date
stringlengths 10
10
| nb_tokens
int64 60
629k
| text_size
int64 234
1.02M
| content
stringlengths 234
1.02M
|
|---|---|---|---|
2014/05/28 | 413 | 1,654 | <issue_start>username_0: As a sort of follow up to a [previous question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19803/ms-in-pure-maths-to-phd-in-statistics), what is advice you would give for telling my MSci advisor I am switching disciplines (pure maths to statistics) for doctoral work? I will presumably ask him for a letter of recommendation. I do not want to come across as ungrateful for his work with me, but the direction of my current research with him has come to bore me. How do I tell him that is a major reason I am switching disciplines? Do I even need to disclose such? I am closing in on completing my work with him, so anything dealing with changing advisors right now is not an option.<issue_comment>username_1: Directly.
---------
"I've decided to pursue a PhD in statistics."
Then after the inevitable discussion:
"Can you write me a strong letter of recommendation?"
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In many countries in Europe (France for example), statistics is a part of the Maths department. Theoritical statistics uses a lot of sophisticated mathematics, like measure theory, or functional analysis. A PhD in applied statistics would probably require a serious theoritical research, together with modelisation and programming.
So you should not be ashamed to switch to statistics. Tell your advisor this is not because of him, but due to your personal interest. Excellent scientist are driven by passion!
You may start the conversation by telling your advisor you're switching to physics. If he survives the shock, tell him you were joking and you are "just" going to statistics ;)
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/05/28 | 1,857 | 7,654 | <issue_start>username_0: By what title should I greet assistant and associate professors in emails and letters? I study in the UK and for post-doctorands up to senior lectures one uses "Dear Dr. X", but for professors one uses "Dear Professor. X".<issue_comment>username_1: Assistant and Associate Professors in the US can be formally addressed by "Professor" or "Doctor/Dr.". There should be no offense given with either salutation, and either is appropriate.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It's quite important to consider what your position is in this relationship, and you don't specify. In almost any situation, it is probably best to address your *first* email using the "Dr." or "Prof." title, to be polite, and to continue to do so until it seems that the tone of the responses are less formal. Of course, that is a subjective thing to judge. But I can't give you much advice about that!
You will have to read from the tone of the responses at what point (possibly after only one email) the Prof. is OK with a less formal form of address. If you are an undergrad student in their class, it might not hurt to stay with the more formal title, even if you are of a similar age to them.
I was trained in the UK and now work in the US system, and I feel like there is a lot of similarity. Basically, it's fairly informal, within limits. As an assistant professor myself, I do prefer undergrads to address me as "Dr." or "Prof." (as a US class instructor, not the same as the UK Professor) in more formal correspondence, and I think that's usual in the US and UK. Graduate students and above can normally expect to be safe to be on first name terms provided their emails remain fairly professional and carefully written, i.e. they don't rapidly degenerate into txtspeak or very casual, potentially rude, references or phrasing.
So, if you are a graduate student or post-doc, and you are at the same department, or even institution, I encourage you to consider using their first name once that initial correspondence has been exchanged and if they sign with their first name. It's never "wrong" to continue to use a more formal term of address, but it can sometimes become awkwardly too formal for relaxed academics.
Now, take into account the personality of your correspondent. If he or she is very senior in age or accomplishment, or maybe has given an impression of great self-importance (i.e., ego!) then you may be better off staying slightly more formal in case you are perceived to be disrespecting them before you know them more personally. Honestly, though, I think that is an increasingly rare (but not unheard of) phenomenon.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: It's interesting actually,
As an Australian undergrad I've never referred to any of my lecturers or tutors as anything but their first names, and would find an insistence on titles in such a situation to be... well, frankly an exercise in serious anal retention.
However while applying for postgraduate studies, all of my 'reach out' emails trying to attract supervisory interest use the appropriate titles. While almost all of the replies come back establishing a first-name basis for future correspondence, I wouldn't dream of initiating said correspondence informally.
Highlights cultural differences across countries too - I'm fairly certain that if a senior academic at my uni in my field started insisting that his or her students use their full titles, the rest of the department would give them a far less flattering unofficial one.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: This is an old question but I feel that the answers were incomplete in that the question has so far been interpreted mostly along the lines of "how formally should I address someone". However, you can also read it as a question of "is an associate professor properly addressed as 'dr' or 'prof'"?
In some countries, for example, here in the Netherlands, somebody who is called an "assistent professor" or "associate professor" is not considered a (full) professor. For example, these researchers are not addressed like a professor in thesis defense ceremonies, they do not wear the same formal attire during official ceremonies etc. We definitely do not use the term "professor" for everybody who teaches in class. Adressing an assistent/associate professor as "professor" would thus not be appropriate here. (Professors are senior researchers who are typically the chair of a group of researchers and addressed as such. Becoming a full professor involves a university ceremony etc.).
If you address a Dutch assistent or associate professor for the first time, I would use dr.+surname (typically, people become assistent or associate professor after obtaining a PhD, and you can check on the university website if in doubt whether they have a PhD). I would not use the job title ("Dear assistent professor X") in the same way that I would not address other people with their job function either ("Dear department manager Smith" ?!), but in some of the other responses this is suggested, so this might differ as well between countries.
Last note: Some people who have a PhD, do not like to be addressed as Mr/Ms X instead of dr.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Assoc. Professor X is how. After the first email may it be ok to use first names if they sign off as such or if the tone of the email suggests it is fine
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: Professor or Dr.
I would definitely ***not*** go with first name, many (including myself) would find that too familiar from someone they don't know - and some may take offense. You can't make any assumptions about this, so *it's better to err on the side of more formal until/unless you find out otherwise* (or are invited to address the person by their first name).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: Exeter University has published a [protocol](https://www.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/humanresources/learninganddevelopment/exeteracademic/eandrdocuments2017/Protocols_for_using_title_AP.pdf) for how to address Associate Professors in various contexts. What's important about that is not so much the content of the protocol, as the fact that Exeter University believes it's up to the individual university to decide, i.e. there is no universal correct answer.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: My preference in these matters is to stick exactly to the position title, so I would say "Dear Asst. Prof. Smith", or "Dear Assoc. Prof. Smith" in a first email. Thereafter you can use more informal salutations if appropriate.
It is true that in some countries (e.g., USA) you can just call them all "professor", but it is somewhat odd to do this in certain countries. For example, in Australia we generally reserve the term "professor" only for a *full* professor. If I write an email to an Associate Professor here, I always call them "Assoc Prof." not "Prof." In fact, I sometimes get emails from academics in the US addressing me as "Professor O'Neill" and I don't like it because it feels like I am being given a title I have not earned. For that reason, I think it is best to stick exactly to the exact position title, neither inflating nor deflating the title.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_9: In the US, anyone who teaches at a university can be addressed as professor, including the adjuncts. Anyone who teaches at a university and also holds a PhD (or similar), can also be addressed as Dr.; in that case either title is acceptable.
Dr. is a protected title and should therefore not be used on someone who does not hold either an MD or Doctorate such as a PhD.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/05/28 | 838 | 3,452 | <issue_start>username_0: I am in a PhD program in a top US institution but my SO,family,friends are somewhere else. I am considering a thesis that would require minimal/no field or lab work. This would be a big compromise as I was hoping to do intensive field work but there is no funding for field work. I thought that a compromise would be that I can work on it remotely. I haven't mentioned yet to my advisor that I am home sick as we don't really connect on a personal level, but we have a good connection on a research level.
How do I approach my advisor saying that I would like to work remotely for 6 months out of the year? I have worked remotely before and it has always worked but I don't know how this type of setup is seen at a top tier US institution.
How do I approach my advisor about this issue?<issue_comment>username_1: I think you should aim for a shorter period at first, to show that it doesn't affect your productivity. My wife and I aim to both work remotely 25% of our time, to address the [two-body problem](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2633/1033). If each of us works remotely for two weeks every two months, that aim is fulfilled. A colleague of mine just returned from a 10-week remote work trip.
Six months, however, is very long to work remotely in one go. It is of course more expensive to work remotely in shorter segments, but if your advisor doesn't know yet whether it will work out, six months is too long. Explain that you are ultimately interested in working remotely up to half of the time. Propose to work remotely for 3-4 weeks first. Be available at any normal local time for your supervisor, even if that might mean inconvenient times on your end. After the remote work trip, return and evaluate how it went. Then propose to plan a longer remote-work trip, perhaps 10 weeks, and return again. If all goes well after a couple of 10-week blocks, you could bring up the idea for an extended six-month period.
The worst that can happen is that they say no, and you may have to find a different way. Perhaps they don't agree with 6 months in one block, but are fine with 3 2-month blocks spread over a year. It will cost more money, but it is safer in many ways too.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I would break this down into two parts. First, discuss your circumstances with your advisor and explain that you want to spend more time "at home", and ask how he feels about you working remotely. Go into the discussion with a concrete proposal for how the practicalities might work: how will you do your work? Do you have access to the resources you'll need? How will you stay in touch with your advisor/colleagues/the research community? Take on board any reservations your advisor might have; don't go into the discussion with too fixed an idea of what the "right" outcome is. Agree to review the arrangements once they've been tested for a while.
Once you have agreement in principle, then you can hash out the dates. I would try and start with relatively short stretches of remote working - a couple of weeks - to allow any teething problems/concerns (on either side) to be resolved. I suspect everyone will be happier if you can spend your six months away in short chunks, rather than in one big block. Also, recognise that your advisor may have reasons to want you present for certain occasions/portions of the year - involve him in your planning.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/05/29 | 1,139 | 4,569 | <issue_start>username_0: When checking the grants.gov I found that individuals can directly apply for available grants. Since it was not mentioned that individuals should be US citizen, I thought that everyone can apply, and judgement is based on the proposal.
1. Can international people apply?
2. Should the project conducted in the US territory? Or they care about the results no matter where it has been done?
3. If yes to 1 & 2; can an international person apply, and upon success coming to the US to conduct the project?<issue_comment>username_1: As far as I know for many of the grants, at least for DARPA, NSF, NIH, NASA, you need a PI located in a US institution, you may be located somewhere else, but the main PI should be from a US institution.
For the look of it grants.gov is more like a splash age from where you can search grants in diverse institutions. I can only talk of those(DARPA, NIH, etc..), since are the one I'm familiarized with.
Also, the PI applying for the grant usually needs to hold at least an associate professorship, there might be other grants that do not have this requirement but again, those are the ones I'm familiarized with.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Usually, you can follow links or do a google search to find the original text of the Call for Proposals. The full text of those *almost always* provides clear criteria for who is eligible. Almost always (probably unless otherwise stated), the PI has to be from a US institution, but contrary to the other answer here, I am not familiar with the PI needing to have any particular academic status (especially not *tenured* already as an associate prof, and certainly all the kinds of non-TT research scientist positions), provided they have a position which their institution officially lists as being eligible to be sponsored as a PI. Sometimes, a post-doc, lecturer, or adjunct prof might be eligible. Remember, the grants go to the institution primarily, and the PI merely executes them on their behalf. The granting agencies defer the responsibility for administering who is legally OK to conduct the research to the accredited institution. Policies can vary between institution, so you'll need to ask your local administrators.
Certain kinds of award from private agencies or those who work with sensitive information, e.g. DARPA, DOD, or DOE, might require you to be a US Citizen (not even just a LPR), but that should be clearly listed. I am pretty sure that "unrestricted," in this context, means that there is no such restriction on immigration status.
You are always free to shoot an email or call to the cognizant program officer for a particular grant, to ask for clarification. They will expect you to have read the full, original CfP, unless you want to put them in a bad mood that might bias the review of your prospective application!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: You wrote,
>
> I found that individuals can directly apply for available grants.
>
>
>
This is true only in a few rare cases - generally, grants are awarded to PIs with an organizational affiliation. As per grants.gov's section on [Grant Eligibility](http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/applicants/grant-eligibility.html):
>
> Although there are many funding opportunities on Grants.gov, few of them are available to individuals
>
>
>
Unless specified for *Individual Eligibility*, funding opportunities on grants.gov are open only to those affiliated with an eligible organization, as [further stated](http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/applicants/individual-registration.html):
>
> Individual applicants may only apply for grant opportunities, on Grants.gov, that indicate individual eligibility within the Synopsis and Full Announcement.
>
>
>
and [elsewhere](http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/applicants/organization-registration.html) it says:
>
> The only time it is appropriate to register as an individual with Grants.gov is when you are submitting an application that specifies it is open only to individuals, such as for an individual fellowship or traineeship.
>
>
>
If you click "Browse Eligibilities" on the grants.gov homepage, you can click through directly to [the grants for which individuals may apply](http://www.grants.gov/search-grants.html?eligibilities=21%7CIndividuals). (These are basically a handful of fellowships or extremely specialized grants - currently there are ~20 open opportunities. You will have to read the extended details for these to determine if they have any additional eligibility requirements.)
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/05/29 | 797 | 3,292 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm a physical scientist, having completed both my Ph.D. and postdoc at top 5 U.S. universities. After working in industry for more than 10 years, I decided it was time for a career switch to academia, not due to economic reasons, however due to a strong passion for teaching.
I taught for 5 years in graduate school, and established my own private tutoring service years ago. In total, I've been tutoring for more than 12 years. Recently I spent one (1) year teaching at a top 10 public university, and am now teaching at a community college.
During spring 2014, I sent out ~32 assistant professor applications, and heard back only from one school. I interviewed there, however did not get the position.
**QUESTION: Is there a possibility that, once discovering my tutoring service (simply a matter of a Google search), colleges and universities might not want to hire me?**
Interested only in science education research, my passion is exclusively in teaching at the undergraduate level, and I've used the tutoring to hone my skills over the years. Understanding exactly where students experience the pitfalls of my branch of physical science has provided me with a unique insight into teaching, however I'm not certain everyone perceives it this way.
I very much appreciate anyone who indicate whether or not the image of a tutor might take a toll in terms of applications and interviews.
Thank you!
Pensive<issue_comment>username_1: The only thing I could see that might be a negative about having this service would be the possibility of creating a conflict of interest—you should not be a university professor while simultaneously offering *paid* tutoring services in disciplines you would be teaching. In that sense, you'd be "double dipping," and it would be a serious ethical issue—are you somehow "rewarding" students who sign up for such a service?
You could address these concerns directly in your statement, if you feel it's appropriate enough. More likely than not, however, it's just a numbers game. With hundreds of applications for any open position, and only a handful of candidates to be interviewed, you probably "met expectations."
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I decided it was time for a career switch to academia,[...], due to a strong passion for teaching.
>
>
>
As others have already mentioned,
* sending out 32 apps and getting one interview might actually be a good success rate in physics.
* your absence from academic research for 10 years (if indeed you've been absent in the publications game) is a much bigger issue than your private tutoring service.
But I wonder also where you're applying. If you're focused on teaching, but are applying to R1 schools where research is the main focus, then you're less likely to get any traction (especially if you indicate this love for teaching in your applications). I realize that this sounds awfully cynical, but the fact is that at research-focused universities you're competing with people with heavy research profiles and an unbroken sequence of postdocs and publications.
At a more teaching-focused school, it's possible that your tutoring experience will be viewed as a positive, because it demonstrates a track record and commitment to teaching.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/05/29 | 756 | 3,140 | <issue_start>username_0: What criteria (in light of the best practices or teaching experience) should one consider when deciding the passing percentage of the course? (By the passing percentage I mean the grade threshold below which the student will receive an F)
How should the threshold below which students get a failing grade depend qualitatively on these criteria?<issue_comment>username_1: I've honestly never understood the letter system for scoring. Is not intuitive and is open to so many interpretations.
Once I had to use letters, and at least for the case of failing the student it was quite straight forward.
Tests, homework, and every piece of work was graded in a scale from 1 to 10, at the end I just did a weighted average for the different elements.
So I ended up with a number between 1 and 10, I consider someone who has passed the class as someone who has at least more of half of the knowledge imparted in the class, so that would be having more than a round 5.
So the threshold was set at 5.1, I would fail those that got less than 5.1 and just prorate the rest of the letter upwards.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I usually set 50%. However, I think the value is not of particular importance whatsoever - the main points are: Communicate the rule to the students and ask appropriate questions.
I usually tell the students that I have a 50%-pass policy and that this is basically arbitrary (I could easily devise questions such that nobody can pass...). I think, the question on percentages and grades can only be discussed in view of the questions on the exam and of the stuff covered in the course.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: My classes are typically curved to the median. To grade, I first set what I think should be the median grade, based on my assessment of the class as a whole. Then one half of a standard deviation away from the median is one half-letter grade (e.g. if the standard deviation is 10 raw points out of 100, then 5 points would move an A- to a B+).
Using this scale, an F is simply someone who is a certain number of standard deviations below the median.
*Several points:*
1. I explain my general scheme to students on the first day of class,
so that expectations are clear up front. There is some wriggle room
at the letter grade borders.
2. I typically look for clean breaks
between student performers (i.e. if one cluster is 2 points above
another cluster, then it makes sense to separate their grades).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I'm at a school with nonselective admissions, and my process works like this. I look at what students have done in the course in past semesters, and I decide subjectively that a student who got x% deserved to pass. Then I look at the social/economic/political environment I'm in, and I know that if I set the standard at x, there would be unacceptable consequences, such as all of my classes having zero enrollment in the future. Therefore I lower the value of the variable x to what I think will prevent all my classes from being canceled. If this guess turns out to be wrong, I continue adjusting it.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/05/29 | 629 | 2,630 | <issue_start>username_0: As I see faculty positions in Europe and North America is always based on applications. Is it common that a department head suggest a faculty position to a possible candidate?
I do not mean based on personal connection. Job websites (consider those devoted to academic jobs) encourage job seekers to upload their CVs.
Is it common that a department head search CVs uploaded on academic job websites and suggest a faculty possible to a job seeker?
Is there any success story? Does this system work in practice?<issue_comment>username_1: For entry-level junior faculty, the likelihood is almost none unless you are already a superstar.
People get invited to apply based on their prominence/brilliance in the field or through personal connections.
While it doesn't hurt to have your CV uploaded to a job website, the likelihood that a hiring department will use it to pick you up is not very high.
The reason is that for most job postings in this economic / intellectual climate is that any single job posting will get over a hundred applicants, if not more.
Even small schools can get over 200+ applicants for junior faculty postings. They have no need to solicit additional applicants.
[Note this is the case for the humanities / social sciences in the United States based on my experience. Your mileage may vary.]
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I am not aware of any such websites, but I would still wager that the success rate will be pretty much 0. There are three main reasons for this:
* As username_1 already states, the academic job market is *very* competitive. Even for not particularly attractive positions it is no uncommon to receive more than 100 applications. There simply is no need for a head of a search committee to go scouring websites with academic CVs.
* It *does* happen that search committees actively approach candidates that they think will be very promising and invite them to apply (this is more common for more senior positions, but I have heard it happens for junior faculty positions as well, at least occasionally). However, this will only happen to you if you are eminent enough that your name comes up on its own. Search committees will not go looking for people to invite to apply, on a website or elsewhere.
* "Uploading a CV" in principle sounds like a colossal waste of time. Every academic has a website (at least [they really should have](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/616/is-web-presence-important-for-researchers)) that people can use to find out everything they want about a job seeker.
I would recommend to stay away.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/05/29 | 1,074 | 3,966 | <issue_start>username_0: Has any college in the US managed to unite being prestigious and being open access, at undergrad or grad level. I mean open enrolment in the European sense, where they have kind of minimal requirements (language cert, high-school and not much more).
I wonder, given that they could charge thousands $/year, what's the problem with admitting mass-wise new students (and provide them with decent teachers, materials and the like). Why limit the number of clients you get?<issue_comment>username_1: There are two fundamentally opposing ideas here. Yes, it would be nice if everyone could afford, and be admitted to, a top-tier university. But that's simply not how prestige works.
* If you admit lower quality students, the number of truly excellent graduates is diluted and your university will lose prestige.
* The loss of prestige may mean a gradual decrease in the quality of faculty, as the very best are hired by other prestigious universities. You'll certainly need to hire more professors to teach the extra students, and can you be sure that all the new hires will be just as good as those you've already got? There are only so many researchers in the world worthy of Nobel prizes.
An everyman's university will never have the prestige of a university such as Oxford, Caltech, or MIT. The key to the success of these top universities is *consistency*. Damn near every one of their graduates is a top performer, which is very desirable to employers (and also quite attractive for prospective faculty).
Once you lower the barrier to entry, their perceived quality will head downwards, and the flow-on effects will snowball.
There are many very excellent (and open) universities that are not as *prestigious* as they perhaps deserve, for example ETH Zurich is a truly excellent university that is open to all Swiss citizens who have passed their high school exams. [This Times Higher Education ranking page](http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2014/reputation-ranking) shows somewhat quantitatively the elitism that is at play.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The best example, that I can think of, of a mainstream US university that is respected at both the national and international levels with a policy that is something like open access is Arizona State University. They have a fixed bar admissions policy: <https://students.asu.edu/freshman/requirements>
>
> Applicants must also meet at least one of the following:
>
>
> Top 25% in high school graduating class
>
>
> 3.0 GPA in competency courses (4.0 = A)
>
>
> ACT 22 (24 nonresidents)\*
>
>
> SAT Reasoning 1040 (1110 nonresidents)\*
>
>
>
Prestigious is a difficult concept to quantify. To some if it is not Harvard, then it is not prestigious. That said, ASU ranks in the top 150 in both the [US news](http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/arizona-state-university-1081) and [THE](http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2012-13/world-ranking/institution/arizona-state-university) rankings. Which I think puts them well within a reasonable definition of prestigious.
However, I think they are probably on the border of both "open access" and prestigious. That said, Arizona is not a particularly affluent state, so I think there is the potential for the model to work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In partial disagreement with username_1's answer, I think that ETH in Zurich is an excellent example of a university that is both prestigious and open-access.
I was told by people there that the university is very sink or swim, and that each year they routinely fail a majority of the students taking, say, freshman calculus. (And that "freshman calculus" there is more like real analysis in the US.) A bit harsh, but I think necessary if you want to maintain extremely high standards but be open to all.
I don't know of any US university that does this.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/05/29 | 696 | 2,794 | <issue_start>username_0: In academic writing, is it proper to cite something to provide it as an example of something else? For instance, we have lines like this in a number of our papers:
>
> Many research endeavors, including environmental and coastal hazard prediction [1], climate modeling [2], high-energy physics simulations [3,4], and genome mapping [5] generate large data volumes on a yearly basis.
>
>
>
Each citation is merely providing an example of a research project that generates large volumes of data (more often than not, it's not even a paper, just a URL), and content from the cited source is not otherwise used anywhere in the paper.
I suppose I tend to think of citations as references to work whose content contributes to a significant portion of content in the paper. A citation then indicates some kind of "weighty" relation between the paper and the thing being cited. In the example I provided, it seems to me that invoking the "weighty" power of citation simply to say "yes, such a data producing project of this type does in fact exist, in case you were wondering"--and doing so five times--is somewhat excessive and that it might serve better as a footmark.
To me it seems these should either be footnotes or just be left out. In any case, it seems they should not go in the bibliography.<issue_comment>username_1: I am not sure about other disciplines, but this is certainly neither uncommon nor in any way frowned upon in my field (Computer Science).
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I agree with the other answers. It is better to provide citations to good articles that back up or give examples of your statements. In the example you have shown, the use of the citation is allowing the reader to see for themselves what you mean without you having to provide painstaking details that may detract from the main point of your writing. I, myself, have written some articles that have been very heavy on citations, and were not criticized for it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: This is common practise as has already been established by other answers. In fields where the Harvard style is used it is common to add "e.g." (for example) to the references so that the example would read
>
> Many research endeavors, including environmental and coastal hazard prediction (e.g., Smith et al., 1989), climate modelling (e.g., Doe and Smith, 2007), high-energy physics simulations (e.g., Svensson, 2005; Fischer, 2006), and genome mapping (e.g., Iglesias, 2010) generate large data volumes on a yearly basis.
>
>
>
It is not uncommon to add more than one example although there is no "law" either way.
With the Harvard style it becomes easier to see that these are just examples, one of possibly many alternatives.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/05/29 | 1,551 | 6,624 | <issue_start>username_0: In another question about distance PhDs ([Do any schools offer teaching or research assistantships via distance education?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21473/do-any-schools-offer-teaching-or-research-assistantships-via-distance-education)), I received several comments noting that PhDs on-line are of inferior quality to on-campus PhDs. If what is seen of PhD work from [PHD Comics](http://www.phdcomics.com) is accurate, PhD students seem to spend much time working independently. So, what aspect of a PhD cannot translate to the on-line format? What aspect of the process cannot be effectively conducted via E-mail or any of the other various forms of on-line communication?<issue_comment>username_1: A general answer is that a lot of PhD training is informal: it involves things that are taught by example, by osmosis, by noticing someone doing something wrong and correcting them (or right, and praising them). This kind of informal training is much more difficult in online interactions. Some examples are given below...
One specific aspect that does not translate well to online learning is the cross-pollination of ideas via proximity.
A big part of training PhD students involves putting a bunch of smart, talented, hardworking people together and letting them learn from, motivate, support, and bounce ideas off one another. A prerequisite for this is proximity; you just can't have the same kind of interactions over email. Some research centers are explicitly designed to encourage this. At the Bell Labs facility in Murray Hill, NJ,
>
> Some of the hallways in the building were designed to be so long that to look down their length was to see the end disappear at a vanishing point. Traveling the hall’s length without encountering a number of acquaintances, problems, diversions and ideas was almost impossible.
>
>
>
(Source: [New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/innovation-and-the-bell-labs-miracle.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0))
The research center I currently work in was built with a long hallway with this in mind, specifically to foster collaboration between students in different groups!
Another thing that does not translate well is learning scientific communication and mentoring skills. As a PhD student, I have many chances to practice speaking about my work to other graduate students, professors, and undergraduates. I also get to mentor M.S., B.S., and high school students in my lab. These skills are much more difficult to learn over distance.
A third thing that does not work well over email and Skype is learning the etiquette and standards of the field. This is something that isn't explicitly taught (usually) but that students are expected to pick up by osmosis from spending time with other academics and others in their field.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: username_1 provides an excellent answer—although I think there are several other important points that are not discussed there.
* Experimental work cannot easily be done via long-distance arrangements, unless one happens to be near another research institution with the necessary equipment and support staff to enable the research to take place.
* It is also worth noting that online interactions are still not ideal for rapid development of *new* ideas and discussions. For instance, suppose during a conversation with your advisor, you want to make a quick sketch and show it to her. If you're meeting in person, you can easily develop the figure on paper or on a whiteboard (or similar), and adjust and make various comments. Such an exchange is extremely tedious online—to the point of being almost counterproductive.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: This is meant to be in addition to your other answers, so will refer to them a bit.
First let's take your clarifying comment: "For non-STEM fields" I work in a STEM field, but have spent time discussing related issues with postgrads working across the university. Many of those in non-STEM fields seem or feel rather isolated anyway compared to those of use in a research group which works closely together. This is partly due to the organisational structure and funding situation leading to fewer PhD positions in some fields, as I understand it, both of which will vary between universities and countries. This could go either way - it could mean that remote working takes away the last vestiges of academic human contact, or it could mean that your tucked away in a corner of your own home alone, rather than a corner of the office. This relates to username_1's answer as well, though I'm coming at it more from the important aspect of getting through a rather strange life for a few years rather than learning academic or transferrable skills.
How much *library research* (wrt username_2's answer) is necessary offline will vary hugely with subject - in my case very little, though access to textbooks at all but especially the early stages must not be neglected. They may not be realistically available for you to buy. Access to a more local university library as a visiting reader may be possible, but it would be unwise to rely on this and you may not be able to borrow the books.
You need a supervisor who's not just willing, but enthusiastic about the idea. I wouldn't want to be a supervisor's first remote student - let someone else iron out the difficulties first. You need to be on the same wavelength when it comes to collaboration tools, which means in practice you need to be happy to work with the tools your supervisor wants to use. This is a minor issue when you work in the same building, but becomes critical when you're widely separated.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I would like to stress a bit more the role of "motivation" as in the answers of username_1 and username_3., specially in the emotional aspect of it. I would say that doing a PhD has an implicit feeling of isolation: in general, you become an expert at a really narrow field compared to the whole human knowledge (I love how <NAME> explains it in his [Illustrated guide to a Ph.D.](http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/)) and that makes sharing your experiences/thoughts harder (how would you share your troubles and toils with your girlfriend?)
Even if there is no one in your research group doing anything related, the fact of sharing a space (not even talking!) with other people going through the same processes is comforting somehow.
Intuitively, adding a layer of physical isolation on top of the experience would make it less stimulant.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/05/29 | 382 | 1,635 | <issue_start>username_0: This is just a simple question. I would like to know if one can use graphics generated by Mathematica (for example, plots) in one's paper and then upload that paper anywhere on the internet.
I would also like to know if one can freely use and upload the graphics alone (for example, in PDF or JPG format) anywhere on the internet.<issue_comment>username_1: There is nothing wrong with making public an image created with Mathematica; that's the whole point of the software. The [license](http://www.wolfram.com/legal/agreements/wolfram-mathematica.html) restricts your rights regarding what you can do with the software package itself (no copying, reverse-engineering, selling, etc), but not the content you produce using the software. If that was the case, no one could use the software to do anything.
You may, however, be restricted by the journal to which you submitted your article. The publication holds all rights to your article, including the figures. You may retain some rights to using the images in your own work (e.g., presentations); you'd have to check with your specific journal.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not a legal advice, blabla.
Your software license type generally determine what kind of use of the software is allowed: e.g educational license allow only educational use, therefore you cannot make figure eg. for a research paper. Also, if you have some academic license, it often restrict any for-profit use, i.e. you cannot make a figure and sell it to someone or upload it to a stock photo database.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/05/30 | 335 | 1,512 | <issue_start>username_0: I have developed a routine in R for longitudinal analysis of networks. I was wondering whether it can be published on an academic journal as a dedicated article?<issue_comment>username_1: Depending on the extent of your work, you may be able to get a paper describing your package and methods in PLoS One or a similar journal, or the Journal of Statistical Software.
Alternately, The R Journal is a peer-reviewed journal covering R software, which may be an appropriate venue if you don't have enough methodological material to build out a full paper for another journal
Finally, *many* journals accept code supplements for papers describing the *use* of your method, so you may be able to publish your routine's in a paper about the actual work you are doing.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Publication of an article about R code (in package form) is definitely a possibility. Whether your particular code is publishable is something for the reviewers to judge. There is always [The R Journal](http://journal.r-project.org/), which is peer-reviewed and read by most serious R programmers. Journal of Statistical Software is a more general outlet that is not R-specific.
I see a lot of projects where a substantive article is published in a disciplinary journal (perhaps describing the algorithm or using software in a particular application) and then an accompanying piece describing the software specifically is published in JSS or The R Journal.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/05/29 | 1,314 | 4,151 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently writing my thesis and I use several papers that are available als single PDFs [like this one](http://wwwis.win.tue.nl/~wvdaalst/publications/p308.pdf&ei=nhKHU--RDMXEPIywgKAK&usg=AFQjCNF8HwyZK0wzZpRF0n3JX4c3L5-5aw&bvm=bv.67720277,d.ZWU)
I did not want to write the bibtex on my own, so I searched online and found this:
```
@inproceedings{Rozinat:2005:CTM:2179586.2179604,
author = {<NAME> <NAME>, <NAME>.},
title = {Conformance Testing: Measuring the Fit and Appropriateness of Event Logs and Process Models},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Business Process Management},
series = {BPM'05},
year = {2006},
isbn = {3-540-32595-6, 978-3-540-32595-6},
location = {Nancy, France},
pages = {163--176},
numpages = {14},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/11678564_15},
doi = {10.1007/11678564_15},
acmid = {2179604},
publisher = {Springer-Verlag},
address = {Berlin, Heidelberg},
}
```
**The problem:** When citing a particular page of this paper, I use the page number of the single article PDF because I don't have access to the proceedings book as cited in my bibtex file.
Is this a valid practice or should the page number equal the page number in the proceedings book?
If not, how would a correct bibtex look for this single PDF?<issue_comment>username_1: The Bibtex reference that you have cited here is from the ACM library. It gives `pages = {163--176},`, which are the pages from where the paper entitled `Conformance Testing: Measuring the Fit and Appropriateness of Event Logs and Process Models` starts and ends in the proceedings. I also write papers, and I am writing my thesis. I only use the page numbers as they are given in the ACM library Bibtex because these are the page numbers where the paper spans in the proceedings. This is a valid practice, and I have published in some top venues by following this rule.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_1: @cgross My papers also tend to have many Mathematical equations. Sometimes, I only cite the paper without giving any reference to a Equation number from the other paper because I assume that the reader would read that paper before understanding mine. If there are some Math equations from the other paper that I want to use in my paper, I simply write "Please refer to Equation 6 in [RA06]". You are right about the page numbers as they don't match, so generally I refer by Equation numbers rather than the page numbers. What you wrote ("XY is defined as follows [RA06]: " and "XY is defined as follows [RA06, p. 163-176]: ") can also be adopted slightly differently. That is simply copy that Equation from the other paper in your thesis by matching with the mathematical notations that you have used in your thesis, and simply say in one line that this equation has been taken from [RA06]. This is what I generally see in many papers. I have rarely seen anyone "citing" specific page number unless the content is copied from a book. I hope it helps.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Page numbers are largely irrelevant. There are not so many dead tree copies around, and a digital copy may be modified. In that case, searching for the title on it is trivial. You are providing the DOI, that is a permanent identificator, so you don't have to worry about it.
On a practical thing, I just use DOI's API to get the citations, and leave them worry about the details:
```
[david@LCARS david]$ curl -LH "Accept: text/bibliography; style=bibtex" http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/11678564_15
```
That gives you:
>
> @article{Rozinat\_2006, title={Conformance Testing: Measuring the Fit and Appropriateness of Event Logs and Process Models}, ISBN={<http://id.crossref.org/isbn/978-3-540-32596-3>}, ISSN={1611-3349}, url={<http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/11678564_15>}, DOI={10.1007/11678564\_15}, journal={Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, publisher={Springer Science + Business Media}, author={<NAME> <NAME>, <NAME>.}, year={2006}, pages={163–176}}
>
>
>
It is easy, fast to generate if you have the DOI, and minimises the risk of typos.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/05/30 | 1,338 | 5,515 | <issue_start>username_0: I have a paper accepted to a conference and my adviser is willing to fully fund the trip.
However, I am also eligible to apply for a "Student Travel Grant" (being a student author).
Pros of getting the travel grant:
* saves adviser grant money
* goes on my resume
Cons:
* i would have to volunteer and possibly spend half of each day with tasks at hand
I am not sure whether it's worth applying for the travel grant and helping at the conference, as opposed to just going there.
For those of you who have been in this or similar situations before, what would you advise?
UPDATE: I learned that the grant covers almost half of my total trip cost, and that the volunteering time is around 1/4 of the total conference duration, which is good; Hence, I have applied for it. Thanks everyone for your help.<issue_comment>username_1: Based on my own experience, I would definitely recommend applying for the travel grant!
The pros you have mentioned are fairly substantial. Regarding the con: I have never found any conference volunteer job to be at all onerous\*, and usually they have been fun and/or valuable.
For example, here are some volunteer jobs I have had:
### Volunteering at the registration desk
If I have this job, I get to meet all the attendees as they come in. Usually, when I first sit down at the registration table, I flip through the badges to see who is registered, and make a plan for who I want to meet. Then, if those people come in while I am "on duty" and they are not in a rush, I can strike up a conversation.
By doing this, I've been able to have some really "spontaneous" talks with important people in my field who I wouldn't have had much of an opening to meet otherwise.
I've never been asked to do this job for more than a couple of hours at any given conference, so I didn't feel like I was missing out. If this is my volunteer job, I can usually arrange with the other volunteers so I am "on duty" during a time when there are no sessions I'm interested in anyways.
