatbot are also not really desirable, so we don't see this as much of a problem. False negatives are a bit more of a problem, since an answer may seem okay but actually be harmful.</p>\n<h3>What if I'm asking a question about dealing with chatbots in an academic setting?</h3>\n<p>The question itself may not be auto-generated. However, if quoting the exact words that the chatbot used is important for your question, you may provide a brief quote from the chatbot.</p>\n<h3>What if I have a suggestion for improving this policy?</h3>\n<p>For the next week or so, we'll edit this policy based on discussion in the comments and/or other answers. After that, you should make a new meta post to propose any changes.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5227, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>While there may be background, even automated, solutions, I suggest a user-facing change to some of the user dialogs.</p>\n<p>Adding &quot;Seems to be auto-generated&quot;, or similar, to either or both the flag and site-specific close dialogs would let users help keep things out as needed.</p>\n<p>This is, perhaps, fraught if it would flood the mods with false positives, so consideration/thought is needed.</p>\n<p>If SE overall makes a policy then such might be added to the more general close dialog, of course.</p>\n<p>I don't know how difficult it is to change these dialogs and how much power the mods have to do it on their own. A &quot;feature request&quot; might be needed.</p>\n<p>Added: It might be useful to add something to the help center advice.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5225", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5236, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One major reason is that you haven't said why the paper was retracted, implying only that it was the supervisor's pressure. The normal reasons are plagiarism, lack of novelty, bad fit for a journal (though it would have been rejected initially for that), errors in the paper, etc.</p>\n<p>Yes, others can see closed questions. We can't answer them, however, but can still comment.</p>\n<p>The way to get the question reopened is to edit it so that it is possible to answer and not a rant and then flag it for the mods to deal with or just wait to see if you get votes to reopen.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5237, "author": "ZeroTheHero", "author_id": 90441, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/90441", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You want a specific answer to a situation for which you do not provide specific details. Until you give specific facts, such as quoting correspondence with the publisher (rather than paraphrase or report hearsay), there is really nothing to be done.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5235", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/166333/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5242, "author": "ScottishTapWater", "author_id": 72211, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/72211", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My two pence is that, yes, this needs a canonical answer. This is because there is one simple answer that covers every scenario that I can think of. Although, I'd happily be proven wrong. That answer is:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Yes, you can contact any person, about anything, for any reason, at\nany time.</p>\n<p>Just be nice, polite, and avoid being demanding. They are under no\nobligation to answer you.</p>\n<p>The obvious exception of this is when you're not supposed to be able\nto work out who the person you want to contact is. Don't go trying to\nbreak anonymous review.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5243, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Short answer:</strong> My personal view is that you should keep thinking, you may be on to something here. But, I don't think the proposed canonical question and answer is the right one as-written.</p>\n<p><strong>Longer answer...</strong></p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>These questions all boil down to the same thing. Can I contact this person about this thing?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I agree there are (to paraphrase one amazing comment from several years ago) many questions on that site that say &quot;How do I tell Joe I don't want to wibble anymore?&quot; and the answer is always &quot;Just say: hey Joe, I want to stop wibbling!&quot;. The trouble is, there are also many questions that don't fit the pattern. For example: &quot;How do I tell my student that they are terrible and should drop out of grad school?&quot; seems like it matches the pattern, but it actually doesn't.</p>\n<p>So, trying to come up with a one-size-fits all answer is fraught. It may be possible to come up with a canonical question here, but I think it would have to be narrower than the one in your title.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I make a huge distinction between &quot;can I&quot; and &quot;should I&quot;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>This is one option for making the question narrower, but I don't think it's a good one. While the questions are different, the intent of the asker is usually the same. If the question is &quot;Can I ask Steven Weinberg to review my physics homework?&quot;, saying &quot;you <em>could</em> do that...&quot; would not be terribly helpful, even if technically correct.</p>\n<p>Finally, note that we already have <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90725/how-should-i-phrase-an-important-question-that-i-need-to-ask-a-professor\">How should I phrase an important question that I need to ask a professor?</a>. This could be viewed as another attempt to identify a narrower version of the question.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5241", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/72211/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5251, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Strongly agree with cag51's take. The question is almost definitionally meta, by the usual definition of the term... it's not focusing any particular aspect of academia, but highlighting the difficulty of answering academia-related questions.</p>\n<p>For me, since it's not a question about any of the things on <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic\">this list</a>, but <em>is</em> particularly useful to keep in mind when <em>answering</em> those types of questions, it belongs on Meta.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5252, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is a tough one:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>The intent of the linked question is to remind answerers not to overgeneralize from their experience. It's less useful for askers. In fact, you could look at it as a policy, or at least a best practice.</li>\n<li>On the other hand, we normally draw the line between the sites by saying that while many questions on the main site are &quot;meta about academia,&quot; questions on meta should be &quot;meta about the site.&quot; By this definition, much of the content in the linked question does seem better suited for the main site.</li>\n</ul>\n<p><em>Note, I converted this analysis to an answer to avoid answering in the comments; however, this answer does not take a position either way. So, we will not consider upvotes/downvotes on this answer when deciding what to do.</em></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5253, "author": "Anonymous M", "author_id": 137975, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/137975", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>After looking at it a couple times, it seems like the <em>intent</em> behind the original question would be categorized as meta. But the actual question as posed (under heading <strong>This Question</strong>):</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>In which respects does academia vary more than many people expect?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>is a question which is not a meta question. It would belong on the main site topically, though perhaps violate one rule or another given how open-ended it is.</p>\n<p><strong>Suggestion:</strong> The question remains on meta but is updated slightly. Something like the following, though I'm by no means married to the precise wording:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>What are some common respects in which academia varies that have led to overly-generalized answers in the past?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The topic-by-topic answers then seem right to me in this context, if extensive. In some ways they could each also be their own questions and answers on the main site, but maybe not good ones according to some of our policies.</p>\n<p>For instance, I think each topic would be a &quot;list question&quot; on the main site. The lists seem to be worth having here on meta to signpost a specific genre of problems we encounter in the Q&amp;A format. They're impossible to complete as standalone main site questions.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5250", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/133549/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5255, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Make a canonical question &quot;What is the usual hiring timeline for academic positions in the US and Europe? Why haven't I heard back?&quot;, and the caveats about how things vary widely.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5256, "author": "cag51", "author_id": 79875, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Close the questions as &quot;depends on individual factors,&quot; since we cannot predict how long things will take or how a follow-up e-mail would be perceived.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5258, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Leave the question open unless it fits the typical scenario. Some such questions actually point to special circumstances that might affect the direction of an answer.</p>\n<p>This would avoid the canonical answer from having too much &quot;if this-then that&quot;.</p>\n<p>Typical scenarios are asking after a few weeks. Typical answers are &quot;You can ask <em>but</em>...&quot;.</p>\n<p>Some such questions are asking for specific guidance on uncommon scenarios.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5254", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/79875/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 180, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/process/long.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">This</a> might help or <a href=\"http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/long/visa1.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">this.</a> Here is the crux of the information:</p>\n\n<p>The period of stay is quoted as 3 years/1 year with the following documents needed:</p>\n\n<pre><code>Passport\nOne visa application form (nationals of Russia or NIS countries need to submit two visa application forms)\nOne photograph (nationals of Russia or NIS countries need to submit two photographs)\nCertificate of Eligibility (Note) - the original and one copy\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>This visa applied for <strong>Long-term stay</strong> for the following occupations:</p>\n\n<p>Working visa: professor, artist, religious activities, journalist, investor/business manager, legal/accounting services, medical services, researcher, instructor, engineer, specialist in humanities/International Services</p>\n\n<p>The algorithm for obtaining the visa is given on <a href=\"http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/process/long.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">the first link I added</a>.\n<img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/31niR.gif\" alt=\"Algorithm\"></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 142492, "author": "user46147", "author_id": 41071, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41071", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In 2018 I worked there as an unpaid intern at the Tokyo University. I had the \"cultural activity visa\".</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 246, "author": "Greg S", "author_id": 116, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/116", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>One of the best resources for jobs in computational chemistry (not limited to PhD level positions) is the job section of the <a href=\"http://www.ccl.net/chemistry/a/jobs/index.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow\">Computational Chemistry List</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Another place where I've regularly seen relevant postings is the <a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Computational-Chemists-94648\" rel=\"nofollow\">\"Computational Chemists\" group on LinkedIn</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3438, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you are based in Europe, or would consider a position in Europe, I strongly recommend the <a href=\"http://www.ccp5.ac.uk/mailing.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow\">CCP5 mailing-lists</a> for this purpose. I also second the advice about the Computational Chemistry List, these are the two places I post job openings for my own group.</p>\n\n<p>In the UK, all academic positions open are posted to <a href=\"http://www.jobs.ac.uk\" rel=\"nofollow\">jobs.ac.uk</a>, making it really invaluable for job search.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, some journals have a job listings section as well, such as <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Nature jobs</a>, <a href=\"http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org\" rel=\"nofollow\">Science Careers</a>. The learned society of your field might also have job listing, as e.g. the <a href=\"http://jobs.rsc.org\" rel=\"nofollow\">Royal Society of Chemistry</a> or the ACS’s <a href=\"http://chemistryjobs.acs.org/jobs\" rel=\"nofollow\">Chemistry jobs</a> listing.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6, "author": "Chang", "author_id": 18, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>If your institution has a subscription to Journal Citation Reports (JCR), you can check it there. Try this URL:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://jcr.clarivate.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://jcr.clarivate.com</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 11, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is a list at <a href=\"http://www.sciencegateway.org/rank/index.html\">Science Gateway</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 540, "author": "Ivar Persson", "author_id": 314, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/314", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Apart from the ones already mentioned there are two excellent open access options.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.eigenfactor.org/\">Eigenfactor</a> is quite authoritative, and depending on field its metrics may carry the same weight as the Reuters stuff. They also offer the ISI metric (impact factor)using the exact same formula. You can search by ISSN, journal names, discipline etc.</p>\n\n<p>However when I make my own decision on an appropriate journal to target for publishing my articles, then I use <a href=\"http://www.scimagojr.com/index.php\">SCImago Journal &amp; Country Rank</a>. They have a wide variety of metrics, which include upcoming ones like H-index, the traditional impact factor, and other tweaked versions of the same. One of most useful functions on Scimago is the ability to compare a set of journals using a graph format and any metric that you desire. This can be exceptionally helpful in identifying the prestigious dinosaurs and the new but cutting edge journals. Placing your article is half the game, so this is incredibly useful.</p>\n\n<p>That said, this site does not appear to have the same level of authority. So, while it is good for one to get a good feel of the quality of a journal, it doesn't carry the same authority in a formal evaluation as Eigenfactor or ISI. Plus, if I understand correctly, their database goes back only up to 1996, though their coverage of even lesser known journals is comprehensive. This would make it difficult to judge the impact of an article published way back (but for older articles, citations are the standard measure anyway).</p>\n\n<p>I also feel it is a shame to be paying to access impact factor statistics. Even if you cannot publish open access, at least the rent seeking involved in paying for the ISI rankings can be avoided by using the open access rankings.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 149540, "author": "anpami", "author_id": 120630, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/120630", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You should <em>not</em> be able to access Impact Factors on a large scale from anywhere beyond Clarivate Analytics' (commercial) Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and InCites.</p>\n\n<p>The reason is stated in the <a href=\"https://clarivate.com/legal/terms-of-business/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Terms of Use for Clarivate Analytics' products</a>, and for InCites specifically. For instance, the <a href=\"https://clarivate.com/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2019/08/Product-Terms-v2.4.1.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">product terms for InCites</a> (as of May 2020) states that:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>(b) Extracts.</strong> You may include limited extracts of our data that have no independent\n commercial value and could not be used as a substitute for any service\n (or a substantial part of it) provided by us, our affiliates or third\n party providers, in internal documents and systems that are your\n property, provided that you do not create a searchable database. <strong>(c)\n Distribution</strong>. You may distribute limited extracts of our data that\n have no independent commercial value and could not be used as a\n substitute for any service (or a substantial part of it) provided by\n us, our affiliates or third party providers, to third parties as\n incidental samples for illustrative or demonstration purposes only.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 15, "author": "Jacques Carette", "author_id": 20, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is because, in the U.S. as in many other countries (like Canada), Engineering is a regulated profession, like medicine and law. To call yourself an engineer, or to perform certain 'engineering' tasks, you need to be accredited (or registered or ..., name changes by country) to do so.</p>\n\n<p>They care for the same reason that they want lawyers that have passed their bar exam to teach law, etc.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 145, "author": "Tangurena", "author_id": 109, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>There are 2 major theories about credentials: <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital\">human capital theory</a> and <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory\">signaling theory</a>. Under HCT, a license (such as a PE) shows that you have accumulated a credible amount of knowledge (you must graduate from an accredited engineering school) and experience (you need to have worked for 4 years after your bachelors to sit for the PE exam). Under signalling theory, the PE shows that you have done what it takes to legally call yourself an engineer. One interesting comparison of the differences of HCT and ST is <a href=\"http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/02/the_career_cons.html\">The Career Consequences of Failing versus Forgetting</a>. You may know just as much as another person, but the one of you that passes some hurdle signals to prospective employers that the hurdle passer is the better candidate. This is because hiring a person is trying to predict future behavior/success with limited information, and many people use signals as heuristics. </p>\n\n<p>You will also find out that universities hire people who have degrees. A cynical view is that they have a vested interest in maintaining the supply of people who get degrees. A signalling theory viewpoint is that universities think degrees are important enough that they only hire teachers who have them. </p>\n\n<p>In many fields of engineering, your working career will be very short if you do not pass your PE. Civil is one such. Other engineering fields, such as Electrical (which is mine), typically have state exemptions for manufacturing, so very few EEs take their PE. When I was younger, I was quite opposed to licensure. Now, I see it as a way to distinguish myself from other candidates. One interesting blog post that inspired me to sit for my PE exam is <a href=\"http://brucefwebster.com/2008/11/18/is-it-work-true-engineering-or-just-plumbing/\">this one</a>. Another is a <a href=\"http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/directory/rivera_lauren.aspx\">dissertation</a> (which is not online) titled <em>\"Hiring and Inequality in Elite Professional Service Firms\".</em></p>\n\n<p>My advice is to take your EIT and PE exams as soon as practical. Some US universities require you to take your EIT exam during your senior year (as in they won't issue your diploma without passing it). </p>\n\n<p>Disclaimer: I am registered to take the PE exam this April. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/4", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 10, "author": "Anthony Labarre", "author_id": 26, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Not necessarily, but this is to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. You can have an idea of which policies have been adopted by which publishers/journals by having a look at <a href=\"http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">the webpage of Sherpa/Romeo</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 20, "author": "Henry", "author_id": 8, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8", "pm_score": 7, "selected": true, "text": "<p>You are generally allowed to publish even in a non-open access journal even if a pre-print is on the arXiv. Most journal copyright agreements explicitly allow the authors to post the article online. Here's an example of a fairly generous one:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The ASL hereby grants to the Author the non-exclusive right to reproduce the Article, to create\n derivative works based upon the Article, and to distribute and display the Article and any such derivative\n work by any means and in any media, provided the provisions of clause (3) below are met. The Author may\n sub-license any publisher or other third party to exercise those rights.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>and a less generous one which still allows the author to post a copy online:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I understand that I retain or am hereby granted (without the need to obtain further permission) rights to use certain versions of the Article for certain \n scholarly purposes, as described and defined below (“Retained Rights”), and that no rights in patents, trademarks or other intellectual property rights \n are transferred to the journal. </p>\n \n <p>The Retained Rights include the right to use the Pre-print or Accepted Authors Manuscript for Personal Use, Internal Institutional Use and for \n Scholarly Posting; and the Published Journal Article for Personal Use and Internal Institutional Use.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I've seen examples where the journal actually did some genuine copyediting beyond what the referee did where the author wasn't allowed to post the version that benefited from the copyediting, but could still post the earlier version.</p>\n\n<p>So, for most journals, the answer is that you're allowed to post the article online because it's specifically allowed by the document they ask you to sign. But it is possible that posting on the arxiv will rule out particular journals that have more restrictive policies.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1033, "author": "Mark Hahnel", "author_id": 575, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/575", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The Ingelfinger rule is generally disregarded now by scientific publishers. F1000 has done a lot of research into this for their poster repository. Of the few notable publishers who do suggest they do not allow preprints, blood was singled out as apparently they said they wouldn't allow it but appeared to have no way of checking this and so do allow it, albeit by default. The following 2 links from the embargo watch blog describe the story:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://embargowatch.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/faculty-of-1000-strikes-a-blow-against-the-ingelfinger-rule/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Faculty of 1000 strikes a blow against the Ingelfinger Rule</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://embargowatch.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/f1000-vs-ingelfinger-part-two-blood-and-the-journal-of-proteome-research-respond/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">F1000 vs. Ingelfinger, part two: Blood and The Journal of Proteome Research respond</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1045, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You should ask senior people in your field, or look at the polies and publishing agreements of journals you care about.</p>\n\n<p>In math, every major journal will accept submissions of papers that have previously been posted to the arXiv. (I'm pretty sure that <em>every</em> journal will, but I suppose I can't rule out some obscure exception. If any journal tried to enforce a policy against submitting papers that were on the arXiv, there would be a big uproar and they would have no choice but to allow it.) I believe the same is true in physics and CS.</p>\n\n<p>But keep in mind that this may vary between fields. For example, my understanding is that the American Chemical Society has particularly draconian copyright and dissemination policies, and that they may object to arXiv posting. They are on the wrong side of history, but it doesn't mean they can't still cause trouble. And then there are journals like Science, with embargo policies and corresponding rules about what constitutes prior distribution.</p>\n\n<p>So the answer is that this is very simple if you're in a field in which the arXiv has become widespread, but much more subtle otherwise.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8561, "author": "jwg", "author_id": 5824, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5824", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A standard workaround is that you post a draft of your paper on the arxiv and assign the copyright in the final version to the journal. You can't update the arxiv with your final version, but the journal publishers will only be able to enforce their copyright on those parts of the final version which are not already present in the arxiv prior art.</p>\n\n<p>Since you will almost inevitably make some revisions as part of the submission process, you don't have to explicitly plan to leave anything out of the arxiv version.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 42355, "author": "Heike R", "author_id": 32181, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32181", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Although most journals allow publication of the pre-print (before peer review version) elsewhere, they only do so <em>after</em> they accepted and published the final version of the paper. Otherwise they might take it as previous publication and reject the manuscript. <a href=\"http://r6.ca/blog/20110930T012533Z.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Russel O'Connor ran into this problem with the ACM</a> when he tried to secure open access and free use by putting the material into public domain by uploading it to the ArXiv before submitting it to the ACM.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 26, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/10/12\">This answer to a related question</a> points to <a href=\"http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/</a>, which allows you to look up the policy of specific journals.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 543, "author": "Ivar Persson", "author_id": 314, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/314", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.doaj.org/\">Directory of open access journals</a> is the most comprehensive listing for the open access ones, so if you find a journal there, it's open. If not, then you need further research. Though usually clicking on an article link should be sufficient.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 27, "author": "Andy W", "author_id": 3, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Although just a start, we had a \"journal club\" over at the stats.se site on such bibliometrics, and had a chat over this particular article;</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Arnold, Douglas N. &amp; Kristine K. Fowler. 2011. Nefarious Numbers.\n <em>Notices of the AMS</em> 58(3): 434-437. <a href=\"http://www.ams.org/notices/201103/rtx110300434p.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">PDF link from publisher</a></p>\n \n <p>Abstract from initial <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/abs/1010.0278\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ArXiv print</a>:</p>\n \n <p>We investigate the journal impact factor, focusing on the applied\n mathematics category. We discuss impact factor manipulation and\n demonstrate that the impact factor gives an inaccurate view of journal\n quality, which is poorly correlated with expert opinion.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As far as scientific assessments the authors in the above article are pretty negative of such rankings, and give a few examples of editors having citation practices that intentionally inflate their journals rankings.</p>\n\n<p>I'm sure more literature on the topic exists than this though (so I look forward to any other suggestions).</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Unfortunately the transcript from the chat is currently not linked to in the <a href=\"https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/a/836/1036\">applicable thread</a> on meta stats. But I will update here if it becomes available.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 48, "author": "abatkai", "author_id": 31, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Concenrning mathematics as in the answer of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3/andy-w\">Andy W</a>, the International Mathematical Union has a <a href=\"http://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/IMU/Report/WG_JRP_Report_01.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">report</a> on possible policies to measure and rank journals. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1116, "author": "William Gunn", "author_id": 582, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/582", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Johan Bollen and Herbert van de Sompels are two researchers to follow in this area. Bollen did an <a href=\"http://www.mendeley.com/research/principal-component-analysis-39-scientific-impact-measures/\">analysis of 39 different citation-based metrics</a> which is a good place to start. However, it's crucial to note that there are serious errors in trying to use citation-counting methods as some sort of ground truth. Citation counting is problematic because:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Different fields have different citation practices. In biology it's common to have 10 or more authors on one paper, whereas in math you often have only one or two.</li>\n<li>Citations take a long time to accumulate, penalizing early-stage researchers.</li>\n<li>Citations only tell part of the story, leaving out the useful contributions made by researchers in the form of code written and datasets released.</li>\n<li>Citations often <a href=\"http://classic.the-scientist.com/news/display/57689/\">mutate</a> over time.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It's now possible to get more information about a paper than just who cited it, and it's possible to get this information before several years have passed and before the information about the impact of the paper becomes old and less useful. The <a href=\"http://alm.plos.org\">Public Library of Science</a> makes detailed article-level metrics available and <a href=\"http://dev.mendeley.com\">Mendeley</a> has an API from which you can collect real-time data about how many readers a paper has, as well as social metadata such as tags and annotations and reader demographics. These metrics are being consumed by services such as <a href=\"http://total-impact.org\">Total Impact</a> and combined with data from Github, Twitter, and traditional citation metrics. My bet is that if you're looking for a meaningful set of measures, you're going to find it in these richer sets of aggregated data.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28018, "author": "aaragon", "author_id": 19409, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19409", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm against \"productivity-based measures\" like the <em>h</em>-index, to the point that I wrote an article on an alternative measure. This measure is based on impact, and it tries to remove productivity as a factor for evaluating scientific work. The article is open, and you can find it in <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130411/srep01649/full/srep01649.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Scientific Reports.</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 44, "author": "abatkai", "author_id": 31, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>You will find details on the evaluation process in the Guide for Applicants. The evaluators are experts (=researchers) in the field. They will be matched to the proposal according to their profile and to the abstract and keywords. They will for sure be in the general research area, but might not be in the exact same field of the proposal. It is (at least, officially) not possible to find out who evaluated the proposal afterwards, but you can find a list of former evaluators here:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/experts_en.html\">http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/experts_en.html</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 29691, "author": "Colin Johnson", "author_id": 22703, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22703", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>Who are the evaluators...?</em> I am. Along with a few hundred other people, of course! The evaluators (\"experts\" in EU jargon) are mostly academics from across Europe, with a decent number of scientists from industry, government, etc.</p>\n\n<p><em>How are they selected?</em> There is an open application process to become an EU H2020 expert. You fill out a form on the H2020 website, where you detail your scientific expertise, list your publications, grants etc. Then there is some selection process where, if your profile matches a vacancy on one of the evaluation panels, you get invited to be a panel member.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 22, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Depending on which country you are talking about, there may be league tables for the universities in that country. While the total ranking can be misleading, they provide useful information such as staff to student ratios -- the higher the ratio, the more opportunity you will have to ask questions.</p>\n\n<p>I would also look at the reputation of the universities in the specific field that you want to do your MSc in, e.g. how many people work in that area and are they well-known (involved in many conferences/journals and similar).</p>\n\n<p>In the end it might boil down to money though, so you should probably look at what you can afford first (not only in terms of tuition, but also living expenses in that area).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24, "author": "mac389", "author_id": 28, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>May I ask why you chose an MSc instead of a PhD? What is your career goal? I don't mean to imply one is better than the other. If you are going to spend a lot of money and time, it should be well-spent. </p>\n\n<p>In some places, like the UK, not much more time is needed to get a PhD beyond an MSc. In the U.S., PhD's in the sciences are usually completely funded. Per badp this seems not to be the case in Italy. </p>\n\n<p>For either an MSc or PHD I suggest looking at the career paths of former graduates of that lab. This is something I wish someone had told me when I entered <em>my</em> lab. <strong>The charisma of the lab boss or excellence of the equipment are meaningless if, after 2-3 years, you can't move on as you hoped.</strong> Trace the career path of the last few graduates - from MSc all the way to how many wanted to and got faculty positions and how long it took them. In my experience what you do is much less important that who you know, which comes from getting into the right environment.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 59, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As you are presumably pursuing this degree so you can eventually work in industry, I would consider the following:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Find out which programs are more highly regarded in industry.</li>\n<li>Consider the success rates of each university in helping their graduates find employment; this can vary significantly from institution to institution.</li>\n<li>Consider the extra-curricular aspects; what does each program's city have to offer? Programs with ties to local industry may help you obtain some useful internship experience.