### Taking minutes in meetings
Another time, I was a student volunteer at a conference that also hosts its sponsoring [SIG](http://www.acm.org/sigs)'s annual business meeting, and my job was to take minutes in this meeting. I got to listen in while all the big shots in the SIG talked about what they *really* think of the state of the subfield, the quality of the conference, the direction they'd like to see things go in, etc.
Also, the meeting was in the evening and there were no conference sessions going on, so I didn't miss anything while doing this (except maybe a nap).
### Mic shuttler, running the 1-minute madness session
Some volunteer jobs take place inside the conference sessions themselves, so you don't miss out on anything while doing these jobs.
For example, I've been assigned to be the person that carries the mic around to people who have questions during the Q&A after each talk.
I've also been part of keeping the 1-minute madness session (where poster/demo presenters get up one after another and speak for one minute about their poster) on time. The student volunteer coordinator described this job as follows:
>
> 1 person in charge of lining up presenters in the correct order, 1 person in charge of advancing the presentations, and about 5 are responsible for throwing the presenter with crumpled paper balls at the 56th second to get her/him off the stage.
>
>
>
(I didn't have to throw any paper balls.)
\* YMMV. At a large, well-organized conference there will be lots of volunteers, you can choose which task you prefer, and no one student has to do too much work. At a smaller conference, things may be different.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Somewhat echoing username_1's response, I have volunteered several times as a student in order to make conference registrations cheaper, and have had a decent experience doing it.
**Pro**: Having worked at both a conference registration desk and as essentially an assigned "person" who knows who to go to if the podium computer locks up, something is wrong in the room, etc. I've had a chance to strike up conversations and introduce myself to important folks in my field in a way that wasn't just "Hi, I'm username_2, your work is awesome..." There's often time to chat, especially during lulls in registration, the 15 minutes before presentations start when you're the only one there besides the speakers, etc.
For smaller organizations and conferences, there's also probably a fairly large overlap between staff (in my case, nearly complete overlap). This means you've had some time to chat with society staff members, and it never hurts to be on a first name basis with them and having been remembered as being helpful.
For limited attendance events, like "Meet the Faculty", etc. you might get first dibs on tickets.
**Con**: You do have a schedule, and that means you might miss something you are interested in. However, keep in mind the society isn't looking for cheap conference labor alone - they want students to come to the conference and benefit. I've never had my duties be so onerous that I missed out on a huge part of the conference. The only time there was a serious risk of there being something that I really wanted to go to that I would miss, I managed to swap with another student so I was then the room monitor for the session I wanted to attend - and could then go meet the people I was so interested in hearing speak.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/05/30 | 257 | 989 | <issue_start>username_0: How can one find relevant and new open research topics?
When working on my PhD thesis, I find it hard to find open questions in my very specific research area. Which approach do you take to find new and relevant topics?<issue_comment>username_1: Try to find papers giving a state of the art review on your field. They'll be easy to find, they generally have a lot of citations and written by the experts in the field. Some of those review papers (ones I've read at least) provide suggestions to researchers as to what needs improvement in the field. Good luck.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Here is a good article on choosing the research topic aimed specifically at the grad students:
<http://chronicle.com/article/Choosing-a-Research-Topic/45641>
Some further advice of more general nature (and partly applicable only post Ph.D.) is gathered here:
<http://aclinks.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/how-to-choose-a-research-topic/>
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/05/30 | 665 | 2,500 | <issue_start>username_0: I have been accepted to UCL and Oxford for a PhD in anthropology, however I have not been offered funding for either position. I am considering reapplying next year and I would like to know how I can improve my chances of securing funding. I already have experience as a research assistant for my MSc supervisor, and she has acknowledged me in a recent paper. I have also presented at a conference, though I have not published the paper. Would publications improve my chances, even if not in top tier journals? What other things could I do to make my application stand out to funding committees?
I should add that this is my second attempt - I was in the same situation last year when I applied only to Oxford for a PhD, gaining acceptance without funding. I received my MSc from Oxford, with an overall grade of 67 and a distinction in my thesis.<issue_comment>username_1: Funding is extremely scarce, especially in Britain. Since you have been accepted, I would write to the person who you suspect would be your adviser if you matriculated and ask them for advice. The program clearly has an interest in bringing you in. They may be able to find fellowships or paying jobs within the university that can help you financially.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Each of [Oxford](http://dtc.socsci.ox.ac.uk/) and [UCL](http://www.ucl.ac.uk/shs/esrc) has an ESRC-funded social-science Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT), which would be a suitable funding route for a new anthropology PhD student.
As a backup plan, consider an inter-disciplinary PhD: apply your anthropology to a subject that is well-funded.
Both Oxford and UCL have inter-disciplinary PhD students. You'd typically have one supervisor from anthropology, and one from your applied subject.
Hopefully there's a subject that really interests you, for which either [Oxford](http://www.dtc.ox.ac.uk/) or [UCL](http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate/degrees/research/doctoral-training-centres) have a CDT; in that case, they'll have funding for PhD students. But be sure to pick a subject you can be really passionate about: remember, this is going to swallow a big chunk of your life and your energy, and you're going to have to be motivated to work 12+ hours a day for weeks or months at a time on it. So don't pick something that just vaguely interests you, or you'll risk never completing.
(disclosure: I supervise inter-disciplinary students in one of the CDTs linked to above)
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/05/30 | 1,548 | 6,892 | <issue_start>username_0: Here's my story. I moved from my home country to the UK in October to start a PhD in the UK with lots of excitement and positive expectations. However, what I discovered once I started was that the division I am in had never funded an Academic PhD project before (they focus on professional doctorates), the environment is not a research one (I share the office with lecturers and tutors, apart from another PhD student who won my same scholarship). My main supervisor, although supportive, is only at the university for for 3 days per week, has never supervised a PhD and has not an Academic PhD (but has the professional doctorate). My second supervisor does have a PhD, but follows me very occasionally, since only taking care of the 20% of the supervision.
Therefore, since the beginning the experience has been very isolating and not really stimulating. In addition, for various reasons, I have changed the theme of my original project and since then I have the sensation that my main supervisor is not really interested in this, even though saying otherwise. Also, has no particular expertise in the specific subject I am doing research on, but has to supervise many people from the professional doctorate as well and is generally very busy (and yet doesn't even check emails during the whole weekend).
Moreover, I am doing clinical research and I have to face many logistical difficulties, such as the fact that the hospital in which I should work in is quite distant from the university (at least hours roundtrip), the collaboration from the staff and patients is hard to get and basically my PhD depends on lots of people whose sudden disappearance may lead to very big problems.
As a result, I am now approaching the 10th month and I haven't done anything yet, apart from having started the literature review the draft for a survey. I feel as this project is going nowhere and even if I managed to fix some of the logistical issues, the isolation, the lack of expertise of my supervisor and the lack of a research environment really bother me. My supervisor actually said my PhD is a "pilot" for the division to see if they should fund any other PhD in the future, but the problem is that the pilot is not going well.
I find myself thinking about quitting quite often in this period, but I am terribly concerned about the possible consequences: even if I quit I still would like to pursue a PhD somewhere else, but what are the odds of getting any other scholarship after having quit one? Also, I obviously can't apply somewhere else without quitting here, because I need updated cover letters, so this means that I would have to move back to my home country just to restart submitting applications. And without any money, of course.
I haven't spoken about it because I think that once I disclose my reservations with my supervisor would definitely lose interest in the project, so I am taking some time to think before doing anything. The problem is that I really don't know what to do. I moved to the UK because I thought I could have better opportunities compared to my home country, but I think I ended up in a quite peculiar and difficult doctoral experience; I am afraid that the fact of having already obtained funding is going to prevent me from having any other opportunity if I quit. Also quitting would have a very big impact on my psychological well-being, since I do not see myself as a quitter and I would totally feel it as a personal failure, despite all the variables that I have told you.
What do you think?<issue_comment>username_1: Originally written as a comment, converting to an answer at ff524's suggestion.
Addressing the spirit of your problem, if not the exact question asked: quitting should be the last-case scenario. Clearly you're not happy, and you need to talk to your advisor(s) about that. But do think about whether there are changes that could be made that would improve your situation. Could you spend time at another institution? Should the focus of the project change? Pilot studies don't necessarily work "straight out of the box", so everyone ought to be open to discussion. It may be that no solution can be found - but unless you raise the issue, people may not realise there's a problem.
Also, do note that many, many PhD students worry that "they've not done much" in their first year. But often they've actually learnt a lot, about their subject and about the world of research. So don't be too disheartened!
Edited to add: I have known at least one case where someone started a PhD, it didn't go well, and after a year they quit and started a new PhD in a different department at the same institution. However, I'm not sure what the details of their funding were - it's possible that they simply transferred their existing money to the new project.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: If the program is really a pilot, then there are likely some people somewhere in the department who would like it to succeed. I would definitely recommend finding those people and seeing whether they can assist with any of your issues, both logistical and advisor-related.
Past that, though, I would definitely also seek other options. For many PhD graduates, their advisor plays an important individual at the start of their career, and not having that resource can make things very difficult for you. Given that you are already in an academic vacuum, you probably don't want to have that kind of handicap. Take care to make sure you're giving yourself the highest likelihood of success.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Let me give you a very practical advice: Every big project is accomplished in many small steps. In order to get a better picture of what is going on, make sure that you have a good protocol of all the small steps you're taking. If possible, establish a weekly routine with your supervisor. Everybody has some kind of daily habit, try to figure out when your supervisor is, e.g., arriving to office, going for lunch, going for coffee, etc. Since, as you're reporting, it's difficult for you to get hold of him, try to catch him at some of these points, repetedly. This way you can build up a habitual relationship. You can't fix all of your problems in one discussion. You have to partition down your project related problems/difficulties into smaller, prioritized portions and then start discussing those independently. Giving your supervisor a brief update on what you plan as your next, small step can be done while walking to the coffee machine. All he has to do is to say "yes", "no", "maybe"- and this *DECISION* is what you have to document. So, also as a way to protect yourself, you have a proof of how you decided in agreement on how to proceed. Trust me, at one point all these small steps will add up to your larger project and you will feel back on track.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/05/30 | 825 | 3,597 | <issue_start>username_0: I was working on a problem in the field engineering. I have used one approach and it turned out that it does not work well. After that I got into conflict with my supervisor, and realized that it will be hard to publish the original paper with him. So, I have redone everything with another approach, wrote a paper, submitted it and at as soon as my paper have been almost accepted, my supervisor wrote to the editor claiming that he also should be an author of the paper. He haven't even seen the new paper nor haven't analysed or interpreted the new results.
Now my supervisor has started a university investigation against me, with following allegation:
>
> "Dr.X submitted a manuscript on [some topic] to the journal Y. Theory and simulations of [some topic] are part of his responsibilities in [grant] for which Prof. #1 and Prof. #2 are co-PIs. The manuscript was submitted as a sole author without the prior knowledge of either coPI. Dr. X refused to provide a copy of the manuscript. The work described in the manuscript is unlikely to be Dr. X's independent work given his background prior to joining the university and given his current work under [grant]."
>
>
>
How should I respond to the allegations of Prof. #1?<issue_comment>username_1: You should gather all your materials related to this project into one place (emails, codes, lab notebooks, etc) and talk to an attorney immediately. Presumably you can be dismissed from your job for research misconduct if they find against you. Only an attorney can help you navigate the related employment laws of your country, state, or region, your university's regulations and rules, and whatever granting agency's rules and regulations that you are operating under.
I would not respond until you've had an attorney competent in this area at least evaluate your case and your options.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Unfortunately, your situation has gone from bad to pretty much impossible.
Your challenge here is that without **incontrovertible** proof that you've submitted the accepted manuscript to your advisor (and the co-PI), you will almost certainly lose the process that your advisor has started against you. Moreover, even if you win, it will be at best a Pyrrhic victory; all you will have managed to achieve is avoid having another black mark added to your academic record.
In addition to username_1's advice above, you should also start looking for alternate employment immediately, regardless of what happens in the proceedings with the university. Start over and regroup, and learn from your experiences.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Where did you redo the work? At his Lab? Even if it did not work with the first approach, it does not mean you ignore your supervisor and publish the paper alone. You at least knew it would not work that way so you tried another way. It seemed you had a grant at his team, which means he offered you the fund to carry out the work, is that true?I think it doesn't make you better to publish a paper alone than to publish it as a first author/ and may be as a corresponding author too and put your supervisor as a coauthor. He doesn't see the paper because you did not send it to him not because he doesn't want to, right? I am not against you, but I am telling you how the people who will get involved would see the matter. If you have a proper answer to these question, you might have right, otherwise, you should reconsider adding or supervisor instead of getting accused of plagiarism and getting your career into trouble.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/05/30 | 615 | 2,724 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently in the process of submitting a manuscript to a journal. During this process my manuscript has come back for revision, and the journal has asked for an updated manuscript with revisions annotated. What level of changes should be annotated? Similarly is it acceptable to provide a generic comment when changes are for flow and not for content (e.g. "sentence rephrased for clarity")?
As an example (in my perceived order of required-ness):
* Adding or removing significant content (figures, paragraphs, sentences)
* Rephrasing a sentence changing the meaning
* Rephrasing a sentence changing the grammar, but not the meaning
* Adding/removing words that are superfluous (or change the meaning in an insignificant way)
* alteration of comma's, periods, etc.<issue_comment>username_1: An editor once "requested" that I submit a "tracked changes" or latexdiff version of my resubmission if I wanted him to deal with it in a timely fashion. Since then, my strategy has been to submit:
* revised manuscript (no annotation);
* latexdiff of revisions against version submitted last time, to highlight every last comma changed;
* cover letter, describing all scientific changes plus any major textual changes ("we substantially rewrote the methods section in an attempt to improve its clarity"). I refer the editor to the diff for minor textual corrections.
No editor has complained yet... ;)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: What editors (and their journals) expect may vary. In the journal I edit, and also journals with which I am familiar as author and reviewer, expectations cover the two first points in your list. It is very common to request a point by point account for how reviewers' (and editor's) comments have been dealt with. This, to me is the important part of the revisions. Some editors want files highlighting changes, while other definitely do not. The important changes deal with the science and not the grammar or spelling. If the language has been a focal point for revisions, an editor will not likely check all changes you have made but rather read the manuscript to see if the language has been sufficiently improved.
While some (unclear what percentage) will not care about tracked changes, it is not wrong to supply them. Doing so allows the editor to chose which version (showing revisions or not) to use. But, always provide a clean version of the revised manuscript. I sometimes receive manuscripts with all changes visible in the manuscript and I feel uncomfortable accepting all on behalf of the author. The revised version is the responsibility of the author so the sharp new version should be included in the submission.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/05/31 | 1,775 | 7,906 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently in high school in the USA, and it is relatively common for students to work with various researchers in the summer. The majority of the work done is the medical/biology fields, and I would like to know whether this is a common practice (or a possible practice) in areas outside of biology and medicine.
The biology and medicine fields make sense for several reasons:
* My area (a large US city) has a large biology and medicine faculty (especially because it is considered a "hub" for medicine)
* Biology and (to a lesser extent medicine) seems to be more accessible to a high school student with a background in the AP curriculum and the medical programs available to students at the local districts. Subjects like mathematics are hardly accessible to undergraduates, much less high school students.
* Biology and Medicine are largely laboratory sciences, while the same can not be said about things like mathematics. Furthermore, the social sciences and the humanities (less present in my area, but still significant) seem to be nearly absent in summer research type work.
It makes sense, therefore that with a large population of students wanting to be in the medical field, and a large research faculty, that the practice of either formal (through a program), or more informal (E-mail a researcher for a spot in lab rotation), research happens in these fields. **So, is there a similar practice in mathematics, physics, the social sciences, or any other area of science?**
**EDIT:** In response to amlrg's post I have some further questions: how can I tell if a researcher in physics or math is studding a computational area? How should I go about approaching such a researcher>
---
It is interesting to note that the fact that a similar thing does not happen in the non medical/academic disciplines popular around here. For example, as an Engineering hub, you might expect that it would be common for students to shadow or intern with engineers, but this is *much* less common than high school research in academia.<issue_comment>username_1: This is not really a proper answer, but rather more like a stretched out comment. In the field of biology, lab hands can be relatively quickly trained. Now, they probably won't understand much of the science that is going on behind the scenes, but doing some of the routine tasks of "pressing buttons", they can free the more senior researchers to do the more challenging parts of the research.
Mathematics, on the other hand, often requires several years of training before you can start contributing in any way and there is no good way to avoid this. A beginning university student might have heard of the concepts that are being researched in some lab, but it is unlikely that a typical high school student can do much. This is all something that you already mentioned in your question.
Having said this, many things in the field of computational science (be it physics, mathematics, astronomy, biology, sociology, or whatever) are rather mundane and could easily be done by someone with a limited knowledge of the field (and I remember there being a recent example in astronomy where a high school student coded up an algorithm to find some shapes of galaxies/starts/something, and it worked so remarkably well that it ended up being published, but I could not find the reference right now). If you truly are motivated enough to contact and seek advisers in your area yourself, I am sure that many would be happy to show you the ropes. Don't be too discouraged, though, if some refuse (or do not even respond), as they might be too busy doing their own research to train new people who will shortly be leaving the lab, anyway.
**EDIT** to reflect the revised question: I want to point out that earlier I suggested computational science, but there are also experimental physics (for example) labs, which might also have something to do for an interested high school student.
There is no separate department for computational science, because it is not really a study of its own; rather you can use computers in any field (for the sake of completeness, there sometimes might be a department called computational science, but its scope is usually more limited than my definition here). Suppose you were interested in physics at institute X. Go to the website of the department of physics of X and see what the groups are working on. Find the homepages of the individual groups (professors) and see if they seem to be using computers (it will usually be more or less obvious from the types of figures on the website, or they might just explicitly mention it) and if their research appears to be of interest to you. See their publications, and while you some of the papers might be behind a paywall, try Googling the titles and you might find them on [arXiv.org](http://www.arxiv.org) or similar free to access preprint servers.
Now the publications themselves are often quite technical, don't get disappointed if you don't understand much, but the introduction section should often be more or less understandable. One of the things you might want to look for is to see whether the group is using some software package (they should cite it if they do), or if everything seems custom made. In the former case, a considerable amount of the work might be in preparing files for the software and with some training could easily be done by a high school student.
As for approaching a professor, and I am hoping that other users on SE might comment more on this topic, the best way, I think, is to have read a paper or two by the group and to point out in your email that you have a rudimentary understanding of the science and the scope of the work. I, and I am not even the group leader, get emails from students (often from other countries) looking for a position (bachelor's thesis or something similar) at our lab because they are 'engineers'. Being an 'engineer' hardly qualifies them for the rather specific work we do and shows that they have not done any research as to who to send the email to, nor to what the group is working on (as they never, ever, specify what they want to do or why they want to join our group, in particular). These types of emails probably never get a reply from anyone (although a high school student just might, for their lack of knowledge as to the specifics would be more understandable). Essentially the more specific you can get in showing your knowledge and asking some questions, the better.
Much of what I write about is a lot to ask from a high school student, and might not even fully pay off in the end (i.e. you might get rejected). I hope that in any case this gets you interested in reading academic papers and gives you a better understanding of what it is that scientists do.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You can look for organizations for gifted high school students. For example in Poland there is [Polish Children's Fund](http://fundusz.org/english) providing possibility of research work in institutes. In US I am not much aware of possibilities, but there is [Center of Excellence in Education](http://www.cee.org/) organizing [Research Science Institute](http://www.cee.org/research-science-institute) each summer. Such programs are highly competitive.
Another route would be asking participants of [Intel ISEF](https://student.societyforscience.org/intel-isef) with topics related to your research interests.
And I know a number of people who went into some collaborations through informal routes. But more than often they were onsite, visiting some institute and talking with professors a lot long before starting collaboration (rather than meeting / mailing with the main goal of summer internship). In any case, there are many random variables, but if you are really motivated it might be worth trying!
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/05/31 | 467 | 2,044 | <issue_start>username_0: Is there any open database(s) that offer access to Bachelor or Masters level final papers? Especially interested in top universities and computer science related papers.
The thing is that other day I browsed through BA level papers defended in my university and many of them seemed to be a little too trivial. I'd like to see what is quality of papers produced by those who attend top universities.<issue_comment>username_1: Increasingly, individual universities are requiring students to submit digital versions of theses (particularly at masters level and above). However, as far as I know this is generally organised by each university individually, often under the auspices of the university library. I am not aware of any large centralised databases, though these might exist for particular subjects. A Google search for "student thesis database" or "student thesis < institution>" seems your best bet.
Do bear in mind that different institutions may have different requirements, particularly in the amount of time students are expected to spend on their thesis project: quality may not be directly comparable!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The database I am most familiar with is the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Database/UMI, which advertises having nearly 3 million items in it's collection (<http://www.proquest.com/products-services/pqdt.html>). The University of Texas website reports Proquest receives 90+% of all dissertations completed in the US each year (<http://www.lib.utexas.edu/indexes/titles.php?id=114>). It allows you to search by a range of criteria, including targeting either Master's or Doctoral papers, or searching by academic subject area.
Many universities include Proquest in their electronic database offerings. My university requires we format our theses and dissertations to be compatible with Proquest, and these are deposited immediately upon graduation, unless embargoed due to pending patents.
I am not aware of a database for Bachelor's level papers.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/05/31 | 320 | 1,310 | <issue_start>username_0: Of course, I would retain the for me important points, but omit the details.
To the question in the title, I would like to add: If it is, how would it be best to point to that paper?
Should I reference this as a "regular" citation or is it better to include some explanation, like "From [5] it is clear that ..."?<issue_comment>username_1: I think there is no problem to sum up informations if they have been investigated already. You should reference this as a normal citation.
>
> "From [5] it is clear that ..."
>
>
>
It's better to write the title or the author's name (or research group) instead of reference number. If you take informations from a book or the like, you can use something like 'It is well known that... '
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I know people who restate whole *proofs* of mathematical theorems, either because the proof itself is interesting, or simply because the original presentation of the proof is poor in their opinion.
It is completely fine to summarize works of other people in your work, you just have to make it completely clear that it is not your work. But you can quote even whole paragraphs IMHO, without much problem (surely in math/natural science, I'm not sure how's it in philosophy and such).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2014/05/31 | 425 | 1,734 | <issue_start>username_0: My supervisor told me that I should write paragraph in which I introduce the problem that will be addressed by this chapter (research methodology).
What are some of the key aspects I should focus on? I understand that it cannot be a too detailed description, as my supervisor recommends only a single paragraph but I also do not want to write too little.<issue_comment>username_1: Answer this question in less than one minute, assuming that I have the basic knowledge of your area:
*What is your research about?*
Than add these in less than two minutes:
*Why did you do your research in that specific topic? What is your innovation?*
Lastly,
*How did you do it?*
Now, write your answers on a paper. And that would be the intro.
**Edit:** Commentors are right. Only the last part would be an intro for methodology.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't know if it's possible to describe in any detail which aspects you should focus on without knowing something about *what* you're writing in the chapter, since as Sverre said, it's ultimately just the answer to one question.
An introduction is ultimately just a concise summary of the contents of a piece of writing, specifically a chapter; in this case, the points to focus on would be the basic components of a description of research methodology:
1. Reminder: We are researching...
2. The usual methodologies used in this field are...
3. X, Y and Z were considered for use.
4. X, while [pros], [cons], whereas Y [pros], but [cons], and Z [pros], but [cons].
5. Due to the importance of... ...in this study, we chose to use Y.
Then you can explain your full reasoning in the remainder of the chapter.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer] |
2014/05/31 | 611 | 2,610 | <issue_start>username_0: I have to write a statement of purpose for a computer science graduate program. In high school I was in a different field of study (aeronautics), then I switched to computer science for my undergraduate course after attending a computer science course which I liked.
Now I can't lie about this, also because this university also asked me about which high school I attended. But is this a negative thing to write on a statement of purpose? Maybe I should just write it on the fly without giving it much attention. Or instead I should say it clearly and justify my choice?
I ask this because I see that many people on the statement of purpose say that they always liked their field of study, from when they were children. So I don't know if the admission examiners would consider it negatively or not.<issue_comment>username_1: Short answer: **It doesn't matter at all.**
Particularly in the US, high school degrees don't have "concentrations"; you simply get a high school diploma. In certain circumstances, your school may have a special focus, but accreditation rules for high school diplomas typically specify some distribution of courses which all students have to meet to receive the diploma.
Moreover, the statement of purpose tells us what you want to do in graduate school, why you want to do it, and why you're qualified to do it. That's pretty much it—most people on admissions committees aren't interested in knowing what early pearl of wisdom some random relative imparted, or other "humanizing" anecdote that too many applicants include. In fact, many of them actively hate it.
Statements of purpose are not your life story, they're a summary of your past and future career. Tell us about your relevant experiences, and why you should be admitted to **our** graduate program.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Most graduate programs will ask which high school you attended but this is can be a roundabout way to ascertain where you grew up (and perhaps to some degree your socioeconomic status -- i.e., did you go to a public school or attend an elite private boarding school,etc.). However, to be honest, most admin committees do not weight this information heavily. What you wanted to do when you were 17 has really little to do with who you are when you are in your twenties or thirties and going into PhD programs.
What is critical for applications is why you want to go to graduate school in computer science. What are the problems that intrigue you, what sub-specialty are you interested in, who do you want to work with, etc.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/05/31 | 3,398 | 14,374 | <issue_start>username_0: I think the title asks the question, but once again in more words:
Suppose you submit a paper to a journal and it is accepted by the journal. By this I mean that the journal tells you that they have decided to publish your paper but you have not submitted or examined final proofs and -- especially -- not signed any paperwork allowing the journal to publish the paper.
I wonder how people feel about the ethics of deciding not to go through with the publication because you now feel that the paper could be published in a better journal? This could happen either because of outside feedback you received in the meantime or because of feedback from the referees/editors of the journal itself. (**Added**: In case this was not clear, I am assuming that upon submission one was seeking to publish in that journal conditional on not learning that one has "shot way too low".)
As far as I can see, it is absolutely legal to do this, so I am not interested in the legality of it, but rather its ethics and ramifications as an academic practice. I also think I will get better answers if I do not telegraph my own feelings about this; I will be happy to document them later on. Let me just say (i) this is a hypothetical question, but (ii) based on my own experience it is not ridiculous that it might be in the interest of the author to engage in this practice, if it happened to be kosher to all parties involved.
**Note**: I had previously asked a related question, at the time wondering whether it would be better asked separately. Based on the way things have gone thus far, I now think it is better to post this followup question separately (not necessarily right away).<issue_comment>username_1: It is not ethical to withdraw a paper that has been accepted. Journals, editors, and reviewers invest time in the publication process. To withdraw a paper after it has entered this process is a waste of their time. While the legal ramifications of is behaviour are probably limited, it will result in bad feelings.
As for not having the money to publish. Assuming the journal fees are available prior to submission, and reputable journals make their fees known, then if you don't have the money, then you don't get to submit. If they have a paid expedited service and you are worried about the back log, then ask up front. The only case that it might be acceptable is if he review process drags on for so long that your funding ends.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: While this sort of behavior is not unheard of in the social sciences, it is certainly frowned upon. It could also lead to you being blacklisted by the original journal, if not more serious negative sanctions.
You also have to remember that in many fields that:
* Journal editors know each other and socialize together
* The number of referees for any random obscure topic is low
If you did this, you would get caught either 1) when the 2nd journal accepts the paper and publishes it; 2) before this when the journal editor #1 has drinks with journal editor #2; or 3) by random luck, journal editor #2 sends it to the same referee who green lighted it for journal #1.
Don't mess with journals. It's much better to have a first article in a journal with a low citation index than it is to create bad blood with journal editors.
If you're smart enough, you can write a second essay on a following topic that you can send to journal #2 once you've established yourself with your initial essay in the original journal #1.
[Edited for clarity]
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Suppose I submit a paper to Journal A. Under what circumstances can I then ethically withdraw it?
* Upon receipt of the reviews. The review process can be thought of rather like the (English) law on contracts. I offer Journal A a paper in a certain form. They think about it for a while, and then (typically) reject my initial proposal, but offer to publish a related paper ("If you add X and Y we'll take it"). Typically, I then make revisions and submit them, forming a new "offer". Eventually, we reach a stage where the proposal is acceptable to both parties, and the paper is accepted. However, I'm under no obligation to continue to negotiate with the journal if at some point I decide that I don't like the terms they're offering (e.g. the reviewers ask for changes that I don't want to make). Does it make a difference if the reviews are largely positive, instead of largely negative? Intuitively, I'd say it does, but I'm struggling to come up with a sound justification for this. [Edited to add:] I suppose the difference is that withdrawing after *good* reviews would seem to indicate that I'm acting "in bad faith"; see below.
* If I discover a serious flaw in the paper. Clearly, I have a responsibility to withdraw it as soon as the flaw is recognised, to avoid wasting everyone's time. Once the flaw has been fixed, the paper may well look quite different (in content); thus, it seems implausible that I am *bound* to choose the same journal upon resubmission.
* If I realise the paper could be significantly improved. This is a trickier one. You might well argue that it was unethical of me to submit it in the first place, as it wasn't "complete". On the other hand, this could easily arise without me being at fault: perhaps someone else has just published a new statistical test which provides additional insights into my results; perhaps I'm working in a field where data is sparse, and an additional set of data points have just been obtained. It seems weird to suggest that it's wholly unethical to withdraw the paper and improve it. (Indeed, it seems arguable that it's *more* ethical than allowing the incomplete paper to be published, and then immediately writing a follow-up.) Again, when it comes to resubmission, it makes sense to decide the venue based on a fresh assessment of the merits.
Furthermore, I don't see that these latter two points *necessarily* cease to apply once the paper is "accepted" (rather than "in review"). Certainly, I'm still responsible for fixing any flaws. On the other hand, in the "legal" analysis, acceptance constitutes the making of a contract, which cannot then be broken without consequences.
So, to go back to the original question: if I (a) originally submitted in good faith, and (b) would need to do some nontrivial amount of work to adapt the paper for the more prestigious journal, it seems that it's not unethical for me to withdraw with the intention of "moving upmarket", at least provided I do it *before* acceptance. After acceptance, it is probably unethical.
However, there are a lot of interesting grey areas. Do I have a responsibility to my funding providers to get maximum exposure for the research they support? What if my paper will directly help, say, a cure for cancer - so that getting it widely known in the relevant community has positive implications for humanity?
The main argument *against* permitting withdrawal would appear to be the fact that it wastes people's time. Again, a legal comparison is instructive: if you walk away from contract negotiations, you are not in any way breaching the contract: it hasn't yet been made. However, if the other side think they can argue you weren't acting in good faith, you may well find yourself being sued for their costs. However, I would class that as a business matter, not an ethical one.
Finally, to address a point made in the comments: does an editor have a responsibility to inform an author that they're underselling their work? I'm not sure that they do (just as, provided I have not made any misrepresentations, I'm not obliged to tell a prospective buyer that he's offering me too much money for my house). If editors start second-guessing authors' choices in submitting to this or that journal, the system would quickly descend into chaos. However, reviewers (who act like the legal advisors on the house-sale analogy) may well be obliged to make the significance of the work clear (though, perhaps, not to go as far as recommending the author take one course of action over another).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I can imagine some cases where withdrawing an accepted paper would be ethical.
Some where already given by Avid's answer, e.g. when the author realize that the paper is flawed. Another one would be if the author realize after acceptance that the journal editorial policy is far below what is expected (e.g. the author realizes that the journal is predatory). More specific cases could be:
1. the author receives a very quick positive report, where the reviewer makes it pretty clear he or she did not read the paper,
2. the author is asked pages charges, or article processing charges while the journal did not made it clear that they are charging the author,
3. the editor accepts the paper but (kindly) asks the author to add some references to the journal so as to increase their impact factor (sadly, this is not a fictional case).
I would say that most of the time, withdrawing after acceptance is on the unethical side of the border line (for the reason given by username_1: it wastes other's time), but that some specific circumstances make it ethical or even the way to go.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: There are certainly cases in which withdrawing a paper after acceptance is reasonable, for example if the author feels misled or mistreated by the journal (as username_4 points out in his answer). However, when the journal and referees have behaved blamelessly, it's hard to justify unilaterally withdrawing the paper after acceptance. When you submitted the paper, you implicitly agreed to publish it there if accepted. This is part of the research community's norms: a submitted paper is a request for publication, not a request for the option to publish.
Of course it's not a legally binding promise, or even a particularly grave moral promise, but it's still not something you can reasonably violate without a compelling reason beyond self interest. I don't think this is even worth considering except in extraordinary circumstances, such as a paper that was submitted in good faith but turned out to be far more important than the author could have foreseen. Fortunately, there's a simple solution in these cases, namely asking the editor for permission. It's a little awkward, but certainly less so than just going ahead and withdrawing the paper without asking, and an apologetic explanation can help. If there's a truly compelling reason to withdraw the paper and resubmit elsewhere, then there's a good chance of getting the editor's blessing, which would resolve the ethical issues. If, on the other hand, the editor disagrees with the reasoning, then the author is stuck. But it's better to be stuck publishing in a low-prestige journal than to do something inappropriate or unethical, and being unable to convince the editor is a bad sign regarding the ethics.
This is a special case of a broader principle: if you believe unusual circumstances justify behavior that might otherwise be considered unethical, and there's someone who could in principle grant permission, then it's generally better to ask for permission than to take action unilaterally.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_6: I want to make it clear I would never do this nor do I fully endorse it but I think the argument has validity. You ask is it ethical or moral.
1) Many journals make plenty of money, not all but many. “According to The Economist, Elsevier made $1.1 billion in profit in 2010 with a profit margin of 36%, which grew to a reported profit margin of 39% in 2013, and 37% in 2014. T&F’s profit margin was 25% in 2010, per T&F” ([MIT Library 2015](https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/mit-open-access/open-access-at-mit/mit-open-access-policy/publishers-and-the-mit-faculty-open-access-policy/elsevier-fact-sheet/)). Journal publication is a free-market industry that is often cutthroat and makes large profits on our graft. You have every right to withdraw your paper. It is not your issue or fault that for-profit journals do not properly compensate editors or reviewers and this appears to be the major argument others use stating why it is unethical. It is my fault I give my time freely to these companies and you should not feel ethically obligated to me for doing this. It is nice that you are but you should not feel this way.
2) This is your intellectual property at this point as you have not signed over any material and hence you can withdraw your paper as long as you did not commit to not doing this in some box you checked or similar. It may be problematic morally for many reasons but it is not wrong. This is the result of your labor and intellect and if you decide not to sign the final publication agreements then so be it. Maybe you should not have submitted to this journal and you certainly should have withdrawn earlier to help your colleagues not waste time on review but it is not unethical in such a free-market for-profit industry. At this point if you get cold-feet we have to just accept it. Again, I make the for-profit distinction.
3) It is a two-way street. They can often decline you without much reason at the start of the process (editorial decline) so why can you not withdraw for no good reason at the end of the process? You can withdraw for any reason or no reason. Again, it is not your fault that we as academics do not insist on proper compensation from for-profit journals when we review or edit for them.
I would say think about it deeply but if this is a for-profit journal and you want to withdraw your paper at the last minute for any reason or no reason (good or bad) then so be it. It is a free, competitive, and often cutthroat industry. If this is a non-profit journal and we are all giving our time freely for the good of society I would not do it, ethical issues exist then. You see we as academics are generally reasonable and nice people (why it is often great to work in academia) and we want to be nice to our colleagues who have edited or reviewed a paper but in the end if this is a for-profit journal then it is us that should be demanding compensation for doing these activities (I repeat >$1,.1 billion profit for one journal publishing group) and you should not worry about withdrawing your paper.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/05/31 | 475 | 1,603 | <issue_start>username_0: I have a question about how to write my ranking in a class in my CV. I mean, after graduation from the university for my BSc degree, my ranking due to overall GPA among the class of 30 students was 2. The class and the students in which we started our BSc degree education and graduated after 8 or 9 semesters. I want to high light this ranking in my CV in the section of honors and awards. How should I mention this?<issue_comment>username_1: I think this is usually done in the section where you list your degree:
2008-2012 University of Big City - BSc (Hons.) Difficult Subject (Class rank: 2 of 30)
or similar.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to username_1's answer; you may write a **Degrees and Awards** section:
**Degrees and Awards**
2009 September, ABC Corp. Project Competition, "Saving the Earth from Pollution", *1st place*
2010 March, Very Good Conference, "Research About Humanity", *Best paper award*
2010-2011, fall semester, University of the Worls, GPA: 4.00/4.00, *Outstanding student*
2012 June, High honor student, graduated with GPA: 3.97/4.00, Degree: 2 of 30
etc.
One more thing, you should put *only* the highlights of your educational life. If you don't want to highlight something, don't write it in your CV.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: GPA: ...
Ranked 1st ... (if you want to include details, include only the class. I do not recommend to include the number of studends, if there are 50 or 350 students, it does not matter.)
It's short and descriptive as it needs to be.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/05/31 | 1,317 | 5,146 | <issue_start>username_0: While applying to a PhD program in computer science, which one is more important?
Publishing 4 or 5 medium/low-quality journal or conference papers or publishing only one paper in a top journal?
The review process of top-quality journals are usually 1-2 years. Which means, one has to begin his/her research during the bachelor's and submit the paper in the beginning of master's degree. But as far as I know, this is extraordinary (especially in my country).
An extra question would be: Regardless of the quality of the paper, is publishing papers in distinct areas or publishing papres in a specific area more important?
I'm willing to move to Northern Europe ([UH](http://www.helsinki.fi/university/), [TUT](http://www.tut.fi/en/home), [KTH](http://www.kth.se/en), [KU](http://www.ku.dk/english)). So, answers from the professors/students of those universities will be highly appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: I disagree with the assumption that top journals with slow turnaround times are more highly regarded than top conferences with quicker turnaround times. In most (all?) areas of computer science, the most competitive conferences are at least as highly regarded as the top journals. It is also not unusual for longer versions of conference papers to later be submitted to journals.
As <NAME> (UC Berkeley), <NAME> (University of Washington), and <NAME> wrote in [Evaluating Computer Scientists and Engineers For Promotion and Tenure](http://cra.org/resources/bp-view/evaluating_computer_scientists_and_engineers_for_promotion_and_tenure/):
>
> The evaluation of computer science and engineering faculty for
> promotion and tenure has generally followed the dictate "publish or
> perish," where "publish" has had its standard academic meaning of
> "publish in archival journals" [Academic Careers, 94]. Relying on
> journal publications as the sole demonstration of scholarly
> achievement, especially counting such publications to determine
> whether they exceed a prescribed threshold, ignores significant
> evidence of accomplishment in computer science and engineering. For
> example, conference publication is preferred in the field, and
> computational artifacts —software, chips, etc. —are a tangible means
> of conveying ideas and insight. Obligating faculty to be evaluated by
> this traditional standard handicaps their careers, and indirectly
> harms the field. This document describes appropriate evidence of
> academic achievement in computer science and engineering.
>
>
>
Your research advisor should be able to provide you advice more specific to your case.
I agree with amirg that having any publications when applying to a PhD program (especially based on undergraduate research) makes you exceptional. Your advisor's recommendation also counts a lot, especially if he or she is well known.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I will not focus on the conferences vs. journals angle here, as this has been answered by other people and I really think this is not the core of your question. I will assume you meant to ask:
**"Publishing 4 or 5 medium/low-quality venues or publishing only one paper in a top venue. What is better for PhD admission?"**
Firstly, I am not entirely sure in which timespan you plan to produce all these materials. In my subfield of Computer Science, writing 4-5 B-level conference papers takes most PhD students at least 2 years. Writing 1 top paper requires a very good idea, solid research skills, and typically at least one half-year of full-time research (often significantly more). Doing all of that as a (presumably) inexperienced undergrad or master student besides course work seems very ambitious. From my personal experience, a **very good** master student will publish 1 or 2 good papers during his master's. That's about the best I have personally seen among my students.
Now, the simple answer to your (implied) above question is that both are likely ok. Both, one top paper or 4-5 reasonable papers, are likely to get you into any of the northern european school in principle. However, note that admission to european schools is often not like in the US (see also [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/10626/10094)), meaning that it is well possible that you *still* need to find a professor to take you on, which may depend more on her/his available fundings than your CV.
However, when you said "4 or 5 medium/low-quality" papers, make sure that they are not **too** low-quality. There is a threshold from which a badly conceived paper can actually *hurt* your chances in some groups. It is hard to give a hard-and-fast rule here, but in the dark I would avoid any [predatory journals](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17379/what-are-fake-shady-and-or-predatory-journals) as well as any conference that does not appear on any of the international rankings (e.g., [CORE](http://core.edu.au/index.php/categories/conference%20rankings)). If you have an advisor or mentor from the field, he will be able to help you with selecting reasonable venues.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/05/31 | 588 | 2,490 | <issue_start>username_0: I gave a manuscript to my advisor while ago but he doesn't read it, what is the best action to do cause I need to publish it fast?<issue_comment>username_1: **Original Answer:** If you are submitting to a journal, you do not have to have your advisor's approval (unless you are using his dataset or it is coming out of his lab). If it is based on your own research findings, publish it as single-author.
**Editorial Note**: You did not indicate your discipline. As state in the original response, this answer is only applicable for disciplines where your research is independent of your advisor's research, lab, or research grants.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: If talking to your advisor doesn't work, I would suggest emailing your advisor with the draft, saying that you plan to submit it to XXX on such-and-such a date and that you would be grateful for any feedback he or she can provide you before then.
As mentioned by amirg, you might also run it by the head of your lab, if that's the standard in your field. (It's not in mine: computer science.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Since, you are near your graduation, that means not only you know whether your research results are publishable or not but where to publish those results as well. Consequently, similar to what Suresh suggests, one of your problems is not only to publish those results but publishing them on a suitable venue which is a) close to your area of interest b) it is a high-profile journal of conference c) your paper has a lot of chances to be actually accepted. So, it is part of your job to actually find such a venue to stress the urgency of your publishing those results.
In this sense, have you checked the nearby CFPs (call for proposals) for related conferences or journals? Perhaps your advisor plans to submit your paper to an event which is 2-3 months from now and is already confident enough for your draft, so there is no immediate hurry to do the final changes now. Many advisors are very busy and allocation for their various tasks is done according to their deadlines, so perhaps this is the reason he has postponed providing feedback. If you have found an alternative venue for publishing those results with a closer deadline, it will be easier for you to convince him to check your manuscript ASAP.
But in the end, we are just random Internet strangers and the most proper solution is (as others have suggested) to TALK TO YOUR ADVISOR.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/01 | 973 | 3,923 | <issue_start>username_0: While looking for information on how to perform a particular basic lab technique, I found the lab manual from another university's undergraduate lab course. This lab manual illustrates the technique very well, with concise description, useful tips on fine points of the procedure and nice, helpful pictures of how the procedure should be performed.
In my research notes, I try to cite relevant material in a format resembling usual citation styles of well-known journals, both to build a habit and because it happens to be a good way to keep track of precisely what information I based my decisions on.
However, this lab manual does not have a DOI or ISBN and the PDF itself does not provide enough information to uniquely identify it in a traditional fashion. By looking at the URL it was posted under, I can deduce a fair bit regarding exactly what course this document pertains to (in my particular case, it seems to be the 2013/2014 version of the lab manual of the Bi204 course at Boston University, hosted [here](http://capricorn.bc.edu/bi204/?page_id=13)). What is the best way to cite it, to ensure that future readers of my notebook will be able to follow the citation without being hopelessly confused about which document I am talking about?
* In theory, I can keep searching for other, more "formal" texts such as journal publications, then cite those. However, I don't want to do this. Firstly, I would be doing extra work to find what I already have discovered. Second, the manual is exceptionally well written and it will be hard to find other sources which provide the same information just as clearly. Third, I would like to give credit to the person who was actually the most helpful to me in my own reasoning.
* I could just cite the reference given by the lab manual, but many of the issues I raise for the previous point apply.
* I could cite the URL, but what if a year later the web page changes drastically, and the version of the notebook I used disappears?
I would like to, to the extent that is reasonably possible, provide the means for locating this lab manual to anyone reading my notes in the far future, even if the original author removes the manual from the web page I found it at. And I would like to provide this information in a style that conforms to established citation practices of scientific writing. How can I do this?<issue_comment>username_1: In principle, this should be cited as if it were a book. Remember that ISBN's and URL's aren't a normal part of bibliographic references, so the fact that it did not go through a "standard" publishing process doesn't really matter:
>
> Author, T. *Laboratory Manual for Course X*. City: University, Year.
>
>
>
or whatever the comparable formatting for your style guide is. (Note, write the name of the university, rather than indicating a "university press.")
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: BibTeX knows how to deal with this, using the entry type `@manual`:
```
@manual{abc,
organization = {University of Neverland},
author = {<NAME>},
title = {Manual for ABC123},
year = {2012},
}
```
If you don't know the author because it is not listed in the document, you can omit the field. The name of the university will be used instead.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Although this does not address the question of how to cite a lab manual, I did find out how to cite *this particular lab manual*. The author has informed me that there is in fact an ISBN, `978-0-7380-6200-6` (though I don't think it is listed in all the major databases), and the correct way to cite it would be:
>
> <NAME>. (2013) *Investigations in Molecular Cell Biology*. Hayden-McNeill Publishing Co., Plymouth MI.
>
>
>
I suppose the moral of the story is that asking the author can indeed be productive for questions about how to attribute a source.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/01 | 531 | 2,482 | <issue_start>username_0: I am working my way through an Masters and as assignments are completed and results have come back, I would like to put them online as a way of contributing back to the community.
However generally I do not see people doing this. Is there an etiquette or other implications that I am not considering?<issue_comment>username_1: In my alma mater, this is indeed common. The student representatives actually maintain a repository of exam answers and assignment solutions for all large classes. Contributing to such a repository seems better than putting it online on your own web page or GitHub, because you need to think about how the students coming after you actually find your material.
As for other implications: the only thing that I can think of is that lecturers are sometimes not all that happy about this practice, as it makes re-using assignments from previous years more difficult. However, that's not actually that big of a deal, as most lecturers will assume that the solutions to re-used assignments are somewhere out there anyway, and adapt grading respectively.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: One point to be considered is that the task might be recycled in the future and putting your solution online might be regarded as helping unknown future asignees cheating. Whether and to which extent this is an issue depends very much on the nature of the task and, of course, whether you have to expect the task to be recycled at all.
The only comparable case from my own studies were reports from the advanced physics lab course, where every student has been given the same tasks for years. Nontheless, there were quite a few past reports to be found online (mine among them) but stupid copying from them was quite risky as the tutors also were aware of this (and sometimes even were the authors of said old reports). Rather, old reports were often a much better preparation for the course than the actual manuals as the latter were usually didactically awful and at times even incorrect. I even “cited” an old report once or twice because it was the only available source for some crucial information. And even if the manual was good, having a different explanation of the same thing is beneficial to understanding it as it also depends on the reader what is a god explanation for him or her. All in all, I would say that the existence of old reports had a huge positive pedagogical effect on me and others.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/01 | 1,949 | 7,904 | <issue_start>username_0: I am an American who came to Europe last fall to do an MS which would complement my BA, since the field of study for my BA was different than my current one. My original plan was to apply to PhD programs in the US this fall, but recently I was offered a PhD position by my current adviser. I have until this summer to decide, which means I can either stay where I am now or decline the offer and cast the dice in the US application process.
In itself, my current department is not particularly well known in the US, where I would ultimately like to work. However, my field is small and my adviser is somewhat influential. Moreover, the advising is high quality. My adviser and I generally meet for one to three hours a week to discuss my work. I genuinely like my adviser, her insight, and the work I am doing. If I stay here I would also have connections to a lab in the US which is among the best in the world for my field. I would spend some time there as needed/desired, and the other members of my dissertation committee would likely be from this lab.
There are several US departments where I originally planned to apply. They have good faculty, have a large number of students in the same subfield, are close to other institutions doing related research, etc. In short, if I were accepted to one of these schools, I might sleep sounder knowing that others have tread my path, and at least some have had a good outcome (solid reputation, decent job, etc.).
My situation can be problematized as follows. The offer from my adviser is obviously an opportunistic move on her part. As a friend of mine put it, “she sees a talented young scientist and wants to snatch him up before someone else does.” Regardless of whether the characterization is accurate, that's a way of looking at the situation. My task is to decide whether the move is the right one.
Has anyone had a similar experience or just care to share some insight?<issue_comment>username_1: I've argued a whole bunch of times that if you want to get an academic job in the USA, you should do the Ph.D. in the USA as well.
For instance, I give an analysis [in this thread](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17405/how-would-a-small-liberal-arts-college-view-a-phd-from-germany-or-the-uk-factor/17406#17406) of the thought process behind a hiring committee's decision of whom to interview and show ways that holding a foreign degree might hurt your chances.
I also had a more extended interchange with some folks here [in this thread](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8564/unhappy-with-my-phd-program-thinking-about-applying-to-another-university/21082#21082) who seemed initially resistant to my claim. However, see JeffE's comment towards the end of that comment chain in which he says "All else being equal, US PhDs have an advantage in the US academic market."
Best of luck to you in your search.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: While shane's argument has some merit, there is another important factor to take into consideration: time to degree, which is *very* much inequal here.
If you accept your professor's offer of a PhD position, you would in principle be able to start your PhD research as soon as this fall. If you were to decline the offer, you'd definitely have to wait a full year to start the PhD program, and then at least an extra semester or two, depending on the course requirements in your field. So there could be up to a two-year delay before you do substantial work in your PhD field, depending on whether or not the department will waive your master's coursework. This may or may not be enough to sway your decision.
Additionally, you should look at all of the "peripherals," including things like:
* how much teaching duty would be combined as part of the PhD position (this can be substantial, depending on your advisor's or department's teaching load!);
* what the benefits and support associated with the position are relative to the US programs you're considering; and
* what are the chances someone with your record will have to get into a comparable US program.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In this venue you will see how important good advisors are. Indeed, having a PhD position in Caltech/MIT/Harvard is mostly useless if you don't get proper advising. If she is good researcher, you have a good working relationship, and you get the advising time you need; you have a good reason to stay.
When getting a position, committees will look at your PhD more than where it was awarded. The more resources you have, and the better the faculty, the better your thesis can be; but it is definitely not the sole factor. If your professor is reputable in the field with good connections, she may be able to help you get a good postdoc.
Also, nothing guarantees you that you will get in the US. No matter how good you are, there are people out there that may look better in an application form. Furthermore, if you have to take the GRE, you are conditioned to what happens to you on that day. And, as others have mentioned, you would have to wait a full year before being able to start. Applying in the US is not free, but I don't know how much a US citizen would have to actually pay; can you afford it?
Consider the working conditions. In many countries in Europe they are much better than in the US: right to vacations, higher salary, sick days... Weight here the requirements to get the degree in your current university (coursework needed, teaching and administrative duties...).
Your main concern is that you want to work in the US after your PhD. It is probably the best place for research, but maybe in three or four years you will decide that you don't want to go there so much, or maybe you will be counting the days to go back.
All this are pretty general comments that may or may not fully apply in your case, that you will have to weight according to your situation. But if *I* was in your case, as you have presented it, *I* would say **"don't walk. Don't run either."**
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Stay put for your good. You are happy there, so be content!
Why would you want to quit something for something which does not even exist, and ruin your content merry life?
May be that's just me, but if I were you I'd take the PhD offer from my current advisor.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: I am an American living and studying in Belgium, and I've also recently been applying to PhD programs around the world. Based on what you've described in your question, I have to honestly ask: why are you even considering going to the USA for a PhD? It looks like you have it made in your current situation: a great and influential adviser, excellent resources, and the ability to get into your research immediately. You didn't mention, but I suppose funding plays some role--and if your adviser offered you a position, I'm guessing funding is included. :)
You mention you're in the sciences, but you don't indicate what kind of career you want...so I don't know if you're looking for corporate or for academia. But my speculation (and it is entirely just that) is that the academic market in the US will be turning more and more international as the years go on: professors from other parts of the world, as well as Americans with international degrees. But, I might add, that perhaps you'll find yourself as an expat for longer than you initially thought... Perhaps your career would be better if you took a job somewhere else in the world, and/or getting your foot in the door with an international corporation may do well to help get you into a state-side company as well.
So, from a fellow expat living and studying abroad (and from a fellow applicant to PhD programs who would love to have a funded position just offered to him, but who knows that won't happen)-- I say you should take the offer!
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/01 | 462 | 1,737 | <issue_start>username_0: What is the correct way of referencing an equation, figure of table inline?
I would currently say something like:
>
> It can be seen from Equation (11) that . . .
>
>
>
or
>
> Inspection of Figure (3) shows . . .
>
>
>
Is this method—capital letter for Equation/Figure/Table and the actual reference in round brackets—acceptable?<issue_comment>username_1: As a *generic* style, your method is probably the most frequently encountered. However, just about every publisher has its style guide, which usually includes instructions for exactly this sort of reference. Those guidelines should be followed when available; if not, then you are free to use whatever format you wish, so long as you use it consistently.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As far as I know, the standard in **mathematics** is:
* Put parentheses around equation numbers; don't use the word "Equation" unless after a period.
* "Figure/Table/Algorithm X", with no parentheses. Parentheses are reserved for equations, and square brackets for citations.
Example:
>
> This follows from (11). Equation (12) does not hold in this case. See Figure 13 for further information.
>
>
>
In your LaTeX source, use `from~\eqref{someref}` and `Figure~\ref{someother}`, with nonbreaking spaces and `\eqref` for the equations.
(The standard in mathematics is LaTeX; Word is often frowned upon.)
That said, as already stated in username_1's answer, every journal has its own house style, which may override the standard.
EDIT: see also the answers to [Referencing non-equations](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15559/) as to why adding "Equation" is not a good idea: not all numbered formulas are equations.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/01 | 1,037 | 4,600 | <issue_start>username_0: Some background info: I'm a graduating Masters Students teaching a Web Development Class. This is my first teaching gig and this is a required course for CS students.
I have one star student who is already VERY good at web development. He overhauled three of the university's sites, making them more accessible, beautiful, and more performant. He is also pretty known among the faculty because of this. Let's just say that he knows the whole scope of what is being taught in my class, probably more.
What I want to know is if there is something that I can do to help this student? What I'm teaching him is probably just tickling his capability, and he is also very driven enough to create sites for our university. Can I talk about my department (CS Department) to let him skip my class/have him create sites for the uni instead? This student is very smart and I really feel he is much more engaged with doing real world sites (our sites) that I want to give him my time to support this instead of simple workload.
I have also talked to him about this and he really does think that developing real sites is fun.
So would it be unusual if I approach my department about this request? If not, how should I phrase this?
\*Also, he closely works with me and a few other faculty for the site creation.<issue_comment>username_1: Talk to the person in your department who is responsible for overseeing the undergraduate education program (the title is usually a variant on "undergraduate advisor" or "director of undergraduate studies"). Such individuals usually have the authority to waive and approve courses that are not part of the "official" study plan when exceptional circumstances arise. This individual should be able to tell you what is necessary to obtain a waiver, and what could be used to substitute for it within the program.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I encountered a similar situation in the past. The student explained the situation to the lecturer and the lecturer agreed to give the student all the exercises in advance so that he could finish them in one go if he liked (instead of waiting and submitting a new exercise each week). The student did not need to attend class but had to do the final exam. That way the student didn't really get unfair special treatment (he got graded like the rest of the students) but could minimize the time wasted on something that he already knows.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Having the student do free labor for the department in return for a course credit is somewhat evil. Paid work should be paid work.
At my school, if a student can prove they already have the skills that we teach in core chooses, we have the option of waiving those applicable requirements and letting them take higher level courses instead. The core course requirement is waived, but the number and distribution of courses required are usually not.
In any case, talk to your chair or DUS/DGS as appropriate.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: He signed up for the course didn't he? I'd give him the same exams but different assignments. Sounds like you are teaching at a Tech School. Give him a University course. You have a Masters. Make him learn something. Let him work on something more scientific such as how to take the Opera source and replace the crippled WebView of Android with an Opera browser as well as make a one-size-fits-all by letting Opera be embedded in place of the UIWebView in iOS. I know, that's a bit extreme; but, you get the idea. Give him a challenge. I'm sure there is something in the Web Dev space which takes scientific level of understanding. At least he can catalog the various and nefarious async and two-way-data-binding frameworks and compare and contrast. Open the "Challenge" assignment to all of the class. You might have a few sleepers in there. make it worth an "A"; so, then legitimately everyone has the same opportunity. Just some ideas. (Teaching professional courses is even more extreme: almost always there's one person in the class who knows everything and several who know nothing.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: At my university we have a system set up so a student can challenge a class and if they can pass the final exam then they get the credit for the class on a pass/fail system. The other choice in most colleges is having the student adviser for the program waive the class. I am a Computer Science Major and I have had entry level computer courses waived by my adviser because I knew the material well enough to advance to higher courses.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/01 | 1,959 | 8,237 | <issue_start>username_0: Suppose that in your sub-field there are half a dozen research groups on your continent that are acknowledged to be "world class". You have had the good fortune to do your MSc research in one, and your PhD in another. You are now a postdoc in a third. Your current group is large and well-funded, and your position there is secure for the foreseeable future. You realistically hope to get a faculty position in a good research university within the next 3-5 years.
One day, you are offered a postdoc position in a second-tier research group. Should you consider taking it, in order to broaden your academic horizons? Does the answer change depending on how long you've spent in your current postdoc? Are there other relevant considerations? Assume that you cannot expect to get a better offer within the next year.
Bonus discussion points:
What if you're instead offered
* a faculty position at the second-tier institution?
* a postdoc position at one of the first-tier institutions you've already had an association with?
* a postdoc position at a first-tier institution that you *haven't* already had an association with?
I have some views on these questions that I'm happy to share, but I'd like to see what other people think first.<issue_comment>username_1: "Discussion" isn't really how SE is supposed to work. However, I think the answer to your questions are relatively clear-cut (at least to me):
>
> you are offered a postdoc position in a second-tier research group. Should you consider taking it, in order to broaden your academic horizons?
>
>
>
Why? You *have* a broad horizon, you have seen three top institutions before even becoming a faculty member. Go if the new position offers you something you are currently missing (such as a nicer place to live), but I would certainly not move just for the sake of it.
>
> [you are offered a ] a faculty position at the second-tier institution?
>
>
>
If I like the place, I'll take this offer without a second thought. Expecting to become faculty directly at one of the five top institutions seems too much to ask for.
>
> a postdoc position at one of the first-tier institutions you've already had an association with?
>
>
>
Did you like it there better than in your current job? If yes, take the offer. If no, stay.
>
> a postdoc position at a first-tier institution that you haven't already had an association with?
>
>
>
More or less same answer as for the first bullet. You *have* seen a lot of places already, you do not need to change jobs just for the sake of it. If there is something you think the new institution will do better, then go for it. If not, stay. There is no life achievement for visiting each top institution in your field.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As promised, I'll attempt to answer my own question. I'm pleasantly surprised that to date, comments and answers amount to "why would you move (unless you want to)?". This is clearly a **very** sensible answer, yet it doesn't accord with my own experience of academic career advice (hence the original question). It would be interesting to know whether other people have also gained the impression that "it's important to move around as a postdoc" - perhaps this is field- or region-dependent?
It seems (@PeteL.Clark) that the implied meaning of "postdoc" is also not necessarily uniform across all fields. I'm focussing here on postdocs who are supported by funds secured by their PI, and who are therefore expected to work (predominantly) on a given research project. To my knowledge, this is the most common form of "postdoc" in (at least) the sciences.
As @suresh observed, "the whole point of a postdoc is to transition into some kind of permanent job". So, why would you quit one postdoc for another? For completeness, let's start with the most obvious reasons, which I deliberately tried to exclude when constructing this question:
* The funding for your current position has been exhausted;
* You are offered a position that is clearly a 'step up', academically, from your current position;
* You are offered a position that offers something that is sufficiently attractive to you personally to justify the move (e.g. closer to family, nicer living environment, better pay, etc etc).
What are the other potential benefits associated with moving? Possibilities include
* Exposure to new people, new ideas, new ways of doing things - not everyone approaches research in the same way, and not every department is organised along the same lines: it's good to see some different perspectives;
* Experience of different research questions - the research focus of the new postdoc is unlikely to be identical to that of your current position;
* "A change is as good as a rest" - a move can provide practical and intellectual stimulation, and may lead to a boost in productivity (particularly if it allows you to shake off additional responsibilities for a time);
* It raises your profile in the wider academic community - humans are conditioned to pay more attention to changes than to continuity;
* You get to remind a range of influential people (your referees; research groups that you apply to) that you exist, have attractive qualities, and are in the job market.
Potential downsides might include
* Lost time - the process of winding down your research in one place, transporting your entire life to a different city/country, and getting set up for research in the new place will probably severely reduce your output over several months;
* Dealing with all the hassles (and, potentially, the expense) of relocation;
* You effectively remove yourself from the job market for a time - realistically, you are not going to be able to move again for a while, even if a better position comes along;
* Signalling of limited ambition - people may question why you are taking another postdoc and not concentrating on obtaining a personal research grant/a faculty position;
* Reduced opportunity to benefit from the work you've already done - if, say, your research group has spent the last decade getting to the point of sending a rover to Mars, it is probably not a sensible career move to leave a month before it lands.
There are also various factors which may be either positive or negative, depending upon the precise circumstances in which you find yourself: the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two research groups in question; the personalities involved; and so forth.
Given that the single biggest factor *against* moving is the time cost, it seems plausible to argue that there is a "minimum length" for a postdoc to be truly profitable. I suggest this is of the order of 2-3 years. Thus, all else being equal, there is limited benefit to moving until you've spent at least 3 years in your present position. There is also little benefit to moving if you can reasonably expect to secure a clear "promotion" (e.g. a personal research grant or faculty position) within the next 2 years.
On this analysis, there is perhaps a short window in the middle of one's "postdoc years" where a sideways move can make sense. This is where the different classes of institution come into play. If, during this window, you can move to an entirely new first-class institution, then you should do so: the benefits are likely to outweigh the losses. However, moving to an institution you have already had an association with is less valuable, as you have already gained most of the "new experiences" that such a move might otherwise provide. A move from a first-tier to a second-tier institution is unlikely to be sensible, unless you can identify specific exceptional circumstances.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> When should you move on from a postdoc position?
>
>
>
* If and when you feel you'll be able to further your research better elsewhere, or get inspired/motivated to do other work elsewhere.
* If and when you feel mistreated, abused, burned out etc.
* Perhaps - to follow your significant other to wherever they're going, or to move with them someplace where both of you can lead a fulfilling life, or to someplace better to raise children etc.
* When your contract expires...
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/01 | 2,571 | 10,523 | <issue_start>username_0: I once reviewed a manuscript whose authors cited many of their own published papers, which were not relevant to the subject of the manuscript. [This kind of practice is evidently frowned upon by the academic community](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3643/will-self-citation-be-viewed-as-self-promotion-in-academia). In my comments, I advised the authors to remove those references, which they did afterwards to some extent. The manuscript eventually got published, after two rounds of review.
With hindsight, did I do the right thing to discourage this practice of irrelevant self-citation, or is there anything else that I should have done?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Did I do the right thing to discourage this practice of irrelevant self-citation?
>
>
>
Yes. In fact, as a reviewer, you should point out irrelevant citations of any kind (self- or otherwise), and suggest that these be removed. Conversely, you should not complain about relevant and appropriate self-citations. The issue is the lack of relevance, not the self-citing.
>
> Is there anything else that I should have done?
>
>
>
This is exactly what *should* happen: reviewers should call out this kind of thing, so the authors will have to remove the irrelevant citations before the paper is published. This anecdote is a triumph of diligent reviewing :)
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: A rule that was told to me in my youth and I have always obeyed and agreed with: never include a paper in your bibliography unless you cite it in the text itself. Like most rules, it admits some exceptions: for instance if a primary purpose of your paper is to gather references -- e.g. if you are writing a retrospective on the work of one specific person, or you are the first to compile what you intend to be an all-inclusive guide to the literature of an entire sub(sub...)field -- then this would not apply.
Of course one should in most cases try to go farther than the above rule: as a reader I am not thrilled when multiple references get dropped in a single phrase, e.g. "For more work on this problem see [73], [152], [49], [16]." In an age of increasingly sophisticated electronic bibliographic catalogues, this sort of "buckshot citation" seems to have little value. Just a couple of days ago I read a famous paper (why not? it was Alon-Friedland-Kalai, *Regular subgraphs of almost regular graphs*, 1984) and noticed that they were not phrasing their results as explicitly in terms of a certain concept as it seemed to me that they should: that would simplify the proofs and result in some mild strengthenings. Well, it's no big deal but I got curious as to whether anyone had later made this connection more explicit. An appropriate google led me to a survey paper in which the AFK paper was mentioned...but in the above buckshot approach: nothing is specifically said about the paper in the text, not even the names of any of the authors. As a result I am left to wonder whether the connection has actually been made. Which is no big deal -- I have corresponded with an author of the (nice) survey paper before, and this is a good opportunity to do so again -- but the point stands: citing that paper and not doing any more than that doesn't seem to accomplish much.
On the other hand, I think the kind of vigilance in calling out weak citations that @username_1 lauds could be taken too far. In some fields -- like mathematics -- we are pretty rampant under-citers, to the extent that it makes it harder for a non-veteran to find their way through the literature, which can result in duplication of work. Citing too little is a crime which has real victims. Citing too much is a crime only**\*** because of the current academic fad that one's research profile can be accurately estimated in terms of citations indices. I would encourage every academic to maintain a healthy skepticism about that: again and again I have found important, deep papers with few or no citations, and I have often found that what is most cited is what is easiest to understand.
If you really believe in the science of citation indices, I think you need to at least approach it with some sophistication. The issue that the OP specifically asks about can be dealt with by keeping track of self-citations, which is certainly trivial to do with current technology. Creating and implementing algorithms that detect and counteract various kinds of "inappropriate citations" sounds like a fun research problem: for instance, we should probably be searching for small cliques in the citation digraph.
**\***I just remembered that in Gian-<NAME>'s in/famous *Indiscrete Thoughts*, he mentions and endorses the practice of sprinkling in some absolutely irrelevant citations to your work as an easy way of making friends. This is definitely a book for which always taking the author literally at his word would be a mistake, but I read his attitude here as one of whimsical mischief rather than real academic skullduggery. The times they are a-changin'.
---
**Added**: I will admit to being surprised by the downvote: I don't see that I've said anything remotely controversial. In particular, I don't disagree at all with @username_1's answer (which I upvoted): I said only that vigilance in pruning citations could be taken too far. This is not the first time that I've encountered on this site the phenomenon of cultural differences in citation practices between my field (mathematics) and certain other academic fields. As I've said before and again in this answer: mathematicians are rampant underciters, *to the point in which people end up spending significant amounts of time and effort replicating others' work*. That's a problem which in my mind safely outweighs the damage one does to the readability of one's own paper by too much buckshot citation or the games that apparently some people play to try to increase their citation index. Does anyone disagree with this? I would be interested to know.
One thing that I could have been more explicit about in my answer: in general, there is a spectrum of relevance in citations, with "so obviously irrelevant that you are perpetuating some kind of academic dishonesty by including it" on one end and "so obviously crucial that you are perpetuating another kind of academic dishonesty by omitting it" at the other end. Clearcut cases should be clearly addressed, absolutely. There are also less clearcut cases, and in such cases I would recommend giving some latitude to the authors (especially if the "crime" is reducing the signal-to-noise ratio of their paper: a helpful referee might point that out, but ultimately that's the authors' own feet to shoot if they choose).
I did mention citations in a recent referee report. I wrote:
>
> [Self effacing remark along the lines of "I could be wrong, but..."], Result X of the paper doesn't look so similar to Result Y of a paper they cite [and which was only cited by way of comparison and not used in any way]. I don't find this citation irrelevant *per se*, but it makes me wonder why they didn't cite Z1,Z2,Z3 which seem MORE relevant.
>
>
>
The authors specifically responded to this point in their revision. They said, essentially:
>
> The citation to Y was not in our first draft. We added it based on feedback. We agree that Z1,Z2,Z3 are also relevant, and we added them.
>
>
>
I was quite satisfied with that. Final citation density of the paper after adding the citations I suggested: about .5 distinct citations per page.
I also find this comment of username_1 interesting:
>
> Consider yourself lucky that you rarely have to review papers that indiscriminately cite all the authors' previous work, an assortment of unrelated papers from the journal it's submitted to, and the first ten papers that appear in Google scholar for a related keyword. (I exaggerate only slightly)
>
>
>
It's not just rare; I have never refereed or even seen a mathematics paper that has anything like that level of citation. I have refereed at least 30 papers, so if I'm "lucky", it may be that I'm lucky to be a mathematician rather than an academic in some other field. While I certainly do feel lucky to be a mathematician, in this case once I again I suspect that this lack of a problem is a symptom of the opposite, more serious problem.
Is this phenomenon really common in other academic disciplines? I find that surprising: to me it sounds like the sort of "rookie mistake" that some young person might try once and their advisor would correct.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I think this should be followed by all reviewers. There are certain facts to be remembered. Apart from scenarios where the author of the manuscript citing his own publications, I would like to add few other too. First, an author from a lab citing publications of his own laboratory. Second, an author from an institution citing articles that were from his own institution. Third, an author submitting an article to a journal with more citations that are publications of the journal to which he is submitting. All this scenarios exists and mostly these all were done intentionally. In addition, most of the times the author was instructed to do so, either by his guide or by the journal itself. Hence, I think there should be specific regulations to be followed by journals and reviewers in order to reduce such unnecessary irrelevant citations.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> With hindsight, did I do the right thing to discourage this practice of irrelevant self-citation
>
>
>
Not necessarily. Citation is not a prize or a favour. It's a scientific tool to help the reader or to justify the claims. Therefore, it is certainly right to discourage the practice of **irrelevant** citations. But if your concern is *only* irrelevant **self**-citation, it seems that your motivation is not scientific proper, rather social and competitive one: to "level the market of citations", so that people do not "get ahead" by self-citations. Indeed, by claiming that the author engages in what you call (a deliberate) "*practice*" of self-citation you assume with no evidence that they are not behaving in good faith, which is a speculation based on your world-view of academic competition.
In other words, discouraging *only* irrelevant self-citations is not right. But discouraging *any* irrelevant citation is right, as explained in the excellent answer by username_1.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/01 | 2,057 | 9,075 | <issue_start>username_0: This is a follow on from [Is it ethical to withdraw a paper after acceptance in order to resubmit to a better journal?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21742/is-it-ethical-to-withdraw-a-paper-after-acceptance-in-order-to-resubmit-to-a-bet)
If a journal is willing to publish your submitted manuscript "as is", can you prevent them? Clearly if they want you to make changes you have the right to say no, but once the manuscript is accepted can you really withdraw it against the publisher's wish? Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?
In my field we electronically sign a copyright transfer when the manuscript is submitted that comes into affect if it is accepted for publication.<issue_comment>username_1: Of course I'm not a lawyer, but I'd distinguish between two thresholds:
1. Before the paper can be published, you need to grant legal permission via a license or copyright transfer. If you haven't done that yet, then the publisher can't force you to let them publish the paper. That gives a narrow window in which you could still block publication after the paper is accepted (but whether you could ethically do so depends on your reason for objecting).
2. Once the published version has appeared (even just on the publisher's website), there's nothing you can do without a powerful reason. At that point, you would be retracting a published paper, which is a far more serious act.
In between these thresholds, I don't know what would happen. I'd guess that if you asked the publisher not to publish a paper you had already signed a copyright transfer for, then they would probably agree. After all, publishing a paper against the author's wishes could look bad, even if they were legally entitled to do so. However, if you didn't have a very good reason (such as a major error in the paper), then the publisher would be rather unhappy. I wouldn't be surprised if they asked you to cover any copyediting or typesetting costs, and this sort of unprofessional behavior would be terrible for your reputation.