</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 25, "author": "abatkai", "author_id": 31, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I published a book myself, and know many collegues who published books, and the academic institution never claimed any part from the royalties. This is for sure the case in Germany, Hungary, Austria and Italy.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 29, "author": "Kieran", "author_id": 39, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/39", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>In general, no. (This is based on my experience in the US.) One's employing institution does not have any claim on royalties from books written while a student or faculty member. However, it's possible that there might be exceptions: for example, sometimes a university may help financially in the publication of a book, and this might be reflected in the publication contract. Of course, in such circumstances the book is not expected to make any money, which is why the university is helping out in the first place. </p>\n\n<p>A related and very common phenomenon is for the publisher to hold the copyright on an academic title. My own book is like this. I am entitled to royalties, but the press holds the copyright for some defined period. Again, this is due to the terrible economics of publishing academic monographs. </p>\n\n<p>There have been cases where universities have tried to assert very broad rights over the intellectual property of their faculty employees (e.g., lecture notes as well as books, etc), but I think these have generally failed. It does still happen: <a href=\"http://chronicle.com/article/Faculty-Cry-Foul-Over/130800/?key=HG13cFRsbXIVN35gZGlFZzkBbHM/NUp6ZHdOY30ibl1WEA==\">here's an example</a> where the University of Louisiana is trying to broadly claim rights to scholarly output, including royalties from books. These sweeping assertions of rights have sometimes been motivated by the desire of administrators to claim a share of some of the genuinely lucrative things now produced by some university researchers, such as patentable biotechnologies, with books caught up in the net but not really directly targeted. Patents are an area with real money at stake, where the university's investment (in laboratory space and so on) is much higher, and where university claims on income from work done while employed are strongly and successfully asserted. Books, not so much.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 342, "author": "user1871", "author_id": 200, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/200", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Perhaps you should check with your own institution as some universities (at least in the UK) have a policy on this issue. Also your employment contract might already cover this. For example, in several UK universities the copyright of course notes and lecture notes lecturers create often belong to the institution, not the individual lecturer. And the same might apply to books they write unless individually negotiated.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2608, "author": "paul garrett", "author_id": 980, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Reiterating what others have said: there is danger here, but at \"better\" universities in the US, the venal impulses of university administrations have at least recognized that they'll not make gazillions of dollars on grabbing royalties on textbooks or monographs, ... so they just let it go.</p>\n\n<p>One should pay attention to the local rules. Yes, the UK rules in the last few years are disturbing... Maybe they've changed.</p>\n\n<p>In the US, the contractual idea is that if one does something \"specified, under contract\", that the product is owned by the \"entity\" that engaged one to produce the work. Universities have been a teensy-bit more ... fair... about this kind of thing, but one should look around.</p>\n\n<p>But we should address the dangerous cases: yes, some colleges/universities will claim that whatever you write/produce/do is their property. (I can't help recommending that you send them stool samples... maybe daily...)</p>\n\n<p>In summary, obviously, try to use common sense. Yet be alter to the (duh, human nature) problem that \"things are more complicated on the ground\".</p>\n\n<p>The net is that novices are coerced to give up \"rights\". This is ill, but I cannot change it. Apparently we must all \"cope\". (Sorry I can't give better/happier advice\" It is disturbing ...)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 60, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't know where you'll find hard data on this, but from experience working at a hospital/university center (University of Pittsburgh, a subset of which is the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center), very few MD/PhDs end up doing full-time, or even half-time, research. Being a clinician is <em>very</em> demanding on one's time, and doing meaningful research requires a significant time commitment. Many of the MD/PhDs I know ended up dropping their research work due to a combined lack of progress and time. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 198, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I have no idea how you'd find hard data on the program itself and its results, but as an idle musing I checked how many full time faculty members in the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health's Dept. of Epidemiology held an MD/PhD or DrPH. The department was chosen as a very good department in a very good school with a strong medical school that I'm not affiliated with.</p>\n\n<p>Ten of the 94 listed faculty members were MD/PhD or DrPH's. Little under 11% of the faculty. And that's not including other possible \"physician scientists\" like MD/MPH degree holders...if you do that the number rises to 23 faculty members with an MD degree in a related, but non-clinical research department. Nearly a quarter of the faculty total.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, this is only a very crude proxy for how many physician-scientists pursue academic tracks, and even the representation of clinician-scientists in research departments will likely vary wildly by said department. That being said, I've met a considerable number of them in my graduate school career, either entirely in academic settings, or balancing research with practice. It's absolutely a viable path, though not an easy one.</p>\n\n<p>As another data point, here is the list of alumni for the UNC School of Medicine's MD/PhD program: <a href=\"http://www.med.unc.edu/mdphd/fps/alumni-1\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://www.med.unc.edu/mdphd/fps/alumni-1</a> . That should give you a decent glimpse at where those particular graduates go - it looks like a fair number ended up in research or hybrid positions.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 615, "author": "Julian Z. Xue", "author_id": 353, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/353", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm a student enrolled in a MD/PhD program in Canada. I don't know about NIH very well, but our experience here is that it is very difficult to continue research. I agree with eykanal: it takes a lot to be a great clinician (and being a mediocre clinician is very hard on one's conscience). 50%+ of students rethink their decision during their first year of medicine and do not begin the PhD portion of the program. Only those who begin 80/20 in terms of devolution (80 research, 20 clinician) seem to be able to continue the research path, with considerable sacrifice of their clinical skills (fewer clinical elective during both medical school and residency), as well as many more years of education. </p>\n\n<p>Once done, however, the career path in academic medicine is relatively good. The PhD really helps with those jobs and their attendant excitement and opportunities, although they often pay significantly lower than a pure clinican job. </p>\n\n<p>I know that in the States, the culture of MD/PhD's is more pronounced than in Canada, since there's a massive amount of NIH funds. I heard that nearly a quarter of the class in U of Pennsylvania at least begin as MD/PhD's (don't quote me). Dropping out of the PhD is harder, because you have to give up your funding. I expect that many of them are able to complete the program, but few manage to continue in the research path.</p>\n\n<p>Many of the professors who are MD and PhD's often complete their PhD separately from the MD - they either had it before the MD or got it afterwards. Materially, it's a more difficult path, with less funding and guarantees, but there's less room to regret and it's easier to cut one's losses, since it's 2 big decisions, not 1.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 31, "author": "Alexander Galkin", "author_id": 45, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't know how to get information about different countries, but <a href=\"http://www.gehaltsvergleich.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">this webpage</a> allows you to query the information on salaries in different parts of Germany. If you query for \"professor\" you will find several categories depending upon the status of the academic institution (University, University of applied sciences (Fachhochschule) etc.). <a href=\"http://www.gehaltsvergleich.com/gehalt/Professor-Professorin-Wissenschaftliche-Hochschulen.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Here</a> is the link to the salaries of full professor in normal universities.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 32, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I think <a href=\"http://www.eui.eu/ProgrammesAndFellowships/AcademicCareersObservatory/CareerComparisons/SalaryComparisons.aspx\">this page</a> has what you are looking for. As far as I can tell (e.g. for France) the numbers are fine.</p>\n\n<p>However, we should keep in mind that the comparison can be made difficult. For instance, \"full professor\" is not an actual rank in french academia. You are either a \"maitre de conférences\" (roughly equivalent to assistant prof. position to \"junior\" associate prof.), then \"professeur des universités\" (roughly from more senior associate prof. to full prof.).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 37, "author": "Fabián Heredia Montiel", "author_id": 46, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.glassdoor.com/\">http://www.glassdoor.com/</a> works by getting anonymous information from users and sharing it. It is really vast and accurate as far as I am aware.</p>\n\n<p>Examples:\nTA: Brigham Young University $10.41/hour\nProfessor: University of Warwick: £103/year-£112/year</p>\n\n<p>You must only Select Salaries on the dropdown menu, add a description or phrase of the position and/or location.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 43123, "author": "user32799", "author_id": 32799, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32799", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For Germany the best website to see professor salaries is the following:\n<a href=\"https://www.academics.de/wissenschaft/w-besoldung-2014-eine-uebersicht-der-grundgehaelter_56973.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.academics.de/wissenschaft/w-besoldung-2014-eine-uebersicht-der-grundgehaelter_56973.html</a></p>\n\n<p>It gives the W1, W2, and W3 Professor ranges. Just keep in mind that it is not strictly comparable to an assist, assoc, full ranking as W2 is considered also a full professor. Also, there is not tenure track system in Germany, although a couple universities are starting to experiment with it so you can have a permanent or temporary contract that may become permanent in the future or may not.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 121, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As far as I know, the translation is up to the universities who do the conversion. I think that it is unlikely that there are is one set of guidelines as even within a country not all universities have necessarily the same ranking systems.</p>\n\n<p>I have found <a href=\"http://www.google.com/url?url=http://www.sowi.rub.de/mam/images/auslandsstudium/umrechnungstabelle_noten.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=lQM8T82XBOnJ0QW7neVs&amp;ved=0CCQQFjAE&amp;q=erasmus+grade+translation&amp;usg=AFQjCNF1ed-eRBTDXIhteYRf-tD1dSnkIw\" rel=\"noreferrer\">this table</a> on Google though that gives some idea on what grades are roughly equivalent.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 145859, "author": "einpoklum", "author_id": 7319, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7319", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Like host Drew Carey used to puts it on his old quiz show:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Welcome to Whose Line Is It Anyway?\", the show where everything is made up and the <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gl__LLKMIs\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">points don't matter</a>!</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Grades are not consistent, nor consistently translatable, across departments, courses, professors, semesters - all within a single university. So you want to have that across different universities in different countries?</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 115, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>From what I've heard, the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOEFL\">TOEFL</a> is well recognised. </p>\n\n<p>That being said, once you get your PhD, I don't think people ask for some English certifications (at least, I've never been asked to, and I'm not a native speaker). I guess your publications and the interview in English should be enough to see if you're able to communicate in English. </p>\n\n<p>EDIT List of <a href=\"http://www.ets.org/toefl/ibt/about/who_accepts_scores\">who accepts the TOEFL</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 27153, "author": "Greg", "author_id": 14755, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14755", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As always, it helps to be specific:\n- what kind of exchange program?\n- what is oversea? USA? Canada? Japan?</p>\n\n<p>In the US for a PhD program generally TOEFL and GRE is required, and most cases cannot exchanged to other certificates. I don't know Master programs, but I would assume similar or same certificates are required. Since exchange programs are much more limited, and I saw a really wide range of people doing them, I am pretty sure that there are programs that do not require any certificates or very flexible.</p>\n\n<p>In Far-East the universities are generally more flexible. Beside TOEFL, TOEIC is also a popular English test, but many have heard about IELTS, too.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 46, "author": "abatkai", "author_id": 31, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Well, there is no universal advice. In general, you should adopt the local policy. If it is really the expectation, then you should go. Try to ask your younger colleagues. </p>\n\n<p>Of course there is an other aspect: usually you never know in advance whether the talk will be good and inspiring or not. Usually it is not, but sometimes there is a surprise. Most of us go to these seminars hoping for a miracle. Unfortunately, in most cases the talks are simply bad.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, there is also the argument that later you will be also giving talks on similar seminars. It is somehow sad if nobody except your fellow buddy listens to your talk.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 64, "author": "kmm", "author_id": 75, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/75", "pm_score": 7, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I would say that you should always go to seminar, unless you have some very compelling reason not to go (you are away, you are working on an experiment, you are trying to finish writing your thesis, etc.). </p>\n\n<p>There are four reasons:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Scientific courtesy. To travel somewhere and give a talk to the 10 people who show up (5 of whom you already knew) is really irritating. </li>\n<li>Good or bad -- you learn something about presentation. Even if you say \"wow, I should never do that in a talk\" your hour has been well spent.</li>\n<li>You get perspective. You never know when something that someone says will make you see your own work in a different context. </li>\n<li>The speaker may someday be interviewing you for a job. It's better to be able to say \"I heard your seminar\" than \"Oh, sorry, I missed your seminar when you visited.\"</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 68, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Try to always go.</h2>\n\n<p>If you're a first/second year grad student, go because you have to.</p>\n\n<p>If you're a third/fourth year grad student, go to learn about disciplines and topics other than yours.</p>\n\n<p>If you're a fifth+ year grad student, go to network.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 108, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Let's ask another question: is there at least one good reason not to go at the seminars?</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Time consumption: except if you have a 1 hour seminar each day, you can probably afford the time loss due to the seminar. BTW, it it a time loss only if you go and don't speak to anybody, don't ask questions and don't try to understand a little piece of what is presented.</li>\n<li>It is not profitable: really? A lot of research results start with ideas from elsewhere. Of course, it can be different for earth sciences. Even if you don't see something directly useful, you will probably be confronted to different ways of thinking.</li>\n<li>\"I am going to the seminars with my laptop/smartphone, people will think I am rude\": and they will be right if you use your laptop for other things that taking notes about the talk. To be fair, this can be considered OK to go with your laptop for working during the talk if your the dean, or the head of the department...</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Well, in fact I cannot see good reasons not to go, except if it takes you 5+ hours a week...</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 111, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Opinions on others may depend on many factors. Some people may not care at all (or even does not notice), but generally not attending seminars may be viewed as</p>\n<ul>\n<li>lack of commitment,</li>\n<li>lack of genuine interest in research by other people and in other fields,</li>\n<li>general laziness,</li>\n<li>lack of respect for work by other people,</li>\n<li>you not feeling being a part of the department.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>And while you may care less about the opinion of your colleagues, the opinion of your advisor may matter a lot.</p>\n<p>If everyone knows that a certain seminar is of very poor quality, perhaps the reaction may be not so severe. However, I guess here it is not the case:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Don't ask me the difference between a protein and an amino acid; I have no idea!</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>It is a sign that even more that you should the seminar. Not knowing sth simple - check wikipedia or ask your friends. Not knowing something more advanced - ask the lecturer (as (s)he is there exactly to explain you, among the others, a certain topic).</p>\n<p><strong>Comment:</strong></p>\n<p>for some reason other answers do not cover the question, which was spelled out three times:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Will people judge me negatively for skipping department seminars?</p>\n<p>Do you look down on colleagues who sometimes skip out on talks far outside their expertise?</p>\n<p>Is skipping an event like this better or worse than showing up but discreetly reclaiming time during bad talks by studying on a smartphone?</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 146, "author": "Tangurena", "author_id": 109, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Part of being a grad student is politics. Skipping out on seminars signals to the presenter that you are not interested (which is probably true). Depending on the personality of the person, it may make them an enemy. In academic politics, revenge is a dish served cold. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>Is skipping an event like this better or worse than showing up but discreetly reclaiming time during bad talks by studying on a smartphone?</em> </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If the presenter is an older person, screwing around with your cell phone will be perceived as terribly disrespectful, and much worse than not showing up at all. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>But I'm worried that other people will think I'm being a slacker as a result.</em> </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The perception will come across more as \"he is not one of us\". That sort of attitude is the kiss of death when it comes to recommendations. </p>\n\n<p>My advice is to suck it up and go to them. It is part of the cost of being a grad student. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/39", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 55, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Beyond the h-index, I don't think there's any definitive parameters used in practice. However, some other common factors used to evaluate research faculty:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Publication count</li>\n<li>Quantity of funding</li>\n<li>Number of invited talks &amp; invited journal articles</li>\n<li>Lab size</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Note that these apply to the fields I'm familiar with, neuroscience and engineering. I suspect that these answers will vary according to field.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 123, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There's the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-index\">g-index</a> and the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-b_index\">h-b-index</a>. Another thing is (in conjunction with the number of publications) the number of coauthors, i.e. has somebody only worked with one group (perhaps at the same university) or have they collaborated with lots of people from different institutions.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 126, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To add to other answers:</p>\n\n<p>How often one publishes in the most prestigious general journals (e.g. <a href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/\">Science</a> and <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/\">Nature</a>) and most prestigious journals in their field (e.g. <a href=\"http://prl.aps.org/\">Physical Review Letters</a>).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1115, "author": "William Gunn", "author_id": 582, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/582", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The h-index is common (and the g-index, which corrects for self-citation), as is the Journal Impact Factor. Johan Bollen has a <a href=\"http://www.mendeley.com/research/principal-component-analysis-39-scientific-impact-measures/\">good review of the various metrics</a>.</p>\n\n<p>However, it's important to point out that all those measures are just different ways of counting citations. They don't account for things like code you've written or talks you've given and they can't address systematic bias in citation practices such as coercive citation or citation mutation. Also, any citation-counting metric will penalize younger researchers simply due to the time it takes to publish one paper and for other papers to get published citing yours. In order to keep academics from having to publish a paper just to describe some code they've written or a dataset they've accumulated, aggregators have been built to pull in these various metrics and consolidate them. <a href=\"http://total-impact.org\">Total Impact</a> is a good example of such a system. The general field of study looking at incorporating these broader metrics is called #altmetrics, and you can find a collection of research on the topic <a href=\"http://www.mendeley.com/groups/586171/altmetrics/\">here</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1775, "author": "Benoît Kloeckner", "author_id": 946, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I believe the answer to your question depends very strongly on the field. In mine, mathematics, the most used quick proxy for quality of research is the prestige of journals one's publishes in (which is not measured by impact factor, although there is a correlation).</p>\n\n<p>In some humanities fields, books are the most prominent research outputs.</p>\n\n<p>For a PhD student in biology (especially molecular and cellular, at least in some labs in France), time spent in lab in the evenings and week-ends seems to overweight everything else.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28019, "author": "aaragon", "author_id": 19409, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19409", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Take a look at <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130411/srep01649/full/srep01649.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">this open article</a> in Scientific Reports for a measure that attempts to discard productivity as a factor in evaluating the output of research. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/59/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 82, "author": "Anthony Labarre", "author_id": 26, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are quite a few journals where you can publish theoretical work in this area. Here are a few suggestions (the distinction is based on my perception and knowledge of what they've published, I'll let others chip in if they disagree):</p>\n\n<p>For more theoretical work:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"http://www.computer.org/portal/web/tcbb\" rel=\"nofollow\">IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (TCBB)</a>.</li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http://www.liebertpub.com/CMB\" rel=\"nofollow\">Journal of Computational Biology</a>.</li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http://www.springer.com/new+%26+forthcoming+titles+%28default%29/journal/285\" rel=\"nofollow\">Journal of Mathematical Biology</a>.</li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http://www.springer.com/new+%26+forthcoming+titles+%28default%29/journal/11538\" rel=\"nofollow\">Bulletin of Mathematical Biology</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>For more applied work:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://bioinformatics.oxfordjournals.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Bioinformatics</a>.</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcbioinformatics/\" rel=\"nofollow\">BMC Bioinformatics</a>. (open access)</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.almob.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Algorithms for Molecular Biology</a>. (open access)</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.ploscompbiol.org/home.action\" rel=\"nofollow\">PLoS Computational Biology</a>. (open access)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This is not exhaustive of course, and I suggest you discuss these \"candidates\" with your collaborators.</p>\n\n<p>EDIT: I marked some of them \"open access\" because they advertise(d) so. This does not mean that the others do not offer that option, you'll have to check.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 11565, "author": "user7995", "author_id": 7995, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7995", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can consider BMC Evolutionary Biology and PLoS ONE for game theoretical studies. Unfortunately both are open access, which means there is a hefty fee involved.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 11764, "author": "WetlabStudent", "author_id": 8101, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8101", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Since your work is in game theory and population biology, do not forget Springer's </p>\n\n<p><em>Journal of Theoretical Ecology</em>. It's a newer journal (started in 2008) but already has an impact factor close to JTB, and has an open access option. Alan Hastings is the Editor in Chief of this journal (you'd have a hard time finding a more prominent figure in Theoretical Biology than him).</p>\n\n<p>Unfortunately most journals in the subject don't have open access options (e.g. Mathematical Biosciences, Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, Ecological Modeling, Journal of Theoretical Population Biology, Journal of Theoretical Biology) </p>\n\n<p>Also don't forget Bio Journals, you can stick the more advanced math and proofs in an appendix, and often your work will get more exposure in these journals. I know <em>Proceedings of the Royal Society Part B</em>, <em>the American Naturalist</em>, <em>Journal of Applied Ecology</em> and <em>PLoS BIO</em> all have open access options and take modeling papers as long as the results are interesting from a biological perspective and aren't just a cool model that was fun to explore (a good intro and discussion is key for these journals as they all have very high impact factors).</p>\n\n<p>If you prove things in your work also consider applied math journals like <em>Nonlinear Dynamics</em> (Springer) which has an open access option.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 11770, "author": "Open the way", "author_id": 284, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/284", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Another good option is \"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modeling\", <a href=\"http://www.tbiomed.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a>.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/47", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 57, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 6, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>This post refers to research in the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEM_fields\">STEM fields</a>, and may not be applicable to other research topics.</em></p>\n\n<p>One of my biggest epiphanies in research came when I learned how to read a paper. Reading scientific publications is completely different from reading literature or news. At the beginning of your research career, you can expect to spend a full day (if not more) reading through a single 8-page paper. Some tips follow:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Most papers are divided into \"Intro\", \"Methods\", \"Results\", \"Discussion\". These are roughly broken down as follows:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Intro</strong> - Read this for background. There will be nothing \"new\" in this section. You will find it <em>very</em> useful to read the intro section to as many papers as you can get your hands on. While you do this, you will become fairly depressed that so much research has already been done, and you will wonder what you can do to add to the field. Speak with your advisor, he has many good ideas.</li>\n<li><strong>Methods</strong> - This will take you a VERY long time to read initially, because they go into ridiculous detail. They do this so that you, the researcher reading and interested in replicating their results, can do so. If you don't understand everything here at first, don't worry. NOTE: If you finish reading the methods section and still want to know how something worked, email the author! This is research; the guy who wrote the paper is likely another grad student/postdoc like you. He'd love to hear from you.</li>\n<li><p><strong>Results</strong> - This is the meat of the paper. Read this very carefully to find out what they found. Between this section and the methods section you will determine what went right, what went wrong, what is new, and what they should have done that they didn't that you can now research and publish and become a superstar.</p>\n\n<p>When you cite a paper, you will be citing from this section. If you find yourself citing a paper based on something in the Intro, you're just citing another citation.</p></li>\n<li><strong>Discussion</strong> - This is <em>the author's thoughts</em> on what the results mean. Take note of this; the author is using his or her expertise to interpret the results. If you disagree with something he or she says here, and you can back up your findings, more power to you.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><p>Most accomplished researchers don't actually read papers; they just read figures. A good paper will be completely in the figures. (This is particularly true in some biological sciences fields, less so elsewhere.)</p></li>\n<li>Take notes on the papers you read. Keep those notes. My method was to keep my notes in a 3-ring binder, put a little post-it tab with the author's name, and then put the paper in there as well with the notes, so each \"tab\" is my notes and the paper. You will read hundreds of papers during your academic career. You will want to remember what you've read.</li>\n<li>This is a very arduous process, and the learning curve is steep. Don't be discouraged! Reading papers is a skill, and the more you read the more proficient at understanding them you'll become.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 63, "author": "kmm", "author_id": 75, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/75", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>At the beginning read anything and everything (and take notes). You should always be reading something and writing something. The hardest part for most students in the sciences to get past is embracing the unknown. </p>\n\n<p>You will probably feel the need to understand everything, right from the start. Unless you are exceptional, you probably will have to read the important papers several times. You are looking to develop a broad-scale understanding of your field. To know where your research fits in, you have to develop an understanding of where your field in. This takes time.</p>\n\n<p>As time goes on, you'll pick and choose more carefully the papers you read closely. Often you can get the idea from just the abstract. If it sounds promising, then read on.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 67, "author": "Henry", "author_id": 8, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8", "pm_score": 7, "selected": true, "text": "<p><em>My experience is almost exclusively with mathematics papers, and applies little or not at all to other fields.</em></p>\n\n<p>Much of eykanal's post applies to math as well, but one big difference is that math papers are much more varied in their structure, not having an actual experiment to tie them together. A good paper will generally explain its organization in the introduction, however.</p>\n\n<p>One point worth emphasizing is that reading a paper from front to back, trying to understand everything at each step, is usually inefficient. The most common instance is that a paper often starts with definitions which may be hard to make sense of without understanding the theorems they're used in. It's generally more effective to skim the paper several times, trying to understand more and more with each pass.</p>\n\n<p>Relatedly, you'll eventually pick up the skill of picking out the most interesting ideas from a paper without reading the whole thing. Early on, though, it's probably better to read things carefully; it's very easy to fool yourself into thinking you've understood something.</p>\n\n<p>As to your main question, about breadth versus depth, your first priority has to be depth, because that's what you'll ultimately need to be able to do your own research and get your degree. But if you're learning enough to do that, you want as much breadth as possible. It actually gets harder and harder to learn completely new things as you get on in your career, even when there may be direct benefits to your research to do doing so. Laying the foundations of a broad understanding of your field while in graduate school will pay off later.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 238, "author": "Tangurena", "author_id": 109, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>This is about my experience in computer engineering</em> </p>\n\n<p>I found that reading for breadth was the more important approach. The area of research I was interested in was pretty fluffly and ill-defined (I thought I could make a difference by organizing it better), so that many relevant articles were categorized in totally different areas. This meant I had to have a hummingbird approach: flittering around, but drilling down when I found an important vein of data. I also kept a journal where I'd put a citation and a very brief summary of the article, so that I could come back and say \"I think I read something about this last September\" and then go look in an older journal. Today, I'd have my own wiki at home to keep track of this. I used to have my own \"library\" of PDFs that I got through university access, but that removable hard drive was stolen. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>Is five pages of close reading per day enough?</em> </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If you can stay consistently at 5 pages (or 1 article) every day, you will end up far ahead of other people who study only in spurts. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2955, "author": "Dan C", "author_id": 1069, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1069", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree with Henry about breadth vs. depth. You'll ultimately be judged on depth, so that has to be your first priority. However, breadth is quite valuable too. Many breakthroughs have come by applying standard techniques from one area to a new area. </p>\n\n<p>The $.02 I want to add is that <strong>not all reading is created equal</strong>. Particularly when you're learning a new topic, well-written exposition is invaluable (in large part because it's so rare). As you progress, you'll develop a better intuition for what's worth reading. But when you're early in your career, I strongly encourage you to ask your adviser (or more senior students) <strong>which papers and books you should be reading</strong>. Personally, I've slogged through many manuscripts mired in myopia before encountering enlightened, engaging exposition. ...and that has made all the difference.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5289, "author": "mukhtar", "author_id": 4096, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4096", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I personally think one should read both for breadth and depth. Read all sort of literature around your field, and a few outside your field. One can only come up with good ideas having a good general knowledge of science. When it comes to your own research area papers should be read carefully and critically to understand what is being done, how it is being done and if the interpretations and methods made and used really show that. As my PhD supervisor used to say, read atleast two papers a day even if you are busy with experiments. This gets easier as you go. For me in the first year it used to take a lot to time to read a paper. Towards the end, I was looking at the abstract, results/figures...if needed methods, and where confused check the discussion quickly to see how the authors explained their results. After a while, you rarely need to read the intro in your own field unless you want a refresher.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 13085, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>This is about my experience in applied atmospheric physics</em></p>\n\n<p>As others have said, it is often reading for depth that is more effective. Making sure that you understand the key concepts and connections made between the main concept and the subsidiary topics within a paper. Usually, I read the Abstract and Conclusion to garner the main points of what the paper sought to discover, what method they used (established, modified or new) and what were the overall results.</p>\n\n<p>In many of the papers that I have read (and written), the method is often in stages corresponding to specific results in the results and discussion section (they are often merged in my field) - I tend to read the method, derivations therein and the results of each stage - which means flipping between each section. All the time taking notes.</p>\n\n<p>At times (not very often), the method stage makes reference to another paper, so that paper is retrieved and worked through in the same way. </p>\n\n<p>I have found this process to be quite quick, as each stage comprises a short paragraph and equations in the method; a corresponding sentence in the results, often with a table or graph and a sentence or two of explanation.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 13087, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'll chime in with a quite different opinion (or maybe a related opinion phrased in a different way), which grew out of advising/supervising PhD students and post-docs: <strong>reading for depth is a job requirement, but reading for breadth is what will make you stand out</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>As a PhD student, you are required to read in depth the papers that directly pertain to your particular subfield. A PhD is the process of becoming an expert in your discipline, and you cannot do that without mastering the minute details of it, which you will only learn by reading in depth the papers published (and attending conferences, asking questions, etc.).</p>\n\n<p>However, though becoming an expert is what gets you your PhD, if you want to continue further in research (whether academic or R&amp;D), you will need to be able <strong>to show a quick understanding of new problems, to make connections between concepts in various areas of research, and propose creative solutions</strong> to the problems you have identified. This requires a casual knowledge of a large variety of fields, which will be only acquired by reading a large breadth of topics.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 13710, "author": "Armin Mustafa", "author_id": 9136, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9136", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I have some points to mention on this:</p>\n\n<p><strong>1. Read papers relevant to your research:</strong> \nI mean, you will know slowly which conferences publish results in your interest area and which do you find relevant, so choose papers from top conferences or journals because those set the benchmarks</p>\n\n<p><strong>2. Datasets in paper convey a lot</strong>\nBrowse in the result section of the papers and you will notice that the datasets on which the algorithm are tested should suit your requirement. For example: I am working on outdoor dataset and I see a paper showing results from indoor dataset, there are 99% chances of me dropping that paper.</p>\n\n<p><strong>3. Use abstract as filter</strong>\nI think this point is self explanatory</p>\n\n<p><strong>4. Scheduling your reading - difficult</strong>\nThere may be a week where you will end up reading a lot of papers and there will be times where reading even one paper will not be possible.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/50", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 54, "author": "JRN", "author_id": 64, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<ol>\n<li><p>According to the <a href=\"http://publicationethics.org/static/1999/1999pdf13.pdf\">Committee on Publication Ethics Guidelines on Good Publication Practice</a>, the term \"redundant publication\" is defined this way:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Redundant publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross reference, share the same hypothesis, data, discussion points, or conclusions.\" In addition, it states: \"(1) Published studies do not need to be repeated unless further confirmation is required. (2) Previous publication of an abstract during the proceedings of meetings does not preclude subsequent submission for publication, but full disclosure should be made at the time of submission. (3) Re-publication of a paper in another language is acceptable, provided that there is full and prominent disclosure of its original source at the time of submission. (4) At the time of submission, authors should disclose details of related papers, even if in a different language, and similar papers in press.\" Note that (2) states that it is generally acceptable to present a paper in a conference and then later publish exactly the same paper in a journal, as long \n as you mention to the editor that the paper has been publicly presented.</p>\n</blockquote></li>\n<li><p>According to the paper <a href=\"http://jme.bmj.com/content/35/6/348.full.pdf\">Science journal editors’ views on publication ethics:\nResults of an international survey</a>,</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Breaches of publication ethics such as plagiarism, data fabrication and redundant publication are recognised as forms of research misconduct that can undermine the scientific literature.\" It also stated that redundant publication is an unethical practice. Of 16 ethical issues studied, redundant publication had the highest severity (that is, it caused editors the most concern---more than plagiarism or data fabrication).</p>\n</blockquote></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 76, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Personally, I have no qualms with submitting the same <em>talk</em> to multiple conferences; however, in my field (Chemical Engineering), we don't really do conference proceedings. Therefore, it's not such a big deal to present a work more than once; it's being given to different audiences that might not otherwise see the work, and it's not going into the publication record multiple times, so there really aren't any ethical violations going on.</p>\n\n<p>However, in a field where conference papers are required to give a talk, then ethical rules demand that you disclose if a paper has been accepted previously. If you've changed the material enough, or introduced enough new material, then it's a little bit more of a grey area. But it's still better to err on the side of caution than to get caught out.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 78, "author": "David Ketcheson", "author_id": 81, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Rather than asking what's acceptable, I think it's worthwhile to step back and think about the purpose of scientific publication. Your goal in publishing should be to disseminate useful ideas, not to create a publication record. If you have ten papers that are all very similar, it's hard for people to learn about your ideas because they won't have time to read all those papers. Just write one good one.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 192, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are a few things to keep in mind:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Submitted talks vs. invited talks. Many researchers will have given many talks on a subject, but if most of them are invited talks, the reason they're duplicates is because conference organizers have essentially <em>asked</em> for duplicates.</li>\n<li>I'd argue it isn't ethical to submit the <em>same</em> presentation, but a topic is a wide ranging thing. Heck, even a single study has a lot of aspects to it, and many conference presentations have less content than a single paper. For example, you might have a presentation at one conference that's highly technical, another for a different audience that's more practical/applied, etc. Those are different talks.</li>\n<li>Consider what you want to get out of it. Unless your field is one of those where presentations trump papers or themselves generate papers (CS comes to mind), presentations aren't that big of a deal on a CV such that an extra one or two will really put you over the edge. In my field for example, everyone knows there's certain conferences that will essentially accept as many talks as they have spaces to fill (and they have <em>many</em> spaces to fill), so as long as your science isn't egregiously wrong, you're probably going to get in. What you do get out of that is good contacts, and good advice. If you keep repeating the same thing over and over, your return on \"investment\" starts to dive.</li>\n<li>If your talk is going to be spun into a paper via conference proceedings or the like, be doubly cautious, and make sure if you are double-dipping in an experiment or the like that the resulting <em>papers</em> are clearly different as well. I don't know anyone who doesn't frown on duplicated papers, and more than one venue that will smack you down hard for trying to play a game like that.</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 75, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Do you have to be extraordinary for a department to hire you over an equally qualified citizen?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That really depends on the search criteria. If the criteria specifically calls for international experience—and many jobs around the world now do exactly that—you might not be disadvantaged at all, and in some cases even have the upper hand. </p>\n\n<p>That said, it <em>is</em> true that hiring a citizen is generally easier than hiring a non-citizen, and in the EU, it's easier to hire a non-citizen who lives in the EU than a non-citizen who lives outside the EU. The result will be a lot more bureaucracy. Whether or not the hiring unit wants to go through the extra trouble will make a lot of the difference, and it's not something you have much control over. (The same principle applies in the US for non-citizens!)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 152, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There a multiple levels on which this problem operates. This is especially true for places saturated with immigrants. (For instance, USA with Indians/Chinese)</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Getting the Job</strong></p>\n\n<p>This problem itself has a million subdivisions. Firstly, it is fairly difficult for immigrants (who studied in that country) to get jobs without exhibiting something really outstanding. The problem is not so bad for sectors such as computer science and electrical engineering wherein professionals are required by the dozen. The problem, however, is really bad in areas such as Theoretical Physics or Chemistry (or basic sciences). With limited vacancies and a million outstanding candidates, it is really difficult to crack that \"top job\". </p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Working in Sensitive Sectors</strong></p>\n\n<p>I don't even want to get started on sectors like Aerospace. More often than not, graduates from the top universities in USA and Europe have returned to their homelands because all companies stress on citizenship. For EU, it is fairly difficult for a Non-EU resident to get a job in the first place, add to that defense and secrecy and you have a useless degree. In USA, it's even better, if you graduate with a PhD in Aerospace Control Systems from say, Stanford, you are still worthless for US companies because they don't ask just for citizenship anymore but also <a href=\"https://owa.jhuapl.edu/psp/cg89prod_cg/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_CE.GBL?Page=HRS_CE_HM_PRE&amp;Action=A&amp;SiteId=1\" rel=\"nofollow\">Top Secret (or Lower) Security Clearance</a>! That's at least 10 years for a foreign citizen.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Immigration and Visa</strong></p>\n\n<p>Getting a job is one part, getting the necessary immigration documents cleared is another. I mentioned about Aerospace engineering being a potential problem as far as jobs are concerned. But thats not all! USA has published a <a href=\"http://www.bu.edu/isso/forms/tal.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">list</a> called the technology alert list which requires screening of candidates before granting a visa. </p>\n\n<p>The immigration laws in the Europe aren't very friendly for Non-European to begin with but as far as I know, they don't maintain a strict segregation between \"things non-citizens can't do\" and \"things they can\". However, <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/switzerland/8839006/Swiss-far-right-party-on-course-for-record-breaking-election-win.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">rising</a> far-right politics, things don't seem to get any better in the future.</p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 369, "author": "Opt", "author_id": 149, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/149", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In the US, if you're employed by a university or a government research lab, then you're exempt from the H1B visa cap. Thus the visa is not usually a problem.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/52", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 79, "author": "David Ketcheson", "author_id": 81, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I don't think a \"definitive\" answer is possible, but the following is based on personal experience and observation of many other students.</p>\n\n<p>If your advisor is okay with it, take as many courses as you can in things that interest you and are in the realm of your discipline. As an applied math grad student, one of the best things I did was to take a graduate course in optimization from the CS department, even though I thought it had nothing to do with my thesis (in numerical discretization of PDEs). It ended up being crucial and allowing me to publish at least one paper that I never would have written if I hadn't taken that course. I also took courses in things like astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and turbulence; I don't use those things much but I can converse with scientists in those fields, which is often useful.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, I didn't take, say, philosophy or Italian or business management courses -- stick to courses related to your field. And make sure that whoever is paying you is okay with it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 110, "author": "Chang", "author_id": 18, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you are interested in a teaching job, my answer is yes, definitely. You may be asked to teach some courses that are not in your field, or even before it happens, the search committee may want someone who can teach a wide range of courses. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 131, "author": "SwissCoder", "author_id": 108, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/108", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think this does depend a lot on the kind of person you are/ the way of job you like to have.</p>\n\n<p>I studied IT, but I visited a broad variety of courses. Even history, chinese for beginners, and some other stuff which you might think is not related to my field of work. I don't regret it!</p>\n\n<p>But as a Software Engineer it's actually <strong>important to understand a lot of different fields</strong>. As you can be on projects that differ a lof from each other.</p>\n\n<p>Also you propably can <strong>widen your personal network of contacts</strong>, if you go to class with students that you didn't know before!</p>\n\n<p><strong>I would stick to the topics you are interrested in</strong>, instead of ending up as an unhappy person after your studies.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 140, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Yes!</p>\n\n<p>How do you know in advance what's going to be useful later? The wider a net you cast, the more tools you have at your disposal.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 144, "author": "Tangurena", "author_id": 109, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In graduate school, you have to maintain a higher GPA than an undergrad. In some schools I've been to, a <code>C</code> lands you on probation, and a second <code>C</code> gets you dismissed. In my view, this means that courses too far away from your core research will be excessively risky. I dislike this, as it means that I can't afford to learn things that stretch my boundaries. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 195, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As with David Ketcheson, I don't think a definitive answer is possible, but here are my thoughts:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>It depends on the attitude of your program. Are they trying to ramrod you through your coursework as swiftly as possible? Do they support \"dabbling\" in other aspects of your graduate career - side projects, practicums, etc.? The answer will likely change wildly depending on those answers.</li>\n<li>How set is your \"research topic\"? I've bounced around several in my time - I think picking up skills that might be useful trumps \"Is it directly relevant to Thesis Aim #1\". After all, the moment you get out of your PhD program, your research agenda changes again. If all you have is a hammer, and what you'd really like to do is research screws, you're in trouble. If on the other hand, you took 'Seminar in Advanced Screwdriver Theory'...</li>\n<li>When it comes down to it, do you need to \"take\" the course, or do you just want to learn the material? I've sat in on several classes (my university doesn't have a formal auditing system) because I wanted to hear what they had to say. That's a nice, low risk way of expanding one's horizons.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I've found if nothing else it widens your contacts in the university, gives you a better feel for \"Surely someone in Department X knows how to deal with that...\", etc.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 11506, "author": "J. Zimmerman", "author_id": 7921, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7921", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As @EpiGrad, @JeffE, and @Swiss Coder said, you should learn about subjects that are outside the direct focus of your research. This provides you with knowledge and tools you might otherwise never obtain. I would add though, that it is rarely wise to take a course in something you have no interest in simply for the sake of \"knowledge\". However, if you are truly interested in something, don't scrap the possibility of taking the course just because it is not directly part of your research topic. Higher education is intended to help us become well-rounded humans,not force us into the narrow trench of knowing only about a specific field.</p>\n\n<p>Also consider, of course, whether you really need to take a course on this, or if there are other ways to learn what you want to know. Auditing a course is a good option, especially if you don't need to receive credit for it. There are also numerous online options for learning,on your own time and without tuition costs. For myself, though, online learning without the support of a professor and peers rarely works well. I need the motivation of knowing that someone is tracking my progress. </p>\n\n<p>So definitely explore subjects outside \"your\" area of expertise, and keep in mind that a formal course may not be the only or best option.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/53", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 65, "author": "kmm", "author_id": 75, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/75", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I suppose it depends on the factors that are causing you to spend more time teaching than you think you should. You should talk to (1) the other TAs and (2) the course leader/director. Find out what is expected and what others are doing.</p>\n\n<p>If you are a relatively new graduate student, then I think it's normal to spend more time teaching and preparing for your teaching. As you start teaching the same courses repeatedly, the time you have to spend in preparation will decrease.</p>\n\n<p>If you think of the time you are teaching as working on a craft that you will use for the rest of your career, then it is time well spent.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 66, "author": "GWW", "author_id": 41, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In Canada, TA's usually have a contract that specifies how many hours they should be working per week / TA term. If you are going way over that you could talk to the course coordinator. </p>\n\n<p>Your supervisor may also get upset if you are spending a large proportion away from you research project, which his / her grant is paying you to work on. This is especially true if you are approaching your reclassification exam -- assuming you are going that route.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 118, "author": "dearN", "author_id": 21, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I know what you feel like. When I was a fresh TA, I spent an \"inordinate\" amount of time with my TA-ship. I came to understand that both my research and my teaching assignments did have equal priority and I couldn't neglect one and give preference to the other.</p>\n\n<p>There were always weeks when my teaching load was more manageable and I could progress my research and vice versa.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, how the dynamics of your advisor affect this have a major implication on what \"inordinate\" would mean.</p>\n\n<p>Here was my experience as a TA the first time I did it:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Taught two sections of a lab, each requiring about 2 hours of lecture (4hrs total), 5 hours of preparation (5 hours total), 1 office hour each (2 hours total) and 2 hours grading each (3-4 hours total as I graded the same thing for both sections)</li>\n<li><p>Graded 200 homework assignments a week for a course what was out of my specialization (8-10 hours a week)</p>\n\n<p>Total TA time per week ~ 25.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I also had to do research and that time commitment was highly variable!</p>\n\n<p>I hope that generally gives you perspective.</p>\n\n<p>Some background about me:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Been in grad school since Fall 2006.</li>\n<li>Pursuing a PhD in mechanical engineering.</li>\n<li>International student.</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 130, "author": "Stefano Borini", "author_id": 5, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Depending on the course, you may have to invest up to two days of your working week to TA. If the course involves homework assignment, you will have to prepare them, grade them, and give them feedback for every mistake they do (they are learning). Be extremely careful when such tasks are requested, they are a potential career killer. I don't know if there are legal requirement to respect on this regard, but you are not going to have any friend if the professor has to grade two hundred students tests a week instead of delegating the task to his minions (postdocs)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/58", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 72, "author": "GWW", "author_id": 41, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Those volunteer positions may help boost your chances of getting a major award. For example, one of the most prestigious graduate scholarships you can get in Canada is the Vanier Scholarship and the selection board uses your <a href=\"http://www.vanier.gc.ca/eng/selection_criteria-criteres_de_selection.aspx\">leadership experience</a> as criteria for the award. </p>\n\n<p>In addition to scholarships, it's always nice to have additional things to add to your CV to make you stand out. These skills can show a number of traits that employers may look for.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 74, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's a bit of a mixed bag. While there is certainly a lot of benefit to performing service activities—you <em>are</em> giving back to your community, and that is both admirable and expected to advance at all levels of academia—you need to strike a balance. No activities at all makes you look too single-minded (can be a concern for employers). Too many activities and it will look like you're not committed enough to research (again a concern). You need to strike a balance between the two.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 116, "author": "dearN", "author_id": 21, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>More than being useful on my resume, being part of a student organization in a leadership role gave me new perspective. It allowed me to exercise my mind in a different way and allowed me to hone my administrative skills, people skills and time management skills.</p>\n\n<p>It actually had a positive impact on my research because I was more focused as a result of having a \"lot more on my plate\".</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4963, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am a firm believer that if it doesn't lead to a publication, than it is generally not worth the time of a grad student. In my mind the social committee is a no win time suck. The speaker series committee, on the other hand, is potentially worth it for networking opportunities. It might all you to interact a little bit more with speakers. Even mundane interactions (e.g., dealing with their receipts and reimbursement) is good networking.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/69", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 77, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>In general, no, it won't. Having teaching experience might weigh in your favor in exceptional circumstances (a graduate department that needs a lot of teaching assistants, and you're \"on the bubble\"; you're going into an education program or something similar; or the application specifically asks for teaching experience).</p>\n\n<p>However, most graduate schools don't expect that students have prior teaching experience, and provide training to smooth the transition. </p>\n\n<p>Teaching load also varies widely from program to program: some science and engineering students TA for one semester over a five-year program, while humanities graduate students may have to TA every semester to pay for their studies.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 147, "author": "Tangurena", "author_id": 109, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p><em>I've heard from a number of friends that graduate students are all required to teach.</em> </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is usually a requirement for doctoral students, and only because most doctoral students are having their education paid for by the university or grants. If you are terrified about teaching, my advice would be to visit your local <a href=\"http://www.toastmasters.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Toastmasters</a> chapter. While there is far more to teaching than being able to speak in front of others, the fear of public speaking is the largest (in the sense of provoking fear) hurdle that I've heard folks mention. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 191, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For doctoral students, you may very well be expected to teach - rare is the department with sufficient faculty and graduate student funding that using TAs is unnecessary. That being said, learning to teach in those institutions is considered part of your training - not something you're expected to have in advance.</p>\n\n<p>I had a small shred of teaching experience before entering grad school, but many of my fellow students did not, and it mattered not even a little bit.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/70", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 85, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you have Microsoft Windows Office 2010, I would recommend <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_OneNote\" rel=\"nofollow\">OneNote</a> as a really handy way of tracking your notes, images, miscellaneous ideas etc.</p>\n\n<p>For a non-MS cross-platform app, you can try <a href=\"http://www.evernote.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Evernote</a> - it is similar to OneNote, with the added advantage of syncing your notes over multiple computers/tablets etc.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 86, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You should keep a <a href=\"http://colinpurrington.com/tips/academic/labnotebooks\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">research notebook</a>, regardless of whatever other system you have for notes. The format of the notebook is up to you; it can even be public (see <a href=\"http://www.carlboettiger.info/research/lab-notebook/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Carl Boettiger's</a> as an example of an electronic lab notebook). it can be created in programs such as an iPython or Jupyter notebook, or even a more specialized program such as <a href=\"https://findingsapp.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Findings</a>.</p>\n\n<p>If you choose the pen-and-paper route for your research notes, and want to have the added flexibility/security of taking your notes with you (and also because it's good practice to do so), you should consider getting a scanner and making regular backups. You can then import these into a product like Evernote, Onenote, or <a href=\"https://marinersoftware.com/macjournal\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">MacJournal</a>,\nIf you are using LaTeX, your options are somewhat limited, as most of the major tools for notebooking really don't support \"live\" LaTeX. Then you'd be better off using something like <a href=\"http://aquamacs.org\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Aquamacs</a> as a holder for your \"notebooks\" (LaTeX documents), and then using one of the above packages (or something like <a href=\"http://www.mekentosj.org\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Papers</a> or <a href=\"https://www.marinersoftware.com/products/paperless/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Paperless</a> to organize the resulting PDFs.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 87, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For some pretty well-thought suggestions about organizing your notes (without being specific to any application, and dealing with both electronic and paper notes), you can refer to this <a href=\"http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/advice/how-to-organize-your-files.html\">link</a>.</p>\n\n<p>A summary of what methods are discussed:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Keeping Track of Information Online: How to organize your notes in a sensible directory structure on your computer.</li>\n<li>Version Control: Using the power of SCS packages (Mercurial happens to be my favorite due to its ease of use) to store multiple revisions of your notes.</li>\n<li>Keeping Track of Paper: Finally, how to keep your office clutter-free. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Bear in mind that the link is a bit dated, so it doesn't refer to online services like Google Docs which can be effectively used to keep a back-up of your notes online!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 88, "author": "Anthony Labarre", "author_id": 26, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I like to keep the paper option, since most initial ideas are usually a waste of time to typeset using LaTeX or any other computer system. I really hope that does not sound like advertising, but I find the combination of <a href=\"http://atoma.be/en/index.php\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Atoma</a> notebooks (picture below) and sticker tabs quite efficient. You don't lose sheets, and you reorganise them as you wish, as many times as you wish.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZdnhI.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 89, "author": "Willie Wong", "author_id": 94, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would definitely recommend a research notebook. </p>\n\n<p>There are several different ways you can go about it. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The old school method of just using a paper notebook, where you enter data and computations sequentially by date. One is often encouraged to start a new page if one is moving to a new topic (and label the topic at the top of the page); but another possibility is to make use of the margins for noting the topic at hand. </li>\n<li>An electronic notebook would be more searchable. On the other end of the spectrum from a paper notebook is a lab wiki. Some universities even have a university-wide Wiki platform available (for example, <a href=\"http://wiki.epfl.ch\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">here's EPFL's wiki portal</a>). In those cases you won't have to worry about administration issues, and many of those services are regularly backed up, and come with access control system so that you can limit your lab notebook to be only viewable by those in your research group. </li>\n<li>An intermediate method is to just keep a private electronic notebook. I use a customised document class that I wrote for this specific purpose. If you use a good indexing package in LaTeX and make the effort to keep good indices, such a notebook can be very easily searchable. It also has the advantage that when preparing lecture notes or papers for submission, you can just copy and paste directly from your notebook. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If you prefer not to have a single notebook, what you'd need then is a sophisticated document managing system. For paper documents this will generally involve a filing cabinet, folders, and sticky labels. For electronic documents (say you digitize all your notes either by typing them up or scanning them), a lot of the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/36/94\">citation managers</a>, especially those that support multiple databases, can easily be co-opted for organising notes. On the even fancier side, you may want to use some sort of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept-_and_mind-mapping_software\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">mind-mapping software</a>. </p>\n\n<p>Another option if you do not mind \"showing how the sausage is made\" is to <a href=\"http://www.openscience.org/blog/?page_id=44\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">follow the initiative of the Open Science Project</a> and blog about your research as you go along. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 97, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Part of my answer in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/57/73\">this question</a> applies here as well; when reading papers, I've found it useful to write down notes on paper, and then put the notes in a 3-ring binder, along with the paper itself. A similar technique can be used electronically using either <a href=\"http://www.mekentosj.com/papers/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Papers</a> or <a href=\"http://www.evernote.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Evernote</a>... take notes on each paper and attach the notes to the paper (or the to paper if using Evernote). Personally, I found it much better to take notes by hand, as you can scribble in margins, write equations, draw out plots, MUCH faster than if done by hand.</p>\n\n<p>I've also made it a point to keep all notes from classes I took. I've found numerous instances where I referred to notes from a course I took a while back. It's much easier to re-read your own notes (assuming you take good notes) than to learn it from a book where you're unfamiliar with the layout and presentation style.