>
> Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?
>
>
>
In principle this depends on the publishing agreement. In practice, the ones I've seen usually give the publisher final say, but the publisher usually defers to the author about anything intellectually substantive during the proofreading stage. (On the other hand, the author gets more or less no input into matters of style such as font choice, British vs. American spelling, etc.)
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?
>
>
>
Short answer: **everyone**. In more detail:
Acceptance of a paper means that the editorial board approves it for publication. Once the editorial board signs off on the paper, some combination of the author(s), the editors and the publishers must arrive at a mutually agreeable final draft.
In my experience, the role that the editors play here is highly variable: sometimes they work directly with the authors on the copyediting: e.g. the *American Mathematical Monthly* is incredibly picky (relative to other math journals, anyway) about copyediting issues, and they surprised me by **withholding final acceptance of a recent paper of mine** until I had (myself, under their very specific instructions) completed all the copyediting and formatting. And they seemed serious about this: a change to the bibliography would be solicited and uploaded as a separate revision. It ought to be evident that I was not completely happy that the acceptance of the paper was held over my head during a discussion of the copyediting, but that's a way to play it and I'm sure they have their reasons.
(The MONTHLY has, I believe, by far the highest circulation of any mathematics journal. It is published by the Mathematical Association of America, which is the more teaching-oriented of the two professional societies for mathematics in the US. On the other hand, there are three selective MAA journals, and of these the MONTHLY is by far the most "serious". Long story short: many roads lead to them, and they are forced to be very selective indeed in what they publish, although they select for different things than a top research journal.)
I had another experience in which the final editorial acceptance in a prestigious journal was made conditional on the submission of a new draft containing less "pompous language".
More typically the copyediting and formatting is either left to the authors themselves or done by an employee of the publishing company (who in many cases does this for papers in multiple academic disciplines and thus cannot have high-level subject area knowledge most of the time). In the end **both the authors and the publisher have the final say**: both parties must approve the final draft in order for it to published, and the documentation of this mutual approval is the publication contract.
Of course in practice this mutual approval is done in an asymmetric way between the parties: the publisher sends you a form in which everything has been spelled out in advance, in the pushy manner of big corporations everywhere. But if there are clauses in the contract that the authors have a problem with, they are certainly entitled to ask, and in my experience some minor "concessions" (i.e., changes to the boilerplate agreement) are often made by the publisher. A big part of the asymmetry is that the authors generally have a much larger stake in the publication of the paper than the publisher does, so insisting that one be able to refer to a paper in the bibliography by [Cl14] rather than [3] or one will take one's wares elsewhere looks like a strange arrangement of priorities, but if you really do feel strongly about it you are entitled to ask and who knows -- maybe you'll get your way. Asking them to mess with aspects of the typesetting that are part of the journal's standard style seems less kosher to me: one would reasonably expect the journal to want to keep its standard style, and if this was really important to you, you should probably have brought it up earlier.
Making sure that one really does send in the copyright form last of all is a good tip. I stumbled on this point recently when dealing with one of the world's largest scientific publishing companies. They kept doing something weird in the proofs, I kept pointing out their mistakes and though I took pains to indicate in every correspondence that I was not giving my final approval, after a few go-rounds they didn't get back to me, and eventually I noticed that the paper was published online...still with one strange typesetting mistake that was not in the version I sent to them. Next time I'll save the copyright form until the end.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> If a journal is willing to publish your submitted manuscript "as is", can you prevent them? Clearly if they want you to make changes you have the right to say no, but once the manuscript is accepted can you really withdraw it against the publisher's wish?
>
>
>
You can withdraw a manuscript at any time unless it is officially published (usually on-line). I cannot see that any journal could stop you from doing so and signing copyright forms should not cause problems since those forms usually concern the work done by the publisher to get the manuscript into publishable form. By this I mean copy-editing and type-setting and not generally the review process. Exactly what is covered by the agreement must be checked in each individual case (journal/publisher).
The fact that you can withdraw a manuscript does not mean it is necessarily a frictionless process. A case such as this falls outside of legal terms and into the ethical realm where you can do whatever you legally can or want but it may not reflect very positively on yourself. To withdraw a manuscript from a journal that has put in a lot of efforts, including, most likely, non-paid reviewers and scientific editors, with the excuse that you want to go for a higher ranking journal seems at least morally wrong. You should have thought about that much earlier.
>
> Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?
>
>
>
The journal will likely have rules for how things should look and be expressed. You have the opportunity to agree or disagree with any changes the journal makes, through its copy-editing and type-setting. However, when it comes to journal style, it supersedes your own views and an editor also has the right to remove material that can be considered offensive, rude or unethical in some way. The latter is to protect the journal reputation. Hence, you cannot expect your view to be final in such extreme cases.
Despite what I have just said, there are of course overzealous editors who do not know where to draw the lines. So because human interaction is involved also in publishing, all may not happen as you expect it but usually such circumstances in the extreme are exceptions.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/01 | 1,977 | 8,680 | <issue_start>username_0: You submit a manuscript to journal A. The paper is rejected, either with a short dismissal ("not good enough for this journal") or with a longer rebuttal from the referees. You wish to resubmit it to a different journal B.
**Should you inform the editor at B of the previous rejection?**
What is ethically correct? What do people do in the real world?
Possible arguments in favor:
1. It is important information regarding the manuscript, you shouldn't withhold it.
2. In this way the editor at B can contact the editor at journal A to solicit an opinion from the same referees, who already know the paper and are in a better position to give a report.
3. It is not honest to submit and resubmit the same paper at different venues until you are lucky enough to get better-inclined reviewers; mentioning all previous history is needed to expose this practice.
Possible arguments against:
1. The editor at B will perceive what has happened as an indication that you consider journal B to be lower-tier than A, and possibly get offended (and biased against publication).
2. If the information gets to the referees, they might be negatively influenced, too.
3. Ultimately, is it fair that the previous referees are brought into the picture again, or should you start with a clean slate and new reviewers?
4. It feels silly to write "we got a negative report with no suggestions for changes, so we are sending the exact same manuscript at you with minor modifications".
The arguments against look weaker in my view, because they all imply a bias that "perfect" editors and reviewers should not have.<issue_comment>username_1: You should **not** mention previous rejections. You **should** definitely revise and take into consideration the comments from the reviewers in Journal A.
I think it would be silly to simply resubmit the identical article at a different journal (unless it is the case mentioned below by @user11192 that you received a rejection with NO feedback), and if you are submitting a revised article then the critiques of the previous reviewer are no longer relevant!
Of course, if you are resubmitting, then you believe that your work is an original contribution. If the journal A reviewer simply didn't like your writing style or you didn't effectively communicate your work, then resubmitting is quite common. If the journal A reviewer pointed out that your work was unoriginal and had been published previously by someone else, then it is simply unethical to attempt to re-submit. In the more subtle case that the first reviewer felt that your contribution was not "substantial" enough, then you still want to revise, and may just end up changing your introduction/motivation more than your core work.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Regarding your arguments for: 1. and 3. seem to be more like "axioms" than arguments. 1. in particular seems almost to be begging the question. As for 3., journals have (increasingly!) long lists of requirements for authors, some of them serious but also others that those "in the know" know that they may safely ignore: e.g. many journals ask that you submit papers *in their own template*, but there's no good reason for that, most papers that I've written or refereed do not do that, and no one cares. So the negation of 3. seems more reasonable to me: if journals wanted you to provide this information, they would ask for it. (Maybe you are trying to argue that they *should* ask for it. Interesting, but a different question, I think.)
Argument 2. is much more pertinent: if the referee's careful opinion is that your paper is valuable and deserves to be published in a research journal but just not in the journal that you have submitted to, one can indeed save a lot of people's time by carrying over the same referee to a different journal. If you want to do this, it seems best to ask the editor of journal A to get in touch with journal B. I've done this both as an author and as the carry-over referee.
But this is an option that the author gets to choose to exercise or not. In terms of the current practices, this is certainly true and I don't think anyone expects otherwise. Again, it is interesting to argue about whether it *should* be true....and yes, I think it should. The refereeing system is not strong on incorporating "responses to referees": when authors write back to the editors pointing out factual mistakes in a referee report, they are often told something like "I am inclined to believe you and that is most regrettable. You should definitely resubmit your paper to another journal of similar stature. Best of luck." Very often the referee acts not only as the jury but also the judge and the executioner in the current system. But for a paper whose work is agreed to be correct and novel -- or for which this evaluation was not even made -- then fundamentally, "not good enough for a journal like X" is nothing but an **informed opinion**. If that opinion is a sound one, a different referee will probably come to it independently. If it isn't, then I think the author has every right to start out fresh.
Let me also say that as a frequent referee, I do not feel the desire to know the provenance of the paper, and I don't think that would help me with my decision. I already have what I think is probably too much information at my disposal: namely the author's identity and thus their professional reputation, my personal view of them, and so forth. Being a good referee doesn't mean taking all possible information into account; it means taking exactly the right information into account to evaluate the paper on its own merits.
In the course of arguing against the "arguments for", it seems that I have espoused some of the arguments against: 2. and 3. I hope these arguments have been shown to be more convincing. (Arguments against 1. and 4. do not seem very compelling to me.)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Many journals ask for information on previous submissions their electronic submission systems along with asking if the manuscript *is* under consideration elsewhere. The fact that some journals have rejection rates way in excess of 50% means that rejections are not necessarily terrible and down-grading your work. Part of rejections are also because the material may not be suitable for the journal in question, which involves no judgement of the quality of your science.
So, if your paper has been rejected as not suitable for the intended journal or some other technical reason, I see no reason to mention this at a resubmission. You made a mistake, full stop.
If the paper has been rejected for some scientific reason, particularly if it has been through review I think mentioning the history is worthwhile. There is of course no law that states you must.
The importance of mentioning the history of a paper is not so much to convey its rejection but to provide the editor with information on why it was rejected and what you took away from this to improve your manuscript. I very much doubt editors will contact other editors to check on previous submissions, none of the parties typically have the time to spare. Instead it is your description of why you think the manuscript should be published, the value of your science, and how you have improved it which is of use to an editor.
I have found out by accidentally assigning the same reviewers to manuscripts, submitted as new, that they have been considered elsewhere. As an editor, this raises a warning flag for me: "is the manuscript so poor/controversial/other that the author wants to hide its past"? The fact that people prefer to send material to certain journals before others is known to most of us. Editors are usually scientists that make the same choices, except perhaps to send it to their own journal.
I therefore think that being open about the problems can help. Of course,if your manuscript is poor, it just is; but if it can and has been improved, rejection by another journal should not stand in your way to get it published elsewhere.
Regarding reviewers, there are two form of replies I usually get when accidentally assigning the same reviewer as for a previous submission: (1) don't want to touch it again, or (2) want to see how it has been improved. The fact that a manuscript was rejected does not mean reviewers were dead against its content. Or, perhaps, some where but for reasons disguised as scientific. I therefore think it is also useful to know something about the previous process when a paper is resubmitted. the place for this is in the accompanying submission letter. Just make it brief but clear.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/02 | 1,225 | 5,422 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD Student & started my research few months ago. My research involves creating a predictive model for protein-drug interaction using soft computing techniques .The topic was given to me by my supervisor and was *not* my choice.
The problem is, I am a computer science student and have no idea about drugs or proteins or their interaction. My knowledge about the topic is completely zero. While I have read literature, I find the concept very difficult to understand. I find it difficult to search for technical papers of my interest. I would also like to mention that I have absolutely NO help from my supervisor, who also has no idea about the topic, despite being the one who told me to work on the topic.
Now I need to start with my coursework and it includes topics like drug-protein interaction and soft computing techniques. And, I have seriously no clue to how to go about my coursework. I don't know what topics should be included in the course work. My supervisor has just left me with the names of the coursework that's it. I do not know from where to start, exactly what to start and how to start. The days are just passing by and I have time constraints to present the same at the institute level. I am just going crazy thinking about it day by day and don't know where will I land up at the end. I don't want to leave PhD to whatever happens. My sincere request to you is to suggest something and help me out with it or anybody please suggest to me how to proceed.<issue_comment>username_1: I think it is reasonable that your coursework follows your research. As I see it, the issue is that you are not interested in your present topic, to that I would suggest to talk to your advisor, especially if he seems so uninterested as you claim. In the extreme case you could try and switch advisors.
I find it hard to believe that you are "forced" to research a specific topic, i.e. there are very few situations I can think of that possibility (e.g. a industry pays your PhD to research something of their interest).
As a personal opinion, and off-topic to this site, I find that protein modeling is a very broad and useful topic in CS with a great future. So, if you could manage to beat the learning curve, I imagine that your career would benefit.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It is completely normal to be floundering early on in your research, and to feel panicked. You wouldn't have chosen this topic, but ask yourself this: If I woke up tomorrow knowing what I needed to know to do this research, would the topic interest me? If not, perhaps you should change topics. For what it's worth, I think it sounds like a very interesting topic. You don't need to become a biochemist; you only need to learn enough to write a simulation of some aspect of the problem.
When I need to learn the basics of a completely unfamiliar topic, I don't *start* with journal articles. I search the web for educational materials, something targeted toward undergraduates. At this point I'm trying to learn the basic terminology and concepts. I also look for online discussion forums where I might ask questions. I then read Wikipedia (which will have links to useful journal articles) and Scholarpedia. Once I start to understand some basic concepts, then I try to read journal articles. I'll probably discover more gaps in my knowledge; I go back to the web for basic info in those areas.
Your supervisor isn't helping you. That's something to be concerned about. Could it be that he or she is leaving you alone temporarily to see what you can accomplish on your own, pushing you to become more self-reliant? Or do you think your supervisor tends to ignore her PhD students? Talk to her other students, especially those who are a little further along in their research, to get an idea of her style. If you don't think you are compatible, a change of advisors is probably best.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm going to be a bit more harsh than the current answers, and ask whether you knew what you were getting yourself into when you signed up for a multidisciplinary graduate program. What you describe is very common in such programs; you enter with significant knowledge in one field (e.g., comp sci), almost no knowledge in another (e.g., biology), and your task is to familiarize yourself with both to the extent that you can perform academic-level research that straddles both fields. Anecdotally, I went through a biomedical engineering PhD program, and *every single student* who went through the program experienced some degree of what you are describing. Without knowing specifics, your advisor is likely not responding because they take it for granted that you will learn to cope the same way that all his other students do.
The solution is simply to start at the beginning and take it from there. Clearly, you won't find help from your advisor, but there are many other resources. Find other students in a similar situation and create a study group. Talk to the TA. Use online materials and forums. If the course is simply too advanced, drop it for now and take (audit?) a lower-level (undergraduate?) course first. I know many students who did this. They ended up fine.
You will likely encounter a similar situation many times, where you need to familiarize yourself with a brand-new field, and this is a fine time to figure out how to do it.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/06/02 | 1,067 | 4,551 | <issue_start>username_0: Here's my story:
I study computer science. When I started my master's degree, I had good research ideas and I wanted to publish them immideately (I now realize being in a hurry is the worst thing I did myself in my educational life).
My thesis advisor is a perfectionist. His philosophy is *all or nothing*. Therefore, he ignored my immature works and told me to get ready for my thesis only. He said that my thesis topic is one of the hottest topics in area and possible contributions to that topic would be huge improvement in my academic career.
But again, I was dissatisfied. So, with the ratification of my advisor, I published two conference papers with another professor. One is in [ICCAE '12](http://www.iccae.org/) and the other one is in [ICKD '13](http://www.ickd.org/). Those are not so good conferences, but still they are not in [Beall's List](http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/).
Now, me and my advisor are writing a paper to submit a top conference.
Here's my question: Those publications are not a bit of scientific publications. They are barely at a level of senior project. When I'm applying to PhD, should I put those two publications in my CV or not? The acceptance notification of the conference is due to July. Until then, is it better to have no publications or two bad publications in my CV?<issue_comment>username_1: In most fields, expectations of publications are very small when applying for a PhD position. What the committee will be looking at is your writing. In most cases, they will have only the thesis to study but in your case, you will also have a few publications, including the one for the "good" conference. The benefit of all of these is that they show you have been active and pursued publishing your results. That the first publications may not be strong will not surprise most, after all one of the main goals of a PhD is to provide the background to be an independent researcher and *publish*.
You may be in a dilemma if your papers are of disputable quality since avoiding to list them may, if found out, look like you are trying to hide them; regardless of your original intent.
To take this a step further: I think that adding comments on papers you think can reflect negatively on yourself can turn a negative to a positive. The reason is that you can show that you have progressed in your thinking to a point where you can be self-critical. This means that the comments you make have to be insightful and not just a list of excuses, in fact avoid excuses at all costs and provide good arguments showing your new insights.
So, think about how you can use your experiences (good or bad) in a positive way to show your capacity as a budding scientist. We all make mistakes, but not all learn from them.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It is not unheard of for undergraduate and MSc students to publish in "predatory" journals and conferences. I have a related question from the other side of the table: [Value of light-to-none peer reviewed pay-to-publish articles](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7908/value-of-light-to-none-peer-reviewed-pay-to-publish-articles)
that is asking about how to evaluate students with these types of publications. I think the answers are pretty clear that there really isn't a problem with students who have previously published in low quality places or low quality work. It is possible that multiple low quality publications might cause a potential adviser to have concerns about future goals and your understanding of the system, but these can likely be easily addressed in your cover letter.
The question of whether undergrads should publish weak research has also been addressed: [For undergraduates, is publishing "weak" research better than not publishing?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9181/for-undergraduates-is-publishing-weak-research-better-than-not-publishing?lq=1) and the general consensus seems to be that between having no publications or a low quality publication, having a low quality publication is generally no worse.
To then get to the heart of your question given someone has some low quality publications should he attempt to deceive a potential supervisor by "hiding" the publications, the answer seems to be pretty clear: NO. There is little downside and potential upside of including the low quality publications on your CV. A potential supervisor thinking that an applicant is attempting to deceive the supervisor has a clear and huge downside.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/06/02 | 1,321 | 5,632 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm a student enrolled in an university in Italy. I'm currently taking a course on probability theory, but the way is it taught is, whilst very good, not very thorough; I mean that in class some of the most difficult part are skipped. As such, I'm studying those part on the book by myself. Since this is a completely new topic for me, I often wonder if I'm understanding the proofs correctly, and if I'm able to correctly apply the theorems.
For this reason I sent an email to my professor, kindly asking to review a short proof (that I've written in latex, so it was pretty and all) specifying that I wasn't sure if all the operations and the theorems employed were indeed well used. The professor did not answer my mail.
My question is, was I wrong with sending the email in the first place? Is it bad etiquette to do so? I especially don't want to appear like some sort of "smart aleck" or anything, I am honestly trying to understand the topic. Of course I don't mind that the professor didn't reply, I know he must be pretty busy. On the other hand, I also have the feeling that if I can't get any feedback I may as well study the books by myself. What is even the point of being enrolled in the university then?
I hope someone with experience (maybe a professor!) can share their thoughts.<issue_comment>username_1: Being a mathematician in the U.S., from my perspective it is entirely reasonable to send (nicely typeset) questions to one's professor. I always respond to my students' email questions. In fact, I respond to polite emails from people I've not met, if the email seems to be addressed to me specifically (as opposed to a mass emailing) and not machine-generated (spam...) and concerning mathematics that I'd be assumed to have an expert opinion about. After all, wouldn't this be a natural way for the scholarly community to operate?
Still, yes, it is true that if one is trying to absolutely optimize *status*, engaging in any not-status-enhancing activity would be pointless at best. It's not surprising when people thinking that way ignore anyone who can't add to their status.
In summary, email questions as you describe are entirely reasonable, and not at all impolite. At the same time, depending on the recipient, it is also entirely unsurprising that they'd ignore you, unfortunately.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: As @paulgarrett has said, there's nothing wrong with sending this sort of email, and (one hopes) many professors will be pleased that a student is showing more initiative than the average.
However, from the professor's perspective: unless the answer is "Yes, that's exactly correct", or "No, you clearly haven't understood the first thing about this course", providing a helpful answer can be quite time-consuming. Explaining why your proof is not *quite* right may require material that's outside the scope of your current course; it may also require the professor to sit down and produce a lengthy response. Sometimes, there are also nuances of "it's not exactly *wrong*, but it's not entirely *right* either" that are difficult to translate into written form.
Thus, it's all too easy to put this sort of question to one side, with good intentions of replying later that never quite come to fruition. I suggest the best strategy, assuming you've given the professor a reasonable amount of time to respond, is to go see the professor in person (perhaps during his office hours, or after a lecture), and (politely) ask if he's had a chance to look at the proof you sent. Take a print-out with you. You will at least get a better sense of whether **this** professor welcomes your questions or not.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I agree with the answers posted so far, but yet wanted to add another view of sight. It is neither bad etiquette nor wrong to ask these questions.
From my personal experience while being a student and later working on a PhD I can tell, that professors tend to be very busy throughout the whole year. E-Mails sometimes remain unread for quite some time. The best way to approach your teacher is probably after class, so he can put a face to the name. He might then tell you, that it is inconvenient at the moment, refer to a tutor or teaching assistant or maybe schedule a separate meeting. Some of my teachers also took this kind of response as a means to discuss it later in class, if there is enough time.
When I was a PhD student my supervisor referred some students to me in order to help them unpuzzle their questions, since he has had no time to efficiently take care about them. I do also consider this a nice practice.
I have met quite a number of lecturers and almost all of them were very happy if they receive any kind of feedback. Most of them came also to the conclusion, that a personal talk is more fruitful, since this would answer some of their questions, too.
In conclusion, your teacher might not have read your e-mail and I think it is appropriate if you try to meet him after class and ask him about that.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I think asking the question is totally fine, but keep in mind that you’re asking for a significant amount of work that they hadn’t planned into their schedule, and it’s entirely reasonable for them not to do it. Replying is nicer, but these kind of emails that require too much work to reply to immediately and which aren’t urgent are easily forgotten.
One thing your professor does already have in their schedule is office hours. Show up to office hours and ask if you can explain your proof there on the board.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/06/02 | 675 | 3,131 | <issue_start>username_0: I've never given any sort of presentation at a conference before, but I was under the impression that poster presentations are less prestigious and also much easier to get accepted.
I submitted a late abstract in the second round call for "late breaking" posters. I will hear back supposedly by the end of the week whether the abstract has been accepted or rejected.
The abstract is definitely on-topic for the conference (it's a very large, general applied math conference with multiple sessions in various subfields, but the poster session is for all applied math fields). My PI/advisor is very well-known within my field. We worked on the project together, although I would be the one presenting the poster if it gets accepted. She read over the abstract and helped make corrections/suggestions as well.
Just wondering generally how often a poster presentation would be rejected in this case.<issue_comment>username_1: It depends on the conference and the field. Some conferences have limited space for posters and there is plenty of submissions for those slots, so some percentage are rejected. Other conference have space for all submitted posters.
Mainly, you should view posters as opportunities to meet other researchers, and to practice your skills in presenting your research and answering questions. It also often is a requirement to get school or department funding to pay for your conference expenses.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In my field it is rare for a competent poster abstract to be rejected. There are only so many places for talks, so that can be selective. I sometimes prefer to present certain pieces of work as a poster because the opportunities for discussion are better, and it allows my students to talk about their work instead of having me do it. Posters are not automatically considered bad.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: In my field (Electrical Engineering), poster and oral presentations are usually accompanied by a full paper submission (or atleast an extended abstract) which is what is peer-reviewed, so the acceptance ratio of posters would be the same as that of the oral presentations.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I guess it really depends on your field and your conference organizer.
As a poster reviewer, I did reject some posters (around 2%), but they were really poorly written (I can't understand their English), the study did not make sense (poor methodology) or it is totally irrelevant to the conference theme. While it may seem the rejection rate is low, remember that usually people who submit poster are graduate student with their supervisors as second author, so there are some quality control before they are submitted for review, and that could partly be the reason why most poster got accepted. After all, poster is more like preliminary finding sharings and conference is for exchange of ideas, as long as the idea make sense, I see no reason to reject them.
But I heard some conference is really just a business and they got their money from people presenting poster, so they may accept anything...
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/06/02 | 863 | 3,721 | <issue_start>username_0: I was wondering what it really matters for a university to climb in the university rankings, for example in Science fields such as Mathematics, Physics or Computer Science?
I found that there are the following different services to let people know about lecturer's research in a Faculty:
* Google Scholar, I believe that one can put here even articles not peer-reviewed
* Scopus, the service indexed by Elsevier
* WebofScience, I have not used directly, but I believe is somewhat like Scopus
But I believe that services like Google Scholar are like arXiv, in the way that one can put a link to any research paper that one has made irrelevant if it was a good conference or not.
It is not better to aim to conferences that would be indexed in Scopus, DBLP, or that will use Scimago to raise the score of an institucion?
So what is the recommendation in these cases, to try that the papers are indexed in well known sites or a new faculty should only aim to have web presence?<issue_comment>username_1: As ff254 correctly mentions, you are asking two different questions. "Climbing the rankings" is sort of a science of its own, and making your research be more visible to the outside is only a very minor part of it. I am not an expert on ranking optimization (I am happy to say that university rankings are not particularly relevant where I work), but if you really want to noticeably improve the ranking of your faculty, serious money and management commitment will be required (and better consulting than is available in an Internet forum).
Now, assuming that you are really more interested in making your faculty internationally more well-known. I sort of disagree with Simmy that ResearchGate is a good vehicle to achieve this goal. At least in my community, ResearchGate is not considered a "serious" source at all. Nobody goes to ResearchGate to discover new researchers (and the technical Q&A forum there is a joke). People go to *conferences* to meet up and coming as well as established researchers. That is, if you as a new faculty want to improve your international visibility, you should:
* Produce excellent research. This should be obvious, but having a bunch of mediocre papers listed in Scopus or DBLP will not make you stand out. One top paper will.
* Go to as many reasonable conferences as you can. Skip on the spam ones (no interesting people will be there and publishing there will not help you in any way), but even smaller conferences usually have a lot of interesting professors in attendance. Definitely go to whatever the big conference in your field is, even if you do not have a paper to present.
* Socialise. Don't be the person that just works all day in a silent corner of the conference room. Your task at the conference is not to write the next paper, but to get in touch with other researchers.
* Have a nice-looking web page. Publish all your papers as preprints there. Plus points if you do nice write-ups of your published or ongoing research in a recurring blog.
* (In some communities) have a Twitter account, and follow the big wigs and engage in discussions if appropriate.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: In terms of trying to increase ranking, there are ways to do it, but they're somewhat tangental to research visibility.
Informally, from talking to the people who worry about things like that, the easiest way to increase your ranking, like the easiest way to increase your journal's impact factor, is to realize that all rankings are algorithms that can be gamed. Pick *an aspect* of the ranking and maximize that.
For rankings based on peer surveys, this is somewhat more difficult, and is going to be a rather long slog.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/03 | 1,464 | 6,395 | <issue_start>username_0: According to the de facto standard book for typography, [The Elements of Typographic Style](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0881791326), when we write abbreviations with 2 or more letters like SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope), small cap should be used and in LaTeX this would be `\textsc{sem}`.
Another case are old style numerals. When we write Arabic numerals in the passage, according to the book, old style numerals should be used and in LaTeX this would be `\oldstylenums{1234567890}`. I know mathematical equations or numerals in a table should not use old style numerals as they are considered standalone and do not disturb the flow of passage.
For me, I have never seen any publications with small cap abbreviations and old style numerals, and this seems to go against the typographic style suggested. The author of [The Elements of Typographic Style](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0881791326) said actually there is no rigid rule for typography when we aware we are breaking it. **So my question is why are small cap abbreviations and old style numerals not used in technical writing when they appear on the passage? Why are these rules are broken in technical writing?**
**EDIT:**
The papers I usually read are from natural science like physics, chemistry and biology without computational nature. It seems to me the use of small cap and old style numerals is very rare in these fields.<issue_comment>username_1: The answer lies in a combination of technology and efficiency. In the old days when all was typeset "by hand" and not electronically, switching between Roman numerals and old style ones was not difficult. When electronic publishing became available, typography as a whole was ruined because everyone thought they now could make professional looking typography on their own personal computer and laserwriter. For a long time the digital typefaces did not include old style numbers because the character sets were too small to include those (E.g. [PostScript Type 1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript_fonts)) but now with the [unicode](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode) standard, much more is included in a single type face. Thus, for a long time one had to switch from one type face to another to include these effects. In LaTeX, this was a little easier as you point out than in, say, Word.
The use of old style numerals was thus partly lost through the "digital revolution" but I also think it was lost because they simply went out of fashion. As with everything else typography and ideas within typography changes over time. I am not sure that the loss is entirely due to the introduction of digital tools but this introduction was a sort of final "stab in the back" from which it is hard to recover. In fact we are still seeing the effects of the PC in many publications since everyone is now the typographer without knowing much about the trade.
So to cap off, in the scientific publishing world, where speed is a key ingredient, attention to these details have simply not been considered as worth the time. One therefore must look at publications with more aesthetic goals to find fine typography.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Without any evidence to back it up, my guess is that people don't know it, so they don't use it. As a consequence, it becomes a *de facto* standard of the field not to use them.
One would expect editors to at least be aware of this rules, but if they are not experts in typesetting, or don't personally like some of the rules, they may not be interested in enforcing them.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: **There are actually good reasons to break the general typographical rules and use uppercase numerals in technical writing.**
In usual texts, uppercase numerals are considered ugly or negatively affecting the readability as they form one block without ascenders or decenders and as they stand out from the text and are more difficult to read (for the same reasons that all-caps are more difficult to read). However, the properties of uppercase numbers are often desirable in technical writing:
* You may actually want numbers to stand out.
* In a formula, you usually want a number consisting of more than one numeral to be perceived as one element at first. For example:
>
> *x* = 1234 + 5678
>
>
>
Here the first thing you want the reader to see is that *x* is the sum of two numbers and not the exact values of these numbers (which would be more emphasised with lowercase numerals). Also, from a readability’s point of view, most formulas are a chaotic mess – using lowercase numerals would only add to this.
* There are several mathematical notations that do not mix well with lowercase numerals, such as indicating repeating digits in a decimal fraction with a bar above the number.
* You usually would not want to use lowercase numerals for super- and subscripts, as it makes it more difficult to recognise whether something is a super- or supscript or not. (Note that this is not the same as for lowercase letters, as they are easier to distinguish from their uppercase counterparts and exceptions, such as the letter *o,* are usually not used as variables for that very reason.)
* Using lowercase numerals for axis tics would make them optically less regular and thus be more emphasised, which is usually not what you want.
* In tables, uppercase numerals help outlining the rows, while lowercase numerals obfuscate the structure. (On the other hand, lowercase numerals may make some aspects of the data easier to recognise.)
While you could use uppercase numerals for tables and figure legends specifically, there is a gray zone between
* formulas in which lowercase numerals do not work well
* formulas in which lowercase numerals are no problem
* just numbers.
Therefore using lowercase numbers not at all or only in a few special cases like page numbers or affiliations is arguably the only way to achieve consistency.
A similar thing applies to super- and subscripts: While in normal writing no consistency issues arise, as a super- and subscripted numbers is always super- or subscripted, the semantically same number often appears in normal size as well as super- or subcripted in technical writing. Therefore using uppercase numerals only has a larger impact on consistency than in normal writing.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/06/03 | 869 | 3,513 | <issue_start>username_0: While writing the literature review for my paper, I found another paper which is closely related to my research. Unfortunately, the paper’s publisher is on [Beall’s List](http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/). Hence, I wonder if citing the paper will have any negative impact on my paper.<issue_comment>username_1: As said in the comments: Read the paper and decide on the ground of the content of the paper and not by the reputation of the journal. Don't get me wrong - I do not support predatory or fake journals in any way. But it happens frequently that "quality of the paper" and "quality of the journal" (both understood in a vague sense) do not match. Good journals sometimes publish not-so-good papers and also it may be that the authors of the journal you mention simply were not aware of the listing in Beall's list.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Do not think about the journal where the paper comes from. Just forget about it for a while.
Now, read the paper. Even better, be a reviewer for that paper. Evaluate it. Is it a good related work for you? Is it a not-so-good related work, so that you can criticize it? Does it help you to build some hypotheses, etc.? Then, just cite it. Otherwise, don't.
This is what you are supposed to do as a researcher. Build on top of other's work.
Bad papers are in every kind of journal. Good papers are, as well.
Beall's list is useful up to a certain point but it has got limitations. One of which, it is a one-man's work. I do not want to criticize the list here because it does not even matter how good that list is. Be your own judge for the work you cite. Where the paper comes from is, in my opinion, the least of the issues you could ever encounter.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Journals get listed there for various reasons, and there is off course a subjectivity factor. One of Beall's pet peeve is aggressive marketing strategy, which is indeed annoying and suspicious, but has also been frequently used by established publishing groups. Check whether there is a [post](http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/02/24/world-science-publisher-a-serials-crisis/) that describes *why* this particular journal/publisher is on his list (in this case the post is outdated and does not point out major misconduct).
While the presence of a journal on Beall's list does not in itself mean that the work you read is of bad quality, a lot of the 'journals' listed there have **no peer review** and **no editorial process whatsoever**. Most of these 'journals' will publish *anything*.
Which means that the burden of judging quality is on the reader only, as the other answers pointed out, but also that there are [frequent cases of plagiarism](http://scholarlyoa.com/category/plagiarism-2/). Chance are that the original content has been published somewhere else before, on a preprint server, or a university website as part of a dissertation, or even in a legitimate academic journal. Therefore, if I where you, I would google chunks of the text and make sure that you cite the original version.
Now, from an ethical point of view, a majority of the journals listed by Beall have as business model to pray on the necessity for researchers to have long lists of publications to raise their chances of getting funded or awarded tenure. Citing these, in a way, encourages that sort of behavior, which I personally find harmful to science, dishonest towards funding agencies and taxpayers, and unethical.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/03 | 1,534 | 6,789 | <issue_start>username_0: I teach all of the writing courses for one of my college's STEM department. Occasionally, students bring me questions related to their field, e.g. they are doing some project for another course and they want to know what tools I used for a similar real-world project I did before.
* If I help the students (which would amount to suggesting some books, tools, Web sites), perhaps the department will feel I am interfering in matters where I should not, as this is not my teaching area.
* If I turn away the students, perhaps the department or (students themselves) will feel I am not committed to serving the students.
What is the accepted procedure for such a situation?<issue_comment>username_1: There's no shame in saying you're not an expert in their domain specific knowledge. It's more important to know your limitations than to give advice you're not directly qualified to give. Direct them to a professor in that specific field.
If you feel you have sufficient experience to give (at least) a starting point, by all means share it with them. Just always make sure that you are clear about the limitations of your expertise.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: As an undergrad, in my first year I had a great professor that was very good at explaining almost everything. For many students, he became another resource to solve doubts and get help, specially for those subjects where the lecturer was not so clear. If you asked him politely, he would gladly help if he knew the answer. I will always remember him as one of the best contributors to my education.
For some of his comments, I imagine he may have had problems with some other member of faculty. So he changed his policy: whenever he explained anything from another subject, he would close the door. Being realistic, anyone complaining because you are sharing knowledge of their domain, will probably have a bad attitude to many things. Whatever you do, something will upset them.
The only drawback of free help is that takes time from you. If this becomes a problem, you can just ask the students to come at another time because you are busy at the moment. You are doing them a favour, and they will not have any problem with it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I think there should be **no problem** as long as the **question can be framed *so that it is in the scope of your subject*** (even if the project that "produced" the question is not directly related).
This should ideally be done by the student, while asking the question, but if there is an obvious part of the question related to your subject, it would be okay to gently push your answer in that direction.
You said you do a writing class, so for me, these would be good examples of viable questions (independent of the concrete project related to those questions):
* Questions about writing tools (like LaTeX). If the student wants to know pros and cons of learning a new tool *in context* of a specific project, that is a valid question (as long as it was not explicitly covered in class). Even if it was covered during the lessons, a discussion based on a concrete example can be very useful.