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 340, "author": "user1871", "author_id": 200, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/200", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I find that using Endnote (or a similar reference software) kills two birds with one stone. I find typing up references correctly very very tedious, but absolutely essential. You can import a lot of the references from databases (less typing needed) and then add your own notes, keeping it all in one place. You can add files or scan your paper notes or photos. It is also easily searchable. Plus when it comes to collating your reference list or bibliography, it automatically inserts and formats the articles in the style you selected. That alone can save days when finalising papers.</p>\n\n<p>Endnote works on both macs and pcs and also has an online version. <a href=\"http://www.endnote.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.endnote.com/</a></p>\n\n<p>I also found that universities usually buy a site licence for Endnote or another similar reference software that both staff and students can use for free.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 13176, "author": "Bridges", "author_id": 8851, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8851", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I find that a mix of both worlds (physical and digital) works best for me. People have different ways of retaining and processing information. </p>\n\n<p>Productivity apps are quickly becoming a popular and efficient choice in managing note, documents and other information. You may want to try applications like Evernote, Dropbox or Google Drive or a mixture of the three.</p>\n\n<p>Also recognizing this growing problem of information overload and how to address it, there are many new and improved data capture applications that cater to the myriad of problems stemming from the need to organize information efficiently while making it accessible no matter the age of the info. You may want to try new apps around like <a href=\"https://doo.net/en/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Doo</a> or <a href=\"http://phoenary.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Phoenary</a> to enhance your note-organizing and information capture. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/83", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 91, "author": "Willie Wong", "author_id": 94, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>It seems that neither option presented below are taking new submissions. I keep the answer here for historical interest.</strong></p>\n\n<p>One option is:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http://www.philica.com/faq.php\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Philica</a></strong> which occupies a bit of a strange place. It is a free, open-access journal that publishes immediately and in any discipline. The website comes with a non-traditional review system. It is in between what one may call a pre-print server and what one would call an electronic open access journal. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Nature Precedings used to take submissions, but no longer does:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http://precedings.nature.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Nature Precedings</a></strong>: a pre-print repository run by Nature Publishing Group that focuses on chemistry, biological sciences, and earth sciences. <em>Edit: As bobthejoe noted below in the comments, Nature Precedings is no longer taking new submissions; though it will for the foreseeable future remain a repository for the pre-prints already submitted.</em></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 98, "author": "Andy W", "author_id": 3, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Ones more aimed at social sciences (that I am aware of) are;</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Social Science Research Network (<a href=\"http://www.ssrn.com/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">SSRN</a>)</li>\n<li>The National Bureau of Economic Research (<a href=\"http://www.nber.org/new.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">NBER</a>)</li>\n<li>The recently-founded <a href=\"https://socopen.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">SocArXiv</a> (<a href=\"https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv\" rel=\"noreferrer\">link to search and upload preprints</a>)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>SSRN is dominated by economic and legal research (and NBER is obviously focused on economics). </p>\n\n<p>Another I recently became aware of is <a href=\"http://www.academia.edu/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Academia.edu</a>, although this appears to me more like a personal website that has the option to upload working papers than an organized repository like SSRN or arXiv (here is an <a href=\"http://unm.academia.edu/KellySocia/Papers\" rel=\"noreferrer\">example profile page</a> on Academia.edu).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 295, "author": "Jeromy Anglim", "author_id": 62, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The OSF provides a general open preprint infrastructure that is connected to a range of preprint services. Importantly, it is not owned by a commercial publisher. It supports a number of discipline-specific preprint services many of which use the ArXiv name under licence.</p>\n\n<p>The list of preprint services is growing over time. \nFor further information go to: <a href=\"https://osf.io/preprints\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://osf.io/preprints</a> </p>\n\n<p>In general, no matter what the discipline you can post to:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>OSF preprints</strong> <a href=\"https://osf.io/preprints/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://osf.io/preprints/</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>However, the OSF supports the following discipline-specific preprint services. Presumably, if your preprint aligns with any of these disciplines, then you would be better off posting to them.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Psychological Sciences.</strong> PsyArXiv <a href=\"https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/</a></p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Social Sciences.</strong> SocARXIV <a href=\"https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv</a></p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Engineering.</strong> engrXiV <a href=\"https://osf.io/preprints/engrxiv\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://osf.io/preprints/engrxiv</a></p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Agriculture and Allied Sciences.</strong> AgriXiv <a href=\"https://osf.io/preprints/agrixiv\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://osf.io/preprints/agrixiv</a></p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>More discipline-specific preprint services using the OSF framework are being added on a regular basis: <a href=\"https://cos.io/blog/public-goods-infrastructure-preprints-and-innovation-scholarly-communication/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://cos.io/blog/public-goods-infrastructure-preprints-and-innovation-scholarly-communication/</a></p>\n\n<h3>Useful features of OSF-based preprint services</h3>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Strategy for long term archiving</li>\n<li>Integration with Google Scholar</li>\n<li>Integration with OSF projects which allows you to link other materials such as data, code, and materials</li>\n<li>OSF is a not for profit entity run by academic researchers (contrast this with SSRN, Figshare, ResearchGate; i.e., no ads and goals aligned with academic community)</li>\n<li>The functionality of OSF preprints is improving on a regular basis. See <a href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SocElbBjc_Nhme4-SJv2_zytBd1ys8R5aZDb3POe94c/edit#gid=1340026270\" rel=\"noreferrer\">features road map</a></li>\n<li>You can choose a licence</li>\n<li>You can link to the doi of the subsequently published manuscript.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8073, "author": "Theresa Liao", "author_id": 5988, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5988", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong><a href=\"http://figshare.com/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Figshare</a></strong> is a rather new service (compared to ArXiv) that is just starting to gain momentum. I haven't used it personally, but they have partnered up with some other Open Access players, most notably and recently with PLoS (Figshare will host supplemental data for all PLoS journals). As far as I know, there is no restriction regarding the fields the submissions must be in.</p>\n\n<p>It is a repository, the service is free (unlimited public posts, 1GB private posts). No review or moderation; the submissions will be posted immediately under CC-BY. Each submission is given a DOI. I cannot find info about how many submissions they have received and posted.</p>\n\n<p><strong>NOTE:</strong> Just checked with Figshare through twitter, and after one year they have 200,000 files shared by users (could be papers, figures, charts, data, etc)</p>\n\n<p>Edit: just realized I should also mention the following:</p>\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://peerj.com/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">PeerJ</a></strong> was just launched very recently (like in the last month or two I think). It's a journal but has its own pre-print system. You can submit unlimited number of public pre-prints in their preprint server <a href=\"http://peerj.com/preprints\" rel=\"noreferrer\">PeerJ Preprints</a>, which has its own ISSN number. You will be able to submit your pre-prints subsequently to their peer-reviewed journal. The journal is gold OA and charges what I believe is a one-time membership fee. The journal has limited scope (does not publish in the Physical Sciences, the Mathematical Sciences, the Social Sciences, or the Humanities ), not sure what the pre-print service will look like yet and it is worth checking out later on.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8107, "author": "Benoît Kloeckner", "author_id": 946, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/\"><strong>HaL</strong></a> (\"hyper archive en ligne\") is a French open archive repository that covers all fields. As far as I know it is open for submission beyond people working in French departments. It can automatically deposit on arXiv for papers whose topic is covered.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8504, "author": "Michael Markie", "author_id": 6312, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6312", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>F1000Posters (<a href=\"http://f1000.com/posters\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://f1000.com/posters</a>) is an open access repository that hosts posters and oral presentation slides in biology and medicine, and can also be considered a pre-print server.\nIt allows researchers to extend the visibility of their work outside of the conference hall, maximising the return on the time, effort and money invested in creating each presentation. Many of the posters are submitted with their subsequent research article added to them when it is eventually published. It also completely free to submit.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16878, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not sure why this hasn't come up on this thread yet:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><strong>PubMed Central</strong></a> is the main open-access repository in the biomedical and life sciences. It has its own added metadata, and it is the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIH_Public_Access_Policy\" rel=\"noreferrer\">mandatory recipient</a> of all research funded by the National Institutes of Health and a number of other funding bodies. There are also specific versions for <a href=\"http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Canada</a> and <a href=\"http://europepmc.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Europe</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 17517, "author": "Edward Ames", "author_id": 12475, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12475", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are some more specialized ones for math:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de/LAG/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Linear Algebraic Groups and Related Structures</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://eprint.iacr.org/complete/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Cryptography</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 38444, "author": "just-learning", "author_id": 10483, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10483", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To complement the other answers, </p>\n\n<p>in mathematical physics there is <a href=\"http://www.ma.utexas.edu/mp_arc/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">mp-arc</a> in addition to arXiv, </p>\n\n<p>and in biology one has <a href=\"http://biorxiv.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">biorXiv</a> which is apparently modelled after arXiv.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 58960, "author": "Ekkehart Schlicht", "author_id": 45099, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45099", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In economics, there is also MPRA.</p>\n\n<p>EDIT: <a href=\"https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/</a>\nMPRA is a repository run by the Munich University Library and has a description here. <a href=\"https://blog.repec.org/2009/08/27/mpra-the-munich-personal-repec-archive/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://blog.repec.org/2009/08/27/mpra-the-munich-personal-repec-archive/</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 83912, "author": "Brian Borchers", "author_id": 4453, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Optimization Online is a preprint site for papers in optimization: <a href=\"http://www.optimization-online.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://www.optimization-online.org/</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 88263, "author": "Miztli", "author_id": 72315, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/72315", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For linguistics, there's <a href=\"http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz\" rel=\"noreferrer\">LingBuzz</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 93007, "author": "malexmave", "author_id": 26477, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26477", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If your purpose is only to have an openly available version of your paper that you can link to (and that people can find using Google Scholar), you can also <strong>upload it to your institutional or personal website</strong>. At least in CS, this is allowed by pretty much all major publishers I am aware of (and more frequently allowed than ArXiv). Google Scholar will pick up your paper eventually.</p>\n\n<p>Additionally, some universities <strong>host their own ePrint servers</strong> for their own students and faculty. Again, this is not really a place to find new interesting research, but a great way to get your paper hosted and indexed by Google Scholar et al., and is also commonly allowed by publishers. </p>\n\n<p>As a bonus, both of these options do not require you to register any new accounts or upload your paper to some (potentially commercial) third party service, which may be a plus, depending on your personal stance on these matters.</p>\n\n<p>If your purpose is to also \"get the word out\" about your paper, one of the other mentioned repositories is obviously the better way.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 160358, "author": "rohan chaudhary", "author_id": 126277, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/126277", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think academia.edu and <a href=\"https://www.authorea.com/product\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">authorea</a> are also possible answers to OP's question</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 160371, "author": "Heymans", "author_id": 133086, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/133086", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For the geosciences and earth sciences (climatology, meteorology, geomorphology, oceanography, etc.) the American Geophysical Union (AGU) now allows and encourages pre-prints to Earth and Space Science Open Archive (ESSOAR) for AGU journals. They also host PDF's of posters from meetings including the annual meeting.</p>\n<p>Most of the papers coming out from coworkers in AGU journals are hitting ESSOAR.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.essoar.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.essoar.org/</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/84", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 92, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 6, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The short answer is that it can matter fairly significantly in where you get your post-doctoral fellowship and eventual professorship, and it will matter <em>very</em> significantly if you choose to follow a career outside of academia.</p>\n\n<p>When looking for a job <em>in</em> academia, potential employers will look at many factors, including publication record, research success, research track, who your advisor was, etc. The school is important but other factors are involved.</p>\n\n<p>When looking for a job <em>outside of</em> academia, they will look at your GPA and the name of the university from which you graduated. In this case, your university could easily be a \"make it or break it\" part of the deal.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 99, "author": "Alan", "author_id": 48, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In my experience, when looking for a job outside of Academia it's only that first job where your school really matters. Even in that case, it's just the most recent school, or post-doc position, or fellowship, or... that makes the difference. As your career progresses after your first job your more recent activities and experience outweigh earlier schooling.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 138, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The larger the workplace, and the more applicants they're responsible for screening, the more important a role the academic pedigree will end up playing. A small business with a handful of applicants—or a professor hiring a single postdoc—probably doesn't need to screen out candidates as efficiently or as ruthlessly as someone that gets dozens or hundreds of applications for an opening.</p>\n\n<p>To point out specific data points, my previous employer had a \"preferred\" list of schools for its technical hires; if you went to a school that wasn't on the list, it was a <em>lot</em> harder to get hired, and some hiring managers wouldn't even try to go through the work needed to get around this ruling. In some cases, this even applied to people who had been out of school for decades!</p>\n\n<p>So, your pedigree is almost never a disadvantage; and as I have been told by many an academic, it can be of enormous benefit to you, particularly if you make the most of your opportunities at a big-name school.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 154, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 9, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Let me answer as a theoretical computer scientist with former PhD students in tenure-track academic positions and many years of experience on faculty hiring committees. (However, my understanding is that the selection process at industrial research labs like IBM T.J. Watson, Microsoft Research, Google Research, AT&amp;T Research, etc., is really not that different from academic recruiting.) As always, take my advice with a grain of salt; I'm as guilty of confirmation bias as any other human being.</p>\n\n<p>Nobody in theoretical computer science cares where you got your degree. Really. We. Do. Not. Care. We only care about the quality and visibility of your results. Publish strong papers and give brilliant talks at top conferences. Convince well-known active researchers to write letters raving about your work. Make a good product and get superstars to sell it for you. Do all that, and we'll definitely want to hire you, no matter where you got your degree. On the other hand, without a strong and visible research record, <em>independent from your advisor</em>, you are much less likely to get a good academic job, no matter where you got your degree.</p>\n\n<p>(This is less true in more applied areas of CS, in my experience, mostly because it's significantly harder for PhD students in those areas to work independently from their advisors.)</p>\n\n<p><strong>But.</strong> Faculty candidates are necessarily judged by people who are not experts in their field. Without the expertise to judge whether your work is really good, those people <em>must</em> look at secondary data that correlate strongly with successful researchers. One of those secondary characteristics is \"pedigree\". Did you get your degree at MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, CMU, another top-10 department, or somewhere else? (What's an \"Ivy League\"?) How good/famous is your advisor? If they're really paying attention: Where did your advisor's other PhD students get jobs, and how well are they doing now?</p>\n\n<p>Fortunately, most <em>good</em> departments do make a serious effort to understand the quality and impact of applicants' results, instead of relying <em>only</em> on secondary data. Also, secondary data matters considerably less once you actually have an interview. </p>\n\n<p><strong>And.</strong> In my experience, where you get your degree is strongly correlated with successful research. I got my Master's degree at UC Irvine in 1992 and my PhD at UC Berkeley in 1996. The biggest difference I saw between the two departments was the graduate-student research culture. <strong>Every</strong> theory student at Berkeley regularly produced good results and published them at top conferences. When the FOCS deadline rolled around each year, the question I heard in the hallways <em>from other students</em> was not \"You know the deadline is coming up?\" or \"Are you submitting anything?\" but \"What are you submitting?\", because \"nothing\" was the <em>least</em> likely answer. Everyone simply assumed that if you were there, you were ready and able to do publishable research. Publishing a paper wasn't exceptional, it was just what you did. That cloud of free-floating confidence/arrogance had a <em>huge</em> impact on my own development as a researcher. I've seen similar research cultures at a few other top CS departments, especially MIT, Stanford, and CMU. (Caveat: This is an incomplete list, and there are <em>many</em> departments that I've never visited.)</p>\n\n<p>tl;dr: <strong>Yes, getting a PhD from a top department definitely helps, but more by helping you become a better researcher than by making you look better on paper.</strong></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 107, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not sure what is the \"frontier\" of theoretical computer science, but some companies, such as IBM Research or Microsoft Research, also make money by applying to some public funded research project, and as such, can work on rather theoretical work. For instance, I was involved in a project with some guys from IBM TJ Watson on security, and I can assure you that the work was rather abstract, and not at all IBM product oriented. </p>\n\n<p>As for sites where such opportunities are listed, I'm not sure there are many, I'd say (but that's just my impression) that's it's usually by \"networking\" (i.e. you need to be involved with some guys from a company in some project, and then they might hire you). However, a good technique could be to apply for an internship first (if you're still doing your PhD), although it might a bit too late now, or even for a postdoc (if you've finished it). And in order to find the labs, I'd suggest to go to your favourite conferences, get the accepted papers, and scan for some big companies :) </p>\n\n<p>EDIT: Concerning the sites where you can find job offers, I'd actually suggest to look for specialised sites in your topic of interest, where it can be possible to find offers from industry, rather than on larger sites. I guess most companies prefer to focus their search rather than dropping an ad on Monster, and receiving tons of irrelevant CVs. </p>\n\n<p>For instance (although most ads will be from public academy, some are from industry, it can give you some pointers as to which companies can recruit, even if the ads are out of date): </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.eurosys.org/jobs/\" rel=\"nofollow\">EuroSys</a>, for Computer Systems</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.iacr.org/jobs/\" rel=\"nofollow\">IACR</a>, for Crypto</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 157, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.research.att.com/misc/search.jsp?q=%22Algorithms%22&amp;fbid=OgMv-Nx-vPx#\">AT&amp;T</a>, <a href=\"http://research.google.com/pubs/AlgorithmsandTheory.html\">Google</a>, <a href=\"http://researcher.ibm.com/view_pic.php?id=134\">IBM</a>, and <a href=\"http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/groups/theory/\">Microsoft</a> all have thriving basic research labs that regularly hire PhDs in theoretical computer science, and whose members regularly publish in theoretical computer science conferences and journals. Yes, research at those labs is colored by the needs of their parent companies, but not as much as you might think. All four companies (and several others) have thriving internship programs.</p>\n\n<p>As with any other research job, your best bet in finding opportunities is to talk personally with people at the labs. Go to FOCS/STOC/SODA, sit at the same lunch table as David Johnson or Muthu or Ken Clarkson or Yuval Peres, and just talk to them. (It obviously helps if you have some research results that they care about.) Ask your advisor to introduce you if you don't feel comfortable just introducing yourself.</p>\n\n<p>(I'm about to get some angry emails from David, Muthu, Ken, and Yuval, aren't I?)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 761, "author": "Maxood", "author_id": 447, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/447", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would strongly suggest you to join <a href=\"http://www.acm.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">ACM (Association of Computing Machinery)</a>. The organization focuses on the advancment of Computer Science both as a Science and profession. Join the community and mingle with experts, share your knowledge and skills with them. </p>\n\n<p>You can also find a lot of opportuites on their <a href=\"http://jobs.acm.org/home/index.cfm?site_id=1603\" rel=\"nofollow\">jobs page</a> as well. Wish you all the best in your career! </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/96", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 102, "author": "Willie Wong", "author_id": 94, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The best way is by word-of-mouth: ask around the department, ask your PhD advisor, ask people you've worked with. </p>\n\n<p>If it is a specialist journal, and you are a specialist, then the next best way is to look at the previously published issues of the journal and see what kinds of articles they accept. </p>\n\n<p>Failing that, the Australian Government's Research Council puts out a <a href=\"http://www.arc.gov.au/era/era_2012/era_journal_list.htm\">ranking of journals and conferences</a> every now and then. It is not perfect, but should give a rough idea of where a journal places in the eyes of the bureaucrats <code>:-)</code>. Note that \"new\" journals (journals that have not been active for more than X years) are not ranked, so omission from the list does not necessarily mean that the journal itself is not worthwhile. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 104, "author": "Artem Kaznatcheev", "author_id": 66, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66", "pm_score": 8, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The way I usually choose journals is by looking at where people I trust/follow publish, and where previous work was published. It is usually not too hard to compare the quality your work to the quality of the work you are citing, and chose a target based on that. Unless your field is highly mutli-disciplinary, you will see the same journals/conferences popping up again and again in your references; submit to one of those.</p>\n\n<p>Before submitting, however, it is always important to look at a few articles from previous issues. This will give you a second gauge of quality for the journal and also let you pick up on any formatting and presentations quirks that might be present in the publication.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 105, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>First of all, I look at the publisher. If you don' find a lot of references to the publisher on the web, it is suspicious.</p>\n\n<p>Then, I look at the editor in chief, and at the board of editors. If you don't find many big names here, this is again very suspicious.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, google the journal name and look who is publishing in the journal. Most of the time it becomes clear if the journal is serious or not.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 114, "author": "David Ketcheson", "author_id": 81, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81", "pm_score": 7, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You may want to check that the publisher is not on <strong><a href=\"http://scholarlyoa.com/individual-journals/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Beall's List of Predatory, Open-Access Publishers</a>.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Surprisingly, the publisher in question is not. I've found Beall's list to be fairly comprehensive, but the vanity press industry seems to be booming.</p>\n\n<p>Caveat: that list is just one guy's opinion. But it resonates with my own experience.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Update</strong>: As of late January 2017, Beall's list has been taken down.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 211, "author": "Noah Snyder", "author_id": 25, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For some hard data I like <a href=\"http://www.eigenfactor.org/\">eigenfactor</a>, because I think there methodology makes a lot of sense. The default settings are a bit odd, you want the AI score not EF score. I also like the \"eigenfactor category\" under advanced search better than the \"ISI category\" that you can get on the main page. Certainly it's better to have a more in-depth understanding, but also sometimes you just want a quick ballpark guesstimate of how good the journal is, and eigenfactor does that.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 627, "author": "JRN", "author_id": 64, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>\"How do you judge the quality of a journal?\"</p>\n\n<p>One answer is already known to you: Submit a paper to it and see how it responds. I once submitted a few papers to an online journal (no print equivalent) and the referee reports that I got clearly showed that they read and understood the paper and that they knew the subject well. They even suggested ways how the paper could be improved. The quality of the referees reflect the quality of the journal.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1013, "author": "tjvision", "author_id": 587, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/587", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Look at the journals responsible for the references you cite in your own manuscript. Upside, these are the journals publishing relevant and credible work in your area. Downside, there are plenty perfectly good journals that are newer, or less specialized, and so might be missed. </p>\n\n<p>BTW, a very fast review time with no reviews is suspicious. But charging an article processing charge (APC) is not, in itself, a reason for worry. That said, do look to see that you are getting the full open access you pay for if there is an APC (i.e. no transfer of copyright to the publisher and the article is released under a CC-BY license). You can search for copyright policies by journal or publisher here: <a href=\"http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/\">http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1038, "author": "justin", "author_id": 604, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/604", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>\"How do you judge the quality of a journal?\"</p>\n\n<p>Look at the editorial / advisory board. They've gotta be from the top schools or they've gotta be top researchers.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5240, "author": "Ran G.", "author_id": 324, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/324", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The <a href=\"http://www.journal-ranking.com/\">Journal Ranking site (www.journal-ranking.com)</a> aims to rank many (11K) journals, according to their measure of impact (mainly number of citation, but weighted according to the ranking of the citing journal), number of articles, etc. It also let you sort by field.</p>\n\n<p>But again, this is only their point of view, and their way of measuring quality.</p>\n\n<p>(and it only ranks journals listed in the ISI's SCI)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5241, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet, so I'm adding it as a separate answer:</p>\n\n<p><strong>Read some articles from the journal (in your subfield), and see how they feel like</strong></p>\n\n<p>When you look at a journal and check that the 5 or 6 latest articles in your domain are of the <em>meh</em> type, you probably don't want to publish there. If they make you feel <em>“oh, I never quite thought of that, it's clever… I see how I may use it”</em>, go for it!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10338, "author": "Vic", "author_id": 6928, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6928", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can test them yourself. This procedure will speed up by your experience. There are signs during submission and during review which shows which journal is really good and which is not. But there is another way too: look at the objective information below. It is possible to judge a journal based on the COLLECTIVE information you obtain from these factors:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Their editorial. You don't know them? Ok pass to the next ones.</li>\n<li>Their publishing country (India? no thanks unless the paper is not good or the journal is an exception).</li>\n<li>Their publisher (yes good publishers usually select good journals, although some weak journals with a lot of money can again hire a good publisher)</li>\n<li>The time passes since you submit and they respond</li>\n<li>The above factor SHOULD be considered along with the amount of manuscript they receive. Good journals receive thousands of manuscript a year, but still do not waste authors' time by keeping them waiting for too long before a rejection decision. Bad journals receive sporadic manuscripts and keep the authors wait for months until they tell the author their decision. It is a pain when you see some of them have \"lost\" you paper, or some of them reject your paper with a couple of lines of comment, after 6 months. Good journals do the same in less than 24 hours.</li>\n<li>Indexing databases. Look where the journal is indexed in. ISI Web of Science? Medline? or what? The scam journals usually are not indexed in any accredited databases (not Google Scholar or Scopus). If a journal is accepted to be indexed in ISI or to a lesser degree, Medline, it is unlikely to be able to have low quality. Otherwise, ISI would have booted them out. </li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>There are other factors too. But these will give you 90% insight already.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 14546, "author": "Dan", "author_id": 9838, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9838", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Generally, the scientific specialists' communities have traditionally identified journals having high editorial standards. That is the key: who are the editors and what are the standards. Are the breakthrough discoveries sent to that journal? From that, reputations are built and filtered down to preference and use by the community.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 14725, "author": "Namey", "author_id": 7930, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7930", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think that \"quality\" is a bit overrated, and that you should think most deeply about \"fit\" (i.e., how well your content matches the interests of a journal's reviewers and readership). With that said, when I'm looking for the best journal to put an article, I have three methods:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Look at my cites for similar work to my manuscript, then look at where they published (similar to Artem's comment). If your paper isn't citing related work, well... it probably has a pretty terrible lit review. If you're citing sources out of your league for that paper (i.e., Science, Nature), find the publication list for that lab to find their fallback journals.</p></li>\n<li><p>Ask greybeards I collaborate with where they would publish such a paper. Good senior academics have a huge amount of expertise about the social networks and publishing networks in their fields.</p></li>\n<li><p>Use journal rankings. I find <a href=\"http://www.scimagojr.com/\">Scimago</a> to be the most convenient. That also charts things like cites/paper over time, so you can see if a newer journal is growing or stagnant. The <a href=\"http://www.arc.gov.au/era/era_2012/era_journal_list.htm\">Austrialian Research Counsel</a> (mentioned by Willy Wong) is probably my #2 resource. Thompson's ISI stuff is also useful, but I've found it sometimes has glaring omissions and has been less convenient to me (annoying to log in). Conferences are harder to rank using indices. <a href=\"http://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues\">Google</a> and <a href=\"http://academic.research.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> have ranking systems that catch those pretty well, at least for comparing citations within a topic. However, given the choice, I'd still go with option #1 or #2. I mainly use this approach for interdisciplinary research that doesn't have an obvious, natural target journal.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 36395, "author": "Cape Code", "author_id": 10643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Ask your institution's scientific librarian.</strong></p>\n\n<p>It's part of their job to know about journal reputation and quality. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 48312, "author": "Mohamed Khamis", "author_id": 703, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/703", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can search for conferences/journals on Google scholar: <a href=\"https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues&amp;hl=en\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues&amp;hl=en</a></p>\n\n<p>Search by the full name (not the abbreviation), and you'll see its <a href=\"http://mkhamis.com/blog/whats-an-h-index/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">h5-index</a>, which is the h-index in the last 5 years. Although it is hard to judge a conference using its h-index, you can at least compare them to one another. </p>\n\n<p>There is also a list on the left from which you can get the conferences/journals with highest h5-index. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 54784, "author": "Ulysses", "author_id": 41406, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41406", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Impact Factor</a> is usually a good independent means of establishing a journal's quality. Essentially it is the average number of citations of its articles. The higher, the better. The logic is that good quality articles are cited more, so a journal that only lets in better quality articles will have a higher impact factor than one which lets in practically anything. </p>\n\n<p>The quality of the journal you submit to will reflect on the quality of your paper, so you should try to submit to the better ranked journals within your field. You should be able to readily establish a short-list of suitable journals just by listing the journals of the papers you cite.</p>\n\n<p>There are a few things to be aware of when comparing the impact factors of journals:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Impact factors also reflect the size of a field, so you cannot use it to compare the quality of journals from two separate and unrelated fields. A group of papers in a large popular field are naturally going to get cited more than those from a very small field.</li>\n<li>Almost all journals have impact factors, unless they have been excluded as a result of being in some way nefarious (such as predatory journals), or if they are newly established and therefore haven't been around long enough to get one.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I could not find an impact factor for the journal you mentioned, even though it seems to have been around for at least 5 years. You are right to be cautious of it. I would not recommend submitting to a journal which does not have an impact factor, even if the reason for this turns out to be quite innocent.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 71707, "author": "Finn Årup Nielsen", "author_id": 36757, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/36757", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To make a better choice for submitting I would google and use Wikidata.</p>\n\n<p>Googling might lead you to lists like Jeffrey Beall's <a href=\"https://scholarlyoa.com/individual-journals/\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://scholarlyoa.com/individual-journals/</a> and provide you with context about the journal, such as editorial board, blog posts, etc.</p>\n\n<p>Wikidata will provide you with pointers to indexing services and journal rankings. Consider Journal of Machine Learning Research at <a href=\"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1660383\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1660383</a> . It indicates a BFI level of 2 which is the high category of the Danish journal ranking system. It shows that Scopus is indexing the journal. (Strangely the Australian ERA link does not seem to work). I do not find \"International Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Computational Research\" in Wikidata, which should call for suspicion</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 79187, "author": "G-E", "author_id": 62176, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62176", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Quality of the journal is reflected in your own experience.</p>\n\n<p>When you've reached the level when you start thinking about publishing in your field of expertise, </p>\n\n<p>and you find out about a journal you've never heard before through several years of undergraduate and postgraduate studies, </p>\n\n<p>it is a good enough reason to be suspicious and cautious.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 81757, "author": "Hadi", "author_id": 61204, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/61204", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Many good answers are provided here. Along with the editorial board, publisher, and impact factor, one should check <a href=\"http://www.scimagojr.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://www.scimagojr.com/</a>.\nThis site provides ranking for journals, and country.\nThe ranking of journals based on Q1 through Q4 in the specified subjects ensures of the quality of journals in that issue. \nQ1 journals are the best in that subject and Q2, Q3, and Q4 are decreasing impact of the journals. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 84213, "author": "lebatsnok", "author_id": 68541, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/68541", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You could use a combination of some simple rules and common sense. Among the simple rules once could list:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Presence in major databases, e.g. Web of Science, PubMed, etc</li>\n<li>Does anyone in your field cite papers in this journal?</li>\n<li>The quality of other papers in this journal</li>\n<li>Do your colleagues publish in this journal?</li>\n<li>Do they have typos in their webpage?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>And common sense could help in a variety of ways. For example, today, I got the following letter, a rather nice one, seems like someone would have written it specially to me:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to get in touch with you\n about a paper you authored entitled \"Using principal component scores\n reduces the effect of socially desirable responding\". Firstly, thank\n you for taking the time to publish this, it was an interesting read.\n Have you continued working in this area? If you have any other\n articles or ongoing research I would love to know more. </p>\n \n <p>I am hoping to discuss with you having a short follow-up article or\n perhaps a review article published in one of the next issues of the\n journal I serve as an editor for, the Medical Research Archives. I\n think our readers would be interested in a paper with information from\n any continued research or new data since this was published. It would\n be especially helpful if the article could be written for more of a\n general medicine audience so that many sub specialties could gain from\n it. The article would not have to be long, and any of your co-authors\n or colleagues would be welcome to contribute to it. I am happy to\n assist in any way I can, and there is no hard deadline.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Ok. First of all, they refer to a paper on psychometrics and ask me to publish something on the same topic in \"Medical Research Archives\". Makes no sense. Second, they tell me \"thank you for taking time to publish this\" (gracias de nada! this is my job!) and \"it was interesting to read\" (how on earth would you know - having not read it? and what is the point of calling it \"interesting\" if you have nothing specific to say about it?). At this point, it it quite clear that they have a script sending these letters, using a database with e-mails and titles of research papers. It is not written the way an actual editor of a bona fide journal would write, so I just delete the e-mail. (It was better written than most such e-mails, that is the reason why I even checked their webpage, - not that I would for a second consider sending a paper to their journal - but just for curiosity about the new tricks of predatory publishers.)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/101", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 106, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can find many softwares or online services for that purpose : blackboard IM, tinychat, etc.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 347, "author": "schultem", "author_id": 206, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/206", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://plus.google.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Google+</a> comes with great communication tools called Hangout. Shared documents and even presentations can be achieved with. There is no real setup process involved but getting an account at Google.</p>\n\n<p>Another option could be <a href=\"http://moodle.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Moodle</a> which has more features on relevant for teaching courses online and maybe less emphasis on direct communication. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 350, "author": "InquilineKea", "author_id": 77, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There's an online <a href=\"http://astrojournalclub.wordpress.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Astronomy Journal Club</a> hosted on Wordpress.</p>\n\n<p>Here's my main advice: make the process as <strong>frictionless</strong> as possible. Grad students tend to have very busy lives, and journal clubs will inevitably have high dropout rates unless they have some motivation (even through guilt) to stay in and to continue participating. Keep them updated through some service that they'll constantly check even if they aren't doing science (emails end up annoying people, but Facebook, Reddit, and Google Plus might work). </p>\n\n<p>It's also probably easier to convince people to set an online journal club when the journal club is about some specialized subject that only a small number of people at any particular university know about (and if they have a strong urge to talk about the subject with people from other universities).</p>\n\n<p>Finally, if there's an academic conference for grad students (for my area, for example, it would be <a href=\"http://abgradcon.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">AbGradCon</a>), discuss it with people there! Journal clubs are an excellent way to keep in touch with grad students at other universities.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 64161, "author": "vonbrand", "author_id": 38135, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38135", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Shepherding this is <em>a lot</em> of work. Most such efforts die on the wine because the initial enthusiasts get bored/overwhelmed. Find a solid group of people willing to work together on this, keep the organization flat (not \"I started this, so I'll decide what software to use\" or so). Keep it simple, no fancy, complex interfaces. No big hassle to set up, use a simple package running (hopefully) under your control on department servers.</p>\n\n<p>You might start by (mis)using the pages used for classes to hand out material, assigments, and class discussions. Everybody involved should already know how to use this. See where this leads, if it outgrows your initial system, you'll know in more detail what you require, and have something to show to convince the department to chip in by e.g.funding a couple of students to help with the day-to-day management (two at least, with overlapping longish tenures, you do not want to train the helpers for a term just to get new ones when they are starting to get the hang).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/103", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 112, "author": "Artem Kaznatcheev", "author_id": 66, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For non-linear note-taking and also collaboration I use <a href=\"http://www.tiddlywiki.com/\">TiddlyWiki</a>. It is one file that stores all your notes as an interactive wiki. Through a plug-in it support LaTeX-math. If you throw it on a shared <a href=\"http://www.dropbox.com/\">dropbox</a> then it can even be a quick way to share ideas with colleagues. If you want something more formal than dropbox, then there are hosted options like <a href=\"http://tiddlyspace.com/\">TiddlySpace</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 113, "author": "David Ketcheson", "author_id": 81, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map\">Mind maps</a> might be what you're looking for. From the Wikipedia page:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea... Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to studying and organizing information, solving problems, making decisions, and writing.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There are lots of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept_mapping_and_mind_mapping_software\">mind mapping tools</a> out there. I've used <a href=\"http://www.xmind.net/\">XMind</a> before. </p>\n\n<p>One drawback is that it's hard to put longer thoughts into a mindmap.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 132, "author": "SwissCoder", "author_id": 108, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/108", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p><em>For nice graphical note editing/drawing:</em></p>\n<p>If you get the hang on it, you probably could <strong>use <a href=\"http://prezi.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://prezi.com/</a></strong></p>\n<p>Your notes would look great, and you can always <strong>zoom in and out</strong>, if you want to add details.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 134, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A couple of other options for mind-mapping software:</p>\n\n<p>I tried using <a href=\"http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Curio</a>, which is a very powerful program that can do mind-mapping, as well as a whole lot of other activities. The problem I had with it was that it was, if anything, <em>too</em> stuffed with features: I couldn't really figure out how to get simple tasks done, because there was so much work to do just to learn how to do anything at all. However, I'm certain you wouldn't run out of features.</p>\n\n<p>If what you're looking for is something a little less complicated, but still in the sense of mind-mapping, you can try something like <a href=\"http://omnigroup.com/applications/OmniGraffle/\" rel=\"nofollow\">OmniGraffle Professional</a>, which produces diagrams and organizational charts of almost any shape or complexity. It doesn't try to be the \"all things to all people\" that Curio is.</p>\n\n<p>Another \"out of the box\" solution is <a href=\"http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Scrivener</a>, which might be a little too text-based for your needs, but is a great tool for writers.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 437, "author": "Approximist", "author_id": 272, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/272", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I needed the same functionality for myself. I was looking for a powerful note-taking system and after considerable search concluded that the <strong>wiki</strong> format was best for dynamic unpublished notes and scribblings. I started by using desktop applications but needed some way to render math better so I shifted to web applications (running them locally you'll need an XAMP server). </p>\n\n<p><strong>Desktop Applications</strong></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://zim-wiki.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Zim Desktop Wiki</a> - A wiki notebook. Really good imo.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">WikidPad</a> - Described as an IDE for your thoughts. Offers same functionality.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Server Based</strong></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Mediawiki</a> - If you're going to end up with thousands of documents being edited by thousands of users then it is the best. For personal use it is a bit of an overkill, and the spaghetti php code doesnt help. </p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.instiki.org/show/HomePage\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Instiki</a> - currently using this. Compact and simple. You can easily back it up to an USB disk. Or export all pages to html. Needs ruby to compile though.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1181, "author": "Brian Maicke", "author_id": 662, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/662", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A nice tool I have found for this is <a href=\"http://vue.tufts.edu/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Visual Understanding Environment (VUE)</a>, which is an open source tool that sounds very much like what you are looking for. You can position nodes how you like and sketch connections between them. It even has a nice mechanism for nonlinear presentations by setting pathways between the elements in your file. The presentation mechanism is not as polished as Prezi, but since you are looking at note-taking rather than presenting, this should not be an issue. </p>\n\n<p>The only thing keeping me from using it more is that there currently is no support for equation editing, LaTeX or otherwise, which is a deal-breaker in my field. There are workarounds like using <a href=\"http://www.thrysoee.dk/laeqed/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Laeqed</a> to generate PNGs of your equations, but it can be cumbersome for large projects. If this is not a concern in your area, I would recommend giving it a look.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 14366, "author": "Jens Piegsa", "author_id": 6066, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6066", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Here is another one, which I find very helpful and intuitive: <a href=\"http://cmap.ihmc.us/\" rel=\"nofollow\">CmapTools</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 21181, "author": "Eric", "author_id": 15481, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15481", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I use scapple from <a href=\"https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php\">https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php</a></p>\n\n<p>It does exactly what you want. You can put notes anywhere on a canvas.\nYou can connect them if you want. And you can search them.</p>\n\n<p>It costs about $15 and there is a trial for 1 month so you can see if you like it before you buy it.</p>\n\n<p>It works very well if you use the Crawford slip method of brainstorming.</p>\n\n<p>It's one of the best piece of software I use.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 21183, "author": "xgdgsc", "author_id": 7237, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7237", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Since you are asking here, I assume note taking for paper is important.\n<a href=\"http://www.docear.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><strong>Docear</strong></a> is a mind mapping for paper tool which based on Freeplane and Jabref, which might fit academia needs perfectly. And it supports windows, linux and mac. And it' s GPL licensed.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/uXHSn.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24300, "author": "ba_ul", "author_id": 15953, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15953", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Although the question is old, my answer may benefit future readers.</p>\n\n<p>I've recently started to use <a href=\"https://gingkoapp.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Gingko App</a>. You can hierarchically organize your notes, which are themselves written in card-like units. The possibilities are many, depending on your organizational creativity. For long-form note-taking this is better than mind maps, while providing <del>all</del> many of the benefits of mind-mapping.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 50070, "author": "Jariell Perlman", "author_id": 38179, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38179", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>TiddlyMap.org - I just found it after looking at your question... Searching through another site.</p>\n\n<p>It works with TiddlyWiki - the recently developed version. </p>\n\n<p>TiddlyMap will let you make a clickable graph of your wiki tiddlers, and show you real time navigation as well of where you are in your graph.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=TiddlyMap\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=TiddlyMap</a></p>\n\n<p>DenkWerkZeug - <a href=\"http://denkwerkzeug.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://denkwerkzeug.com</a> is an application I have been looking at for a while and learning about. It combines a Wiki with a graph and semantic principles, but is not difficult to learn, a fascinating application.</p>\n\n<p>And one more named Vis-a-Wiki, that I have heard about that combines a visual approach with wiki and graph as well as Scrumban board... Vis-a-Wiki has 'context sensitive navigation'.</p>\n\n<p>I include these together not take away from, but hope as to just let people know about the existence of these independent software projects.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://marko-editor.com/vis-a-wiki/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://marko-editor.com/vis-a-wiki/</a></p>\n\n<p>Hope this helps... -jariell</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 134116, "author": "Elizabeth Henning", "author_id": 77539, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77539", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not sure how this old question got bumped back to the top, but I can offer an answer: TheBrain is a very nice dynamic concept map with a lot of sophisticated features. Unlike Scapple or some of the other suggestions here, it's currently under active development.</p>\n\n<p>The downsides are that it's a little pricey (but they offer academic discounts if you contact them) and it doesn't have equation editing, although there are workarounds for that. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 152101, "author": "Superbee", "author_id": 116336, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/116336", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This question is quite old, but I'll mention a solution that has worked extremely well for me: the vector-graphics program <a href=\"https://inkscape.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Inkscape</a>.</p>\n<p>A new Inkscape document essentially acts like an infinitely-large piece of paper. It allows you to write notes with a pen via a touchscreen or external graphics tablet and also type text on a keyboard using the text tool, along with many of the other useful features of a vector graphics program (lines, boxes, colors, etc). You can easily move objects around and scale them infinitely. The file sizes are quite small, even for relatively large mind maps. You can copy and paste your calculations, drawings, etc.</p>\n<p>Perhaps this solution is a bit unconventional, but I've been using it for the past 3 years as my main note-taking software for physics and mathematics research. Once you customize the program settings to your liking and perhaps add a few system hotkeys, it works very well!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 152117, "author": "allo", "author_id": 79727, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79727", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Not recommending concrete programs, but tools that have quite a few implementations</p>\n<p>Have a look for:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mindmaps</li>\n<li>Desktop Wikis or locally installed Wiki software</li>\n<li>Bugtracker</li>\n<li>For collaborations possibly forum software</li>\n<li>Kanban Software</li>\n<li>Other &quot;Getting Things Done&quot; (thats the name of a concept with many helpful tools) software</li>\n<li>Citation management Software</li>\n<li>Find a concept for organizing your files, such that you find them quickly. Possibly install an alternative file manager that is more intuitive for you</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/109", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 119, "author": "dearN", "author_id": 21, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<ol>\n<li>Jot down your interests.</li>\n<li>Future goals (long term and short term). Doesn't have to be accurate but just to give you the \"big picture\".</li>\n<li>Speak with your PhD advisor (if you already have one).</li>\n<li>Align his/her interests with yours and see if you have common ground (you may need to lean towards his interests or find another advisor)</li>\n<li>Once you have a list of topics that you could explore, do a literature review and figure out for what topics you'd have a taste.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Each person has his own formula on what to choose as their PhD proposal. This was the way I went about it.</p>\n\n<p>PhD (Mechanical Engineering Expected Fall 2012)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 142, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<ol>\n<li><p>In your case, I would find scientific publications aimed at the student/general population in your field, and read the articles written for the public. Both <a href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Science</a> and <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nature/current_issue.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Nature</a> will have numerous articles in each issue that can be read and understood by the general public. Some subfields have publications directed specifically at the student/enthusiast population (such as <a href=\"http://spectrum.ieee.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">IEEE Spectrum</a> for Engineering).</p>\n<p>By reading through these publications, you will get a sense for what the current major research focus is in a wide variety of fields, and you'll get a feel for what's interesting to you.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Talk to professors in fields that interest you! You'd be surprised at how many professors (admittedly, not all of them) would be willing to spend 15 minutes talking to you about their research, and their field in general. I'm not going to say &quot;showing initiative is key to making progress&quot;, because it's not, but it can help, and you'll learn a tremendous amount this way.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 153, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Find a subject that you really really are passionately interested in, and care about finding out more about it. This subject is going to become almost your entire life for a few years, and you will need huge dedication to it, in order to complete.</p>\n\n<p>Talk, ideally over a coffee, but by phone or (worst-case) email if you can't meet in person, with people who recently completed their PhDs and are now actively researching in this field; discuss your ideas and recent developments in the field.</p>\n\n<p>Find an area that your intended supervisor is up-to-date in.</p>\n\n<p>If you do it right, your PhD will lead you to knowing more than anyone else in the world about this very very specific subject: so it will really help if you're going to be keen to pursue it as a career after completing your PhD, even after writing several papers and making plenty of conference presentations on it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 216, "author": "CptLightning", "author_id": 104, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/104", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One aspect of a PhD is pursuing original research in your given field. I believe it is hard for an undergraduate to know what research has / hasn't been in covered in all of the topics they may be interested in. </p>\n\n<p>Therefore, I would advise that you consider the topics you are interested in, and find out which Researchers / Professors are working in those fields, in the universities that you are considering. Then, you should ask them what they are working on at the moment, and what potential projects they would have in mind for a new PhD student joining them. This will give you a feel for the kind of research that you could be doing.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 86716, "author": "Chris", "author_id": 70961, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/70961", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are already very good answers above; I would only like to add that you should also take into account whether you can get a scholarship/funding for your research topic. Your personal interests may not necessarily align with those of your potential funders. Consider how much you would be willing to compromise your own interests to be able to receive a scholarship. Most people cannot support themselves financially through the course of a PhD programme, so this point is not to be underestimated.</p>\n\n<p>If you apply for a government scholarship for example, they will likely want you to study a topic that is of high policy relevance to them and you need to think about whether you can offer that or modify your original ideas in such a way that they will meet the policy priorities of the government at the point of application. Governments tend to publish their strategic priorities in various documents online, so it will not be difficult to make the connections between your research and their needs.</p>\n\n<p>University departments giving scholarships tend to be more flexible with regard to research topics as long as the quality and originality of the proposed research is high, but again, it would be best to get an opinion from a member of the department on the chances of your proposal attracting sufficient interest that it will get funding.</p>\n\n<p>Without funding, it will be close to impossible to do a PhD.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/117", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 122, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think that having industry experience is going to help with a PhD application unless you have actually worked on the project that you want to do your PhD in. It's certainly not going to help if you worked in a completely different area. Also note that PhD students don't usually apply for funding. I'm farily certain that the answer to your first point is \"no\" in almost all cases.</p>\n\n<p>That said, I believe it would be more help when looking for internships or a (non-academic) job after finishing the PhD. Again it depends what exactly it is you've done and what you're applying to do.</p>\n\n<p>Working at a company and doing PhD-level research are two (very) different things (unless you're doing industrial research) and being good at one doesn't imply that you're equally good at the other.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 127, "author": "Alan", "author_id": 48, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Industry experience cannot hurt. While it may not help in every case, in many it will. One of the things PhD application committees consider is their mix of students. In my experience (in Computer Science) a typical PhD program consists of students of many ages from many backgrounds. A good program has a diverse mix, including those with \"real world\" experience. So I bet it helps.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 139, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>As someone who sits on an admissions committee, this isn't idle speculation, but it is a personal perspective. I agree with the other responders that industrial experience probably isn't of much interest to an admissions committee, unless you get a strong letter of recommendation from a supervisor who can make a convincing case for admission to the graduate program. </p>\n\n<p>The issue is that while you are in industry, unless you're in a position where your actively doing things related to your graduate school education, your knowledge of the \"basics\" is atrophying, so it will actually be somewhat more difficult to get back up to speed for the coursework typically required for a PhD program. The longer you're in industry, the harder it typically is to play catchup.</p>\n\n<p>That said, industrial experience may be of interest to an individual professor within a department, and would certainly help with employment following the PhD program.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 155, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I sit on graduate admissions committees (in computer science, in the US), and I spent 4 years in industry before going to grad school. I agree with others: Industry experience <em>per se</em> is not particularly attractive, unless it's directly related to your proposed area of study. (Industry experience may be more attractive in more applied areas of CS; I'm a theoretician.)</p>\n\n<p>But it depends on what you do while you're in industry. Admissions committees are looking primarily for strong evidence of research potential — raw \"wattage\", intellectual maturity, independence, initiative, creativity, attention to detail, eagerness to fight with hard problems, and most importantly, <em>real results</em>. Recommendation letters that specifically address those qualities, whether from academia or from industry, will increase your chances of admission. If you just sit in your cubicle and competently produce the code that your manager asks for, not so much.</p>\n\n<p>My industry experience was a point in my favor during my academic job hunt, but only a minor one.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 160, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Industry experience will often hinder you, because it is a signal (a <strong>reliable</strong> signal in most situations) that you are not up-to-date with the cutting edge of research; and that your academic skills have atrophied.</p>\n\n<p>Expect to work much harder in the time up to application, and at interview, in getting up-to-date in the field, and demonstrating that you are up to date.</p>\n\n<p>This will vary by subject: for maths, it's often going to be a deal-breaker, as the analytic skills tend to atrophy very very quickly, and also tend to diminish with age. For more engineering-type subjects, it might be easier, particularly if you have been doing cutting-edge industrial research. Nevertheless, your academic skills may be rusty, and the people deciding on your admissions will expect that they are.</p>\n\n<p>You may also be going in without a (recent) publication record; that can impair the funding position of the institute to which you're applying, so you may have to offer something a little bit extra to compensate for this.</p>\n\n<p>Your industrial experience may well bring value to your future department: but you may or may not get any recognition of that at the time of your application.</p>\n\n<p>(I write as someone who entered academia after ~20 years industrial experience.)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/120", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 125, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A strong factor for most people will be the financial impact, i.e. how much is it going to cost and are there scholarships available. I would also have a look at the specific field (or subfield) that I'm interested in and compare the faculty and research according to that criteria. In particular the prospective advisor, not so much the rest of the faculty.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 133, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Other factors might include:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Association with an industrial research lab, due to to proximity or high-density of alumni in that lab. That'll make things a lot easier when looking for summer internships!</li>\n<li>The climate of the place. A Ph.D is a 4+ years commitment, and whether you'd be spending 6 months every year in freezing cold or not does make a difference once you are actually there!</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I'll add more factors you might want to look at as they occur to me!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 135, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I applied to six graduate schools in my field, and was accepted at all of them. The criteria I used to whittle down the choices were:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Did I like the people in the department I was visiting? (This surprisingly <em>did</em> eliminate one school.)</li>\n<li>Did I want to go to live in the city where the school was for five or so years? (One more down, four left.)</li>\n<li>Could I find <em>enough</em> people I was interested in working for, so that if I didn't get my top choice, I'd still be happy with the projects I'd be taking?