* Questions about best presentation of data: given a great amount of raw data, what would be the best way to present it? (graph, table, raw format, just description) If the student comes with the concrete data, he probably has either some ideas or some doubts about what representation to use.
* Tools for analyzing or representing data. Again, no matter where the data came from, if there are some commonly used analysis tools (in the wide area), or representation tools, the question is related to the writing up the idea / project results, more than the project itself.
* Questions about general structure of the piece of writing. Sometimes the content of the work makes the most common practice not applicable, or some other structure simply better.
For example, one of my articles has the *Related work* as a second-to-last section, because it simply didn't fit in naturally at it's "usual" second paragraph place. The discussion with my supervisors help clarify that and *why* it was okay.
Basically, any questions where you are the best suited to answer, independent of where the question comes from, is not misplaced. Those kinds of questions show that the students are applying and synthesizing their knowledge, and *looking at it from a different (not-required) perspective*, which is a good thing. (If I ever was in that kind of situation,) those questions would make me proud of my teaching since it meant the students are applying what I taught them "outside the box" I gave them.
Of course, if it is not that kind of question, there is nothing wrong in turning the student away, perhaps pointing him to the right person to talk to. Simply saying that there are people who are better suited to answer their questions, while making it clear that you would be more than happy to help within your area of expertise, should be enough.
Students that you are directly responsible for (i.e. your supervisees) might be a different story, but that might be out of the scope of this question :)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In my opinion, if you are not time constrained and have the expertise, by all means, help the student.
I am a math tutor in a local high school, and often a student will walk in with a science book to ask a question. If it's something I can answer, I'm happy to help. No science teacher would be offended, although they might be surprised as human nature is to pass the buck.
In general, it's great that a student looks up to you and values your advice. I'd just accept that and be glad to help.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: The whole purpose of having students at a university is for them to learn things. Your university cannot reasonably object to you teaching the students things solely on the grounds that it was somebody else's job to teach them those things.
They could object on other grounds, such as you giving bad advice or spending so much time on this that you're not doing your own job properly but, as long as you guard against that, what real problem could there be?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: One of the best ways for a university professor to aid a student's learning is to point them where they themselves could discover such tools.
Additionally, you could point them in the direction of your SME colleagues, experts in topics outside of the scope of your expertise.
Lastly, to maximize your likely full schedule, helping students identify resources could be something you provide to them as a group during advisor hours. Schedule a group resources time during your office hours so that you don't get overtaxed time wise.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/03 | 1,484 | 6,564 | <issue_start>username_0: As a master's student in computer science, I would really like to go for a PhD at a good CS department. However until now, I have no publications and really have no idea how to start research. I'm interested in many subjects but I have not yet been able to narrow down the choice to a specific one. For someone like me who just began his or her master's studies and wants to plan for a PhD, what is the real number one priority besides a good GPA?<issue_comment>username_1: There's no shame in saying you're not an expert in their domain specific knowledge. It's more important to know your limitations than to give advice you're not directly qualified to give. Direct them to a professor in that specific field.
If you feel you have sufficient experience to give (at least) a starting point, by all means share it with them. Just always make sure that you are clear about the limitations of your expertise.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: As an undergrad, in my first year I had a great professor that was very good at explaining almost everything. For many students, he became another resource to solve doubts and get help, specially for those subjects where the lecturer was not so clear. If you asked him politely, he would gladly help if he knew the answer. I will always remember him as one of the best contributors to my education.
For some of his comments, I imagine he may have had problems with some other member of faculty. So he changed his policy: whenever he explained anything from another subject, he would close the door. Being realistic, anyone complaining because you are sharing knowledge of their domain, will probably have a bad attitude to many things. Whatever you do, something will upset them.
The only drawback of free help is that takes time from you. If this becomes a problem, you can just ask the students to come at another time because you are busy at the moment. You are doing them a favour, and they will not have any problem with it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I think there should be **no problem** as long as the **question can be framed *so that it is in the scope of your subject*** (even if the project that "produced" the question is not directly related).
This should ideally be done by the student, while asking the question, but if there is an obvious part of the question related to your subject, it would be okay to gently push your answer in that direction.
You said you do a writing class, so for me, these would be good examples of viable questions (independent of the concrete project related to those questions):
* Questions about writing tools (like LaTeX). If the student wants to know pros and cons of learning a new tool *in context* of a specific project, that is a valid question (as long as it was not explicitly covered in class). Even if it was covered during the lessons, a discussion based on a concrete example can be very useful.
* Questions about best presentation of data: given a great amount of raw data, what would be the best way to present it? (graph, table, raw format, just description) If the student comes with the concrete data, he probably has either some ideas or some doubts about what representation to use.
* Tools for analyzing or representing data. Again, no matter where the data came from, if there are some commonly used analysis tools (in the wide area), or representation tools, the question is related to the writing up the idea / project results, more than the project itself.
* Questions about general structure of the piece of writing. Sometimes the content of the work makes the most common practice not applicable, or some other structure simply better.
For example, one of my articles has the *Related work* as a second-to-last section, because it simply didn't fit in naturally at it's "usual" second paragraph place. The discussion with my supervisors help clarify that and *why* it was okay.
Basically, any questions where you are the best suited to answer, independent of where the question comes from, is not misplaced. Those kinds of questions show that the students are applying and synthesizing their knowledge, and *looking at it from a different (not-required) perspective*, which is a good thing. (If I ever was in that kind of situation,) those questions would make me proud of my teaching since it meant the students are applying what I taught them "outside the box" I gave them.
Of course, if it is not that kind of question, there is nothing wrong in turning the student away, perhaps pointing him to the right person to talk to. Simply saying that there are people who are better suited to answer their questions, while making it clear that you would be more than happy to help within your area of expertise, should be enough.
Students that you are directly responsible for (i.e. your supervisees) might be a different story, but that might be out of the scope of this question :)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In my opinion, if you are not time constrained and have the expertise, by all means, help the student.
I am a math tutor in a local high school, and often a student will walk in with a science book to ask a question. If it's something I can answer, I'm happy to help. No science teacher would be offended, although they might be surprised as human nature is to pass the buck.
In general, it's great that a student looks up to you and values your advice. I'd just accept that and be glad to help.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: The whole purpose of having students at a university is for them to learn things. Your university cannot reasonably object to you teaching the students things solely on the grounds that it was somebody else's job to teach them those things.
They could object on other grounds, such as you giving bad advice or spending so much time on this that you're not doing your own job properly but, as long as you guard against that, what real problem could there be?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: One of the best ways for a university professor to aid a student's learning is to point them where they themselves could discover such tools.
Additionally, you could point them in the direction of your SME colleagues, experts in topics outside of the scope of your expertise.
Lastly, to maximize your likely full schedule, helping students identify resources could be something you provide to them as a group during advisor hours. Schedule a group resources time during your office hours so that you don't get overtaxed time wise.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/03 | 1,606 | 6,795 | <issue_start>username_0: Suppose you were to find what you think are serious flaws in a preprint (arXiv or something similar). What should you do? Now, after the obvious first step of contacting the authors and letting them know, what should you do if you were basically told off ("thanks for your interest" without addressing any of the technical concerns)?
Were this a regular journal, one might write a letter to the editor, or a comment ([one might go this route even without contacting the authors in the first place](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12774/publishing-a-comment-or-contacting-the-authors-privately)), but how should you deal with preprints, whose contents is in a way still evolving? Would a "comment" paper uploaded to the preprint server not be considered rather aggressive (I don't remember seeing anyone doing this)? **Is there anything one can, or should, do *before* the (eventual) publication of the paper in some peer-reviewed venue?**
Stretching this well into the hypothetical, suppose that one did write a "comment" paper and uploaded it onto the preprint server. Would the authors of the original preprint be ethically obliged to cite this and address the concerns raised therein when submitting to peer-reviewed journals (assuming that they were to submit after being let known of the existence of the comment)?<issue_comment>username_1: There are plenty of papers on arxiv.org titled "Comment on... "
e.g. <http://arxiv.org/abs/0811.3876> (and also some titled "Response to ...") some addressing paper not yet published.
Regarding the last part of your question:pointing errors in a preprint is not rudeness. Ignoring such concerns is rude. A real life story is that of the flaws in two papers of <NAME> found by <NAME> (it seems that at first his private communications were ignored) and that forced Mnev to put a paper on the arxiv.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: You have no need to do anything. By contacting the author, you pointed out what you believe to be a flaw. It could be you are incorrect, it could be that they deal with this in a future version, it could be that they simply don't care. To me, this situation is akin to the following [xkcd comic](http://xkcd.com/386/):
People perform research, good and bad, every day. Once it's published you can feel free to write an article refuting their conclusions, but until then it's just informal academic discussion, and there's nothing you can really do about someone else being wrong.
*Disclaimer: Some disciplines may treat preprints as actual publications, and if so, the preceding does not apply. I do not know of any fields for which this is the case, but then again, there's a lot of things I do not know.*
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: As I understand it, the point of distributing (including posting, as on the arxiv) preprints is that one wants to both speed up and enhance the publicity of their paper and the feedback they get on it. A very common practice is to post preprints on the arxiv, see what kind of reaction you get, and then submit them for publication anywhere from a week to a few months afterwards.
So I think that it is fair to assume that if someone posts a preprint on an electronic server, they are interested in feedback from any interested party. Thus you were being helpful in contacting the authors about what you perceive to be a problem in their work. I think that in most cases, what the authors do with your feedback is their business, up until the point where it becomes submitted -- and you are an editor or a referee -- or published.
In particular, there is no "standard temporal scale" for modifying arxiv preprints: there are some famous examples of papers on the arxiv that have been known to be flawed for years but have not been "withdrawn". I would advise against that, but that's the authors' choice. At what point to make what you regard as less essential changes is really nebulous. To give one brief example, I found a lapse in the exposition of a paper I submitted to the arxiv last month just a few days after submitting it. I really wanted the paper to be understandable to everyone, so I did upload a new copy. More recently I discovered that a result that we attribute to mathematician X was also earlier done by mathematician Y (the two works were independent and use different methods). I certainly want to straighten this out before publication. But I have not yet uploaded a new version of the preprint: it's a judgment call.
Maybe the authors *are* addressing your comments. Maybe they happen to know that they're right and you're wrong. Or maybe neither of you is wrong and you're just not understanding the language in the same way. (I have seen this happen again and again.) It's hard for you to know what the authors are doing, and I wouldn't assume that your criticism hasn't gotten through: a bland acknowledgment of receipt is a pretty good first response to an email like that.
Should you upload a critical arxiv preprint yourself? Probably not, most of the time. Exceptions:
1) The mistake in the author's preprint is specifically detrimental to your own research. For instance if the information that the author's preprint is critically flawed is important to the refereeing of one of your papers, that's a reasonable call to action.
2) If the paper does something extremely important and is getting widespread "public" attention. For instance, if the preprint purports to solve the Riemann Hypothesis, everyone else believes it, but you have identified the flaw, then you'll be doing the community a great service by getting this information out.
These exceptions are fairly exceptional. Even in those cases I would counsel repeated contact with the authors rather than uploading the preprint straight away.
**Important Note**: I fear that my advice may be somewhat field specific. In mathematics, we really don't place a premium on openly critiquing each other: all other things being equal, that's a distinct negative. There are some academic fields where pointing out the flaw (or arguable flaw) in someone else's work is a really good paper of yours.
Finally, you ask if the authors would be ethically obliged to cite your hypothetical preprint. I think this is easy: you are ethically obliged to cite any source that you have specifically and substantively used in the course of doing your work or (especially) that has made you modify your work. So the authors would have to cite your preprint if they respond to it in any way. If their perspective is that your criticism is without merit, they do not need to cite it in their submission and it may in fact be inappropriate to do so.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/03 | 5,103 | 22,443 | <issue_start>username_0: As a graduate student in the PhD program (I will be graduating in about 2 months), my research has covered a wide range of topics rather than nailing down one specific topic (super-specialized). In fact, my thesis is broad enough that my current working title is something along the lines of "Toward the Application of Electronic Structure Theory to Solve Relevant Chemical Problems." (Can it get any more general?) There is nothing informative from that title as it completely leaves out details. The problem is, each paper I've published is its own research focus without any connection to the next outside of the fact that computational chemistry was used for each.
I've read in other places that a thesis topic is critical because it is the basis on which you launch your career. Is it bad to look like a 'jack-of-all-trades' person? There must be a better way to handle this.<issue_comment>username_1: Overly broad topics usually make for unsatisfactory thesis subjects, because it becomes substantially harder to make a significant intellectual contribution in a larger field than in a narrower one. More importantly, it can take much longer to build a "does-it-all" solution.
However, that doesn't mean that your research can't *evolve* in such a direction—some topics broaden significantly once means of "generalizing" it are discovered and applications to different systems and cases can be developed. But it's not normally a good idea to *start* with such a broad topic.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A PhD thesis is all about focus and depth, more than any other degree I know of. It is the antithesis of the jack-of-all-trades.
You say that you are two months from completion.
But you do not have a specific research question.
Nor do you have a very focused thesis, just unrelated papers in the same field: your words were: *"each paper I've published is its own research focus without any connection to the next outside of the fact that computational chemistry was used for each".*
It will depend on the institution, but at the institution I work, you would not be two months from completion. You'd be two years from completion.
If your supervisors are happy with your work as it is, then they've either completely screwed up, or your institution is happy to offer PhDs for theses which do not meet the standard that I and others expect: that they study a very specific question, deeper than anyone else has. I think you need to work out which of those two is the case, before you submit.
Not that there's anything wrong with being a jack-of-all-trades. But that really is the polar opposite to a PhD, which should be providing novelty, rigour and depth.
This does look bad for your future career, because it looks like you've spent several years being a jack-of-all-trades across a field, when you should have been very focused on a specific research question: at many institutions, that would mean that you simply would not be getting your doctorate; and having spent the time, and coming away at best with an MPhil, will look like a fail.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: The answer to your question is field specific. You should show some specialization in your PhD and in many fields (probably the vast majority) this will be delving deep into one very specialized topic. However, this does not mean other types of dissertations are necessarily bad for your career. I have heard anecdotally the following: If you are a theoretician in an experimental field, often a diverse set of interests is a good thing. Why? In some fields, especially particular branches of biology, the vast majority of people on the hiring committee will know very little math/theory, so there often isn't that one person fighting for you. However, if you applied your methods/theory to solve a wide variety of questions, you might peak the interests of many people on the hiring committee as a future collaborator. Sometimes the set of methods or theory is the unifying/specialized aspect of the dissertation even if the applications are seemingly unrelated.
That being said, this is the type of question that is best answered by your advisor, and ideally in your first year of a PhD program. If your advisor is good, as you say he is, and he knows your goals, he wouldn't allow you to go down the wrong path with your thesis subject, so hopefully, you specifically are fine. However, you should spend some considerable time thinking about how your thesis chapters are related, as such deep thought will greatly help you write a research statement, and perform well in job interviews, regardless of your field's general view on the structure of the thesis.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: The answer is completely dependent on what the next step of your career is. If you a seeking a post-doc position, then what matters is if people with money are hiring researchers with your skill set. If so, you are set for now and you can build more expertise as a postdoc. If you are seeking a faculty position at a research university, then your research needs to have a direction that excites people -- are you able to address important problems that other people cannot (or have not)?
Since other people are commenting on whether your research constitutes a "real PhD", I'll give my two cents: what matters is that you have applied your creativity to solve a difficult problem. If you have simply learned techniques that others have developed and applied them in a mindless manner, then you are a technician, not a scientist. If your thesis has demonstrated creative problem solving, then you should be fine (see first paragraph)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: The working title "Toward the Application of Electronic Structure Theory to Solve Relevant Chemical Problems" produces a bit of yawn factor for me. Regarding your career, a bad thesis and an unread thesis might have similar outcomes on reputation. "Electronic Structure Theory relevant to chemical problems which exhibit at least property P, but seemingly not when Q is present" would be better, even if you've only managed to notice and characterise the matter, and have yet to account for why it is so despite ruling out the obvious questions by systematic research.
'Towards the application of' (vague) and 'solve relevant' (hedge) are signals that I am not likely to find anything interesting to read in the thesis. I will most likely find a summary of some research that was done. Probably I already read the papers documenting such research when they were published, and I'm not really wanting to read about the same research again. Rather, I want to hear a definitive statement that hasn't been heard before, which has the potential to shed light on my own pursuits for the truth. If the title doesn't come right out and make some concrete statement, it seems unlikely that the rest of the text is going to get any better. At the very least, I want the title to hint at *which* chemical problems are relevant and why.
What your peers require of you is some (falsifiable, useful, bold) statement which hasn't been made before in your field, and your best effort to put that statement above reproach. Most likely, you'll reference your own research as part of trying to make your case - but really, aside from the fact that your head has necessarily been places the research has forced it to be, it would be stupid to assume that the thesis must therefore rely mainly or exclusively on that research which you were personally involved in. The thesis-statement comes as a consequence of research (by you and countless others), but the mere result of your research (already documented in other papers) is not itself the thesis-statement that you will be making.
If you've got multiple statements to make which are not related in an interesting way, write multiple theses. Why not?
In well-established fields, all the existing ground has been staked out, and your role is maybe to just do some (entirely necessary) chipping away at the edges - adding some qualifications to previous statements made in your field, or (more interestingly) attempting to account for why previous statements with good pedigrees yet still differ. In this case, your thesis statement will *necessarily* be quite specific (not merely to conform to expectations).
Now if application of Electronic Structure Theory has not previously been applied to chemical problems before (which would seem odd, but I'm outside that field), and your thesis is proposing the terms on which this may in fact be done (thus birthing a whole new sub-field) then your 'apply(x,relevant-y)' title might fly. I'd not expect it from you on your first serious paper though. In this case, I'd still want some clue as to how it's done, which problems are relevant, and a little more ... enthusiasm .
Maybe you're not quite at the point where you have a candidate thesis-like statement to make, or unfortunately, still have some systematic research to do, because your research to date, while good and useful in its own right, isn't useful as a systematic exploration supporting *your* thesis statement.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: Finding something is harder when you search for something specific than when you simply search for "something".
>
> Is it bad to look like a 'jack-of-all-trades' person?
>
>
>
That depends, for all trades individually, yes, it's bad. If you research on topics A to Z and people focus on only one of them, then for any job related with one single trade you will be at a disadvantage.
There are several good things, though. First one is diversification. It is much more likely that there will be some position in any topic from A to Z than in one particular topic from A to Z. It is also more likely that one of those positions is hard to cover because there are no good candidates, or for what matters you, there are no better candidates than you. So you get it.
Q: Are those topics with fewer candidates the not-hot boring and bad topics?
A: They are to the standards when people started their PhDs, but things may be different now. Starting a PhD is an act of speculation (to some extent) you have diversified your time investment, this has pros and cons.
The second good thing is the broadness of your knowledge. Who would you pick to be the head of the department in computational chemistry? Someone who knows a lot about one particular topic in computational chemistry or someone who has a reasonably vast knowledge in the whole area? Probably someone with management and political skills, but assuming no differences wrt in the candidates, then the second one with a broader knowledge.
In short, a broad or a deep knowledge about something is not a good or a bad thing, both have pros and cons. The objective is setting some goals that make the best use of the pros of your assets and in which the cons don't really matter so much. This last statement is so broad that it can be applied to almost everything (e.g. on Saturday night in a club) but that doesn't make it worse, that makes it better, maybe not an universal law, but I'd like to think it's somewhat close.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: short answer: **I think the title is not suitable as it is**, and thus may harm your career: currently it doesn't look like a jack-of-all-trades, but the title looks like jack-of-no-trade.
However, it may not be a problem if you are already comparably well known for your work (i.e. people know jack has his trade(s)).
But I think it would be good to put in some effort to **make it more precise about your contribution to the field.**
---
long answer:
Disclaimer: I'm chemist. Not theoretical chemist, but chemometrician which means that I also do calculations (though of a different kind) in order to solve application problems.
I believe my situation is similar to the OPs in that we both work at problems where in order to solve application questions some method needs to be developed further. I call these 2 aspects of my work the "theory" and "application parts of the work.
In my experience you can easily end up with the title of all or most papers emphasizing the application, and thus looking very diverse while the common topic (the theory) is de-emphasized. Several reasons can cause/contribute to this:
* the application problem may be understandable and important to a much wider audience than the small field of experts on the theory you use and advance to solve the application question.
* therefore, the pubications are targeted to journals the application audience reads
* and you do not want to frighten them away by heavy theory terms in the title.
* Also, in my field it is much easier to get funding for working towards the solution of *some medical application* (and doing the necessary data analysis theory development under that hood) than to get funding for *developing data analysis theory* (and demonstrating this with the medical application).
And this of course may bleed through to the paper and thesis titles.
In the end, the theory development - thus the common topic of the papers - is mainly to be seen inside the papers. Of course in this situation it would be good to have also a theory paper out that brings together the theory developments and just touches the applications as examples. However, this may look like one more disjoint topic on the first glance.
For example, my publication list has a whole lot of medical application (though I always try to sneak in the theory developments also into the title of the application papers), and a few papers which focus on data analysis methodology - while the common points of all these papers exists: chemometric data analysis and vibrational spectroscopy.
Two more points to consider:
* The very general title you give sounds like a typical working title to be put into the forms at the beginning of the PhD before the specific line of the thesis is known. I don't see anything unusual in a situation where at the end of the work this working title is updated by a specific title.
To me, this seems to be the underlying question here.
* If you are in a theory group or are *the one* in your group who does theory development, the fact that you actually do theory development may be so obvious that you didn't think of stating it. But the fact and preferrably also the specific type of theory development should be in the title.
So my questions to the OP are:
* Does this description of application vs. theory aspects reflect your publication situation?
* In particular: by unrelated topics, do you mean something like the application question/chemical problems you solve are unrelated? Or do you mean that neither the chemical problems nor the methods you used to solve them are related?
My recommendation without knowing more specifics is:
* Explain to your non-chemist grandma what you've been doing. Make a list of the points.
* Fill in the sentence: My papers tackle application problems about ...., but what I've really been doing is ....
* Don't be afraid of a long title. My guess is that the working title you posted is shortened too much: as you say it is not informative any more as the specifics have been cut out. Put them in.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_8: Coming from a somewhat different field (mathematics), I have seen some theses that were essentially bundles of not-strongly-related papers, each good enough to get published, and considered (by the advisor and the department) good enough to earn a PhD. Ok.
But this is indeed different from "getting a job". From what I have seen, job applicants don't succeed so much with "broad appeal" alone, but also must have *strong* appeal to a particular research group/interest. Thus, a too-diffuse body of work, *especially* if *described* in a fashion that makes it appear diffuse \_and\_unfocused\_, will not get up to the thresh-hold of having a good chance at job opportunities.
To my mind, the point is how one *portrays* such work. If (in contrast to the situation of the question) the papers really are completely disjoint and unrelated, it is not easy to describe them as fitting together into a coherent research program. If, indeed, as apparently is the case in the questioner's situation, there *is* a coherence to the body of work, it is *very* important to re-describe things to emphasized that. "Novel computational methods whose potential is illustrated by making progress in several important problems"? That sort of thing?
After all, presumably/often the author of several papers *does* have some underlying theme/principle/concept/whatever that is merely *manifest* in various way ... that may superficially appear very different.
So, in summary, the *description* of the body of work would best emphasize the common thread(s) underlying the several instances. Although often labels are simplistic, hiring committees do use them, so figuring out how to position oneself among those labels is probably smart. (In effect denying the relevance of admittedly simplistic labels and categorizations is most likely just self-sabotage.)
One's advisor's approval of the body of work as meriting the PhD is a different issue from getting the advisor's recommendations about an appealing coherent description of the *whole* of the work.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_9: Working in the field of computational chemistry, it is not unusual, that one focusses on many different topics. The field itself is as broad as chemistry itself as it may be applied to any experimentally raised question. It may be considered as one of the most advanced tools up to date in chemistry.
Its applications may range from simple things as the elucidation of the molecular structure, developing accurate bonding models, or deriving physical and chemical properties. It may also be used to derive complicated reaction mechanisms, characteristic reactions of compounds, classification of novel compound classes and prediction of yet unobserved molecules. Taking this as a basis it may be used in the development of more effective catalysts, it is used in drug design, deriving kinetics and many more.
All of the above is connected via electronic structure theory or more general the approximate solution of Schrödinger's equation. The field of computational chemistry focusses on applying approximations derived by theoretical and/or quantum chemistry to real life questions.
Working in many of these fields is neither uncommon nor unwelcome. Sometimes one particular subject of the starting hypotheses evolves into a huge complex, that may be carried on for years to come, while some other projects are helping in a shorter timescale. Both of them are equally important.
>
> The problem is, each paper I've published is its own research focus without any connection to the next outside of the fact that computational chemistry was used for each.
>
>
>
In this you state, that you already published papers about your subjects. I am guessing these publications were peer reviewed, so they are already proven to be valuable to the scientific community.
Applying quantum chemical calculations to various problems proves, that you are fit in the field. You know how to tackle different questions, you are versatile and your knowledge about the field you are working in is as broad as necessary. It may also show that you are not narrow minded and thinking out-of-the-box.
If the content of your thesis is already published in peer reviewed journals, you will have quite a good chance, that your thesis will remain unread by your peers. Scientific articles tend to be of much higher importance, than the actual thesis.
If your career options include doing a postdoc, than you will still have enough time to specialise yourself. If you want to become a professor yourself you should use that time to develop a specialised, yet versatile and broad research field.
If you plan on working in the chemical industry, the employers are probably more interested in you as a person, your ability to adjust to certain problems, and working according to their standards. Having a broad thesis should not be a hindrance in that case.
However, the title you are currently using may not be very well chosen, since "Relevant Chemical Problems" is a very fuzzy term. On the contrary to some other opinions offered in this thread, I would be very scared of using a long title. Make it as short as possible, while keeping it as precise as necessary.
In conclusion, I do not expect that the title of your thesis will harm your career in any way once you have published in peer reviewed journals.
---
**Addendum**
I know LordStryker from chem.se and therefore I know at least one publication he suggested I read, upon a request of mine. (I will not disclose this source here, because this is up to him.) I am certainly no expert in this particular field of computational chemistry and my understanding might be incomplete. However, I do see the significance of this particular work not only to our community but also to tangenting fields.
I found two other publications, one appeared in a top level journal of our field, the other I cannot judge. From what I understood the presented work is thoroughly, concise and well prepared. I could also see that connecting all these samples is very difficult from a concise topical point of view. However, these all are applications of quantum chemistry, so they all emerged from the same field.
Not receiving a degree for this work is absolutely out of the question.
On a personal note, I would like to state, that it was my own personal decision to get involved in this "discussion" - I was never approached by LordStryker, nor do I have any affiliations with him. Our communication is solely through the se network.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: I am someone who dropped out of a PhD program, so I am answering on the basis of others in the program that I knew.
One student was pleased that his thesis was "broad" because he planned to carve several papers out of it. (From what I understand, he did.) Your situation reminded me of his model.
Another focused his thesis and research efforts around a narrow area so they would "all point in the same direction."
These were two of the best regarded students in a class some years ahead of mine.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/03 | 755 | 3,197 | <issue_start>username_0: This is something I've been confused ever since I started my undergraduate research.
My research related to User Interfaces. Based on some of the previous years undergraduate research or from some research in the same year as me, as far as I see, have these steps:
1. Suppose we wants to design new interface for a system-X
2. We do the survey about the interface of system-like-X (but not X) to the users
3. From the survey, we get the data: what the users don't like from the present system interface, which part should be improved, etc
4. Then, we propose the new design based on that data
5. We then, again, test that new design with users
And now, my steps, according to my advisor
1. You design the new interface
2. Test it
I'm so confused, because, based on what would I design the interface? What standard or principle I should used? Also, in my case, I have to implement or develop the testing tools myself, which means that I got more work to do compared to my friend's workload. Could that be why step 1-3 skipped? But this is academic, I can't say the reason I choose that design is because "well, because that feels good/looks nice!". But my advisor never told me by what should I based my design on, she just "Yes, you design it first". But that's not my question here.
My questions are:
In this case, where if I do not base my research on data, by what should I based it on? Should I use a principle to back it on or what? Is there a research method like this? What is the name of this research method?
In case I ask in wrong place or there's lack of information, please tell me.<issue_comment>username_1: You can base it on the data collected by other people already. There are many facts about user behaviors available in various research papers. [This list](http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2014/03/14/30-top-ux-conferences-of-2014/) has a seemingly good compilation of conferences.
So you base your design on facts and observations and user preferences that someone has published. Then your contribution can be using those principles to create a user interface for a domain, device, or a situation that no one else has explored yet.
I am not a usability person, but since the question was on research method, I thought I would provide my opinion.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to bkd.online's answer, from your limited description I would call the extra steps in the first list [*pilot testing*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_experiment) the user-design. Pilot tests are typically constructed to have a low time and cost data collection to get immediate feedback to improve the design.
In terms of research, the pilot study is typically not considered research in and of itself, but basically the same strategy can be used later on down the line to conduct actual research. For instance, you may have a question about the location of a widget in your design, and whether the location impacts users behavior. You can then set up a proper experiment where you randomly expose different uses to the different widget locations and then measure users behavior under these different conditions.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/03 | 1,091 | 4,534 | <issue_start>username_0: [This looks like something that might have been asked already, but I have not found a question like this on this site.]
I recently had a paper rejected with resubmission from a top Bayesian Statistics journal. This was not a surprise. My main reason for submitting to the journal was to obtain feedback, which I did obtain. I received two reasonably detailed reviews, one more detailed than the other (the longer a bit over 3 pages), as well as a very short and somewhat cryptic (one short para) comment from the Associate (Area?) Editor. Also, these reviews were delivered very fast, which was good. I submitted the manuscript on 27th of April, and it was rejected on the 3rd of June.
The general tone of the reviews is captured by the EIC's one line summary
>
> Your paper has been read by an AE and two referees. They have all found the topic interesting but with several major flaws in the methodology and implementation
>
>
>
Now, some points in these reviews are unclear. Would it be reasonable to write to the editor asking for feedback on those points from the referees? Perhaps something along the lines of
>
> Is this what you meant? If so, the answer is this. If not, can you clarify, please?
>
>
>
or maybe just
>
> I don't understand what you mean here, can you elaborate?
>
>
>
Assuming the message is forwarded and the referee replies, I suppose there could conceivably end up being a bit of a back and forth with the reviewers via the editors.
On previous occasions I have not tried doing this, but I have come to believe there is no sense in being too shy in such matters. If you want information, ask for it.
However, I wonder if this is considered unorthodox, improper or inappropriate procedure. It is relevant to note that I am not an expert in Bayesian methods. However, the editors and referees apparently thought my paper worth the trouble of reviewing in detail. Regardless, my lack of experience/expertise may hamper me in understanding the finer points of what is expected in the field.
I will of course do my due diligence in trying to understand the content/purport of the comments, but I don't see the point of my spending hours trying to guess what is meant when the referees could (hopefully) clarify the point in a few minutes.
So, to summarize, the upsides are:
* If I get a response, my eventual fixes will be better and more targeted
* I don't waste a lot of time trying to guess what someone meant. Maybe it was even based on a miunderstanding
The downsides are:
* The reviewers/editors will not want to be bothered with responding to me. This will be especially true if this is not considered normal procedure
* They might be annoyed by my (possible) cluelessness in the area.
If I don't ask for any clarifications, then I will just end up making my best guess as to what the referee means. I don't think that the results would be as good as if I was to get clarifications.<issue_comment>username_1: You can base it on the data collected by other people already. There are many facts about user behaviors available in various research papers. [This list](http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2014/03/14/30-top-ux-conferences-of-2014/) has a seemingly good compilation of conferences.
So you base your design on facts and observations and user preferences that someone has published. Then your contribution can be using those principles to create a user interface for a domain, device, or a situation that no one else has explored yet.
I am not a usability person, but since the question was on research method, I thought I would provide my opinion.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to bkd.online's answer, from your limited description I would call the extra steps in the first list [*pilot testing*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_experiment) the user-design. Pilot tests are typically constructed to have a low time and cost data collection to get immediate feedback to improve the design.
In terms of research, the pilot study is typically not considered research in and of itself, but basically the same strategy can be used later on down the line to conduct actual research. For instance, you may have a question about the location of a widget in your design, and whether the location impacts users behavior. You can then set up a proper experiment where you randomly expose different uses to the different widget locations and then measure users behavior under these different conditions.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/03 | 3,175 | 13,431 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm frequently put in an awkward position by my advisor: he communicates pretty badly (vague, doesn't give enough information, isn't clear with what he wants, references things that could mean many things), and then I have to interpret what he means. If I interpret it incorrectly, I often get chastised because from his point of view, he gave me directions and I didn't follow them correctly. If I ask for clarification, I often get chastised because he sees nothing wrong with the bad directions he gave me.
I'm of course open to the possibility, but I don't think it's just me -- I've been in meetings with him and several other people, showing information that everyone clearly understands but he's very confused. Inversely, I've also seen other people be confused by what he's trying to say. To try and find a positive example, the people who seem to work best with him are people who mostly do their work independently (postdocs, for example).
It's very frustrating to me because I'm genuinely trying to work hard and please him, and I do think he has good ideas -- he just acts like the things in his head that are clear to him are thus clear to everyone else.
I know he tries to stress independence as well, which I understand is a valuable trait -- I know too many grad students who are basically passive "gophers" who just go down the list of what their advisor tells them to do and never end up thinking for themselves. And I appreciate that, but it can go just as badly in the opposite direction, when I'm pulling out my hair because I just have so little information about what he wants, but he thinks I have a lot.
Is there anything I can really do? I'm usually all for it, but I don't think talking to him directly and specifically would really accomplish anything here: he's successful and seemingly pretty set in his ways.<issue_comment>username_1: Now I can't be certain that what I'm about to say applies to your advisor, but it does apply to many interactions. I've learned that with any advisor (given that you have adequately prepared yourself for your meetings) always err or the side of "appearing stupid" to trying to "interpret vague directions". Science is all about clarifying confusion, and asking "dumb questions". In fact, some of the best research has it's origin from scientist questioning something that "didn't quite make sense" to them. Most likely the questions you ask aren't dumb, and even if they are, hiding the misunderstanding will only lead it to be revealed at a later time. Even worse, something might seem vague or confusing because the advisor is wrong or hadn't thought out all the details. Never set out do something your advisor told you, when you don't understand, that usually leads to problems down the road. Instead ask for clarification, even if you think it will tarnish your reputation a bit. If he appears fussy now, oh well, you still need to learn. If you think he is the one who is wrong or vague, asking (politely) specific questions is the best non confrontational way of approaching the situation, so you two can discuss the issue and mutually come to a consensus (which might be a consensus to disagree - for now - and come back to it later). If he is a good advisor he will respect someone asking him questions.
I know you said "If I ask for clarification, I often get chastised because he sees nothing wrong with the bad directions he gave me." What exactly does he say? I can often think I am being chastised by someone who doesn't intend on that being the case. Without more detail than this, I'd like to give your advisor the benefit of the doubt. It's possible that he really is frustrated, but that may not be the case here.
Note that many advisors can appear agitated when they aren't in the slightest bit upset or annoyed. This can occur for a bunch of reasons, but two common ones are (1) the advisee is projecting his own feelings of inadequacy onto the advisor and assuming the advisor thinks bad things of the advisee, when he actually doesn't, (2) he makes scowling or upsetting facial expressions when he is confused or thinking hard (this may have nothing to do with you).
I suspect (1) is especially at play here. Graduate students (and sometimes even professors!) frequently suffer from an impostor syndrome (me included), and the description of your advisor relationship could go along these lines.
If your advisor focusses on fostering independence, his students are going to fail a bunch of times; he (hopefully) knows this and views it as a good thing (and I agree independence is a very good thing to foster!). Your advisor most likely knows that asking a "good research question" and coming up with procedures and algorithms on your own, with only vague tips, is very difficult. He has likely had many students fumble around for years with nothing to show for it until one day, with their hard work it eventually pays off. You will come to your advisor with "strange" ideas; that comes with the territory of being this kind of advisor. The key for you is to not let your frustration lead into thoughts about what your advisor thinks of you. I often spin stories in my head about how my advisor thinks about things I do. These thoughts are unhelpful, and while it's easier said than done you should try your hardest from going down this path. Beyond working hard, what your advisor thinks of you is out of your control. Ask him the stupid questions, the people who ask stupid questions are often the people who get ahead in life.
When I was in undergrad I asked professors, grad students, and peers all types of questions. I thought, what do I have to lose, I'm just an undergrad. When I got to graduate school, I all of a sudden shut the "question asking off" out of intimidation and now realize that this was a major mistake which hindered my success during my earlier years of graduate school.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As an advisor who often thinks I'm giving clear instructions when I'm not :), here's one thing that will require a certain amount of pain, but might help long term.
You might have tried this already, but when you're given somewhat vague instructions by your advisor, try to spell them out as precisely as you're able to and repeat them back to him on the spot.
So your advisor says, "maybe you should try (vague idea) X, Y, Z".
You say, "so you mean that for (vague idea) X I should try A, B, ??".
Your advisor might say, "no no, I really meant D" while frowning fiercely at you. But at least then you've managed to get something precise out of him.
Or (and this has happened to me), your advisor says "Hmm. you're right: X doesn't make any sense: ignore that". In which case you've successfully eliminated one unclear option.
The "pain" here is that your first few meetings might go quite badly while you both struggle to learn to communicate with each other. But I suspect that if your advisor is merely not thinking carefully enough about the ideas he's suggesting, this will force him to think more clearly about them.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Every graduate student I have ever met or been spends more time than is ideal wondering exactly what their advisor wants them to do. Similarly, all advisors used to be graduate students, so they are familiar with the phenomenon, whether they presently have it in mind or not. As MHH says, graduate students tend to err on the side of "not wanting to look stupid". Again I speak from personal experience: my advisor was (and is) one of the quickest and deepest thinking mathematicians on the planet, and -- despite the fact that he is one of the warmest people I know -- I was powerfully intimidated in our meetings for several years. At one point I decided that he thought that I was a little bit quicker and lazier than I actually was...and I decided to nurture the "quickness" and reveal my very solid work ethic at a later, more appropriate time. In retrospect I am amused by the fact that I had such a psychologically astute approach -- indeed, I still believe that opinions about people's abilities are earlier formed and less mutable than opinions about people's practices -- which was nevertheless distinctly -- obviously, really -- counterproductive.
Because many students approach meetings with their advisors with a lot of trepidation, they also want to err on the side of having the meetings go as smoothly as possible, again in a distinctively unproductive sense. If your advisor says something that you think is not a good idea or outright false, it's so tempting to swallow it in the moment, go back and spend a week or two making sure that it's problematic, and then spending another week trying to figure out how best to break the news. But again, though psychologically understandable, that's exactly wrong: why are you spending weeks exploring an idea that you immediately perceive is bad?!? Instead if you have a thought like this, you should share it with your advisor right away. It might make him frown or momentarily dampen his enthusiasm: but that's all obviously worth it.
That advice is slightly off-center for your question, but let me return to center in repeat it in a context which makes it even harder to follow: if your advisor tells you something and you don't understand it, should you really go away for a day, a week or a month trying to implement the thing you didn't understand? Of course not. You should ask for clarification.
In your particular situation you seem fixated on the fact that it's not your fault that you're not understanding your advisor. In my view if you really see it that way, you're more than halfway to the decision of choosing a new advisor, which may in fact be the right one for you. Sometimes two intelligent, competent, friendly people who want to work together in practice can't interlock professionally. That's really a bummer when it happens -- I've been there -- but a certain point you have to acknowledge it and move on to a better relationship.
In your case though it sounds like you're not there *yet*. I think you included in your question what in some sense you know you should do and then brushed it off: you need to talk to your advisor about the the lack of precision in your communication. (You say that he *seems set in his ways*. Okay, but who cares? What matters is -- [hat tip to the Prince of Denmark](http://www.shakespeare-online.com/quickquotes/quickquotehamletseems.html) -- whether he **is** set in his ways.) It's either that or finding a new advisor, and since the latter is a larger undertaking in every way, definitely try the former first. In preparing for this critical meeting, you should practice conveying the problematic lack of precision without making either party "to blame" or individually being accused of being "unclear". This is actually true: in any communication, the onus of understanding lies on both parties. Rather, bring it up in a very positive way: you have perceived something that you feel will make things work much better. In the conversation, listen carefully to how your advisor feels and especially how he feels about you. If he is not open to this conversation or explicitly enunciates frustration with you for needing too much hand-holding: okay, you gave it a try. But if you phrase it in the terms that I did above -- you're serious, he's serious, but it's got to be better to spend a few more minutes to make sure you understand each other properly before you go off and spend all kinds of time and energy implementing those partially understood suggestions -- I really think your advisor should be receptive. In fact, as others have pointed out, I would go into that meeting with at least the hope that he's not actually at all unwilling to be more explicit and your perception of that is part of the miscommunication.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: The problem isn't unique to academic circles.
One person telling another exactly what they actually want without confusion on either side is one of the hardest problems in the world.
So perhaps stick up an grad-student version of this old chestnut with "what the supervisor asked for" and "what the grad student heard" substituted for some of the silly ones to remind everyone that it's a common problem that's nothing to be embarrassed about but does have to be handled.
<http://community.secondlife.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/37541i926E3612BA3F8DFA/image-size/original?v=mpbl-1&px=-1>
(it's been floating round the net in various forms for a long time)
I was lucky enough to be doing my postgrad in a different area to my undergrad so wasn't so embarrassed to keep digging detail out of my supervisor but you have to both invest the time in making absolutely sure you know what's wanted.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: For situations like this, I think its important to rely upon other members of your committee for clarification. You probably aren't going to change the way your adviser communicates, but you might be more successful overall if you consistently communicate with your other committee members... or make sure one of them are present when you meet with your adviser. I was quite intimidated by my adviser in my PhD program, but my other committee members helped to keep things in perspective and clarify goals in ways that my adviser never could.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/04 | 1,172 | 5,235 | <issue_start>username_0: I submitted a manuscript to an established ecology journal and received reasonable reviews. The reviewing editor requested a revision. However, the comments from the reviewing editor were abysmal. First, the literacy and analysis were, in my judgment, poor by high-school standards. Second, based on the comments, I seriously doubt the reviewing editor read the manuscript. I have published 10 papers (mostly in higher impact journals than this one) and this reviewing editor stands out. I think I would rather withdraw the paper than deal with this person. Is it possible to request a different editor? I have never heard of that, but I have no desire to work with this person.
EDIT: The email from the journal contains 3 sets of comments. They are labeled "Reviewer #1", "Reviewer #2", and "Associate Editor." I am referring to the comments from the Associate Editor, who is not named. The comments from the AE synthesize the comments from the reviewers, which is his/her job, of course. However, it reads like the AE was busy and let his 12 year old son write it for him.
EDIT 2: Thank you for the input. I asked this question because A) the comments from the AE were unusually bad and B) it will require more finesse to deal with a bad editor than a bad reviewer. However, I have decided to proceed as normal anyway. I have already invested the time to get reviews and I need to deal with reviewer comments regardless. Once you are halfway into the forest, forging ahead is the quickest way out. So I will play the journal-review roulette even though I think it will be more random and aggravating than usual.<issue_comment>username_1: As chief editor of a journal, I can say that I would see such a request as reasonable under certain circumstances (and it has happened). However, in the case you describe I do not see what it is that the editor has really done. The reviewers comments form the basis for your revisions and the editor should judge if any comments are more important than others and summarize what the editor sees as important revisions you should make. It is then up to you to do these as you see fit and if you disagree argue against those that need such action.
Change of editor requests come when an author feel a paper has been unfairly judged (usually rejected) and I know of one case where an editor rejected a paper after using a set of reviewers that were marked as "non-preferred" due to a conflict of interest. I also know of cases where a zealous copy-editor has modified the language to a degree that the science was almost completely lost. In your case, it is not clear what has happened to the manuscript, has it been rejected? have you written a rebuttal and argued against changes imposed?
I would suggest that you make the revisions you think are reasonable and provide a rebuttal on the *suggested* changes to your paper. If you encounter more unreasonable resistance from the editor, I think it is only fair to write to the Editor-in-Chief and state that you think you have been unfairly treated and wish to get a second opinion on the handling.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: You clearly have a very low opinion of the competence of the anonymous Associate Editor (AAE). It might be worth looking through some issues of the journal and asking around about the quality of the journal: does it really have the stature that you previously thought?
If so, then I would draw a distinction between the impression that the AAE has made on you and the effect this will have on your manuscript and your own revision process. The relevant question is: is it going to be more trouble to push this paper through to publication -- is it even headed in that direction? that wasn't completely clear to me from your description -- than to start fresh with a different journal?
It sounds like you think that the *referees* made reasonable comments, comments that you would have to address anyway before resubmitting. So what is the downside in preparing a revised version that addresses the *referees' comments*, together with a brief, unconfrontational reply explaining that the AAE's suggestions were considered but ultimately not followed? To me it seems strategically best to try this first and see what happens.
As a final point: let me address the question: How do you communicate to the journal your professional opinion that the AAE is truly incompetent? I would say that criticizing an unknown editor of a journal is difficult or impossible to pull off in a way which is likely to be productive: the risk seems too high that you would simply be writing to the person you are complaining about and informing them that their work is "poor by high-school standards". I tried to imagine a person who might respond well to that...and I did not succeed. In my experience, the current journal system makes the process of complaint / appeal / seeking of restitution so awkward as to rarely be worthwhile for anything other than a cathartic (Festivus-style?) airing of grievances: too much of the process happens out of your sight. The point at which you feel like you *need* to complain is probably the point to resubmit somewhere else.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/06/04 | 1,787 | 7,455 | <issue_start>username_0: The topic of Wikipedia contribution has come up before, but I am interested in the community's opinion on peer-reviewed wiki publishing (e.g., Scholarpedia). I would like to know if there is any advantage for a PhD student to publish in such an online venue versus the traditional journal publication for review content. The advantages I see to the wiki approach is free of charge publication, open access for all, not necessarily being limited by character limits. However, the disadvantages I see could be the citation being completely ignored by the intended audience and therefore missing out on the benefits of scientific communication and the possible loss of accompanying reputation for the publication. I would also worry these publications would be ignored or minimized by future supervisors and review committees.<issue_comment>username_1: Scholarpedia has adapted many of the *processes* of a peer-reviewed journal. However, it is still a *kind* of **encyclopedia** and not a research journal at all. Note that I'm not making any kind of judgment or evaluation in the previous sentence: the main page of the site reads
>
> Welcome to Scholarpedia, the peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia,
> where knowledge is curated by communities of experts.
>
>
>
So you seem to be asking: "Should I publish my paper in an encyclopedia rather than a research journal?" I think that's a kind of strange question: have you really written something which lies ambiguously between a research paper and an encyclopedia article?
The above is not a rhetorical question: please let us know!
It is also possible that I have fixated too much on "scholarpedia" and it is not the type wiki publication that you really intended. If so, please let us know. It would be helpful to give at least one specific example of the kind of "peer-reviewed wiki" you have in mind as a plausible alternative to a research journal.
**Added**: @MHH has helpfully clarified that the OP is probably talking about a [review paper](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10467/what-is-the-difference-between-review-paper-and-research-paper), or what in my field would be called a "survey paper". (The word "review" was also used at least twice in a different sense in the OP's question, and that was enough to confuse me.) I must begin by admitting that review/survey papers are rare in my field (mathematics), and that they would be written by PhD students is almost unprecedented. So I am almost at the point of wanting to delete my answer for lack of understanding and relevant expertise.
However, let me first try this:
it seems to me that a review paper should be published in a research journal if it contains *original research*: i.e., some kind of synthesis, analysis, new perspectives, helpful simplifications, and so forth are being added. Of course "original research" is exactly what is not wanted in an encyclopedia article, although I don't see why this would necessarily be the case for all peer-reviewed wikis. So going more from general academic common sense than specific insight (i.e., *caveat emptor*), I would say that this should be the deciding factor between publishing a survey paper in a research journal or in a wiki. Let me further say that most or all of the advantages cited by publication in a wiki can be achieved by publishing in *certain kinds* of research journals: "free of charge publication, open access for all" certainly. Many electronic journals do not advertise hard "character limits", but of course there must be some kind of upper bound must exist, right? No one wants a 5000 page survey of the literature.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think there is no definite answer at the moment since one can not judge now how scholarpedia will develop. At the present stage I think that the impact will be low and many colleagues may not know about scholarpedia. However, this may change in the future and the outcome will depend a lot on the quality of contributions. If you think that scholarpedia is a valuable resource, a good project and that you can contribute something, I'd say: Go ahead.
I also remember a quote by <NAME>: "You'll be better known for your expository work." I am not sure if this applies to everybody equally but it is a point.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Both answers are excellent, I would like to add that today is too soon to answers because we don't know how the *publication system* will evolve.
Right now, we are following a traditional, centuries old system in with scientists gain reputation from their publications, which in very recent years were (and in some countries and some disciplines still are) just in paper.
Open access is "disruptive technology" for this system, but it may regard not only the licenses of research publications, but the very *shape* they can assume. There are experiments with *peer review* too. We can definitely imagine a future when sites like academia.se (or math.se, or others) will be taken into account for evaluation a scholar profile. For coders, is somehow customary to look at their GitHub or StackOverflow account...
And I remember at least one case (I don't have a reference, sorry) in which, among other things, a professor gained his tenure also for his concrete and excellent contributions to Wikipedia.
It is a matter of customs, habits, technology and *culture* of academia and his communities.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: What I find most interesting about wikis is that they are collaborative platforms with a public version history. This allows updates in addition to the "version of record" functionality of traditional publishing.
Scholarpedia has both, though if you are after Open Access in the sense of the [Budapest definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Budapest_Open_Access_Initiative&oldid=607344549#Definition_of_open_access) (which allows reuse by anyone for any purpose), it is not there yet.
I am involved with a scheme in which the version of record (of review articles) is published classically in the journal, but in a way that allows the article to lead a second life as an updatable article on the English Wikipedia. Further details can be found [here](http://wikiambassador.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2014/03/28/publishing-scholarly-wikipedia/) and [here](http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2014/09/25/topic-pages-collection-in-plos-comp-biol/).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I want to focus on one point touched on in a couple of the other answers: wiki is a class of software that tends to have a certain set of features (though the features vary from one wiki to another). The technical features might impact the value to the *audience*, but I don't think they have inherent advantages or disadvantages like those described, from the perspective of the *author*.
A wiki-based publication, a traditional journal, or other formats may have any number of approaches to charges for publication, open access to readers, character limits, and may have varying reputation.
I'd urge PhD candidates considering questions like these to focus more on the specific publication, as measured against criteria like this, rather than worrying about the technical underpinnings of the journal. A publication's policies, processes, and record will have more of an impact on its value to you, than will the technology it uses.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/06/04 | 850 | 3,769 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm writing a research paper in my native language, Serbian, on a specific electrical engineering and applied mathematics topic. Moreover, there are two published papers in English that hold much of the information I need.
Now, the topic itself is quite new and is unknown in Serbia, and consequently at my university. My plan is to sum up the results of the two papers, further expand on the theory behind it (which is only arbitrarily mentioned in the English papers), and finally encapsulate the whole idea.
So, strictly speaking, I won't be doing any original research, in terms of experiments or mathematical breakthroughs, but rather synopsize and provide a desired perspective on a modern topic that is novel to my national academic environment.
---
**Q:** If I reference the two English papers and their authors at the end of the paper, do I commit plagiarism?
For example, if I see a nice sentence in one of the papers, and I translate it into my paper, are the references at the end enough for crediting the author?
Finally, is using the pictures from the two papers (with referencing them naturally) accepted practice? Or do I need to get the authors' permission to use them?
---
Furthermore, does my paper still hold some kind of value, even though it doesn't provide original results? At the very least, it introduces a new, and very interesting topic to my faculty, and is generally a field I'm interested in researching, and eventually achieving some real and relevant results.<issue_comment>username_1: Your paper lies somewhere between
* a true translation, much like how a book in one language might be translated into another. In such a case, the article is usually credited to the original authors, with a note mentioning who did the translation
* a review article that surveys some fragment of the literature, possibly adding a larger perspective to the material being presented.
In my view, your work is closer to the latter than the former, especially if what you're trying to transmit in Serbian are the ideas in the papers, and not the literal words.
What might therefore be your best option is to convey the ideas in the works, clearly marked (for example a section header, or even some introductory text saying what you're doing), but without any need to cite specific translations (unless the occasional turn of phrase is so useful that you might as well put it in quotes).
In this case, you're clearly not plagiarizing, since credit is being given clearly and copiously.
I'm not sure about the copyright issues involved in reproducing pictures. Fair use should cover use of a few pictures (but **IANAL**). In any case, it's the copyright holder who needs to be asked (and this might be the authors, or the publisher: the paper should have a note about this).
Does such a document have value ? Well based on the context you describe, sure ! If it helps an audience gain access to material they'd otherwise be unfamiliar with or unable to read, definitely. This is no different from other review articles in other disciplines, and has the added bonus of language translation.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: **Referencing the papers at the end is not sufficient.**
Generally, the litmus test whether or not something is plagariasm is whether the reader is given an adequate impression of how much of the text is other peoples work. Readers don't always read entire papers, and in particular may not make it to the end.
In your case, I would suggest to state at the beginning what your two main sources are, and give some indication of how heavily you are drawing from them. Then, throughout the paper reference each bit you've taken from elsewhere by where it is coming from.
Upvotes: 5 |
2014/06/04 | 724 | 2,715 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm a foreign (non-EU) student enrolled at the CS master's program in a European university.
I would like to take 2-3 courses that my university doesn't offer, and the first idea that came to mind was to take them at another university (preferably also European) in another country.
Obviously I want these courses to be counted in my diploma (assuming that they fit my program).
What you would do if you were in my place? Is there any "general" approach to my problem?
From what I've found there are a few ways:
* Go as a free mover and enrol to the courses individually (seems that not all universities offer this option)
* Go as an Erasmus student (not sure if I qualify being non-EU citizen)
* Go by direct exchange program to the university that have bilateral agreement with my university (in my case, I'm not satisfied with offered transfer destinations, so it's not really an option)
* Something else?
UPD:
I assume there are 2 general cases:
1. My university and the university I wish to go are "partner
universities", i.e. they have some sort of mutual agreement
2. They are not "partners universities"<issue_comment>username_1: You should ask your dean of student affairs (or whatever this is called at your institution), if your university will accept these courses. Usually they should (if these courses fit in the curriculum) but this, of course, depends.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Go by **direct exchange program** to the university that have bilateral
> agreement with my university (in my case, I'm not satisfied with
> offered transfer destinations, so it's not really an option)
>
>
>
That would be the easiest way.
>
> Go as an Erasmus student (not sure if I qualify being non-EU citizen)
>
>
>
If you are not qualified for **Erasmus**, you are certainly qualified for **Erasmus Mundus**. Just talk to the Erasmus coordinator at your university. If you are going with Erasmus they (should) have already taken care of the getting credits problem.
If all that does not work out, you could also **organize it yourself**. That is more work but sometimes worth it. Then you have to take care of most of the things yourself:
* Funding: 3 possible sources come to mind: the country you want to go
to (for Germany that would be [DAAD](https://www.daad.de/deutschland/en/ "DAAD"), but similar options also
exist in most EU countries, e.g. France or Belgium [BAEF](http://www.baef.be "BAEF")), the
country you are comming from, or your home country.)
* Credit: Talk to the director of your program/ the dean of student
affairs / international relations person
* Enrollment in the foreign university. You also have to apply there.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/04 | 1,842 | 8,218 | <issue_start>username_0: Our paper was due submission for second revision at a BMC journal. The communicating author, as I understand is responsible for handling all the communications between all authors and the journal, while also making suitable arrangement to cover any open access charges.
However, the communicating author in our case, without informing any author, removed 4 out of the total 6 authors while submitting the second revision. How should we deal with this? isn't it a academic fraud by the communicating author? Can't we, as students do anything to stop this?<issue_comment>username_1: This sounds like an unpleasant situation.
If this happened to me, I think my starting point would be to ensure I had copies of anything that might be useful as evidence. Then, I would write (formally) to the person concerned, asking for an explanation of why they thought it appropriate to remove you all from the author list. I think this has to be the first step: it is always possible that there is a rational explanation (although it's difficult to imagine what it might be). You might choose to copy the letter to the head of the relevant university department, and perhaps to the editor of the journal - particularly if the paper has not yet been published, and so can be put 'on hold' pending resolution of the authorship dispute.
Of course, you will have to weigh up the benefits of asserting your rights to authorship against any potential cost arising from 'causing trouble'. You are *completely* within your rights to create a major fuss here, and your department *should* be entirely supportive. I think you *should* do something. However, there is a risk that some of the people involved will seek revenge, if they have any power over you (e.g. if you are still a student at the university). I am *absolutely not* condoning such behaviour - it is quite clearly bullying, and an abuse of power. However, it would be irresponsible to advocate taking action without encouraging you to also consider whether there are any potential adverse consequences.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I say yes, this is academic fraud. I suggest to contact the corresponding author and inform him/her that your are going to inform the editor of the journal about the issue. Depending on the answer from the corresponding author you should indeed write to the editor and explain the case.
However, I am not sure what will happen then. Presumably things will get difficult and it would be much better if you could sort this out directly. Also you should communicate your strategy with the other authors and act open for all involved people.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: We recently had an extensive discussion of how to deal with such an issue, should it arise, in a postdoctoral seminar I attended. A number of senior faculty contributed their ideas regarding how to deal with such an incident.
I would recommend a more gradual escalation than others have suggested. For example, I would not copy the editor of the journal or the head of the department on your initial communication requesting more information. I would start with communication just within your author group: for example, an email to the corresponding author asking for an explanation of why they removed your (and others) authorship without notification, CCing all other authors of the paper. This gives you a paper trail but also allows you to first address the issue without airing everyone's dirty laundry.
If the corresponding author's response is not to the removed authors' satisfaction, you should then, together, think about escalating your complaint (for example, by contacting the editor). I agree with username_1 that while you would be in your rights to do so, there is a very real possibility of a negative backlash. I think as a consequence the other dropped authors should be on board with such a decision, and you should have excellent documentation of your complaint.
Finally, this type of incident is a very good example of why every paper should start with an authorship meeting where everyone sits down, agrees on authorship and order, and what constitutes the responsibilities of authorship at each level (e.g., "first author will be so-and-so, and that means her responsibilities are to do x,y,z...and if she finds herself unable to meet all of those responsibilities, then authorship decisions will need to be revisited", etc.) Concretizing expectations prior to the work tends to lead to better working relationships and can prevent some very bitter arguments.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: The initial reaction to your problem is that it is wrong. There are, too many unknowns to say why this has happened, if you are deadling with negligence, absent mindedness, some more serious personality issue or whatever. I would suggest the following
1. Discuss with the other authors how you all became co-authors in the first place and compare your contributions to see if they fulfil some basic critteria such as those of the Vancouver Protocol (given by for example ICMJE and reproduced at [Resources for Research Ethics Education](http://research-ethics.net/topics/authorship/#regulations-and-guidelines). This will help you gain leverage for your authorship/contributorship. Of course, if you had some form of agreement to start with, then that should suffice. The important thing is that it is unethical to publish someone else's intellectual property without consent so establishing such claims can be important. This is why authorship or contributorship agreements should follow the Vancouver Protocol to begin with (I know they rarely do).
2. Approach the first author and ask him/her to explain the reduction in authors without prior discussion.
3. If 2 fails to yield results, write to the chief editor of the journal and describe the problem and that you wish to see the paper stopped. If the paper contains materials that can be attributed to the authors who have been dropped, that should be grounds for halting the process and starting an investigation, perhaps through [COPE](http://publicationethics.org/).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I'm assuming that by BMC you mean a BioMed journal? You should read the BioMed Editorial Policies page( <http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/editorialpolicies> )
which lists 4 requirements for qualifying as an author:
>
> to qualify as an author one should have:
>
>
> (1) made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
>
>
> (2) been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
>
>
> (3) given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
>
>
> (4) agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
>
>
> Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not usually justify authorship.
>
>
>
So if you can satisfy these criteria (especially the first two), you should be an author.
The same page also addresses authorship changes:
>
> In line with COPE guidelines, BioMed Central requires written confirmation from all authors that they agree with any proposed changes in authorship of submitted manuscripts or published articles. This confirmation must be via direct email from each author. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors confirm that they agree with the proposed changes. If there is disagreement amongst the authors concerning authorship and a satisfactory agreement cannot be reached, the authors must contact their institution(s) for a resolution. It is not the Editor’s responsibility to resolve authorship disputes.
>
>
>
So you need to deal with this in your institution; pointing out that is contrary to journal policy for authorship to change without consultation is a good place to start.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/04 | 1,068 | 4,575 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm choosing reference writers for my math PhD application this year, and need to decide between the 2 following professors:
* Professor X is a young professor with whom I took measure theory and
did a research project in my freshman year. The project went pretty
well - we obtained some results earlier than he expected, and
published a paper. He moved to another university and no longer
worked with me, but we still keep in touch.
* Professor Y is a fairly well-known professor whom I met at a 1-month
summer workshop. I didn't interact much with her outside of the
classroom, but she seemed to like me: after the workshop, she said she
was really impressed by me and voluntarily asked if I want a
recommendation letter from her.
Neither professor works in the field that I plan to study in grad school.
I often hear that "good at research" letters are way better than "do well in class" ones. However, in my sophomore year, I applied to some REU programs with professor X's letter (and another not so strong "do well in class" letter), and was rejected by all of them. Of course the recommendation is just one factor, but I think my course work was not bad - probably better than many of my junior friends who were admitted. My Putnam score was pretty good too, although I don't think it mattered. The following year I reapplied with both professor X's and Y's letters, and got first round offers from most of the programs.
Do you think this indicates that professor Y's letter substantially strengthened my application, or actually REU programs looked at some other factors I wasn't aware of? Do grad schools and REU programs look at recommendations the same way? Which letter would you recommend me to use? I can't use both because I have 2 other letters already, and many grad schools say they may not read more than 3 letters.
Thank you very much.
**Edit:**
1. About the 2 other reference writers that I've already chosen: both did research with me, one of them also taught me several courses.
2. The other letter I used in my sophomore year (along with professor X's) was probably not that bad. The reference writer said he was pretty impressed that my course grade was 95% or something, while everyone else got less than 60%. It's just that I didn't do research with him.<issue_comment>username_1: The standard wisdom about getting letters from people you worked with rather than those who merely had you in a class is only approximate, of course, and it doesn't mean that every recommendation you get from someone you worked with will be better than every recommendation from someone who you took a class with. To me, the fact that professor Y voluntarily asked if you wanted her recommendation is more important in your case. She wouldn't offer to do that unless she was confident that she could write you a good recommendation. So I think there's a decent chance that her recommendation letter actually helped you more than the one you got from professor X.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Your REU evidence that X wrote you a weak letter is not very strong. I run an REU, and we accept less than 3% of our applicants. Our target participants are either legendary at small colleges (best in a decade), or excellent at top universities (top 25% this year at Harvard). Plenty of excellent people get turned away for essentially random reasons. Maybe one of your letters was submitted late. Maybe you forgot to list a course on your application that was considered essential that year. Maybe I had a bad burrito for lunch and hated your essay when I read it. Maybe there were just lots of really good applicants that year. And yes, maybe professor X (or professor Z, the other letter-writer) said or implied something negative about you.
In addition, Professor Y offering to write on your behalf after a one month course says more about her than it does about you. This does not guarantee that she will write a strong letter, and if she does she may write strong letters for a lot of people, which might be known by the people reading her letters.
Here is my advice. Go to Professor Y and tell her that you did research with Professor X and published a paper together. Then, ask her whether you should ask for X's recommendation or hers. If she really feels that you are spectacular, she will insist on writing the letter herself.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: The fairly well-known professor Professor Y is better. The academic world emphasizes on the credibility of the recommendation.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/04 | 594 | 2,541 | <issue_start>username_0: I am directly quoting a sentence from an ebook. Thus, I want to add the page numbering to its citation. However, different to the print version, which I do not have, this ebook (Amazon Kindle version) does not have page numberings but rather "positions".
Do I just pretend it's a page numbering and note in the bibliography that it is a Kindle version? Or is there another way?
In case this is of interest, I am using Latex with Bibtex.<issue_comment>username_1: You are not providing page numbers with citations for their own sake, but to help readers to locate the cited passage, e.g., if they want to verify it or see it in context. (Therefore page numbers are already diminished in their usefulness for regular books as soon as there are two editions with significantly different paging.)
The arguably easiest way to locate a verbatim quote in an e-book is to just feed a few words into a full-text search. Thus giving page numbers or similar information has no purpose anymore. However, you could ease finding the location of the quote in a classical book by giving edition-independent location information, such as chapter and section numbers.
Note that this is a “utilitaristic” approach to citations. A relevant reader of your publication (e.g., a supervisor or reviewer) might have a “dogmatic” view on such things and thus require page numbers or similar for their own sake.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In my opinion, in this case, it may be a good idea to cite your reference regarding the section and part from which you are directly quoting a sentence. I mean, you may cite the ebook the same as you used to do before, but, when you want the reader to be informed about the exact part in which your quotation exists; you may refer to the section and part instead of page numbers which do not exist. Another good idea may be mentioning the phrase: "PDF file position: Page ???" in the same place of citation in which the page number is mentioned and the reader will easily find the part of the reference.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Since your quote is direct, I would not bother myself so much about it. Just cite the book and give a note that it's an `e-book`. You can add a chapter or section number if it exists. Anyways, it's a direct quote: people should trust you that it is there. And if they needed, then can use full-text search if they needed.
**However, it is necessary to provide as precise version information of the file as possible!**
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/04 | 817 | 3,579 | <issue_start>username_0: I just finished a PhD in Math and I am starting my postdoc in September. I am currently just working on a few collaborations--working on projects that are follow-ups from my dissertation that are mainly strengthening my results or applying my results to interests of my collaborators. I hear a lot about the difficulty and stress in transitioning from PhD to postdoc and how the "clock starts."
I have a few questions about these statements:
* What are some concrete changes that you experienced when you transitioned from PhD to postdoc? Bonus points for math-related experiences.
* How real is this "clock starts" claim and what does it really mean? Math-related answers are more useful.
* Are there any adjustments I can actively start to make now to make the transition better?<issue_comment>username_1: My understanding of the "clock" comment is that math postdocs are almost all time limited, and, if you're staying in academia, the quality of the next job you get depends heavily (not exclusively, of course) on the work you do as a postdoc. The extreme way to look at it is that you have about two and a half years to conceive, write, and get accepted the work that will justify your next job. This is a big contrast to most PhD programs in math which take "5 or so" years; if you're making decent progress but not done after year 5 (or, depending on the program, 6, or 7, or 8...) you can scrape things together to keep going. As a postdoc, on the other hand, the time limit is fixed---at the end of it you're back on the job market with whatever you've done, whether you're ready or not.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The main difference I noticed when I began a math postdoc is that postdocs are expected to act much more independently than graduate students. Math postdocs are viewed as (young but) full members of the research community, not as apprentices. You will need to choose your own goals and set your own deadlines.
One important change to make quickly is to develop (additional) professional relations with established researchers from other institutions. Some of these relations may turn into research collaborations, but others may just be discussions at conferences that lead to other discussions or to invitations to speak at other conferences or departmental colloquia. Keep in mind that you will need to ask for letters of recommendation when you apply for jobs again, and that others in your field will be reviewing your grant applications when you submit them.
In terms of research, as a postdoc you should also expect to always have multiple research projects underway, whereas many grad students only work on their thesis. You should also aim for projects that have a high chance of giving positive results quickly. Don't spend too long on famous open problems or on results that would take a decade to complete. If you apply to research positions, you will be judged on your productivity in the time since you earned a PhD, and you only have a few years in your postdoc.
*The "clock"*: in an important sense, your vita begins when you finish your PhD. If possible, decide what sort of employment you want to have after your postdoc is over. Find well established colleagues you respect who took the path you are interested in, ask them for advice, and try to emulate them. You want to leave your postdoc with a vita that will make you as competitive as possible for the type of job you plan to apply for. A generic vita is unlikely to be competitive in the current job market.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/06/04 | 749 | 3,246 | <issue_start>username_0: How liberal are institutions with regard to doing research in a different (unrelated) field than the person's diploma?
For example, if a person with a diploma in pure mathematics wants also to do research and programming in IT (specifically in XML), can he do it in his work time?
Does it makes sense to obtain a second diploma (Is Bachelor enough?) in order to be able to refresh the brain by switching between two different jobs during work time?<issue_comment>username_1: My understanding of the "clock" comment is that math postdocs are almost all time limited, and, if you're staying in academia, the quality of the next job you get depends heavily (not exclusively, of course) on the work you do as a postdoc. The extreme way to look at it is that you have about two and a half years to conceive, write, and get accepted the work that will justify your next job. This is a big contrast to most PhD programs in math which take "5 or so" years; if you're making decent progress but not done after year 5 (or, depending on the program, 6, or 7, or 8...) you can scrape things together to keep going. As a postdoc, on the other hand, the time limit is fixed---at the end of it you're back on the job market with whatever you've done, whether you're ready or not.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The main difference I noticed when I began a math postdoc is that postdocs are expected to act much more independently than graduate students. Math postdocs are viewed as (young but) full members of the research community, not as apprentices. You will need to choose your own goals and set your own deadlines.
One important change to make quickly is to develop (additional) professional relations with established researchers from other institutions. Some of these relations may turn into research collaborations, but others may just be discussions at conferences that lead to other discussions or to invitations to speak at other conferences or departmental colloquia. Keep in mind that you will need to ask for letters of recommendation when you apply for jobs again, and that others in your field will be reviewing your grant applications when you submit them.
In terms of research, as a postdoc you should also expect to always have multiple research projects underway, whereas many grad students only work on their thesis. You should also aim for projects that have a high chance of giving positive results quickly. Don't spend too long on famous open problems or on results that would take a decade to complete. If you apply to research positions, you will be judged on your productivity in the time since you earned a PhD, and you only have a few years in your postdoc.
*The "clock"*: in an important sense, your vita begins when you finish your PhD. If possible, decide what sort of employment you want to have after your postdoc is over. Find well established colleagues you respect who took the path you are interested in, ask them for advice, and try to emulate them. You want to leave your postdoc with a vita that will make you as competitive as possible for the type of job you plan to apply for. A generic vita is unlikely to be competitive in the current job market.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/06/04 | 1,313 | 5,582 | <issue_start>username_0: Suppose two papers were published by fledgling researchers, perhaps PhD students, who are yet unknown in their field. One is Asian, has a surname which is long and difficult to pronounce, and perhaps also comes from a relatively unknown university. The other has an English name, and comes from a well-known university. But otherwise, the two papers are similar in content and on par in terms of quality.
Ideally, there should not be any preference with regards to citing either of the two papers. That means, in the long run, the expected citation counts of the two papers should be about the same. However, I am interested to know whether this is the case in reality. From my limited experience, I seem to have seen papers that referenced only other papers whose authors are European. Has there been any study that suggests whether the name and/or affiliation of an author affect the visibility and hence the citation count of his/her paper? I am aware that the answer might be different for different fields.
---
To ask the question in another way, is our perception of a paper influenced by the authors' names and/or affiliations? Do we not tend to infer the quality of a paper by these factors?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Has there been any study that suggests whether the name and/or affiliation of an author affect the visibility and hence the citation count of his/her paper? I am aware that the answer might be different for different fields.
>
>
>
I have no study at the ready, but I have often wondered the same and can provide some speculations.