</li>\n<li>Can I financially afford to live in the city? (One more down, two left.)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>At that point, however, the remaining criteria were all competing with one another: one school offered me <em>a lot</em> more money, the other had <em>a lot</em> better location. Both offered plenty of research, and both had excellent reputations in their field. Ultimately, for me, the location, combined with the slightly higher general profile of the school I attended, swayed the balance for me.</p>\n\n<p>Remember that you're looking for individual groups or faculty members as well as entire departments. Students and faculty will both be considerations for you.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 193, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Two that struck me while I was applying for schools of similar rank:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Location. You're talking about living in this place for close to a decade in some cases, and at least several years. Is this someplace you want to live? I haven't found that people living in someplace they hate and are miserable are more productive because they just hide in the lab. I've mostly found them miserable and apt to burn out.</li>\n<li>Attitude. Is the department somewhat more \"relaxed\" and supportive of its students? Will they pull out all the stops to make sure you can make ends meet if something goes wrong in your funding? Or do they consider graduate school to be a fiery crucible upon which researchers are forged? Which environment would you rather work in?</li>\n<li>Aid. Advice I got frequently was don't go somewhere that isn't paying you - you don't want them, and when it comes down to it, they don't really want you.</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 123621, "author": "guest", "author_id": 103365, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/103365", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Average time to completion. Shorter better. Many places in the US have 7 year doctorates. A few still have the traditional 4 year expectation. Note this will be department specific.</p>\n\n<p>Percent of starting students getting eventual Ph.D. Higher better. Again, department specific.</p>\n\n<p>Student population: gender mix, where from, friendliness, etc. Go with your gut, based on the visit.</p>\n\n<p>Finally if you are single and looking to change that (especially male in a male dominated field), I would pick the urban school because of the better dating prospects. If you are married, rural will probably be better cost of living but then likely your spouse's job prospects or situation will impact the decision strongly. In general, I think urban is a better overall option as a young professional (even a poor one). </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 123642, "author": "Alexey B.", "author_id": 52615, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/52615", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If we are talking about Europe or the US then your PhD experience will mostly be determined by your supervisor and maybe few immediate colleagues. Perhaps it is more likely to find a good group in a higher ranked university, but it is not a direct connection.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/124", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 129, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>PhD studentships are quite often advertised like \"normal\" jobs, i.e. on general job boards/recruting websites. If you have contacts, by all means use them. As for evaluating the candidates, similar guidelines as for evaluating applicants for any jobs apply. I don't think there's a one-fits-all answer. Note that the hiring process may also depend on what institution you'd be working for. They might have an HR department that screens/selects the candidates.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 136, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I can answer for a specific case: if you are looking to hire PhDs in Theoretical Computer Science, join the THEORYNT mailing list, where you can both send and receive mails about such vacancies. I'm giving an <a href=\"https://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind1202a&amp;L=theorynt&amp;T=0&amp;P=367\" rel=\"nofollow\">example link</a> that would show you the typical format of such a mail, you can browse through the rest from the website itself.</p>\n\n<p>If you look around, I'm sure there's be a mailing alias for your research specialty as well (if not, maybe you can start one!) </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 137, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am presuming by your question that you are talking about working in Europe; in North America, scientists at non-academic research labs generally are not generally expected to recruit PhD students. Unfortunately, I don't think there is an easy method for applying for positions outside of posting announcements on sites like <a href=\"http://www.academia.edu\" rel=\"nofollow\">academia.edu</a> or <a href=\"http://brightrecruits.com/tiptop/\" rel=\"nofollow\">TIPTOP</a>. </p>\n\n<p>However, you will need to make sure that you are clear on your future workplace's requirements and regulations regarding the recruiting of graduate students. Many such institutes do <em>not</em> have PhD-granting programs of their own; in that case, you would need to make sure you were affiliated with a program that does grant doctoral degrees <em>before</em> you begin recruitment.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 141, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are a couple of ways to determine whether a particular graduate student is a good candidate for your lab.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Subject knowledge</strong>. While this is often unfair to the student, I know many researchers who will only accept students who are familiar with their area of research. This saves time in getting the student up to speed, which can take many months, as you probably know.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Simple personality matches</strong>. By the time they're looking into your lab, they've already been accepted into the graduate program and kept their grades up high enough to be applying to labs, which means that (assuming you agree with the standards of the program) they are fairly smart. Your job is determine whether the student would be a good match for your lab in particular, and whether you want to work with them on a daily basis for the next 5+ years.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Rotations</strong>. Many programs have graduate student rotations, which will give you an opportunity to interact with many students, and get the chance to know them better than the one-hour interview you mentioned.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Aside from this, read up on general interviewing tips. Almost all the articles you'll find discussing general hiring advice is applicable to recruiting graduate students/postdocs as well.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/128", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 172, "author": "mac389", "author_id": 28, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I think the answer lies in what your PI thinks you should be doing and how well you can, at least, appear to be doing it while doing things other than research. Even if your PI doesn't enforce a certain allocation it's in your interest to do as much research and little else as possible. <strong>You won't get a PhD by teaching or taking classes.</strong> An overload, in my experience, is unavoidable first year. Is is possible to take electives that your PI teaches? That's about the only coursework he or she won't begrudge you.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 236, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think it's fair to expect a first-year student who has course obligations to spend <em>some</em> time on course work, but along the same lines as if it were another course—and by no means the majority of time. When the department requires coursework, it's kind of unfair for a faculty advisor to complain about you having to spend your time taking the required classwork. Particularly in a department like chemistry, which tends to have comprehensive qualification requirements, expecting a first-year student to devote more than a modest amount of time to research is rather unreasonable. If you spend too much time on research, and not enough on classes, you could end up failing your qualfiers. If you don't pass those, you won't get your Ph.D., either!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 240, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In France coursework is anecdotal since PhD students are supposed to follow only one course a year, and the validation is decided (without grades) by the professor giving the lecture (and attendance generally means validation).</p>\n\n<p>However, the question of balancing research and teaching is of importance. Those that are TA during their PhD have typically 3 to 4 hours a week on average of presence in front of the students during 6/7 months, and most colleagues agree on the fact that 2 to 3 times this amount is spent in preparing/grading (for beginners). So it is on average between 1 and 2 days a week for teaching. I strongly advised my own students not to cross that line: you don't improve significantly your lectures by working more than that, but you clearly decrease the quality of your research work (again, this is for newcomers in academia).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 245, "author": "dearN", "author_id": 21, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>From my experience: You <em>just</em> have to make it work. You <em>just</em> have to balance all that is thrown at you. Believe me, it is a character building exercise, getting a PhD is. It's not just about publishing journal papers. A PhD degree is also about time management, people skills (which can be tested when trying to appease your advisor!) and learning how to communicate effectively (even if you get only 10 hours work done in a week while the expectation was 15 hours, it is <em>how</em> you communicate your results during research meetings).</p>\n\n<p>After a year or so and once you have your qualifiers out of the way you will emerge a stronger person who would suddenly even have downtime! Good luck!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 247, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A lack of time for research in the first year is pretty common in programs with heavy course requirements, and your supervisor will usually know this especially if she or he has other students. I used to tell my supervisor that I was pretty busy with courses and this was no problem, and I doubt your advisor will get upset if you also have this issue.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, I like the comment of DNA. You'd be surprised that even with a busy schedule there is a lot of room for improvement in how you manage your time. If you take a bit of time to examine your schedule, possibly with the aide of a spreadsheet, often you can find ways to improve your efficiency. Courses and TA duties are tiring and it is difficult to work after them. If this is your case you could try getting up earlier to have the best part of your day for a bit of research. Even three hours per week per semester will be around 40 hours in a semester, depending on the semester length, and you can accomplish much in this time.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/143", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 151, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>It seems to me that there are several advantages; none of these are suitable for every student. It's up to you whether enough of them apply to you, to make it worth doing a taught PhD:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>A PhD with a bit of coursework in the first year will help those who\nare crossing over into a discipline that they're not already deeply\nembedded in: it will give you some hand-holding through the things\nyou'll need to know but don't yet;</li>\n<li>it should (if taught well) also teach you some extra research skills;</li>\n<li>it will give you some indication as you progress as to how well you're doing, compared to how well you should be doing if you're going to finish</li>\n<li>it will allow you to explore different aspects of the field, to help you finalise your thesis topic</li>\n<li>it may, depending on the country and institution, give you an intermediate degree at the end of the taught section, such as an MRes, which will count for something even if you then don't go on to do the full PhD</li>\n<li>it lessens the culture-shock for those going straight from fully-taught study to a research degree.</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 156, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One thing to keep in mind is that there are international differences as well. In Germany, for instance, doctoral programs almost <em>never</em> require coursework as part of the research program requirements (although it may be mandated for purposes off establishing degree equivalency, if you come from a foreign country or have a degree from another field). This is because it is assumed that you have taken all the necessary courses as part of your Master's program, which is considered the follow up to the bachelor's rather than the precursor to the doctorate. </p>\n\n<p>The reverse is true in the US: I don't know of any PhD programs there that <em>don't</em> require courses, for the reverse reason. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 169, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Also, a coursework PhD program is very useful for someone (like me) who took a break from academia to work for a couple of years - it would be invaluable in refreshing those basics that have atrophied during the time spent at industry. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3623, "author": "Per Alexandersson", "author_id": 2794, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2794", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Sometimes, especially in the beginning, it is easier to measure course progress than research progress, and thus good for the self-esteem. \nBeing able to say \"I've accomplished something this semester\" is crucial.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/148", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 150, "author": "GWW", "author_id": 41, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41", "pm_score": 8, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I believe that a sandwich thesis (sometimes called an integrated thesis / stapler thesis) consists of a collection of published or in-press articles (some schools also allow submitted articles). These articles are included in the thesis verbatim. The publications are usually preceded by an elaborate introduction that sets the context for the thesis.</p>\n\n<p>EDIT:</p>\n\n<p>As Willie Wong pointed out, there is also usually a final discussion / conclusion after the integrated papers.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 656, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 6, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Supplementing GWW's excellent answer somewhat, the \"sandwich thesis\" or similar concepts, seem to be rising in popularity. For example, in my University, they're afforded equal standing to the more traditional \"book\"-style thesis, and in my Department, they're the <em>required</em> form of a dissertation.</p>\n\n<p>The reasoning for this is fairly straightforward. In many fields that don't rely on book publishing as the primary means of publication (most of the sciences), the production of a large manuscript-style work is likely a one time event. One can have an extremely successful career without publishing another book, and the mechanisms to publish books on research findings (rather than say methods) may not actually exist.</p>\n\n<p>As such, requiring doctoral students to produce something like that is counter-productive - they gain no experience in the future requirement to publish journal articles, and leave graduate school with a body of work that isn't represented in the journal literature. The idea of the sandwich thesis is to get around this by layering several journal-style publications (either submitted or unsubmitted) as the meat of the sandwich, with an introduction, perhaps a joint high-level methods section and a conclusion section weaving them into a coherent narrative as the bread. This allows the student's work to flow nicely into the literature in a way that's useful to all involved.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 162978, "author": "JL Senior", "author_id": 135488, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/135488", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What is described here as a sandwich thesis (a collection of published (or intending to be published) articles + Introduction + Discussion) is also called a compilation thesis. In the Netherlands this is a very common format for nearly all science PhD theses.\nI'm not sure what Peter Green meant by &quot;AIUI lots of people use the &quot;Sandwich thesis&quot; format, while being regular PhD students&quot;.\nNowadays, most Dutch universities also publish their PhD theses in online public archives.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/149", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 161, "author": "Henry", "author_id": 8, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you can get any information, don't underestimate the importance of simple personality factors---do you expect to be able to get along personally with your potential advisor? This is hard to gauge if you don't have the chance to meet the person, but talking to current or former students may give you some idea.</p>\n\n<p>Also, I'd add to your list how your advisor is viewed in the rest of the field. Not just on the quality of research (though that's important too), but again, how much people like your advisor personally. Again, a small factor, but having other people in your field like your advisor can make a difference.</p>\n\n<p>Unless you have a very close decision and need a tie-breaker, I'm not sure it's worth trying to read the tea leaves about what tenure status implies, since I suspect the person-by-person variation is greater than the between group variation.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 171, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You listed it in your question, but just to state it as an answer, you will <strong>always</strong> want to look into any professor before joining their lab. This includes:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Looking up their publications and becoming familiar with their research <em>style</em>; do you agree with how he performs research? Does his thinking style seem similar to yours?</li>\n<li>Speaking with current and past students from that lab and getting their sense of what it's like working for that professor</li>\n<li>Talking with the professor yourself and seeing whether there's a personality match</li>\n<li>Simply looking up their name online and seeing what comes up</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I would suggest that tenure status is not as important when deciding what lab to join, unless the professor is having difficulty securing continuous funding. You can ask about funding sources when speaking face to face. Most professors are equally dedicated to their job whether they have tenure or not.</p>\n\n<p>Remember, you will be spending numerous years with this person, and there's a very high cost of switching professors as the years add up. Make sure that you not only like their research but you also get along with them.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 189, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>There are a few things I would generally look at in a potential advisor beyond just their research/publications:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Who were the co-authors on their papers?</strong> Are they actively collaborating with people in your field - people who could be potentially useful for post-doc posts, etc.? Do their students often show up as primary authors on publications, or are they invariably buried in the middle of a long list of authors?</li>\n<li><strong>Personality.</strong> This goes beyond just do you like the person. Do they prefer frequent updates, meetings and the like, or is the occasional check-in enough? Are they a morning person and you prefer working nights, or the other way around? If you send a long email, would it get answered, or do they not often fail to answer emails? I've had some professors who I'm very fond of nevertheless would make poor advisors because of wildly disparate working styles.</li>\n<li><strong>How are their students funded?</strong> Your funding stream can have serious impact on your completion time and productivity. If every semester, its a desperate Pick-N-Mix of funded side projects, TAships, etc. you're going to have a lot on your plate that, while potentially an interesting experience, will slow down your progress.</li>\n<li><strong>Where do their students end up?</strong> Do they have decent career trajectories? Are they supportive of alternative paths like industry or government?</li>\n<li><strong>Rank and age.</strong> A young professor might be more aggressive and eager, on the other hand they're less established, don't necessarily have the same level of institutional support, and if they're not yet tenured, its possible they'll disappear. An older professor may be more established and stable, but might not use \"cutting edge\" techniques, or feel less of an internal drive to publish.</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/158", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 162, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I know it's a \"personal\" answer, but I don't think it depends only on the university, but also on the department. For instance, I did my PhD in Computer Science at Paris 6, in France, and the thesis had to be an original document (although it's clearly possible to use content from published papers, but not in a copy/paste way). But I knew someone who did his PhD in Physics at Paris 6, and his PhD was a sandwich/stapler thesis. So there doesn't seem to be a global rule across the University, at least not for Paris 6. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 163, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's essentially impossible to know if you'll be able to do a stapler thesis or not, because the decision also lies with the thesis supervisor, who may not allow you to do that, <em>even if</em> it is allowed by the rules of your university or department. I was co-advised, and one thought a stapler thesis was an inherently logical way to write the thesis, while the other thought it was a really bad way to write a thesis, and didn't allow his students to do it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 167, "author": "gerhard", "author_id": 113, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/113", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The department where you are going to submit the thesis probably has a document of <strong>PhD/thesis regulations</strong> that specify if such a thesis is allowed. For example, <a href=\"http://www.et-inf.uni-hannover.de/fileadmin/institut/promotion/englisch/Promo_DrRerNat_Engl.pdf\">my department's regulations</a> have the following statement:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>[...] Scientific publications may form a part of a doctoral thesis. If the doctoral thesis consists of several scientific papers, a presentation of the guidelines of the papers submitted has to be added in an appropriate extent. [...]</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>i.e. a sandwich thesis is possible here. So you should find out if your favored departments have similar regulations and have a look in there.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 80454, "author": "Dr. Thomas C. King", "author_id": 47391, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/47391", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think there is an easy way to determine this. I don't think it is often set out in the University regulations. For example, where I did my PhD different departments would have different approaches and within each department different supervisors would have different approaches (that fits to what the department 'allows'). Moreover, by 'approach', I do not mean anything written down. Rather, there were/are unwritten, sometimes spoken, conventions.</p>\n\n<p>You could infer these by looking at what theses have been written at the university, in each department under specific supervisors. N.b., if you have more than one supervisor, the power-relation may determine who's conventions are followed.</p>\n\n<p>All of this is a lot of work. I would like to address what I imagine your original intention is - will I be made to do extra work that could be detrimental to my academic career (by reducing publications, for example)? If this is your motivation, perhaps a more effective tool is to simply see for each potential supervisor where their students ended up afterwards. You would not be able to infer what type of thesis must be written from this, but you would be able to get the bigger picture.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/159", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 166, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<ol>\n<li><p>As you mentioned, the postal address does not matter - but in any case, I'd lean towards the newer address!</p></li>\n<li><p>Its definitely OK to do so - I submitted my Masters thesis with my gmail.com account, due to the exact same scenario as outlined by you (currently working, am hoping to go to grad school this fall).</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 170, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<ol>\n<li><p>I agree with you and shan23, it doesn't really matter, but the newer is probably better. </p></li>\n<li><p>Well, to be bluntly honest, I tend to have a negative a-priori when I see an author of a paper with a gmail address (especially when I review it, when it's not double-blind). I know it's stupid, because it should only be about the quality of the work, but I can't really help it. Mostly because I know that there is no authentication with gmail address (I potentially could get an [email protected] address). I think it's ok to give an address that will change, after all, few people spend their entire career in the same institution. </p></li>\n</ol>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/164", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/37/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 168, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>There are certain (informal) nuances I believe:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><strong>Symposium</strong> - Prestigious conferences, generally leading venues in their respective fields. Example: <a href=\"http://www.siam.org/meetings/da12/\">Symposium on Discrete Algorithms</a>, <a href=\"http://ets2012.imag.fr/\">European Test Symposium</a>, <a href=\"http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~rafail/FOCS11/\">Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS)</a> etc</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Conference</strong> - Regular venues for publications, may range from established venues to the archaic. I understand the bulk of publications of most researchers are in one conference or other, as symposiums tend to have a very low acceptance rate.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Meeting</strong> - I'm not so sure there are many of these, but I understand that it is more of a forum for interaction/surveys/posters than for publication of full papers. (I based my answer on the description for <a href=\"http://www.siam.org/meetings/an12/\">SIAM Annual Meeting 2012</a>, which describes itself as providing \"a broad view of the state of the art in applied mathematics, computational science, and their applications through invited presentation, prize lectures, minisymposia, and contributed papers and posters\".)</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Congress</strong> - This would typically be held once a year per discipline, highlighting the achievements, notable results in that field. These are typically attended by leaders in that field, and feature a series of invited talks (for example, look at <a href=\"http://www.siam.org/meetings/calendar.php?id=1065\">Mathematical Congress of the Americas 2013</a>).</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 231, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Nothing. They're synonyms. See also \"Workshop\".</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 233, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>\"Conference\" or \"meeting\" are catch-all terms that can refer to any scientific gathering. However, I'd argue that a \"Symposium\" tends to be smaller than the others, and more narrowly focused. \"Conferences,\" \"Congresses,\" and \"Meetings\" can all be huge affairs, but it's hard to think of many \"Symposium\" with a similar size. A \"workshop\" is also an event of somewhat smaller size than a \"congress\" (which generally implies a huge attending audience).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 58189, "author": "Prabhakar", "author_id": 44347, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/44347", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Congress- Conference- Colloquium- Symposium- Seminar- Workshop;</strong><br>\nhave the following differences if one proceeds from Congress to workshop:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Informality decreases </li>\n<li>Number of participants decreases </li>\n<li>One theme and many sub-themes with a large scope to one narrow theme, scope narrows down </li>\n<li>A number of papers and key note addresses to limited number of papers and key note addresses. </li>\n<li>Informal discussion to hands on job training </li>\n<li>Colloquium is limited to a group of researchers concerned with a few themes mostly to review progress. </li>\n<li>workshop means something job training, do it yourself.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 94171, "author": "Stefan_W", "author_id": 73521, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73521", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Such differences also depend on the development of scientific associations and how they named their annual conference/congress/meeting in the first place. For instance the <a href=\"https://ecpr.eu/Events/EventTypeDetails.aspx?EventTypeID=2\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">general conference of the ECPR</a> and the <a href=\"https://www.ipsa.org/events/pastworldcongresses\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">IPSA World Congress</a> Might use different terms, but they all are organised and work quite similarly. <br/> Plus, sometimes, it is just a way of naming a gathering of academics more fancy ;) , see <a href=\"http://phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1704\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1704</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 161582, "author": "GT-Force", "author_id": 134142, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/134142", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Congress</strong>: A very big meeting (more than 10,000 or at least several thousands of attendees), usually held every few years.</p>\n<p><strong>Conference</strong>: A big meeting (hundreds or a couple of thousands of attendees), usually held annually.</p>\n<p><strong>Symposium</strong>: A meeting on a specific interest/topic. Due to the focused field, usually not very big meetings. Often, conferences or congresses run symposia under them (to help the people in the same field find each other in those large meetings). Some symposia run annually at the same location but on a different topic, and some run on the same topic at a fixed time-interval (annual, every other year, etc.).</p>\n<p><strong>Meeting</strong>: Any gathering to share and discuss the latest findings in a field (all of the above are meetings).</p>\n<p>None of these are strict definitions, but general guidelines.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/165", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 175, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 7, "selected": true, "text": "<p>As far as your research stature is concerned, grades would matter <em>least</em> of all, below other non-academic stuff as your soft-skills, your personality etc. There are a number of reasons for this:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>No one cares about your GPA once you are a researcher! While it certainly looks nice to have a stellar GPA, it's the work that you do and where you publish that would matter. Look up some resumes of notable faculty in your field - how many even list their MS/BS grades?</p></li>\n<li><p>I might even say that your adviser would not be too happy if you have a 4.0 GPA - as it means you are spending time on perfecting your grades which is more profitably spent on research! I actually have read this on a faculty/university webpage - would post the link once I dig it up. <strong>EDIT</strong>: Haven't found the faculty website link yet, but <a href=\"http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=469\" rel=\"noreferrer\">here</a>'s a <a href=\"http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=470\" rel=\"noreferrer\">couple</a> from an established source, phdcomics - enjoy!</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>PS: I'm actually waiting for <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65/jeffe\">JeffE</a> to comment on this: His credentials are such that I'm not even qualified to state them, and he himself claims that <a href=\"http://compgeom.cs.uiuc.edu/~jeffe/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">he had the lowest undergraduate GPA</a> amongst any professor he's ever met! </p>\n\n<p>EDIT: I'm talking about grades in subjects that you <em>have</em> to take as part of requirements of grad school - you would be expected to master the subjects that are directly required in your Ph.D research thesis, so your adviser would expect great grades in them naturally!</p>\n\n<p><strong>tl;dr</strong> - They don't matter (as long as you clear all your subjects!)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 178, "author": "Tangurena", "author_id": 109, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In some graduate schools I've been to (I've worked at a few and tried working on a masters at one), a <code>C</code> lands you on probation, and a second <code>C</code> gets you dismissed. Other than this, you're correct, they're irrelevant as the important measures involve funding and publishing. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 182, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To be a bit blithe about it, grades matter until they don't. When you are a PhD student, the grades will matter until after you've completed your \"qualification\" process, in whatever form that takes. If you do well on the exams, then your grades don't matter much; if you're \"on the bubble,\" you might be helped by solid performance in your graduate coursework.</p>\n\n<p>Where grades continue to matter are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>if you decide to apply for a graduate fellowship, in which case review committees will usually want to see evidence of strong academic performance at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.</li>\n<li>when you apply for jobs, as employers will similarly want to see evidence that you took coursework somewhat seriously. (Some employers may—wrongly, in my view—have GPA cutoffs for graduate students!)</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 789, "author": "David Ketcheson", "author_id": 81, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Just to note one place where they do matter: they may help you find a willing advisor. I am not inclined to take on students who don't do outstanding work in the first-year graduate course that I teach. On the other hand, students who are at the top of the class may find faculty trying to attract <em>them</em>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 848, "author": "bobthejoe", "author_id": 319, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/319", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I will actually take a strong opinion that my subpar grades from undergrad and graduate school are a large factor in why my PhD is going to take a long time. As <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81/david-ketcheson\">David Ketcheson</a> mentioned, quality grades and GRE scores are important denominators for Graduate fellowships. So far the NSF, NIH, and DOE have all denied me fellowships because I have a lowish GPA according to my reviews.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, once you are an established researcher with a paper track record, the grades really shouldn't matter asides being a bragging point.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1408, "author": "Rebecca Hill", "author_id": 776, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/776", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I currently direct a graduate program and as others have said, grades are most important while you're in a graduate program when decisions about funding are being made. C's may get you dismissed, and B's could lead to no funding in programs where funding is limited to a handful of students. If you are in a terminal MA program and applying to PhD programs, grades matter. After graduation and when you're on the job market, grades won't matter as much as your dissertation, publications and recommendations. The way that grades would matter then would be what they say about your professors' estimation of your work and whether they are likely to write you strong rec. letters. In short - if you get anything below an A, talk to the professor about what you could have done to do better and strive to get there.