You bring up the following factors that might play into whether a work may be higher cited:
* Status of the researcher
* Name
* Status of university
For computer science, the first point is usually not all that important, as the vast majority of papers have both PhD students *and* professor(s) as authors. I also don't believe that the status of the university very much plays into the decision whether a paper will be cited. At least for me, I never even remember which institution(s) an interesting paper comes from, unless I know the authors personally. I just don't consider that particularly relevant information. Interestingly, I remember universities more for papers from asian authors (see also next paragraph), as "National University of XY" is much better discriminator for me than most asian names. However, it's not that better universities stick more in my mind than smaller ones. To be honest, I can hardly judge the quality of asian universities outside of Singapore (where I stayed for a research visit once) anyway, except for absolute top institutions.
Now, whether the "memorability" of the name is relevant is an interesting question. For me it is certainly easier to remember US / european names than asian or indian ones. Critically speaking, I also have the strong impression that I cite more European or US authors than asian ones. However, I am 100% convinced that this also works the other way. Whenever I browse over papers by asian authors, they also seem to cite almost exclusively other asian authors, presumably for similar reasons. Whether this all evens out in the end I don't know, but I also don't really know whether there is anything that can really be done about it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The short answer (from the view of an economist) is: Probably not. At least not in the way you suggest.
However, for most (i.e., not the most influential papers/journals) papers most of the citations (especially for PhD students) are "generated" by feedback from conferences, referees, supervisors, ... .
Therefore, someone from Europe is more likely to encounter someone who knows the European paper and therefore only cites the paper from Europe. In addition, researchers from well-known universities have more visibility and are more likely to know the topic of papers from PhD students at their department.
So, even if there is is no discrimination with regards to the name and the affiliation we could observe the effect you described.
I do not know of any study covering your question, and I do not think there is a way to do such a study.
---
>
> To ask the question in another way, is our perception of a paper
> influenced by the authors' names and/or affiliations? Do we not tend
> to infer the quality of a paper by these factors?
>
>
>
I guess that depends on the person. I (and most people I know) are heavily influenced by the journal it is published in, not at all by the authors' name (to clarify: We are influenced by the fact if we know the person or not, but not by how the origin of the name / how the name looks like.) and maybe a little bit by the affiliation of the author if it is a top 5 or top 10 institution in the specific field of research.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: For multi author papers coming from well know labs I would be surprised if the surname of the junior author had much impact on citations since the popularity of the paper is going to be driven by the PI. For single author papers or unknown labs there could be a noticeable effect, but again I doubt it. I think most people search for literature based on key words wether it is an electronic search or a skimming of table of contents. If the authors or university Is know that clearly will increase the chance of citation. For unknown authors and universities, there is enough bias in this world, both justified and unjustified, that my guess is that there would be a correlation between citations and names.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/04 | 1,340 | 5,712 | <issue_start>username_0: By the end of the term, I always end up with quite a number of D and F students who want to improve their grades. Meanwhile, I usually have lots of menial tasks on hand during the summer, e.g. data entry, translations, proofreading, photo tagging, etc.
* None of these tasks is work I am assigned or paid to do.
* All of the tasks relate to my courses in some way and the resulting efforts would benefit the next group of students who attend my courses in the subsequent terms.
* My school has no official "dead week", but naturally these tasks would occupy time that presumably the students would otherwise use for final exam preparations.
Is there any ethical or professional reason deeming it inappropriate to assign such tasks as optional extra credit, allowing students to move their 50 to a 60 or 60 to a 70 after ~10-15 hours of repetitive work?<issue_comment>username_1: My feeling is that it's sort of a sliding scale based on the amount of time they have to put in, the amount of credit they get, and the relevance of the task to understanding course material.
It's not uncommon for professors to allow (or even require) students to act as participants in a study (e.g., fill out a survey, be part of an experiment) for credit, on the theory that such participation helps them to "understand the research process". If the tasks they're doing have some relevance of that sort, I think you have an easier case. If it's totally mindless work with no connection to the class, it's more dubious.
Also, at least at my school, every such opportunity *must* (by human-subjects rules) have an alternative credit opportunity that takes roughly equal time but doesn't require such participation (e.g., write a paper). This kind of alternative is designed to ensure that students aren't forced to work for the professor's benefit in order to improve their grade.
Also, assuming by "50", "60", "70", you're referring to their overall course percentages, that seems like a massive amount of credit to me. When I've given or received extra credit, it's usually been much less than that -- equivalent to maybe 2% or at most 5% of the overall grade. The intent is not to allow students with a flat D to move to a C, but to allow students who have a *high* D to move to a C. I think offering extra credit that allows students to raise their grade by an entire letter sets some dangerous precedents, especially when combined with the mindless-task aspect.
In the same vein, extra credit assignments usually were the work-time equivalent of say, one homework problem, or at most one homework assignment, expected to take the students maybe 3-5 hours tops, and often an hour or less. 10-15 hours of mindless work sounds like a pretty awful prospect to me. I think it's a bad idea to misuse the extra-credit leverage to have students slaving away for hours and hours.
So basically, I think it is possibly defensible, but more so if the tasks are not truly mindless but have some reasonable connection to the class. Also, I think the amounts of time and credit you suggest are a bit high, and especially so if the task is just grunt work.
Incidentally, as an example, I once was a TA for a class where the professor assigned homework in which the students had to take a spreadsheet and perform certain category-coding tasks on the data. I suspect (but do not know for sure) that the professor was using the coded data for his own research. However, the data was relevant to the class topic, and the coding task, although not exactly an intellectual challenge, was a realistic encounter with this sort of data, in that if students were to later write a paper using such data, they might well have to perform such a task as part of the project. Also, the amount of data coded was rather small (about 50 spreadsheet rows per student, as I recall). My own opinion was that, although such an assignment was perhaps not the best way to get students interested in the class, or enhance their understanding of the material, it wasn't unethical, because it was small in scale and legitimately (if uninspiringly) relevant to the topic of the class.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: As I see it, the grade in the class is supposed to measure a student's mastery of the material. Letting students improve their grade via unrelated menial work is not consistent with this standard and seems dangerously close to letting the students wash your car for extra credit.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_3: It is not ethical, you are **misleading** future possible employers about how capable the student is. A degree is a measure of how well someone can learn and how well they know their subject, not how well they can tag photos.
You are also devaluing the degree, so making it harder for other students at your university to get a job. A course that few people fail is of little value to the people that pass.
(Proofreading may be OK in a English degree)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: If you do it, make sure the kids who have B's have the same opportunities. They probably care more about their grades, and would more ambitiously take the opportunity to do something dumb for the A.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: It's funny to me that you mention Mechanical Turk in the question because it suggests where things might go if you were to implement something like this. You'd give students tasks. They'd post them to Mechanical Turk, offering a few cents in return. Your tasks would get done, and the students would get extra credit.
But it seems better to just post the tasks to Mechanical Turk yourself instead of inviting students to buy a passing grade in your class.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/05 | 2,442 | 9,944 | <issue_start>username_0: I have been told by our head of department, a veteran academic with **a lot** of publications behind his name, that I am not allowed to write my masters dissertation with TeX/LaTeX, as many journals do not accept TeX/LaTeX documents, and now I have to use Word. I work in thermoflow research.
I can almost not believe that journals would prefer Word over TeX/LaTeX, or is this in actual fact true?
I would appreciate answers from people actually working in academic publishing.<issue_comment>username_1: The answer is that in some fields (La)TeX dominate whereas in other fields (La)TeX is largely unknown. Obviously any field where equations are required is more likely to be using (La)TeX for writing and publishing. However, it is not uncommon that journals, or rather, type-setters of journals, use LaTeX for final production regardless of submitted format. The same applies to book publishers. But, the fact is that the use varies and one needs to check with the journal to which you wish to submit.
The fact that you are not "allowed" to write your thesis with (la)TeX is perhaps because your advisor does not use it. I am an avid LaTeX user and am struggling to convince both colleagues and students in my department to at least try using it so I know how difficult it can be. In the end, I need to use both to be able to communicate with my colleagues and peers. So although I do not see why you should not set the thesis in (La)TeX in the end, you probably need to use word for the manuscript so that your advisor can provide input on files you supply. But, check how many journals actually use LaTeX in your field and strike up a discussion with your fellow students and your advisor. I think it is worthwhile to be fairly fluent in using many tools.
**Edit:** I will just add that I was convinced by a friend to use TeX (not LaTeX, it was a long time ago) when I wrote my thesis (a monograph at a US university) while almost no-one in the department used TeX; but then my advisor always provided feedback from double-spaced printouts which were platform independent. Those were the days.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yes, journals that do not accept LaTeX do exist. If LaTeX is not widely used in your field you might have surprises even with those journals that claim to accept it, since they in fact almost never have to. I recently submitted a manuscript in LaTeX to a Taylor & Francis journal which stated it did accept LaTeX submissions, only to find my piece "unsubmitted" the next day with a request to re-submit in Word.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: There are many journals that do not accept, or actively discourage LaTeX-based submissions. I've always found the assumption in LaTeX heavy fields that it's ubiquitous to be an interesting quirk.
For example, two journals that will accept LaTeX based submissions, but would rather you not:
*American Journal of Epidemiology*:
>
> Prepare your manuscript, including tables, using a word processing
> program and save it as a .doc, .rtf or .ps file. All files in these
> formats will be converted to .pdf format upon submission. Please note:
> This journal does not accept Microsoft Word 2007 documents at this
> time. Please use Word's "Save As" option to save your document as an
> older (.doc) file type.
>
>
>
On LaTeX:
>
> Prepare any other files that are to be submitted for review, including
> any supplementary material. The permitted formats for these files are
> the same as for manuscripts and figures. Other file types, such as
> Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations may be
> uploaded and will be converted to .pdf format. It is also possible to
> upload LaTeX files but these will not be automatically converted to
> .pdf format (and are therefore discouraged). The journal staff,
> editors and reviewers will only be able to view these unconverted
> files if they have the appropriate software, which cannot be
> guaranteed.
>
>
>
*Epidemiology*:
>
> Manuscripts should be in a standard word processing format. We prefer Microsoft Word but we can also use RTF, TXT, LaTeX2e, and AMSTex. Application software programs released before 2001 are not supported.
>
>
>
The *New England Journal of Medicine* actively doesn't accept them, at least not unless converted to a PDF:
>
> All text, references, figure legends, and tables should be in one
> double-spaced electronic document (preferably a Word Doc). You may
> either insert figures in the text file or upload your figures
> separately. We prefer the former, but this may not work well for
> complicated graphics, which should be sent separately. It is
> permissible to send low-resolution images for peer review, although we
> may ask for high-resolution files at a later stage.
>
>
> Legends for all figures should be included in the file with the text
> and should not appear on the figures.
>
>
> Our preferred file type for new manuscript submissions is a Word or
> text document with all figures in the same document. We will also
> accept Adobe Acrobat portable document format (.pdf) , WordPerfect
> (.wpd), text (.txt) documents, or .rtf file format.
>
>
>
*Clinical Infectious Diseases* doesn't even want your PDFs:
>
> The preferred format for submitting manuscripts online is Microsoft
> Word (.doc files). PDF files are not acceptable for submission.
>
>
>
These are all very good journals in my field - a happy, healty, high-impact, tenure friendly career could very easily be had never touching LaTeX.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: This sounds like a minor miscommunication. Your mentor is correct in that many publications do not accept TeX documents, but you do not (usually) submit the latex version of your document in the first place. You compile it to produce a PDF which is what you submit. The publications that want to edit your PDF will normally have the tools to convert from PDF to word or whatever other format they work with.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Out of my ~12 publications (spanning statistics, and applications of statistics in economics, psychology, sociology), I vividly recall at least two being rewritten in the publishing house from LaTeX into Word, with an innumerable typos, mistakes, etc. that I had to weed out comparing their proofs to my beautiful PDFs. There may have been more than two that were retyped into something else, actually, but these two were obvious downgrades.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: As many mentioned already, yes, there are journals that would not take LaTeX submissions. Even if they take PDF submissions, they will sometimes redo the type-setting and create ugly final equations and texts (e.g. Journal of Neuroscience).
However, that should not be the reason to not use LaTeX. You can always convert it to RTF or DOC format. `latex2rtf -M12` usually does the trick (there are other solutions, too). It converts equations to bitmap (png) images, so they can't edit the equations, but the text is editable. If your advisor wants to give you feedback using 'Track changes' in MS word, that's great. It's usually much better than directly getting the modified TeX file, actually. So you get the best of both worlds: beautiful typesetting of the final product, and easy to track text changes.
TL;DR: use LaTex and convert to other formats if needed.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I wrote some books in LaTeX and another one with Word. I lose plenty of time with Word and I don't like to renew this experience. In october I'll give a course about LaTeX for an association in amateur radio with Smith diagrams examples. I'm not sure I could draw them easily with Word. For the moment publications in this amateur radio association are made with Word; some people in this association know the LaTeX name and its potential but they haven't yet the level required to use it. In my experience some Editors don't like LaTeX because they haven't internal knowledges but undoubtly they are frightened with its tremendous potential.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_8: I've worked in journal publishing (for a large STEM publisher, a large STEM printer, and now a scientific association) for almost 25 years, and LaTeX is always a problem. Typesetters have standardized around Word because there are literally millions of users, possibly a billion. But standardizing around Word means that there are going to be problems with *any* non-Word submissions. In most cases, TeX manuscripts will be converted to Word, either through some automated means or through double-keying (i.e., two poorly paid people in the Pacific rim will rekey the manuscript; the two versions are merged because it's unlikely—though not impossible—that they will make the same mistakes). Also keep in mind that there are more manuscripts that do not contain math than do, so the publisher, again, is not going to standardize around a niche.
However, in reading the above answers, I note the common expression of how beautiful and pleasing the final TeX product is. Here's the problem: if you want to be published, the *manuscript* is not the final product. Think about it from a journal publisher's point of view: They want their final product to be beautiful, too, subjective as that may be, and there is some beauty in uniformity.
Once your article has been accepted for publication, it is in many senses no longer your article. There are certain things over which you no longer have any say, such as typefaces, whether a serial (Oxford) comma is used, or whether hyphens are used in compound adjectives (which is a surprising point of contention for authors).
TL;DR: The publisher has found the easiest path to get to its desired result; even if you insist on deviating from the path, the product will be the same, and you and everyone else will be frustrated along the way.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/05 | 5,024 | 21,266 | <issue_start>username_0: Are students allowed to complete a large portion of their research independently, then enroll in a PhD program, apply for a defense panel within the first semester, and quickly finish the thesis? Has this been done before?
**Update:** Question trimmed. I'm looking for an answer whether students can be admitted with much prior work on the thesis already complete, to finish in a short time (perhaps one year fix and improve the work), and whether there are real examples of people who did this. I not asking whether I myself am personally capable of completing this prior work to sufficient quality.<issue_comment>username_1: In principle, this *may* be possible at some universities, but not in all. My current employer, for instance, requires students to be inscribed as PhD students for a certain minimum number of semesters before handing in their thesis.
However, I would assume it an almost impossible task to find an advisor that would roll with this model. Doing a doctoral study is as much about the process as it is about the end result, and finding an advisor that would just accept your final thesis without having *seen* you doing the research (and without being able to provide input on the general direction) will be difficult. From a practical point of view, I would honestly also be surprised if you would be able to actually produce an acceptable dissertation from scratch without *any* input from senior researchers, or at least other PhD students.
Finally, and I am aware that this is field-dependent, but in many fields, doing your literature survey is really only the very first step to doing research (and really not the hard part). Hence, I would reckon that you are still far away from the 90% completed dissertation that you mentioned.
**EDIT:** to answer your concrete question:
I am sure *somebody somewhere* has already done this, but I am not aware of anybody, and, as I said, it would formally be entirely impossible in my current university. I would also assume that it would be very much frowned upon by the rest of the faculty should a professor agree to this model.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I can't speak to whether this is possible, but I can advise as to why I think it's a bad idea.
Firstly, PhD Comics is a largely satirical and humourous representation of life in academia. Some of those comics can be scarily true, but you can probably find a comic that parodies any job you care to imagine. It doesn't mean they all suck.
Even if you could do this, for most people and disciplines it's not a good way to get a PhD. You really should find an advisor to help you guide your research. Colleagues are great to bounce ideas off of. Having an office to work in and access to a good library is a huge advantage. You will have access to high-performance computing and lab facilities, if needed. If you're lucky, you'll find someone to *pay you* to do your research.
At the end, you will graduate being well-absorbed into academic life. You'll have networking skills, have been to and presented at conferences, your research will be of a higher quality, and you will overall be a much more well-rounded and knowledgeable researcher than had you stuck at it alone. The skills you learn as a PhD student are *essential* if you wish to have a career in academia. If you wish to go on into an industry job, they're still pretty darn useful.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: You have no interest in becoming a PhD student just because you read some comics? It so, it just indicates that you didn’t do your research (about what being a PhD Student means) properly.
If you are doing independent research because you find it interesting, it might be beneficial for a PhD project. Find an academic who works in that area, contact them, present your research and see if they are willing to become your supervisor. They can advise you what the rules of their university are regarding the minimal period between enrolling in a PhD programme and submitting a thesis. This period might be different for full time and part time students. In one of the UK universities I used to work, part-time students (university employees) were required to be enrolled for at least 12 months.
If you want to do as much work as possible before enrolling into the programme, I would advise against writing the literature review (or at least against writing its full version), as it might turn out to be waste of time. Read “everything” in the topic, do some experiments or develop a prototype (or do whatever practical work can be done in your area), come with an idea about your research and speak with a potential supervisor. If you manage to persuade them that the idea is good, this is great, but the discussion might give you a different direction, you might want to modify the idea.
Another thing to consider – some universities (in UK) have 2-stagies process – the students are supposed to submit a transfer report after an year/an year and a half and have a viva, which usually leads to a MPhil degree, if it is successful they can proceed further to the final thesis. A transfer report typically consists of description of the problem, short literature and an overview of your ideas about the research/experiments/methodology, etc. with a schedule for conducting it. You can write in advance the bigger part of it but don’t do it before speaking with a potential supervisor.
If you are going for a full-time PhD, you might need funding. Check first what funding is available, the specific requirements of the funding bodies might mean that your idea has to me modified to fit them.
Last but not least – chose your supervisor carefully. The importance of having a good work relationship with them can’t be overestimated. Your overall experience as a PhD students hugely depends on it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Most US and Canadian universities require four semesters worth of coursework, and passing candidacy and/or comprehensive exams before you can propose a thesis. Some of this is different in other places, e.g., in the UK, where you would typically come in with a MSc degree. Doing a PhD while working elsewhere is much more common there. One university there ("The Open University") specializes in distance learning. What you suggest is also more common at German universities, where you can find top-notch professors, and won't have to pay much in the way of tuition. But, be warned, it often takes a very long time, and you would first enroll and then work with your advisor on developing your thesis work. Plenty of people never graduate.
As someone has pointed out - doing a literature review is not research. It's the beginning of it, particularly in the sciences and engineering.
In my experience (I am tenure-track faculty at a US institution), people outside of academia call a lot of work "research", and beginning graduate students confuse programming, prototyping, reading with the *contribution* that is inherent in successful and publishable research.
Second, keep in mind that doing a PhD is about so much more than handing in a thesis. It is about laying the foundation for a career in research. A PhD involves going to conferences, meeting people, publishing, hearing guest speakers at your institution, critiquing your lab mates' work in lab meetings, writing a proposal or two with your supervisor, and so on.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Short answer: life is short, reduce the risks of wasting your time.
Long answer:
You are free to do as much as you please before starting a PhD. There are usually requirements about some minimums, but the good thing is that you are likely to stay close to those minimums and not get to the maximums (sometimes infinite) if you start your PhD from scratch.
You may also enjoy some spare time if all you have to do during your PhD is waiting for the minimum time to pass.
However, you should be aware that if you do independent research this may be neglected by your supervisor or simply everyone in the world. That is potentially possible and for a number of reasons:
* bad quality, e.g. being unscientific or ignoring an important part of the state of the art.
* it's on an irrelevant topic about which nobody cares about.
* it's not aligned with their interests
* it's independent and they don't like people trying to bypass them (oligopolistic practices, they have the key to research, if you don't go through them, you are not doing research)
* the fragment of your thesis that you do at the university is on a different topic and becomes a whole thesis on its own
* it's already done
* whatever
The point is, all the time that you invest before starting the PhD may be wasted, actually a large chunk of the time that you invest during the PhD (at some university) will most probably be wasted as well. This is what happens with investments.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: In general, it is not a good idea to do a whole lot of work on a PhD thesis before taking the PhD program. The reason is because your earlier research/exposition will likely not be up to the PhD standards that you will learn by taking the required courses.
That said, there are some topics that are very data intensive, and if you do a lot of the data **gathering** before taking the PhD program, and most of the data "processing" and interpretation after you're in the program, that's a different story. Here, the ratio might be 50-50, not the 90-10 that you hypothesized in your question.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: In many places (e.g., here in Finland) the following two things are largely independent from each other:
1. Doctoral student status (i.e., being enrolled as a doctoral student). You have got the **right** to take courses, there is a professor who is willing to **advise** you, etc. There are of course high expectations but very few formal obligations — you are your own boss and you can do whatever you want, at your own pace.
2. A job as a doctoral student or a similar position (i.e., having a working contract with the university). You receive **salary**, and you are also expected to do something in return. Formally, your advisor is your **boss** and tells you what to do during your working hours.
Of course 2 usually implies 1. However, it is perfectly well possible to take 1 without 2. In that case you can get your salary from whatever source you want. Typical examples include:
* working part time elsewhere and doing your studies part time
* working full time elsewhere and doing your studies part time (and having no free time or holidays)
* working full time in a job that somehow also supports your PhD studies
* getting a personal research grant and doing your studies full time.
I do not recommend this for a typical student, but in atypical cases all of these are possible. And yes, you can certainly defend your thesis as soon as you, your advisor, your university, and the external reviewers are happy with it (whether you finished it 6 monts or 6 years after formally starting your studies).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: To give you examples of short PhDs, there are instances for some prodigies in mathematics that they got their PhDs in about two years, e.g., <NAME>. Elkies also published in (one of the) top math journals in the world when he graduated, so it made sense for them to graduate him. There are some one-year PhDs in the history of mathematics, though these are typically nominal PhDs given to Russian mathematicians that needed one to leave Russia, to come to the US, and to find a new academic position.
Clearly, these are exceptions to the typical rules and these were only done at top tier universities for top tier talents. I believe the intent for these short PhDs seems a lot different from what your intent is.
FWIW: The five years I spent in grad school are the best five years of my life. You may be not allowing yourself to have the experience of a lifetime.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: PhD student who never completed here (so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt). I would advise **against** what you're describing because I do not believe it is in the spirit of the system and it raises issues for all who know what you are trying to do.
Like life itself you can choose to shortcut the system but if people find out what you've done they can punish you for it.
If you completed a significant amount of your research before doing your PhD then published it as part of your PhD thesis what on earth was your supervisor doing? What would your PhD examiner(s) say if they found out - do another year of new research then submit again? What are the ethics involved of what you have done? How does that look for those who are involved in what you did? What does it look like for the University and what will academics in other departments say?
A further issue crops up if the University is funding you. If I give you funding for three years and you said you were done in less than two as your supervisor/funder I would simply turn round and say do additional research for another year so you have a greater body of work published.
Another wrinkle is that in certain Universities it is not possible to submit a final dissertation for a PhD before two years ("thems the rules").
It **is** possible for people to finish PhDs early compared to the average of that university/country (I knew a talented faculty member who did this) but I do not personally know of anyone who managed to do this in under two years.
To answer your questions directly:
>
> Are you allowed to do your research before your PhD enrolment and be viva'd after one year?
>
>
>
Theoretically you can do anything so long as you will find people who will agree to it. Practically it's very unlikely you would find a well regarded department who would want to this in anything but the most exceptional circumstances (proposed PhD student is already held in high esteem by the department and the entire field of academics in the field they wish to publish in (because your external will come from there)). If you withhold the fact that the work was done prior to the PhD you step into ethical issues.
>
> Has this been done before?
>
>
>
I don't personally know of it happening in field I was researching. You **can** finish faster than average (three and a half years where I was) without prior work and I know part time students who have done so (but...).
One extra note: you had better make sure that your work is novel and hasn't been published anywhere else before before you submit it or there's another can of worms waiting for you...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Since you've changed the question, my comment transforms to an answer. There are many people far more qualified than I am to talk about this, but none of them have answered in this way, so here goes:
In some UK universities (I happen to be in the UK) and also elsewhere in the world, there is an alternative route to a PhD called a "PhD by publication", which you can find out about under that name in the UK and presumably other names in other countries / languages. There's also a rarer "PhD by practice", which I believe is intended to cover work that isn't as such "published" at all, such as fine arts, architecture, theatre and whatnot.
I sort of doubt that a paper that "should" be peer-review published but that you haven't published, or in general work that you keep entirely to yourself prior to submitting for the PhD, would qualify even for "by practice". But it's largely down to the regulations of the individual institution, so if you're interested then you should contact specific institutions for further information. The general theme, though, is that you don't get a PhD *just* for working in a field. Your work should have enhanced the field, in the same way that a traditional PhD is an original contribution to the progress of its field.
Either route requires that you have already produced work that is deemed worthy to contribute to a PhD. You will demonstrate this work as part of the application. Of course there's quite a lot of detail and judgement as to what's deemed worthy. It may also be deemed necessary to submit new written work to bring together multiple separate publications into a coherent thesis. There is no guarantee at all that work you think is good, will be considered good by the institution when you apply. That, after all, is one of the roles of a PhD supervisor, to assess the academic value of your work before you do it as well as afterwards.
This is the way to quickly be awarded a PhD based on past work. It is intended for a professional in some field that does research outside academia, or someone within academia but who for some reason has not been enrolled in a PhD program while publishing. It's suitable for example for research scientists in industry, or authors whose work contributes to some field even though they aren't employed as academics. It is not construed as a means to avoid the main part of a PhD program, and indeed it *doesn't* work by enrolling you in the program and immediately examining you. It's a distinct, designed route to a PhD.
In the same way that people might weigh the value of your PhD based on where you got it from, people might weigh the value of your PhD based on the route you got it. Which is a diplomatic way of saying that a PhD by publication is not *universally* accepted to be as good as a conventional PhD. In particular it makes no attempt to prepare you for professional academia, and academics will know this.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_11: The main part of a thesis is publishable and published research
---------------------------------------------------------------
There are "PhD by publication" options that others have mentioned. If you have a number of solid peer reviewed publications, then that is an option that you can take to get a degree quicker. If you don't have such publications, then your thesis *can't* be mostly completed, it has all of the nontrivial work yet to be done.
Unpublishable things can't be "much of a PhD thesis"
----------------------------------------------------
No matter how much work you've put into 'research'-as-in-reading-and-reviewing, data gathering, etc, all of that is just preliminary background work, even if you have put it in a nicely structured 200-page document and label it a "thesis". The main and time consuming part of a PhD is obtaining ***novel***, relevant and thus publishable results; if you don't have them, then that's not a PhD thesis, and not even a half-done thesis.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_12: This is possible in Germany, where enrolling as PhD student is usually not necessary (but possible on a volountary basis) - but it has nothing whatsoever to do with "finishing quickly" since you anyways have to do the usual amount of research work.
However, formally all that is really needed for a PhD over here is a professor who will "take" the thesis. In theory, you may arrive there with your thesis written, have that professor read and approve it, and then start the formal process of submitting and defending.
While arriving "out of the blue" with a written thesis is unusual (and would be risky in terms of whether the thesis does fulfil the required standard), there are some situations that are formally similar but are far more common:
* PhD student does normal PhD research & publications at "their" institute, but does not enroll as PhD student since that is volountary. Also, a supervision agreement is typically not a formal requirement (unless the funding asks for it). So the first point where formal university burocracy meets the candidate is when they ask for the forms to hand in.
* Similar: PhD students who do their research at a non-university research institute or in industry. Those institutes cannot grant a PhD, so the thesis is handed in at a university. Again, in practice, such a PhD student typically had the normal amount of supervision, but may not be known to the university until just before handing in.
* This applies also (with less supervision) to people who after years of industrial research decide to put those results together to get a PhD.
* I've done something like this as well: started a normal PhD without enrolling, got some jobs (full time research) before handing in\*. Years later, I handed in at another university closeby to the non-university research institute where I was working at the time (and with the professor who is also director of that research institute), taking my "original PhD work" from the 1st university plus some bits and pieces from the ongoing full-time research jobs that thematically fitted in.
---
\* getting a full time job as "almost finished" PhD student happened to about half the PhD students in that group.
Some of them finished years later, others never as the importance of the PhD often lies in the work rather than the formal certificate ("we see from your publications that you do have the proficiency required for the PhD, and that's what we really care about") and further diminishes with ongoing professional experience in the field.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/05 | 1,105 | 4,901 | <issue_start>username_0: Consider the concept of opportunity cost.
There are two possible situations:
1. I program everything, do the evaluation with a benchmark, tell nobody, write everything and publish alone.
2. I program everything, do the evaluation with a benchmark, write something and publish with four other authors, that mostly write the paper.
What should I do?
To answer your possible questions:
* They are not going to program, no matter what, so that doesn't help to save any time.
* Publishing without telling them anything may be perceived in a suspicious way, specially by external reviewers and considering there may be past papers in which I wasn't alone.
* It may also be perceived as if I'm not a good team player, which worries me, as finding a new job may be harder due to this.
* The order of the authors is alphabetical, and I'm not lucky in that sense.
* They are more reputed than me.
PD: the original idea for the paper either comes from me or it comes from someone else. The implementation is always my task. At this very moment I could refine one of those ideas and improve it (the previous version is submitted but not reviewed). I'm very confused about how to proceed.
PD: I am a postdoc now but I am a PhD in a different institution (I haven't defended my thesis, it's nearly finished).<issue_comment>username_1: I had discussion with several well-known professors with experience (30+ years in research) about this sort of thing, how did they list authorship in their early papers where they were the less well known authors. I started publishing only several years ago, so I will give their opinion (which I agree with I should add). *Their response was the same across the board*: the person who did most of the work they ought simply list themselves as first author when writing the paper and if the coauthors ask them about it, then they just discuss their concern with their coauthors honestly. If your coauthors are real scientists (regardless of whether they are more well known than you), and if your claim is true, they will agree with you.
If your coauthors are administrators mostly, and it's convention in your field and location, that they are added to your paper and listed ahead of you, consider working elsewhere, otherwise the problem cannot be solved in that environment.
There is another option: publish with them according to whatever convention is appropriate, and if you did not get listed as first author when you did actually most of the work, then at the same time also extend the work (>40% different material) on your own and publish a second paper in another journal as single author, covering both new and old material. (This is how you also find out who the major contributing author was on a particular work, where there are both team and individual papers at once.)
The first solution minimizes opportunity cost; the last solution requires more time and hassle for you, but you don't forgo anything academically, only some time writing a second paper and doing a bit more work.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: My answer is straight foward.
If the original idea was from somebody else and the implementation is yours, publish the paper with the people who had the original idea. Of course, you'll be one of the authors.
If both the idea and the implementation are yours, publish the paper as you are the sole author. Pure and simple.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I can relate to your question. I've also works in projects where I'm the person doing all the programming/implementation. Actually, in some of those cases the people in question don't even want to work on the paper, so I guess you are doing better with your people.
I think that one issue to keep in mind is that an active collaboration, assuming the other people are in there with you, is helpful, because it helps keep one focused. I don't know if you have experience working on a project alone, but it can get pretty lonely. And working on an applied research project which requires both writing a paper and an implementation is a lot of work, usually over a long period of time, and it can be hard to keep focus. If you have actual reasonable collaborators (even if they don't do programming) as opposed to people who just want to put their name on your paper, they can definitely help to keep you focused, so in theory in can be an easier, faster, more pleasant process.
I do think that if both (a) much of the ideas come from you, and (b) you are doing the entire implementation, then you should be first/main author, so you should try to find some way to be recognized as such. Some journals now require a section where the author contributions are listed. Even if they don't require it, perhaps you could add one? Just a thought. This could help to emphasize that the bulk of the work is yours, if that is indeed the case.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/05 | 4,693 | 18,186 | <issue_start>username_0: As an undergraduate, I wasted a ridiculous amount of time due to a combination of being distracted by part-time work, lack of focus, not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, and just plain being stupid and lazy. Several times I tried to "get it together" but by then it was too late as my grades were ridiculously low (mostly around 0) and I could never have gotten into grad school anyway.
Eventually I dropped out as I realized I wasn't getting anywhere. I had a lot of awards from things like programming competitions, so I used that to get some decent jobs. My intention was that I would work for a few years, clear my head, save up some money, and go back later.
Well, later is here. After 5-6 years work experience doing mind-numbingly boring menial programming jobs, I applied for and got accepted into a master's program at a fairly respected university. It's only a 1-year program, but if it goes well I'd definitely consider applying for a PhD.
Obviously it's very important to me that I do things right this time around, so my main questions are:
* Will the total lack of a BSc degree be a problem when applying for a PhD program?
* I spent the last half a decade mostly doing tasks which required no creativity or deep thought. Sometimes I feel like my mind is like an ex-boxer who has been sitting on a sofa eating KFC and donuts all day for 5 years.. completely out of shape! How do I get the gears spinning smoothly again?
* I need a plan for making the transition into "research" mode. To be honest when I was at university I never paid attention to what any of my friends were doing when they were reading papers so I have no idea how the whole thing works. e.g. Do I start by making friends with some professors? Should I volunteer to be a TA?
* At what point will I be able to apply for a PhD?
---
Master's degree will be in Computer Science.
Several people have expressed doubts about the legitimacy of a degree program that gives you a 1-year master's degree with no undergraduate degree. I just want to clarify that it's not some "IT shop under the railway bridge" giving the degree, it is a very respected university. It's a 1-year degree because masters programs are generally one year in the UK. Also, I didn't just walk in with nothing. I demonstrated in my interview that I had knowledge in CS topics, I had a couple published papers, as well as half a dozen international awards from my time as an undergrad, and work experience from top-tier Fortune 100 companies; I just never finished my degree.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Will the total lack of a BSc degree be a problem when applying for a
> PhD program?
>
>
>
Chances are that it will. Your situation is uncommon, you will need to convince that your industry experience and your 1-year Master program\* are somehow equivalent to a full undergraduate degree. You will be in competition with younger candidates who have a more traditional background, and a good grade record. This is not at your advantage. Note that some graduate schools/universities will simply not consider your application without an undergraduate degree, even if you found a professor willing to mentor you.
>
> I spent the last half a decade mostly doing tasks which required no
> creativity or deep thought. Sometimes I feel like my mind is like an
> ex-boxer who has been sitting on a sofa eating KFC and donuts all day
> for 5 years.. completely out of shape! How do I get the gears spinning
> smoothly again?
>
>
>
You might have a too critical view of your work, it's unlikely that your everyday coding routine didn't include a bit of creativity. Even if you didn't recognize it as such. Plus, you probably have been in contact with software or techniques that are original.
But you're gym analogy is correct, practice is important. I would suggest to read papers (start with the most cited or most downloaded ones of the reputable journals in your field). Try to theorize the algorithm you would write to address or compete with the one presented, and maybe try to code some prototypes.
>
> I need a plan for making the transition into "research" mode.
>
>
>
Have a look at these:
[Why do many talented scientists write horrible software?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17781/why-do-many-talented-scientists-write-horrible-software/17788#17788) or [Best-practice models for "research" code?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21276/best-practice-models-for-research-code/21287#21287)
They are full of excellent information about the difference between coding a commercial product and being a computer scientist.
>
> Do I start by making friends with some professors?
>
>
>
That's not how you start, but it might happened along the way. More seriously, meeting professors during your Masters is an excellent idea. You will need to understand who's doing what and how you could be a part of it. If a professor knows you and is interested in your skills, it's going to be helpful, but *it might not be enough* (see above).
>
> Should I volunteer to be a TA?
>
>
>
Teaching and administrative work will come by themselves soon enough, should you be accepted in a graduate program.