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10764, "author": "ramgorur", "author_id": 7537, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7537", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It depends, but what I have seen so far (w.r.t. Computer Science PhD perspective) is a bit different than other opinions in this post. </p>\n\n<p>I am doing PhD (Computer Science) in the US (at a mediocre school) and most of my cohorts (not most, actually all of them) have a very decent GPA (like 3.9+ out of 4.0), even couple of them have perfect 4.0/4.0 and a very <em>few</em> of them are publishing pretty much good level of research works. </p>\n\n<p>Moreover, most of my faculty members in my school have similar credentials (good grade, good research background, and most of them are from top notch schools like UMD, UPenn, UMich, VTech) -- although my school ranks 60+ in the nation (according to US News, in CS specialization). </p>\n\n<p>Even PhD students in my department who did summer research intern in big companies like google, IBM, Microsoft are also equipped with a good GPA. Even some of them have no publication at all !!, even after being a PhD student for more than 2 years. You will be surprised to know that one of them is currently working as a research intern position at google with no research paper at all, he has been a PhD student for last 2.5 years !! Moreover, if you are from a good school, things will be lot easier.</p>\n\n<p>So, what I see, situation is totally opposite in US. Here Pedigree > GPA > publications. </p>\n\n<p>I used to be the \"odd one out\", I had a decent publication record (published 4 conference papers during my masters (from a top school outside US) and 2 more in my 1st year of PhD here), but I settled with a low grade (3.2+), compared to others it is actually a \"bad\". Moreover, the venues that I have published my research works are considered to be quite decent in my field (two of the venues are in the top 20 lists in Microsoft academic search <a href=\"http://academic.research.microsoft.com/RankList?entitytype=3&amp;topDomainID=2&amp;subDomainID=5&amp;last=0&amp;start=1&amp;end=100\" rel=\"nofollow\">ranking</a>, even I got one best student paper award there. In the US, keeping up both research works and regular course load is quite challenging, at least for me.</p>\n\n<p>Such situation compelled me to focus more on the grades and to start practicing problems from sites like \"careercup\" to land a job in industry -- that's what others are doing here, and this is a totally disappointing and frustrating experience for me. </p>\n\n<p>I had to cut my time on research as much as possible, now just doing a minimal possible work to maintain my supervisor's \"happiness threshold level\". Here, landing an academic job is harder than in industries -- unless you are a \"rock star\" researcher -- and this is the reality. Being a mediocre researcher (like me) from a mediocre school does not count much, neither in industry nor academia. </p>\n\n<p>Last but not the least, I am an international student deceived by the so called delusion of \"the land of opportunity\".</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10772, "author": "user168715", "author_id": 5596, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5596", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You may need good grades during the first two years of your PhD (the time you would be doing your MS, if you applied to a separate MS program) for the reasons listed above: fellowships, in case you decide to drop out and get a industry job, etc.</p>\n\n<p>After two years in a PhD program, worrying about your GPA is a complete waste of time. I've yet to see any research university even <em>ask</em> for a transcript of your graduate classwork. Some research positions in industry might require a transcript and take into account your GPA, but I don't think this (misguided) practice is common.</p>\n\n<p>What's true for certain is that if you're spending late nights and long hours polishing that final project in a class totally unrelated to your research area, so that you will get an A+ instead of an A -- please stop. You are hurting your career.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 60462, "author": "John F", "author_id": 46351, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46351", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Straight A's didn't get me into trouble with my advisor. My committee didn't care either. </p>\n\n<p>I was always told there are three grades in grad school: excellent (A), adequate (B), and failing (C). </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 135251, "author": "Brandon James Talton McCray", "author_id": 112297, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/112297", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am a Ph.D. student in my second year of research. I hold two MBA's and a bachelors degree. Each of my GPA's raised a bit in the course of my academic career (3.52 - 4.0). I am currently on the President's lists for Capella University. I do not think it matters to most. It certainly feels good to place a 4.0 in my application to teach at universities but I doubt it does much for my selection. The larger impact is what differences can you make. I have saught after a reputation to help develop peoples motivation towards academics, so a strong GPA helps prove that I know how to provide good advice on study habits to help others navigate through Bloom's Taxonomy. I would say, simply do your best! If you are in a Ph.D. program, you pretty much have a focused goal, and all the other crap is noise. Do your best, clear your classes, and focus on what is most important to you, not on what you think others will expect of you. Remember, Doctoral Students only account for less than 2% of America's population so take that into consideration when concerning yourself of what people will think of you. Be brave, take chances and have fun with your studies. You may lose points for being late, may lose points for a paper being too long, or perhaps you explored something not related to the assignment but got a lot out of it, don't stress about a perfect grade. A perfect GPA means nothing if you didn't maximize the opportunity to learn. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/173", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 176, "author": "mac389", "author_id": 28, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>My answer depends on how far along you are in your research and whether you are in PhD or MD?PhD program. </p>\n\n<p>If you are in a PhD program and you are less than a year in leave the lab. If you are more than a year in at you next Thesis Committee meeting, if it's scientifically reasonable, try to either set a date for graduating or ask for a co-PI.</p>\n\n<p>If you are in the MD/PhD program, you will have to consider your PI's position and whether a lukewarm letter from someone in his position is worth your staying in the lab. If you plan to go into a competitive surgicial or medical subspecialty, it just might be. </p>\n\n<p>I, sadly, think that checked-out PIs- even those without the excuse of having to go see patients- are increasingly the norm. Getting to be a professor is a great way to age rapidly and burn out, especially in the biomedical sciences. Also, professors aren't selected for their mentoring skills so much as scientific productivity. Often scientific productivity means exploitation or disregard because of self-involvement rather than nurturing.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 190, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In addition to the department chair, is there a head of graduate studies or the like (e.g., an ombudsman)? You may want to consider talking to them.</p>\n\n<p>Generally speaking though, unless it will <em>severely</em> derail your progress, I'd consider changing advisors, and starting to talk to your committee members about shifting who is your chair.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/174", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 179, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I wouldn't rate your chances as very high, but the following factors might help nevertheless:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Your credentials (where you did your BS/MS from), and what balance of mathematics courses did you take - were there any electives, and of course, how you fared in them.</p></li>\n<li><p>Since you didn't mention it, I'm assuming you haven't published in any decent mathematical venues - it helps your chances a lot if you had publishable results prior to your application. If you find it difficult to get published, post (interesting and useful) results to arxiv - that would boost your case in any case.</p></li>\n<li><p>Mathematics is a vast field - it would help a lot if you were to continue along the directions to which you've already had some research background in (and maybe published on), and could get an interested faculty to have a look at your profile.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 181, "author": "Henry", "author_id": 8, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>(I speak from limited experience, and none on the \"reading applications and deciding\" side. Technically my undergraduate degree was in a program somewhere between math and CS, but I'd taken a fairly math-oriented slant on it.)</p>\n\n<p>Having a masters degree in a related field certainly doesn't make you ineligible to pursue a PhD in math. The only disadvantage I can see for taking time to do a masters degree in a slightly different area, as opposed to, say, working in industry, is that you may need to work harder to explain why you're changing areas.</p>\n\n<p>(Also you'll have some record of doing research, and you might be judged in part on the quality of that research where an undergrad might be given the benefit of the doubt.)</p>\n\n<p>If you want to continue working in a closely related area that's a bit more in the mathematical direction, it shouldn't be very hard to explain why you've decided to continue that work in mathematics rather than CS. It's a bigger issue if you want to do something very different in math---the worry would be that whatever caused you to lose interest in computational algebraic geometry will happen again. That's not insurmountable, but it will be more of a hurdle to convince the faculty you're really interested enough in the new area to stick out a PhD.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 230, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Short answer: Yes. Absolutely. You are already doing mathematics.</p>\n\n<p>A few bits of advice:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Ask your advisor and other references to specifically address your mathematical depth and maturity in their recommendation letters.</p></li>\n<li><p>Include a <em>technical</em> summary of your past research, including pointers to ArXiv preprints if possible, in your statement of purpose.</p></li>\n<li><p>Apply to math departments that employ computational algebraic geometers. Three that come to mind immediately are Saugatu Basu at Purdue, Frank Sottile at Texas A&amp;M, and Bernd Sturmfels at Berkeley. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>(I know at least half a dozen former CS grad students who successfully switched into mathematics.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1057, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I've served on graduate admissions committees for a math department in a research university. It really won't matter what your degrees are in, as long as the substance is there, but you need to be careful of several points:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>You need recommendations from people the committee is familiar with, preferably at least one or two mathematicians. The more they committee knows about your letter writers, the better. (For example, if someone says you are one of the best students in recent years, is that because you are great or because they give inflated praise to everyone? There's no way of knowing if the committee hasn't seen previous recommendations from this person.) It's also important for your recommenders to have enough of a feeling for math grad school that they can confidently address whether you will be successful; for example, theoretical computer scientists can probably do this better than people in more applied areas of CS. Finally, many people believe recommenders are a little less selective about recommending people for things outside of their own area, so recommendations from other fields are often given less weight.</p></li>\n<li><p>You need to demonstrate that you have mastered the undergraduate material that is less relevant for computer science. For example, mathematical analysis along the lines of Rudin's <em>Principles of Mathematical Analysis</em>. Even if you know a lot about algebra and discrete math, you might still not be in a position to pass some first-year graduate courses in pure math, or you might discover that you don't enjoy them.</p></li>\n<li><p>You need a compelling story for why you are changing departments. If you focus on not liking what you are currently doing, or on wanting a fresh start, then it will not go over well. There are much more positive stories, about gradually coming to appreciate that pure math is your real interest, but you should write carefully. This is tantamount to admitting that the last time you entered a graduate program, you didn't really know what you were interested in, and you don't want to leave the committee with any worries that this might still be true. If you can say this honestly, then it might help to say something along these lines: when you finished your undergraduate degree, you were unsure about pure math vs. CS, so you decided to write an extremely mathematical CS master's thesis, and this experience has helped you decide where your real interests are. (Being unsure in the past comes across better than having thought you were sure and then realizing you were wrong.)</p></li>\n</ol>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/177", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/86/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 184, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I don't think there can be any studies to confirm or deny something like that, simply because neither \"good teacher\" nor \"good researcher\" can be quantified objectively without bias, and in the absence of that, how can you compare? </p>\n\n<p>But qualitatively, I think the conclusion naturally follows in most cases - both require one to be enthusiastic about their subject in the first place, and require a certain depth of comprehension before they can either publish their results or interact with inquisitive students successfully!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 188, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't have any formal evidence, but I can tell you that at my university there are people who are only doing teaching (and are good at it). If being a good teacher implied being a good researcher, these people would be at least involved in research as well.</p>\n\n<p>Similarly, there are many people who are good teachers at high school level and not involved in research in any way.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 200, "author": "Stefano Borini", "author_id": 5, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's hard to evaluate, but from my experience I don't think such correlation exist, or if it exists, it is not extremely evident. Age can certainly be a discriminant, but assumed equivalence in age, a good teacher spends a lot of time in teaching activities, such as preparation, testing, and student nurturing. This leaves very little time for research. Also, most brilliant minds are too involved in their own projects (at the limit of being asocial) and don't make good communicators. The great advantage of a teacher is that he must be \"not that smart\", that is, he must understand where a difficulty may lie, and come up with a brilliant example to make it clear. Not everyone is Feynman..</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1050, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It seems likely that there's some nonzero correlation. Certainly, there are factors that should lead to positive correlation; for example, some personality traits (like conscientiousness) should lead to both better research and better teaching. There are also factors that should lead to negative correlation; for example, teaching and research are activities that are competing for a limited amount of time. It would be strange if all these factors nearly cancelled each other out, so we should expect some net correlation. Here's an argument for positive:</p>\n\n<p>Let's distinguish between two aspects of teaching, namely exposition and psychology. Exposition means finding simple explanations, coming up with illuminating examples and analogies, mapping out the most important topics and the relationships between them, etc. Psychology means understanding where students are coming from and what they do or don't understand, empathizing and bonding with them, arousing their interest and inspiring them to achieve great things, etc. Both of these are important factors in good teaching, although neither is absolutely essential. A master of exposition without a good understanding of psychology may be clear but dull, and someone who understands psychology but isn't good at exposition may have to follow a textbook closely, but either one will be much better than some teachers.</p>\n\n<p>Expository ability is almost certainly correlated with research ability, since they both rely on a deep, creative understanding of the subject matter. In mathematics, the standard example is Jean-Pierre Serre, who is both a brilliant mathematician and the author of several amazing graduate textbooks, and one can see similar characteristics in his research papers and textbooks.</p>\n\n<p>However, the psychology side of teaching is probably not closely connected with research ability. There may be some correlation, just because smart people tend to be better than average at all kinds of thinking, but I'd bet the correlation is small. Certainly, there are wonderful researchers who have a terrible understanding of psychology, and vice versa, in a far more dramatic way than for exposition.</p>\n\n<p>I see this split as perhaps explaining why there's so much debate about whether good research and good teaching are correlated, with some people saying obviously yes and others obviously no. The answer depends on which aspects of teaching you view as most important.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1061, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are any number of reasons that teaching and research might be correlated, or be anti correlated. These reasons will all combine and interact, so you will see a range of extents of correlations. Here are a few:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>They can be positively correlated because communication is a part of research, so giving good lectures and scientific talks, writing good papers and lessons will be correlated.</p></li>\n<li><p>They must be negatively correlated as a consequence of both taking time from the same individual academic. No one has infinite time.</p></li>\n<li><p>They can be positive correlated because excellent departments and universities value their academics' time and provide resources like secretaries and teaching assistants to help academics have time for both.</p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6065, "author": "Paul Hiemstra", "author_id": 4091, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4091", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would to add a review point to the discussion that could imply a negative correlation. Teaching students takes empathy, understanding that they do not yet understand and what makes them not understand. A top researcher has probably not experienced this when he/she was in school. Lesser researchers might be better at understanding why a student doesn't get it. Also, a good mind does not imply excellent communicative skills. I would say the correlation is non-existing or slightly positive.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6077, "author": "Falko", "author_id": 4517, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4517", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Only reference I know of:</p>\n\n<p>Feldon et al (2011) Graduate student's teaching experiences improve their research skills. Science, 333, 1037-1040.\n<a href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/1037.full\">http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/1037.full</a></p>\n\n<p>The authors found a that students who taught improved their abilities to generate testable hypotheses. </p>\n\n<p>So yes, I assume that this means that there is a correlation between being a good researcher and being a good teacher beyond the simple point of being able to communicate your findings more effectively. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6080, "author": "Javeer Baker", "author_id": 4475, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4475", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Correlation is not causation. Beware of studies that confuse the two. </p>\n\n<p>For those with non-statistical background, it is like \"eating ice cream and \"driving a car\". There may be a positive or negative (or no) relationship between eating ice cream and causing an accident but ice-cream in itself does not cause the accident.</p>\n\n<p>Similarly, it is not necessary to be a good researcher because one is a good teacher and vice-versa - a notion that is sort of reflected in the many answers.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 12598, "author": "Amory", "author_id": 7886, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7886", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is significantly after the fact, but <a href=\"http://www.nber.org/papers/w19406\" rel=\"nofollow\">this paper</a> just came out. It purports to show that students learn the most/best from instructors who are NOT tenure-track professors, potentially due to the added burden performing research has on an instructor.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 187415, "author": "grittynerd", "author_id": 161216, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/161216", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There's a negative correlation. It's been well found in my experience. If you're a good researcher, you'd not be your students favorite. It's like thinking a professional in say big data would teach a subject of big data properly. It sounds like it might, but it won't. A professional would always be in a hurry to go to office, keep thinking about his job, he's doing teaching just as a means to make money in a greedy sense. Same goes for researchers, they're there teaching just so that they can get funds to research, they don't want to teach kids about concepts that can be learnt by reading 10 pages of a textbook. They're there for bigger and better things.</p>\n<p>So my answer isn't necessarily if a good teacher and good researcher has any correlation. My answer is that anyone who is doing multiple professions just to make more cash (or benefits) isn't going to do it very well. And professors in university have very good power. We had professors who failed 90% of his students, used to come half a hour late to class and left half a hour earlier, we learnt that we were just too dumb. The professor still teaches.</p>\n<p>Nobody doing multiple professions can be best at both job. Teaching and writing are two jobs that people don't take seriously. Only students know how serious of a job is teaching and only readers know how difficult of a job is writing. Everyone else thinks, otherwise.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/183", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 186, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I haven't seen any statistics on how many tenure professors have been fired, but most articles on the topic treat tenure as though it's a lifetime position (e.g., <a href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5931/1147.summary?sid=a7d9043f-a59f-499d-b610-d4092920493c\">this Science article, \"Tenure and the Future of the University\"</a>). Anecdotally, you will likely never meet someone who <em>knows someone else</em> who was fired from a tenure position; it simply doesn't happen.</p>\n\n<p>Note, however, that the number of tenure track positions made available over the past decade been trending downward fairly significantly (see the same article, and simply do a <a href=\"http://www.google.com/search?q=percentage+of+tenure+positions\">google search on the topic</a> to see more).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 210, "author": "Noah Snyder", "author_id": 25, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It does happen occasionally that entire departments are shut down. An example I remember being in the news a lot was <a href=\"http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/10/04/albany\">several language departments at SUNY Albany</a>. But it's an extreme measure and even with the current severe economic situation it did not happen very often.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 212, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In practice, a tenured appointment is one of the safest job positions out there. Essentially, the number of things which can get a tenured professor \"sacked\" are exceedingly small, and most of these involve criminal actions. (Even in such cases, the university tends to pressure resignations rather than try to fire them, as has happened, for instance, in high-profile cases at <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Hauser\">Harvard</a> and <a href=\"http://yaleherald.com/archive/xxvi/11.13.98/front.html\">Yale</a>.)</p>\n\n<p>Outside of that, you need the aforementioned budget catastrophes that lead to elimination of entire departments. Even then, sometimes departments are allowed to \"decay\" rather than get eliminated—current staff stays as the department gets wound down, without new hires and additional support.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5521, "author": "user244795", "author_id": 1352, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1352", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Even if you don't get fired, the department can still make you miserable enough to want to leave. Tenure contracts often only guarantee a small salary, say 50% of the base salary when you were originally hired. Years later, that could be a pittance due to inflation. </p>\n\n<p>Your department could tell you that your research isn't important or significant, and they could require you to do more teaching and service on committees, leaving you very little time to do any research. You could lose your lab space or access to shared equipment. You might not be allowed to take on new students or to hire technicians. </p>\n\n<p>So you'll want to leave, even if they can't officially fire you. You can read some horror stories on <a href=\"https://chronicle.com/forums/\">this website</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 26746, "author": "Andreas Blass", "author_id": 14506, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I've seen one case that almost led to firing a tenured faculty member. The university had found him guilty of misconduct and tried to get him to resign; as far as I can tell this involved incentives more than threats. But when that approach failed, the university began proceedings to revoke his tenure and fire him. The \"definition\" of tenure at my university amounts to specifying what those procedures must include, and they make the the process so cumbersome that no one would want to invoke them except in extreme cases. In this case, the person finally reached an agreement with the university and resigned, on the day that the Board of Regents was to meet to revoke his tenure. Even so, he apparently got come concessions from the university. In particular, a short time later, the people involved in the tenure revocation hearings, even those like me who were only indirectly involved, were informed by the university's lawyers that, under the resignation agreement, we are not allowed to divulge who this person is. As far as I know, that gag order is still in force.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 30951, "author": "Franck Dernoncourt", "author_id": 452, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.joebaugher.com/Tenure.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\">Thoughts on Academic Tenure</a> by Joseph F. Baugher (August 15, 2014):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Tenure can only be revoked for valid cause--normally a professor has\n to do something really wrong or really stupid to lose tenure.  Most\n universities have disciplinary procedures already in place for\n handling such cases—typically a quasi-judicicial proceeding is\n provided, surrounded by due-process protections and an opportunity for\n the accused to provide a defense.   Such cases are quite rare--<strong>in the\n US, according to the Wall Street Journal (Jan 10, 2005), it is\n estimated that only 50 to 75 tenured professors (out of about 280,000)\n lose their tenure each year</strong>.  Revocation of tenure is usually a\n lengthy, costly, and tedious procedure, very often resulting in a\n lawsuit.  Grounds for dismissal typically include doing something\n illegal like embezzling research funds, stealing school property, or\n conviction of a felony or any offense involving “moral turpitude”. \n The grounds for tenure revocation can also include things such as\n professional incompetence, gross academic malfeasance such as\n plagiarism or the faking of research results, falsification of records\n or credentials, neglect of duty, unprofessional or confrontational\n conduct toward colleagues, sleeping with a student, sexual harassment\n of another faculty member, or other conduct which falls below minimum\n standards of professional integrity.  A tenured faculty member can\n also be dismissed if they develop a physical or mental disability, one\n so serious that even with reasonable accommodations the faculty member\n is no longer able to perform the essential duties of their position.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Carolyn J. Mooney, \"<a href=\"http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=8336648275769238261&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=40000005&amp;sciodt=0,22\" rel=\"nofollow\">Dismissals for Cause</a>\", The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 7, 1994, p. A17, as reported by <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wikipedia</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In 1994, a study in The Chronicle of Higher Education found that\n \"about 50 tenured professors [in the US] are dismissed each year for\n cause.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/185", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 207, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The following is condensed from advice for academic job hunts that I've read <a href=\"http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/oleary/gradstudy/node12.html#SECTION000124000000000000000\">here</a> and <a href=\"http://matt.might.net/articles/advice-for-academic-job-hunt/#timing\">here</a> - I imagine it should be somewhat applicable for jobs in industry as well:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>If you would be applying for a position at Fall, begin applying from summer the previous year - applications tend to be sorted during committee meets, and the earlier you apply, the fewer applications are there, so there are higher chances of getting your application noticed. Hence, you'll want to draft your research statement, teaching statement and curriculum vitæ (CV) the summer before your search. If you are applying for industrial as well as academic positions, you probably want more than one resume, since achievement, skills, and goal-oriented resumes can be more effective in the industrial setting. </p></li>\n<li><p>The middle of January is when most schools stop accepting applications. Even then, keep submitting to any position you find through February, particularly if someone there recommends you apply. You will probably hear back with invitations for interviews in January and February, but sometimes even March and April. </p></li>\n<li><p>Get your letter writers primed as early as possible. You'll need at most six letter writers, but no less than three, and you'll want to ask them at least a month in advance with all your documents.</p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 214, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you're talking about job searches in general, it's <em>never</em> too early to start making contacts with potential future employers. Getting on their \"radar screen\" early can only help you when it comes time to apply formally for jobs; in addition, if you are their \"preferred\" candidate, you may find a job posting \"stressing\" your particular research direction.</p>\n\n<p>When it comes time for the actual submission of applications, academic positions typically operate on an annual cycle that depends on the field, and you should plan accordingly, as given in the response by shan23. The timing for other jobs varies, in particular depending upon the state of the economy. However, at the absolute minimum, you should start applying six months before your anticipated graduation; in the current circumstances, I think twelve months ' advance lead is also acceptable. Further out, the crystal ball is probably too cloudy for both employer and applicant.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/187", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 205, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For software engineering maybe you can find sth <a href=\"http://lanyrd.com/search/?q=summer+school\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 215, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I would say that one of the best online resources for Software Engineering is <a href=\"http://www.sigsoft.org/seworld/\" rel=\"nofollow\">SEWORLD</a>. You can browse their archives and look for summer schools there. </p>\n\n<p>Note that their search engine is a bit weird, if you go through \"search the archive\", put Summer school in the subject and \"2010-1-1\" in the starting date (when I leave it blank, I don't get recent results). For future references, here is the result of this query: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>ISSSE 2012 - 9th International Summer School on Software Engineering</li>\n<li>Summer School Marktoberdorf 2012] <em>Call for Application</em></li>\n<li>LASER Summer School 2012: Innovative Languages for Software Engineering</li>\n<li>CALL FOR PARTICIPATION - 4th RiSE International Summer School (RISS) - Next Generation of Software Product Lines</li>\n<li>summer school VTSA 2011</li>\n<li>Summer School on Technologies for Realizing Social Networks and Applications</li>\n<li>CFP: 1st Insubria International Summer School on Open Source Software (IISSOSS 2011)</li>\n<li>Summer School on Mechanized Logic for High Assurance Software</li>\n<li>Canadian Summer School on Practical Analyses of Software Engineering Data</li>\n<li>UPCRC Illinois Offers Summer School on Multicore Programming</li>\n<li>3rd International CASE Summer School on Practical Experimentation in Software Engineering - July 11-15, 2011 - Free University of Bolzano-Bozen</li>\n<li>Summer School on Programming Languages for Concurrent and Parallel Computing</li>\n<li>8th International Summer School on Software Engineering (ISSSE 2011)</li>\n<li>[Summer School Marktoberdorf 2011] <em>Call for Application</em></li>\n<li>LASER Summer School 2011: Tools for Practical Software Verification</li>\n<li>[CFA] Summer School on Programming Languages PL2010</li>\n<li>CALL FOR PARTICIPATION - 3rd RiSE International Summer School (RiSS) - Generative Reuse</li>\n<li>Call for participation to the 3rd International Summer School on Adaptive Socio-Technical Pervasive Systems</li>\n<li>CfP ADAPT Summer School</li>\n<li>DSM-TP 2010: 1st International Summer School on Domain Specific Modeling - Theory and Practice - Call for participation</li>\n<li>Call for participation: VTSA 2010 Summer School on Verification Technology, Systems &amp; Applications</li>\n<li>6th REASONING WEB Summer School \"Semantic Technologies for Software Engineering\"</li>\n<li>Summer School on Mining Software Repositories - June 2010, Kingston, Canada</li>\n<li>CfP: UPCRC Illinois Summer School on Multicore Programming</li>\n<li>LASER Summer School on Software Engineering</li>\n<li>TiC'10: Third International Summer School on Trends in Concurrency</li>\n<li>Call for Part: CASE Summer School, Bolzano, Italy, 19-23 July 2010</li>\n<li>CfPart: 6th TAROT Summer School on Software Testing</li>\n<li>7th International Summer School on Software Engineering </li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 338, "author": "mariosangiorgio", "author_id": 195, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/195", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You should also check <a href=\"http://user.it.uu.se/~bengt/Info/summer-schools.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow\">this list</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1222, "author": "Ivan Machado", "author_id": 690, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/690", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Take a look at <a href=\"http://www.dagstuhl.de/en/program/calendar/?dag_type=345&amp;dag_year=2012\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Dagstuhl Seminars</a>. In that space some summer (and winter) schools on SE are frequently offered.</p>\n\n<p>Their list is updated very frequently, and they make available a schedule of events about to happen for a couple of years. This way, you can organize your time (and money) to attend any school.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 145774, "author": "Marko Kotnik", "author_id": 120803, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/120803", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can check <a href=\"https://abc-businessacademy.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ABC Business Academy Summer School</a>. It's not software engineering specific, but it hits the broader scope of the topic.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/199", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/121/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 208, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>This is a partial representation of the truth. On the one hand, departments are always looking to retain masters students as PhD students; it's better for the department (better numbers), it's better for the professors (more research from PhD relative to masters), and it's better for the university. On the other hand, simply looking at the numbers you'll see that most masters students do not go on to become a PhD student <a href=\"http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_009.asp\">[1]</a>. I think it's safe to say that most students who go through masters programs enter with a goal in mind (academia or industry) and finish with that same goal in mind.</p>\n\n<p>I don't know how it works in other countries, so I can't compare that. Also, regarding whether they put more emphasis on PhD <em>preparation</em> than in other countries, I don't know how to quantify that.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 209, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you look at the description for <a href=\"http://www.cs.cornell.edu/grad/MEngProgram/index.htm\">Cornell M.Eng program in computer science</a>, you'd find it describes itself as: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The M.Eng. program in Computer Science is a one-year (two semester) professional development program designed to enhance professional skills in practical computer science. <strong>The program is particularly suited to students seeking advanced credentials for employment in industry</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So, I would have said it depends from program to program, but I won't - most MS programs in computer science in US have the same (unstated) goals, and while candidates entering the PhD program find it convenient to have already had a MS degree (reduces course credit requirements), the majority of the graduates take up jobs in the industry. Some MS programs have a <em>thesis</em> option, wherein it takes an extra semester to graduate but provides a platform for tasting research - if you opt for that, then you may consider this as a preparatory semester for a doctoral program.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 222, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are two very different kinds of computer science master's degrees:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Professional master programs involve taking lots of classes, but have no research requirement. These are almost universally considered (academically) terminal degrees. The actual degree is usually <em>not</em> \"M.S.\", but something similar like \"M.Eng.\" (Cornell) or \"M.C.S.\" (UIUC).</p></li>\n<li><p>Research masters programs require at least a modicum of original research, usually leading to a thesis. These are generally (but <em>not</em> universally) considered preparation for a PhD program, because of the research component. The actual degree is usually \"M.S.\" In some departments, the MS program is equivalent to MCS + thesis; in other programs, the MS program has different (usually smaller but more advanced) course requirements.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It is <strong>very important</strong> to know which type of master's program you are applying to.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 319, "author": "Joe Kington", "author_id": 169, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Also keep in mind that this is <em>very</em> field-dependent as well as program dependent. There are no hard-and-fast rules. </p>\n\n<p>In a lot of fields in the natural sciences, an M.S. is the standard working degree, and so in many fields people traditionally do a stand-alone M.S. regardless of whether they plan on going on to a PhD.</p>\n\n<p>As an example, in geoscience, M.S. degrees are one of two types: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Those handed out automatically en route to a PhD (usually after passing quals/prelims).</li>\n<li>Those that consist of a stand-alone project/degree.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The big difference with other fields is that the stand-alone, industry-oriented M.S. is the one that requires a thesis. The other is rather meaningless unless you get a PhD from the same program as well.</p>\n\n<p>Both are common precursors to a PhD (it's very common in geoscience to do an M.S. on a fairly different project than your PhD). However, the first type isn't seen as its own degree, and is often looked down upon (e.g. \"he/she dropped out with an M.S.\" vs. \"he/she got their M.S. at XYZ\").</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 322, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Its extremely field and program dependent. For example, in my field, Epidemiology, there are (I'd argue) actually three types of Masters degrees. Annoyingly, they're not named consistently, so you have to read a program's description to figure out which is which:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Preparation for PhD degrees (MSPH, MPH): These degrees are intended to be stepping stones towards a PhD in the field. Emphasis is on advanced classwork and research, they may actually be joint admissions (get your MSPH and then your PhD), etc.</li>\n<li>Post-doctoral terminal degrees (usually MPH): So you already <em>have</em> a doctorate degree of some sort. PhD, MD, JD...and find yourself doing public health work, and in need of a somewhat more formalized treatment of the subject. These are <em>very</em> classwork heavy, often with classes that don't entirely overlap with the PhD-type classes, depending on the audience. They often don't have as heavy a research component to them.</li>\n<li>Masters-as-Final-Degree (MSPH, MPH): <em>Tons</em> of public health work doesn't need a doctorate, and everyone knows it. Data manager or statistical analyst for the government, industry or academia? That's a Master's level position. Most local/state public health work can and is done by people with Master's degrees as well. These often emphasize more practical experiences - internships, practicums, etc.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So many master's degree programs are oriented toward the PhD track, but there's a considerable number in some fields that are designed for people who don't want to head into academia, but need an advanced degree for one reason or another - going into industry, government service, etc.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8022, "author": "Nate Eldredge", "author_id": 1010, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are many kinds of masters programs.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Often students intending on going into industry in a technical field will get a masters degree. Many schools have masters programs specifically designed for such a student; they are usually focused on coursework rather than research.</p></li>\n<li><p>There are degrees like the MBA (Master of Business Administration) that are designed for business people who have no interest in academic careers, and do not lead to a doctorate.</p></li>\n<li><p>In some fields the masters degree is terminal, and doctoral degrees are rare or nonexistent. For instance, in the fine and performing arts, the masters (MFA) is the highest degree offered by most institutions.</p></li>\n<li><p>A masters degree is typically the minimum requirement for faculty at two-year community colleges; some students in masters programs are headed for such a career.</p></li>\n<li><p>In many states, high school teachers are encouraged to have a masters degree in their subject. Some universities have masters programs in fields such as mathematics, history, or English, that are specifically designed for prospective or working teachers in these areas, and are not preparation for a Ph.D. </p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 23384, "author": "Tom Au", "author_id": 755, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/755", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's the other way around. That's because America is a nation of \"doers\" at least compared to Europeans.</p>\n\n<p>MANY U.S. Master's degrees are terminal degrees. Think of a Master's as a \"two year graduate\" degree, just like an associates degree is a \"two year college\" degree. </p>\n\n<p>Americans don't like to spend more time on education than necessary. There are Master's programs that lead to PhDs. But something like 40 percent of students in \"non-terminal\" degrees are foreign, not American, born. </p>\n\n<p>You seem to fit the \"American\" mold.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/206", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 219, "author": "Willie Wong", "author_id": 94, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For questions 1 and 2: it <strong>depends</strong>: you have to find out from your individual advisor/department/university. Furthermore, you characterisation</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In most (if not all) PhD programs, incoming grad students are supposed to take relevant courses...</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>is certainly not true internationally. Many PhD positions in Europe, for example, expect the student to already have had a Masters degree and to start doing research the minute they arrive. For those positions attending conferences starting in the first year is almost a must. </p>\n\n<p>For Question 3:</p>\n\n<p>The best place to look is the conference organisation itself. Often funding is given to students to encourage participation. A lot of professional organisations also offer funding for full time graduate students to travel. (But note that preferences for grants maybe given to those individuals presenting [either orally or at a poster session] at the conference.) Some examples:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"http://www.ams.org/student-travel\">American Mathematical Society</a> offers travel grants for any full time graduate student in mathematics to go to one of their sectional meetings, and for any last year graduate student in mathematics to go to the Joint Mathematics Meetings.</li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http://www.agu.org/education/grants/travel.shtml\">American Geophysical Union</a> has a host of various travel grants available. And I want to especially outline their Lloyd V. Berkner Travel Fellowship which is <em>designed</em> to be given only to 'AGU members under the age of 35 who are residents of countries designated by the World Bank as “low” or “lower-middle\" income per capita.' In particular, the <em>opposite</em> of the US citizen requirement you quoted. </li>\n<li>Conferences like the <a href=\"http://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2011/stgrant.shtml\">Association for Computing Machinery's CCS</a> also offer student travel grants. The website states: \"Any graduate student in good standing, regardless of nationality, or any other criteria, except as noted, may apply.\"</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In fact, aside from actual full graduate student fellowships, and some scholarships directly sponsored by the US government, many <strong>travel funding</strong> opportunities do not have the US residency requirement. (What they may have, however, is a pesky requirement for you to travel on US flag airlines.) </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 220, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>As Willie Wong says, it depends on your school and your advisor. As an obvious general rule, departments and advisors with more research funding are more willing to spend it. (As a reference point, my department does <em>not</em> offer such funding, because individual faculty generally have enough money to support their students' travel.)</p>\n\n<p>A significant number of CS theory conferences have external support for student travel; see, for example, <a href=\"http://www.siam.org/meetings/da12/tsupport.php\">SODA 2012</a> and <a href=\"http://cs.nyu.edu/~stoc2012/travel-support.htm\">STOC 2012</a>. These grants usually require a letter of support from your advisor, so you at least need an advisor. (In many PhD programs, including mine, PhD students do not necessarily have formal advisors for the first year; students are admitted to the PhD program, not to any particular research group.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 239, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As others have said, it depends on your school, department and advisor.</p>\n\n<p>There are a couple ways a first-year student might be able to secure funding:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If you're already tied to a project with an advisor, they may have travel funds as part of their grant support for some of their graduate students.</li>\n<li>Some conferences have small amounts of awards for graduate students to help pay for the conference - you can apply to these, in hopes of getting them. Some of these do require you be presenting a presentation there.</li>\n<li>Some universities have one-time or (in rare cases) multiple-time travel scholarships for graduate students. In my experience, these tend to be enough to soften the blow of paying for a conference out of pocket, but not enough to pay for it entirely.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The good news is I think the pressure you might be feeling to <em>go</em> to a conference your first year is a little off. I got very little out of conferences (including the all-important networking) until much later in my program, when I both understood what was going on better, and had more interesting things to say.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/213", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 218, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Well, clearly, it depends on many factors (my answer is probably strongly influenced by the Computer Science field). </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>If you want to apply for a non-research industry position, then clearly, the postdoc might not appear as a strong point, unless you can travel, attend conferences, manage a budget, develop an application/software/experiment, apply for patents, etc, in general any transversal skill that you can justify. But if the postdoc is just sitting in an office writing theoretical papers for a couple of years, then it's probably not the best choice. </p></li>\n<li><p>If you want to apply for a research industry position, then a postdoc can be a good point, although of course, the closer you can be connected to industry, the better it will be. </p></li>\n<li><p>Ideally, you could do a postdoc in industry (in CS, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, and many others offer this possibility). </p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 225, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>No</strong>. There are many reasons you may want to do a postdoc; gain experience in a particular subfield, get to know the research of a particular advisor, work with a particular research group or department, or even to work with a industry group, in the case of industry-sponsored postdocs. You may be asked why you chose to go the postdoc route when you are eventually interviewing for industry positions, but it is by no means a declaration that you are going \"academia-only\". Note that this is particularly true during recession periods; it's much easier to get a postdoc than a \"real job\".</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235, "author": "Stefano Borini", "author_id": 5, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am currently involved in a Marie Curie financed Academia-Industry collaboration. I am doing one year in industry (hired as a software developer) then two years in academia (hired as a postdoc) then one final year back in industry (again hired as a software developer). I have no interest in an academic career path for a plethora of reasons that I won't delve in.</p>\n\n<p>The point is that academia has no alternative contractual access for project-oriented hiring (I call them \"disposable scientists\") hence the \"postdoc\" is basically a catch-all contract type to get someone to work on an academic project within academia. It can be intended as a professional step to establish yourself on an academic career path, but by no means it must be intended only as such.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 237, "author": "Tangurena", "author_id": 109, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p><em>Does doing a postdoc mean a commitment to an academic career?</em> </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>No. However, if your goal is to work in industry, that is where you should be looking for work. A post-doc would be better than a stretch of unemployment. This is because many companies treat recruiting like dating in high school: you are desirable if you already have a date/job and you have cooties (or something else is wrong with you) if you are single/unemployed. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 315, "author": "Amy", "author_id": 167, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/167", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm writing in from the biotech industry. I hold an MSc, but obviously I work with a lot of PhDs and have observed many PhD hires. Most PhD level industry positions REQUIRE time spend at a post-doc position. This would be either in academia or industry, but academic post-docs are infinitely more common. If you are being hired at a company straight out of a PhD program, that position will (9 times out of 10) be a temporary post-doc position itself. </p>\n\n<p>Be aware that there have not been nearly enough PhD positions in industry to go around for the last 5 years at least. And many companies have strict policies against hiring PhDs for non-scientist positions. I've seen many times a research associate (BS/MS) position post, and we receive up to 100 applications from PhDs that go straight to the trash. </p>\n\n<p>My recommendation for a transition into industry would be: </p>\n\n<p>Do your PhD and post-doc research in the most prestigious labs possible and publish in the most prestigious journals possible. This is because other PhDs will hire you and be impressed by your boss' name and publication record - so it's the same idea that holds if you were to stay in academia. </p>\n\n<p>Skill set is important, but in most cases is not what gets you hired. It is assumed that you can be trained to use any protocols or equipment in house. </p>\n\n<p>Maintain contacts with everyone you know who is or moves into industry, including people at the BS/MS level. Referrals are extremely important and sometimes the only way to get in. Seek out projects that are collaborations with industry labs and go to every industry-sponsored event on your campus. Ask the professors in your department if any graduates or former post-docs moved into industry and try to get in contact with them. </p>\n\n<p>And bottom line: no hiring manager will blink if they see a post-doc on your resume, as long as it lasted less than 5 years and you have results to show from it. And in many cases, managers expect or require some type of post-doc experience for a career position. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/217", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/104/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 226, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 7, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Read <a href=\"http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/how-to-to-network-at-conferences\">this</a> and <a href=\"http://www.wikihow.com/Network-at-a-Conference\">this</a>.</p>\n\n<p>My professor put forth 3 simple rules for networking:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Talk to the guy beside you</li>\n<li>Talk to top 3 (sort by relevance or whatever you prefer) presenters</li>\n<li>Mail them 5 days after the conference with some follow up content (questions/comments/invites for talks etc.)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Just to make this post \"dead-link\" proof, I present a gist of the content in the above links.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Start Early.</strong> You should begin preparing before the conference starts. Start reading on who will be there, emailing people you want to meet, and determining which events you will attend. You may want to contact the speakers whose talks you will be attending before the conference; try to set up a meeting, or if they are too busy, at least meet them and give them your business card.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Bring Business Cards</strong>. Make sure they're up-to-date and details your preferred mode of communication.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Research people and get involved in their networks.</strong> If a certain professor is giving a talk; read his previous research papers, frame interesting questions and get an excuse to meet him. If you do meet him, exploit the opportunity to interact with his peers and try to enter their network. Sometimes, this is the only way of getting to network with someone. I know of professors who refuse to take students for PhD or internships or Postdocs without a recommendation from someone in his network. A good impression might just get you that recommendation.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Note people with similar interests to yours.</strong> These people will be attending all the same presentations as you, talking to the same people, discussing similar topics. They are the potential spots for networking.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Prepare the elevator speech</strong>. A common question will be \"So, what is your research about?\" Make sure you have an answer for every audience. For e.g. If you are in Computational Science, the answer may vary depending on who you are talking with. Plus, make it interesting and digestible. </p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Organize an event of your own.</strong> This is especially useful is forming \"lower\" networks i.e. networks of people who lag in terms of age or experience such as graduate students. If not more, they could notify you of openings or interesting papers or whatever. They could be useful. (Plus it helps us :P )</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Read \"<a href=\"http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0385512058\">Never Eat Alone</a>\".</strong></p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Follow Up</strong>. Prepare for this even before you leave for the conference. Have different modes of follow up ready. Will you have anything to say that is worth writing an email for? If not, think of something which will. If nothing works, make sure you click a photo of yourself with him and send it to him a few days after the conference.</p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 227, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<ul>\n<li>Know why you're going in the first place: only go to conferences where you can get something useful out of it. You can usually get access to the proceedings (and at lower cost) without going to the conference. So just access to the proceedings is usually not enough. You're there to present your stuff and get feedback on it, and/or for networking, and/or to hear specific speakers talk insightfully on a subject important to you, whre you've got an opportunity to ask clarifying questions directly of them, and to participate in a discussion with others, afterwards, on the content.</li>\n<li>Be the first after a presentation to ask an insightful, relevant, informed question. Catch the speaker's eye as you ask the question. Go up to them after the session ends, thank them in person, exchange business cards</li>\n<li>Network like crazy</li>\n<li>Have a big stack of business cards. Give them away liberally to anyone vaguely connected to your field. Get some more printed. Repeat.</li>\n<li>Collect business cards of anyone vaguely connected, voraciously. Add their email addresses to your database of interesting contacts. Follow them on your networking sites of choice. (Twitter, CiteULike, Academia.edu, etc). And when one of your papers gets published, email them a link to it, and let them know that it may be of use to them.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 65871, "author": "r3mnant", "author_id": 39541, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/39541", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>From my own experience I get the most out of conferences which are not organized as conference expos. There's a big difference between conferences created for income (yes, even in academia) and those created to promote new discoveries and knowledge.</p>\n\n<p>Of the latter type I find the presenters are generally excited by their opportunity to meet others in their field. It's more of a grassroots type of experience and you find that you naturally start to share in the discussions. No networking is needed.</p>\n\n<pre><code>What should I do in the future to ensure that I make the most out of conferences?\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Choose a conference that's in your field. Prepare a paper or two of your own on a subject that really interests you. Discuss it with colleagues. Get it published. Present it at a conference. The critical thought you put into this process will help you to pick conferences more suited to you and stimulate your interaction with others.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 65879, "author": "Amir", "author_id": 23641, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23641", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>On top of all the answers above, I would add very selfish points to expand on meeting like-minded people from user107 answers.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><strong>Avoid destination conferences</strong>(or The location is time)! The best conferences are the ones you can spend the most time with the people you want to network with and not where people will count seconds to leave and go sight seeing. For example, if the conference is in San Fransisco, without a doubt everybody is excited to bring a +1 and go about seeing friends in the area or sightseeing. You will have a lower chance of spending quality time with the researchers in your field. Meanwhile, people from Google or Uber or local equivalents of your field might not even show up to present their work cause they are busy(real story)! On the other hand, if the conference is in some center of nowhere, with literally nothing to do except the conference activities, you will have a high chance of getting to know your colleague very well. And people who are there are serious about their business. You have all the afternoon, night, and late nights to know who is who, and what they have to say that they can not publish yet(including politics of the field)! The catch is that conference organizers might spend more money to plan events that bring you guys out of your hotel rooms and bring you back again to such a location. </p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Find and meet people who can give you recommendation letters</strong> later on based on your work. People who have genuine appreciation of your work or methods or even your adviser and are nice enough that if needed to read your work for feedback or writing you a nice recommendation you can actually count on them. Someone would add avoid snobs or super-busy ones, you will not hear back from them soon enough.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Find fellows</strong> (same level as you maybe a couple of years ahead), who also have a genuine interest in your work, that also can play the role of proof-read or an extra pair of eyes for you. you can easily cut the time of your publications by sharing your work with such peers and make your papers ready nicer. if their English or experience in writing is more than you its a plus.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Talk with people in the industry</strong> or application world (or vice versa), who you can talk to you about what is actually needed out there and if they are also willing to use your work or test it or give you comments. These people can help you explore alternative career paths as well. </p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Don't be negative(snob) about presented works.</strong> everyone knows some works are worst than others, but cynicism or negative attitude scares most people and will isolate you. There is so much to learn even from works that look not ready, or complete or even wrong! Be positive about all works and try to learn from every single presentation rather than ignoring their efforts.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Collaboration with other institutes</strong> is always a great experience item. see if you can establish such opportunity for yourself. Maybe a visiting summer or just working on a piece of open source code together.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Avoid politics.</strong> most likely your source of information is not perfectly aligned with locals and you can hurt mis-represented and already-harassed people! </p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Branding.</strong> Have a letter-sized summary, quadchart or an executive summary of your work copied in color and enough number available. It can be a great branding if you are serious about your ideas. Business card or LinkedIn will not go anywhere in academia.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Go out and make memories</strong> with your peers, go see a random part of the city. It will be a better way to network than staying in the hotel's bar(except if it's too late at night).</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Don't miss the elders</strong> of the crowd. Remember some people come to this conference every year for last 30 years. Some of them really appreciate new people who do the effort of introducing themselves. </p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Make as much notes as possible</strong>, cause you WILL forget, even the most important things.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/223", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 228, "author": "Artem Kaznatcheev", "author_id": 66, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I will address the two points separately:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>If you have a strong application, then your undergrad university will be <em>more</em> inclined to take you as a graduate student. The reason is that to have a strong application, you need very good reference letters. The reference letters are probably from professors <em>at</em> your undergrad school, and thus they will carry a lot of weight there (compared to other schools where your former supervisors are less known). Thus, it is often easiest to get into the school you graduated from.</p></li>\n<li><p>I've heard the second point myself, and I actually advice it/try to follow that advice, too. The reasoning behind it as that at the school you graduated from, you already know everybody. Thus, if you stay you will continue to work with the same people and won't meet new collaborators. If you go to a new school, you will have to meet new people and expand your network.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 229, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p><strong>Pros</strong></p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If you stay at the same school (this applies even more when you join grad school immediately out of your undergrads), it'll be a matter of remaining in your comfort zone - same department, a faculty who know you, even the same apartment/neighborhood! This can be a major factor, depending on the person concerned - the pros of staying at your Alma mater are all about convenience IMO.</li>\n<li>If your UG department has an influential professor with whom you've worked before and are planning to continue as well, that can be very advantageous - as having such a faculty get to know a student's work as an undergraduate can lead to a very strong recommendation (since he has accepted you in the grad program, it is reasonable to assume your work had impressed him during your undergrads).</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><strong>Cons</strong></p>\n\n<p>An important advantage of going to another school is that you will be exposed to a completely different department, with faculty who may have diverse research ideas for you to work on. The department, in turn, will benefit as well as a new student from another school will cross-pollinate their department with fresh ideas. This is so important that some top universities have a strong bias against accepting their own undergraduate students into their graduate programs.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 232, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As Henry points out in the response to Artem's answer, many graduate departments—especially at top schools in the US—have a \"no undergrads admitted from our department\" policy. Both my undergraduate and graduate schools have adopted such policies.</p>\n\n<p>In general, unless you have a very strong reason for staying at your undergraduate school—either a personal situation, such as a spouse who has a job in the area, or the opportunity to work on the world's only \"X\" (whatever \"X\" is)—then you are much better served by going somewhere else for graduate school. You will have the advantage of working with new people, plus you avoid the very strong stigma attached to having all of your educational pedigree at a single location.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 250, "author": "Gaurav", "author_id": 60, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/60", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Here's an intermediate step that some of my friends took: they stayed on to do their Masters in the same lab where they did their undergraduate study, then moved college (and country) to do their PhDs. That way, they got more research experience in an excellent lab in their home country (keeping costs down a bit), then used their PhD stipends to offset the cost of living abroad.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2252, "author": "Rafael S. Calsaverini", "author_id": 1183, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1183", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The only advantage I see in entering graduate school in the same university where you completed your undergrad program is having a continuity between your undergrad research programs and graduate research.</p>\n\n<p>Typically it takes some time for a new grad student to get accustomed with research activities, with the routine of a new lab or research group, getting to know your advisor, etc. Also there are some adjustment of your personal life: you are probably moving to another town, choosing another home, finding a new favourite grocery store, a new gym, etc, etc. This takes time and certainly impacts how productive you are. </p>\n\n<p>If you are enrolled in undergrad research programs, and you're already well adjusted to your lab's/research group routine and workflow, it might be that you'll feel much less of an impact of changing from undergrad to grad research programs. It might be that you can start being productive right away because you don't have to worry about a lot of things. </p>\n\n<p>On the short term, it might be that you manage to turn this into one extra article published at the end of your PhD. It's not improbable. But it's not incredibly probable either. </p>\n\n<p>You incur in a lot of risks if you don't change. If you spend too much of your formative years working on the same research group, you risk becoming <em>too well adjusted</em> to its workflow and research programs, to the point that you can't see alternatives. </p>\n\n<p>Also, the real impact of a few months of advantage and an extra article, if it really happens, is probably offset by the advantages of moving to another university. A couple years after your PhD the time you lost finding an apartment and banging your head against the wall to understand your new research program will most likely be forgotten and will not influence your career at all. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5760, "author": "luispedro", "author_id": 166, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/166", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Answering (1):</p>\n\n<p>Staying at the same place is very uncommon in the US, where there is a presumption against it. It does not mean that it is impossible or never happens, but it counts against you in admissions.</p>\n\n<p>This is mostly true when referring to doing undergraduate and PhD studies at the same place. Normally it's fine to do your Masters and undergraduate at the same place, or to move between undergraduate and Masters and then stay at the same place for PhD.</p>\n\n<p>*</p>\n\n<p>The situation is very different in Europe. In fact, professors may attempt to recruit their best undergraduates to work for them as graduate students and this is seen as a positive thing for all involved.</p>\n\n<p>There is an increasing stigma against hiring faculty that has no experience outside of a given university (derisively called <em>in-breeding</em>), but I do not think that it applies to undergraduate->graduate transition.</p>\n\n<p>Others have answered (2) in more detail.</p>\n" } ]

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