>
> At what point will I be able to apply for a PhD?
>
>
>
That depends of many factors, but having some sort of degree is certainly the first step.
\*In fact, an institution that gives Master degrees, in 1 year, to people without a bachelor would probably not be highly regarded by reputable graduate programs.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm a bit surprised that a good school accepted you into an MS program, much less a 1-year MS program, without a bachelor's degree. These days, some schools use their MS program as a cash cow, and the value of such programs is limited, in my opinion.
Regarding your specific questions:
>
> Will the total lack of a BSc degree be a problem when applying for a PhD program?
>
>
>
Not necessarily ... if you do interesting work in your MS. This will require not only good grades but, ideally, an MS thesis or very serious project, even more ideally ending up in a publication. The problem is that with a 1-year MS, you will have no time to do anything but take required courses, and good grades in courses plus a mediocre industry experience and no BS will *not* make you a very appealing PhD candidate.
>
> I spent the last half a decade mostly doing tasks which required no creativity or deep thought...How do I get the gears spinning smoothly again?
>
>
>
Do an MS thesis as part of your degree. Write some papers and impress your advisor.
>
> Do I start by making friends with some professors? Should I volunteer to be a TA? At what point will I be able to apply for a PhD?
>
>
>
You should make *professional* friends with some professors (taking them to a ball game will not get you far). There are several ways to do this: take a particularly challenging course and be the top student or even less than the top student but demonstrate some unusual positive quality; do an interesting thesis that results in publications in *respected* venues.
Volunteering as a TA will help you expand your knowledge and experience with course material, but it will not, in itself, do much to help you get into a PhD program. PhD programs at good schools are extremely competitive, and to get into one you have to demonstrate skills that others do not have.
Incidentally, I would qualify your ability to survive at a mind-numbing job for 5-6 years as one of those skills. In research, perseverance is no less important than intelligence - I've seen very bright students leave a PhD program because their research wasn't advancing and they were sick of trying.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Why don't you simply start with BSc studies?
If you know the stuff, you can do it quickly. Don't waste time with the lectures — just self-study and take exams. It does not need to take that long.
On the other hand, if you don't know it, then it will be very important to study it properly before starting your MSc & PhD studies.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: As a current PhD student, my advice is to first ask yourself several questions before you decide that you want to apply to do a PhD.
### First, why do you want to apply for a PhD program?
For some, the PhD is a stepping stone to a tenure-track job in academia.
For others, the PhD is seen as a mind-enriching experience, even though the student wants to work in industry.
For some industrial research jobs, having a PhD in a related field is a requirement before they will even consider hiring you for that job.
### Second, what level of PhD program are you willing to accept?
There are also different levels of PhD programs.
If you want to get into a good PhD program (MIT, CMU, Stanford, etc),
you could take a look at current students of those programs and look at their CVs.
Usually, these students would have graduated from a top school with a good GPA,
and have had some undergrad research experience and maybe even a publication or two.
If you want to get a job in academia, you usually would have to graduate from a good PhD program.
If you only want to do a PhD to get a job in academia,
it may not be worth your while to get a PhD from a less reputable school.
However, this is a personal decision based on what is important to you.
### Finally, are you both competent and interested in doing research in computer science?
The way that most people realize that they want to do research
is that they have some sort of undergraduate research experience,
or maybe even do a Master's.
### Conclusion
If you think that you would want to get into a good PhD program in computer science,
you should first get a BSc in a good school,
and try to obtain some research experience while you are studying
in order to get a feel for what research is like and whether you are able to do it and whether you really like it.
I think that getting a BSc in a good school would probably be helpful in your career development
even if you decide not to get a PhD.
At the end of the day, you make your own decisions and deal with the consequences.
Good luck!
### In response to OP's edits
A couple of thoughts:
* You didn't mention in your original question that you had several published papers.
If you have some research experience and published papers, that definitely helps your PhD application.
* I don't have personal experience being on an admission committee.
If you were able to meet someone on the admission committee of a university PhD program which you were interested in,
you could ask him/her how they would evaluate your application.
Since it is very rare for a PhD student not to have a BSc,
I don't know how open they would be to accepting you as a student.
* Could you go back to the university which you dropped out of and finish of your degree in a year or two, by just completing missing requirements?
* From what I understand, most master's degrees are based on course-work, and have no research component.
In that case, doing an MSc may not prepare you to do research as a PhD student.
On the other hand, if you were able to do a perhaps 2-year MSc which includes research with an adviser/supervisor,
this could be a great stepping stone into a good PhD program.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> Will the total lack of a BSc degree be a problem when applying for a PhD program?
>
>
>
If the institution that has accepted you for the MS also offers the Ph.D., then *if you do well* in their master's program, you can almost certainly get into their Ph.D. program. If that seems to be a likely path, ask about their Ph.D. program and about how their Ph.D. graduates have done in academia.
If the Ph.D. is not available at your master's institution, then ask about their master's students who have gone onward to the Ph.D. and where they went. Ask a couple of *those* institutions whether your lack of the B.Sc. would be an absolute barrier to acceptance into their Ph.D. program assuming you've done well in your master's program. (Nobody is going to tell you whether they *will* admit you until you have that master's degree, but they probably will tell you whether the lack of the B.Sc. is an insurmountable barrier, which is what you need to know at the moment.)
>
> I need a plan for making the transition into "research" mode
>
>
>
Talk to the people who put your name on their paper about how they came to the particular research they did and the process of completing it. Even if bioinformatics is not your field, the process is very similar for large areas of academic research. Some professors in Ph.D. programs publish lists of potential doctoral research topics. If you have an area of computer science in mind for your Ph.D. research, find professors who have published in that area and check their web pages. (Google Scholar is your friend.)
>
> Do I start by making friends with some professors?
>
>
>
Even though you may be the same age as some of your professors, they're likely to want to keep a certain distance between themselves and their students. The advice already given is extremely good; that invitation to a social event isn't likely to be helpful.
If, in your career as a master's student, you come upon a professor whose research rings your chimes, and you have a cordial relationship with that professor, ask whether there's anything you can do to help with the research. If there *is* anything, expect it to be scut work, like programming others' algorithms, at least at first. Do not be dismayed; do the best job you can.
My own experience is similar to yours, but in the United States. I made a false start at an undergraduate education, worked in industry, finally completed the BS and MS degrees, and later the Ph.D. I have an academic job, and expect it to be the career from which I retire.
I don't know whether this is true in the U.K., but in the U.S. the master's degree qualifies one to teach in community colleges. Some universities, often lower-ranked, will also hire faculty with only the master's degree. That's how I got my start in academia. Check the credentials of the faculty at the institution that's accepted you for people without that Ph.D.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I am going to make another attempt to answer the question.
The first question which you need to ask yourself is:
**Why do I want to do a PhD?**
* If you want to do a PhD because you want to be a CS researcher,
then you should aim to be admitted to a PhD program in a good CS department
(eg top 10-15).
* If you want to do a PhD because you want to be a CS lecturer in a teaching university,
it is possible to be employed at this job with only a MSc
so getting a PhD may even be a waste of time.
* If you want to do a PhD because you want to get an industry job,
then it is not vital to be admitted to a PhD program in a top CS department—any reasonably reputable CS department would suffice.
If you have decided that you want to get a PhD,
then you probably want to get in the best CS department that you are able to.
Thus, it is natural to ask the next question:
**How do I make a strong PhD application?**
<NAME> [says](http://chrisblattman.com/about/contact/gradschool/),
>
> In short, focus on getting good recommendations, experience, grades and GRE scores.
>
>
>
You asked the question: **Why should I spend 4 years to do a BSc, rather than spend 1 year to get an MSc?**
* If you just want to get into a reasonable PhD program,
and you are qualified enough to do so,
then I agree that getting a BSc is a waste of time.
* If however you have decided that you want to get into a PhD program at a good CS department,
then it may make sense to get your BSc.
Why?
+ You could overload (do more courses in each semester) and get your BSc in fewer than four years.
Anecdotally, I have heard of students at MIT finishing in three years for example.
+ Even though you are confident that you know everything that there is to know in an undergraduate CS education,
unless you have the grades to back it up,
PhD admission committees would be naive to just take your word for it.
Earning a BSc is a certification that you are competent.
+ As part of your undergrad education,
you have the opportunity to be involved in undergrad research programs.
These programs are great in giving you the chance to work with professors and/or PhD students,
for you to get a sense of whether you really like research,
and for them to get to know you so that they can write you an outstanding recommendation letter,
and if things go well for you to publish research paper(s).
Finally, I realized as I answered this question
that <NAME> has a very long and detailed [post](http://chrisblattman.com/about/contact/gradschool/)
that is a superset of my advice.
I recommend that you take a look.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: On some of the Ph. D. Applications I have seen, not only did they require a BSc. degree, it was required to have a 3.0 or above cumulative GPA in the undergrad.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: Another concern for others similarly situated that is not mentioned in any of the answers is that admission to a PhD requires meeting at least three criteria:
1. The right to study in a given country
2. Selection by the department
3. Approval by the university of the department's selections.
University approval may or may not be pro-forma depending on the institution, but it is possible that a university regulation might prevent the selection of a student without an undergraduate degree.
The right to study in a given country can also present a barrier. Obviously if you are a citizen, you don't need to worry, but many countries have requirements for issuing visas that might make this prohibitive. I have a Japanese friend who tried to study abroad in Norway, but he was unable to do so because he lacked the necessary number of years of education back in Japan. (14 rather than 12 were necessary and he similarly had not graduated undergraduate).
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/05 | 2,868 | 10,671 | <issue_start>username_0: Where I did my PhD, typically two PhD students shared an office room. In constrast, where I am working as a postdoc now, about 50 PhDs and postdocs share an open-plan office.
I find it difficult to concentrate in the latter kind of arrangement because of the noise. Some people use head/earphones, but I guess not everyone likes to listen to music while working. I am wondering if this is a common arrangement in academia. My guess is that while it might work elsewhere, the nature of academic research precludes an open-plan type of office.
In any case, is it appropriate to ask my supervisor for a room or a smaller/quieter space to work in? I don't think I would ask, though, because everybody else seems to be fairly content, but I'm just wondering.<issue_comment>username_1: Although a 50 person office is larger than I have seen, open plan and shared offices are not uncommon in academia especially for graduate students and post docs. For individuals with teaching and supervisory responsibilities, open plan offices become less practical due to the need for privacy. The advantage of shared offices is that they help to foster interactions. Of course you can just leave your office door open, but many departments you can walk down the hall and all the doors are shut and you rarely get to interact with colleagues.
As for asking for a different office, it cannot hurt to ask. In one group I used to work in there was a 15+ person office with two small 1 person offices for hot desking at. It might be possible to wall off an area for hot desking. The idea behind hot desking is that multiple people can share a one person office since you will not need a quite office all the time. With networked computers or laptops it doesn't really matter what desk you are sitting at. This way you can setup small offices for dedicated tasks (e.g., reading, writing, and programming). Groups that spend a lot of time in a wet lab or a clinic often benefit from hot desking.
If you don't ask, then people will not know how to make the work environment better.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There is plenty of research showing that open-plan offices are a very bad idea, not just in academia but everywhere (see below for some examples).
Unfortunately, they are also much cheaper than proper offices (mainly because you can [pack people much more densely](http://www.smh.com.au/national/how-many-workers-can-you-fit-in-an-office-20091130-k176.html)).
---
Danielsson et al. (2014): "Office design's impact on sick leave rates", *Ergonomics* 57(2), doi:[10.1080/00140139.2013.871064](http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2013.871064):
>
> The cumulative evidence thus indicates that traditional open-plan offices are less good for employee health.
>
>
>
Oommen et al. (2008): "Should Health Service Managers Embrace Open Plan Work Environments?: A Review" *Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management* 3(2), 37-43:
>
> Research evidence shows that employees face a multitude of problems such as the loss of privacy, loss of identity, low work productivity, various health issues, overstimulation and low job satisfaction when working in an open plan work environment.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Is open-plan office for academia at all?
>
>
>
There is a pretty clear scientific consensus that open spaces has an overall negative impact on employees.
Some quotes from scientific studies on open space:
* {2}: "Despite perceived privacy, irrelevant speech contributes to mental workload, poor performance, stress, and fatigue"
* {4}: "Fewer words were remembered with working high noise compared to low noise. The participants were more tired after work in high noise compared to low noise."
* {5}: "Noise has repeatedly been shown to be one of the most recurrent reasons for complaints in open-plan office environments"
* {6} gives a nice overview of several scientific studies:
+ "In 2011, the organizational psychologist <NAME> reviewed more than a hundred studies about office environments. He found that, though open offices often fostered a symbolic sense of organizational mission, making employees feel like part of a more laid-back, innovative enterprise, they were damaging to the workers’ attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction. Compared with standard offices, employees experienced more uncontrolled interactions, higher levels of stress, and lower levels of concentration and motivation."
+ "When <NAME> surveyed some thirty-eight thousand workers, he found that interruptions by colleagues were detrimental to productivity, and that the more senior the employee, the worse she fared."
+ "Psychologically, the repercussions of open offices are relatively straightforward. Physical barriers have been closely linked to psychological privacy, and a sense of privacy boosts job performance."
+ "Open offices also remove an element of control, which can lead to feelings of helplessness. In a 2005 study that looked at organizations ranging from a Midwest auto supplier to a Southwest telecom firm, researchers found that the ability to control the environment had a significant effect on team cohesion and satisfaction. When workers couldn’t change the way that things looked, adjust the lighting and temperature, or choose how to conduct meetings, spirits plummeted."
+ "An open environment may even have a negative impact on our health. In a recent study of more than twenty-four hundred employees in Denmark, <NAME> and his colleagues found that as the number of people working in a single room went up, the number of employees who took sick leave increased apace. Workers in two-person offices took an average of fifty per cent more sick leave than those in single offices, while those who worked in fully open offices were out an average of sixty-two per cent more."
+ "But the most problematic aspect of the open office may be physical rather than psychological: simple noise. In laboratory settings, noise has been repeatedly tied to reduced cognitive performance. The psychologist <NAME>, who studies the effect of sound on how we think, has found that office commotion impairs workers’ ability to recall information, and even to do basic arithmetic. Listening to music to block out the office intrusion doesn’t help: even that, Perham found, impairs our mental acuity. Exposure to noise in an office may also take a toll on the health of employees. In a study by the Cornell University psychologists <NAME> and <NAME>, clerical workers who were exposed to open-office noise for three hours had increased levels of epinephrine—a hormone that we often call adrenaline, associated with the so-called fight-or-flight response. What’s more, Evans and Johnson discovered that people in noisy environments made fewer ergonomic adjustments than they would in private, causing increased physical strain. The subjects subsequently attempted to solve fewer puzzles than they had after working in a quiet environment; in other words, they became less motivated and less creative."
The list of scientific studies showing the negative impacts of open spaces is endless. I would argue that the nature of the job of a researcher makes open space even more harmful to their productivity.
---
References:
* {2} Smith-Jackson, <NAME>., and <NAME>. "Open-plan offices: Task performance and mental workload." Journal of Environmental Psychology 29, no. 2 (2009): 279-289. <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=1320841413872385547&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5> ; <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.09.002>
* {4} Jahncke, Helena, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, and <NAME>. "Open-plan office noise: Cognitive performance and restoration." Journal of Environmental Psychology 31, no. 4 (2011): 373-382. <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=2806953389437638934&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5>
* {5} Seddigh, Aram, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, and <NAME>. "The effect of noise absorption variation in open-plan offices: A field study with a cross-over design." Journal of environmental psychology 44 (2015): 34-44. <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=12448706430490137819&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5>
* {6} <https://web.archive.org/web/20171109203333/https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-trap>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: It has a very negative effect on me since I'm an extreme introvert. When people so much as look at me while I'm doing mental work (mathematics) it's incredibly distracting and energy draining.
I usually just walk around the building, find an nice empty classroom, and set up camp there
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I've experienced a large number of open-plan offices in my time in academia - the student offices in graduate school, almost all of the offices in my postdoc, and now where the students and postdocs in my lab are.
Generally speaking, I don't like them, but there's one very real reason why they exist: Space is at a premium.
This is the same rationale used by many businesses, except universities don't have the possibility of changing offices when their leases come up for renewal. Offices, inherently, take up more space and are less flexible in their configurations. The ability to *give people desks at all* might offset the cost of them not being the ideal desks for productivity.
That being said, there's no reason you can't ask. But in my experience, there's a large degree of politics regarding who has offices and who doesn't, so I'd be prepared to have the answer be "No."
The one time I tried it, the answer before I got the question halfway out was "Don't even ask."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: As a Spatial Designer that designs university interiors in the UK, I will keep this brief: University's cannot afford singular offices. Researchers and academics need to realise this. The energy costs for the institutions are crippling, heating and lighting hundreds of small offices (which are often empty) is financially and environmentally unsustainable, never mind the maintenance. Meanwhile undergraduates: the paying customers, have to make do with poor quality learning environments and tired social spaces because all the money is being spent behind closed doors. What university academics often fail to realise is that there are many many people in the commercial world that do very high level research in contemporary and efficient open office environments - not hidden away behind a wall of yellowing books and completely unaccountable.
Upvotes: -1 |
2014/06/05 | 1,357 | 6,129 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm not interested in becoming an academic. Rather, I'm interested in opportunities for a Computer Science (or related) major to work in research, either in industry, but also particularly in academia, and particularly in fields where CS skills/knowledge could be applied to social sciences (or cognitive science). This includes anywhere from simply being a programmer that happens to work in a research setting to doing actual dirty work with computational modeling that may even require some domain knowledge of the topic at hand.
My problem is that I don't really know what sorts of opportunities exist out there and how to get to those opportunities. I'm not opposed to getting a graduate (master's) degree in a specific field, getting research experience, and developing broad expertise around a subject area. In fact, that could be great.
However, I get the impression that in academia, you center your research around highly specific areas and that becomes your life. To be honest, there is not one highly specific area of interest that I have (at least not yet) where I would be passionate enough to dedicate and invest such a huge portion of my life towards studying and researching, not to mention I don't want to tie myself down to any specific subject nor the poor job market of academia (sucks, I know).
I'm more interested in breadth and the ability to work on interesting projects. Part of the reason I went into Computer Science was because of how applicable it was to many fields. While I find Computer Science and programming to be incredibly engaging, my heart truly lies in the study of people, and it would be a dream to merge the two worlds together. In some sense, you could say I would love to work in academia without becoming a full-out-academic, by leveraging my background into another field. *But I would like to make it a viable career path.*
A random list of subjects/areas/words to capture my interests: cognitive science, computational models of narratives/belief/reasoning, agent-based modeling, complex systems, social network analysis, human computer interaction.
I know a field like bioinformatics or computational biology is pretty huge, and I've often read about ways to enter those fields (e.g. be a CS person who enters from the outside and picks up the biology knowledge as they go along, or someone who has done biology research their whole career and is now learning and picking up CS/programming skills to assist their research). I'm interested in opportunities to be more of the former, for the reasons I have outlined above. Though I would say, the more I can wet my feet into the domain area, the more preferable.
What paths can I take? What are some emerging fields? What jobs exist and in what numbers? How can I get there?<issue_comment>username_1: I merely skimmed through your post, but from the title already I find the answer to be straightforward and very interesting. As a CS student and having done plenty of research, I feel that CS is a great field but other fields are equally interesting. CS will allow you to inject yourself into more or less anything you like. The simplest example is simulation, even though physicists and other specialists are usually hired to automate all the formulas and programmers merely implement, you could easily have those specialists show you everything you apply and have them explain it to you. Then you just go on to simulate something else and pick up knowledge from another field.
Even more obscure and theoretical things can use CS, a simple example is artificial speech, combine it with AI and you could get into interesting concepts. However simulation also could apply, with some more difficulty, to sociology.
I find that game programming is a field that allows one to get into anything he likes, loop up the term *serious games*, they are games that are made for training professionals and are often used by the army or corporations. Try some out and see what skills are needed from non computer related specialists to get an idea.
As for getting masters degrees and such, you can go for many different ones that combine sciences, creating a chain between them. You do not necessarily need to specialize, if you invest serious time and effort you could prove to the world that you specialize in just applying CS to anything.
About Job opportunities, often it is helpful to create your own, you can find people interested in a specific area that are willing to help you out and start up your own project, this will help in more than one ways, first is that you might actually get something good out of it and eventually make a living from the project, second is you get hands-on experience which goes straight to the CV and proving you are serious about this, and third is that this may well attract academics and professionals to call you in for collaboration.
I personally have more or less the same problem, I am mostly into CS, am aiming for game development, but I am immensely fascinated by economics, forensics, chemistry, engines, history, even shipbuilding, so I have started making my own games. It has payed off very fast, I get to become a microsoft student partner in October while I have had a proposition from a professional to collaborate - even though on a small project.
Finally, you can fill in your spare time with online courses, I picked up forensic science on Coursera, from the university of Singapore, it takes little time, I've learned many things from different fields and it shows you're more into learning tons of stuff than just getting something satisfying and then lying around. A master of course is worth a thousand of these as the rest of the community here told me, but it's fast, fun, effective, and it's worth something.
Hope I helped, sorry for the length of the text, felt that it was necessary to cover your questions and show as much as possible of the immense flexibility imaginative people have with CS. Cheers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Summer internships will help with a bit of the insight you need.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/06/06 | 581 | 2,498 | <issue_start>username_0: I am now in the middle of my master's degree and I plan to graduate in August 2015. I currently study in Germany and for most engineering students here it is common to finish the five-year program (3 or 3.5 years for the bachelor's degree and 1.5 to 2 years for the master's). I'm thinking about applying for robotics PhD programs at different US universities but I noticed that most of them have a deadline in December for programs starting 9 months later. I don't have any publications in any international journals because in Germany this is mostly done by PhD students. But I have worked a lot during my studies (1 year internship, part-time research in university).
I don't want to lose one year waiting to start my PhD but in the same time I think that my master thesis will be a great asset while applying for such a program, especially when I will be willing to continue my research and PhD thesis in the same field as my master thesis. Do you think I should take the GRE and apply for next December or wait until getting my master's degree? And how this would influence the selection process.<issue_comment>username_1: It's not a big deal for you not to have publications—remember, many of your peers also will not have published anything, either!
Moreover, it's important to note that in the US, most of the applicants for graduate school do so in the fall of their *fourth* year of studies—which would, contentwise, typically line up with the *third* year (or sometimes even second year!) of study in a German program. So, in many ways, you're already much more experienced than your counterparts.
If you're interested in doing this, I would recommend that you just go ahead and apply. The worst that can possibly happen is that you're not accepted, in which case you find another means of achieving your goals.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In the US in many fields, it is common to go directly for the PhD. So by all means hurry up! The fact you are in a master is a plus. The only potentially negative thing I can imagine is if your current supervisor or the other professors might feel afraid you will not complete the masters or will not put as much effort after being accepted into a PhD and as a result they may not write enthusiastic letters of recommendation. Side comment: Europeans tend to write lukewarm recommendation letters (probably more realistic), they don't understand that can hurt the applicant a lot.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/06 | 835 | 3,128 | <issue_start>username_0: I want to add some description of a technology (Node.js = server-side JavaScript) in my thesis. The description is about what exactly this technology is, how it works, what it can do etc.
I want to use Node.js Wikipedia page, a blog page, one of my supervisor's lectures for gathering information.
Should I cite these sources, given the fact that they say pretty much the same things and these things are just observations, not scientific contribution?<issue_comment>username_1: If something can be deemed common knowledge in your field there should be no need to cite it.
[MIT](http://integrity.mit.edu/citing-your-sources/what-common-knowledge) define common knowledge as;
>
> Broadly speaking, common knowledge refers to information that the average, educated reader would accept as reliable without having to look it up.
>
>
>
There is further detail on that link about Common Knowledge and it's applications. They also say that there best advice is: 'When in doubt, cite your source.'
That said if you are taking something verbatim from a source you should cite it.
Just on your sources; in academia you tend to shy away from citing from wikipedia etc. You can see a discussion on that issue at [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7768/how-should-i-cite-something-learned-second-hand-eg-from-wikipedia-when-i-have)
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Add a footnote
--------------
This is supplementary information that isn't required for your thesis, but for some readers might be useful for understanding the context.
This isn't realy a citation - most likely you aren't using Node.js documentation as a *direct source* for something that you are writing there, unless you're comparing details of some API descriptions. You probably are using a part of node.js technology, and the reference is to extra information about that part, for people who don't know a prerequisite. So it's something where using a footnote would be the most appropriate way.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: This is the same as citing any other software; you would follow the standard guidelines for such citations. APA guidelines follow, from [this Purdue website](https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/):
>
> Computer Software/Downloaded Software
> =====================================
>
>
> Do not cite standard office software (e.g. Word, Excel) or programming languages. Provide references only for specialized software.
>
>
>
> >
> > <NAME>. (2002). PsychInquiry [computer software]. New York: Worth.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> Software that is downloaded from a Web site should provide the software’s version and year when available.
>
>
>
> >
> > <NAME>., <NAME>., & <NAME>. (2003). OTSoft: Optimality Theory Software (Version 2.1) [Software]. Available from <http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/otsoft/>
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
As usual, you should check with your journal to see whether they have any specific formatting requirements/require any other specific information for such citations.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/06 | 1,338 | 5,504 | <issue_start>username_0: My mathematics department apparently gets pressured by the university to have more people take courses during the summer. We are also encouraged to take on TA responsibilities to make extra cash during the summer which is great.... except that they have this rule that if we want to teach/grade (or do any paid work during the summer) we have to enroll in courses. The options are slim and so is the stipend; I'm a grad student currently trying to prepare for my final prelim exam and do some research during the summer; I'd like to make a little extra cash.... but I crunched the numbers and it looks like I'll net about $600 for an entire summer, not exactly a living wage.
I should also add that our department (mathematics) brings more funds (in course work and its associated tuition) than any other department (I'm sure biology/chemistry pulls more in research grants), .... so it seems very tawdry of them to "get money back" by forcing us to enroll in classes.
So my question is: **Is this normal?** I've spoken with some of my professors and they said it is not; but just curious what this community has to say and if this is ethical or are there any statistics on this sort of thing.<issue_comment>username_1: The policy of requiring you to take classes in order to work for the university is not normal, and I have not seen it anywhere else.
That said, the summer is a good opportunity for students to get outside jobs and/or internships. As you no doubt know, there are very few jobs in pure math, and the jobs that do exist are *extremely* competitive. In my opinion, It is best for a student like you to establish connections with possible post-graduate employers during the summer, rather than TAing a math course, unless the course you are TAing will directly help with your immediate educational needs (e.g. it is preparatory for your prelim or can help your eventual thesis).
Regarding the ethics of the university's behavior, there is very little
you can do. Graduate students are in a very bad position of leverage
vis-a-vis the university, and this is especially true in disciplines like mathematics where many departments bring in many more students than can ever graduate (much less get a job), in part because of undergraduate teaching needs.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: This is completely normal: every place I have been (albeit 3 departments) require Graduate Student Assistant (Research Assistants, Teaching Assistants, and general Graduate Assistants) to be both students and registered at the level of full time graduate students while working on those assignments. The reason being: Those jobs are student jobs.
My masters institution requires me to be registered for 8 credits a semester while I TA/RA/GA, which I pay student fees of about 2k a year on.
My PhD institution requires me to be registered for 12 credits a quarter while I TA/RA/GA, which I will pay ~750 a year on student fees.
That doesn't mean you have to take traditional classes: About 40% of my classes have been thesis hours and independent studies. For summer classes, I usually work out some sort of independent study that is very tangential from my thesis, meaning I can use it in both my thesis defense and perhaps even publish it.
So yeah, it's normal.
I also think its wrong to charge graduate students who are also employees student fees, but it is the way the books are drawn. Your student fees, I doubt, are so large that you cannot find a way to live off the summer stipend. My master's institution has the highest student fees that doesn't include healthcare I have ever seen in the USA.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Having observed several places in several different decades: summer funding is always weird and maybe non-existent or not-a-good-deal.
During the 9-month academic year, in the U.S., yes, indeed, people working as TAs/RAs have to be registered as students (because as other people said, these are student jobs), and this entails *fees*. Most often, tuition is included in the "benefits", but not invariably.
At every university I've been, grad students registered in the 9-month academic year did not have to explicitly register, nor pay tuition, in the summer, in order to work as summer TAs/RAs. This part is quite anomalous, and looks like a way for some layer of the institution to suck money out of people.
My experience indicates that there's never enough summer support to go around, which effectively creates a labor surplus, which, predictably, leads to certain abuses. For that matter, the usual double-time rate of summer classes is pretty nasty, and not fun to see. A bit taxing to teach, but almost uniformly near-disastrous for the students, who cannot simply "decide" to assimilate things twice as fast.
In some cases, the funding and flow of money for summer teaching/classes is different from the 9-month year, so it is not necessarily deliberately abusive, though possibly irresponsible or negligent, of your dept to not tell you your net pay. If it's really just 600 dollars, it's a ridiculous situation, yes.
But the net pay *should* be substantial, not next-to-nothing. *That* aspect strikes me as odd.
In summary, the situation you describe is unusual in that the net pay is so low. Having to sign up for courses and pay summer fees (or, worse, tuition) is unusual. The vagueness is less atypical, since sometimes control of summer classes is not in the hands of the department.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/06 | 796 | 3,069 | <issue_start>username_0: How hard is it to adapt to post-graduate studies after an academic pause of 16 years working in sort of relevant industry?
I graduated back in 1998 with B.Eng. in computer engineering, worked for 16 years in IT related jobs, and decided to go back to school this fall (2014).
Is it hard to be ready after such long academic pause?
Any particular skills I should work on while waiting for the program to start?<issue_comment>username_1: I graduated back in 1984 with a BSc in Computer Science. Went back for a MSc by research 25 years later, in 2009. Finished that in 2011, and now I'm doing my PhD.
Will you be doing an MSc by research? If you're the sort of person who likes learning things on your own, I'm sure you'll find it easy enough to adjust. Reading scientific papers is a skill that takes a while to learn. (Writing them, even more so!) You can use [Google Scholar](http://scholar.google.com/) to search for papers in the are you're interested in. (Many articles will be behind paywalls, so you probably can't access them until you start, but many articles will be freely available.) Expect it to be tough going at first, so don't get discouraged. Also, I hope you like (or at least don't mind) writing, because in many fields an MSc thesis involves a lot of writing.
If you're doing an MSc by coursework, I don't have too much advice to offer.
Your experience in industry will help you a lot. You'll probably have more resiliency than your fellow students, due to your life experience. This will help you deal with stress. You'll probably find that teachers and students are asking for your real-world perspective, which is great for your self-confidence. Also, you probably have a very clear idea of why you're doing an MSc, which will help you stay focused.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Former MSc by coursework student here but with a shorter gap between my BSc and MSc.
>
> How hard is it to adapt to post-graduate studies after an academic pause[...]?
>
>
>
It's not easy but it's perfectly doable. It is more dependent on you as an individual and your approach to the particular course you choose to do than anything else.
>
> Is it hard to be ready after such long academic pause?
>
>
>
Depends entirely on you and the course you choose. Did you do well back in school? That helps. Did you do well at University? That helps far more. Can you afford to do it (you'll likely be paying and not just in terms of money)? Are you doing something that you have always did poorly in and never learned to overcome (life will be hard)? Can you adapt to the academic style (reading, writing and interacting)?
(Life) experience helps but it's not a complete shortcut.
>
> Any particular skills I should work on while waiting for the program to start?
>
>
>
Not really (perhaps know how to get along with younger people?). So long as you have the right approach you'll do fine - most Universities want to give you what you need to pass given that you're paying them money :-)
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/07 | 482 | 2,071 | <issue_start>username_0: I have started writing my thesis ( just yesterday:) ). My advisor asked me to submit it in one or two months. Now am wondering should I start applying for jobs at this time period. I plan to talk about this with my advisor. But I thought of other opinions as well. Please share your experience also.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, you should start applying for jobs. You should have started several months ago, since it can take time to find a job, and after you do it may still take some months before the job actually starts. This depends strongly on what kind of job it is.
Of course, if you are looking for an academic job in the US, the interviewing season is roughly November-March, so you want to time things around that. For industry jobs and academic jobs elsewhere, there is not usually a particular season to focus on.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I agree with @DavidKetcheson. You should be able to get some sense of the "lead time" on jobs of the sort you're interested in by browsing current adverts: what is the typical "start date"? For competitive academic positions, this might be as much as a year ahead.
However, there may be strategic reasons to delay, accepting the risk that you can't start working (and earning money!) as early as you wish. For example, you might feel you're likely to be able to secure a much better job if you publish a particular piece of work before going on the job market. There's also the issue that job-hunting can be a time-consuming business: plenty of people decide that they'd prefer to concentrate on completing their thesis first, and then focus on finding a job. I don't think this is an *a priori* unreasonable approach to take, particularly if you're in a system where there is some significant amount of "dead time" between submitting your thesis, and having the defence.
Regardless of the approach you take, you should certainly be looking at job adverts now, to get a sense of what might be available, and what people are offering/looking for.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/07 | 1,034 | 4,804 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a postdoc working in a lab where we are finishing a large project with multiple measures (psychological, behavioral, etc). Some of the measures didn't turn out to have significant results (primarily for methodological reasons I believe). I suggested to the Lead Investigator that we write up some of these as "we tried these measures and didn't get the results we expected for various reasons: here are some lessons we have learned". The reply was:
>
> My immediate response is not all that positive – especially if it undermined our published papers ... if you’ve published a result then further publications shouldn’t raise more limitations that should have been mentioned in the original publication.
>
>
>
I don't believe the results will undermine anything but, that aside, is his reasoning for not publishing results valid? Also, to be clear, we haven't yet published anything from this work.
I understand him to mean that he doesn't want the results published because they might go against previous work and completely object to such a thought. Have I possibly misinterpreted his words?<issue_comment>username_1: The statement you quote sounds terrible. It points in a direction where things approach the unethical. Publication of negative results are less common that positive although, I suspect, negative results ARE more common than positive. Since I am in an experimental field, I have never obtained the perfect results and always end up describing what went wrong; and I am not alone. Anyway, I think your idea of writing up your experience is good. Naturally, I cannot judge the merits of the experiences in terms of publicability.
So I think your intention is very sound and the reaction of the lead investigator suspect (or at best narrow-minded).
To me " further publications shouldn’t raise more limitations that *should have* been mentioned in the original publication" (if verbatim from the lead investigator and with my emphasis) sounds as if limitations were not included on purpose in the original study. So, if that is true then I can understand the nervousness. It sounds almost fraudulent.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If I understand you correctly, what you want to publish doesn't "go against" the previous work. It's fully consistent with it, but what is being added is what are often called **negative results**: namely, the discovery that a certain plausible method or established theory *cannot* be used in a certain manner to solve a certain problem.
In every branch of academia I know of, it is -- unfortunately -- very difficult to publish negative results. In the abstract, most people agree that this is a shame: convincingly arguing that researchers should not go down a certain path is obviously a service to the community. However, in a competitive publication system negative results are somehow not very, um, competitive. So trying to publish these results may not be the best use of your time unless you package them carefully -- very crudely, you will probably need to bundle them with "positive results".
The above is a relatively benign interpretation of your Lead Investigator's comments. It is alas also possible that he is saying that you should not try to publish your negative results *because that information will reduce the prestige of your previously published paper*. I agree that this sounds ethically dubious, yes, but depending on the field it is not clear that you are ethically required to publish further work explaining the limitations of your previous results. Here I would make a distinct between *limitations* and *errors*: *errors* are things that you should have known better than to include in the original version, and in many fields it is appropriate to print a retraction, erratum or corrigendum when you learn about them. On the other hand, that a publication contains ideas that are not completely definitive and whose future value is the subject of informed speculation....well, that's how research works.
I would say that the ethical issues become more acute depending upon the reaction that your published paper has received. If your paper has been very influential to researchers and is causing them to spend a lot of time exploring what you know to be a blind alley, then formal publication or no, it seems ethical to relate this information to them. If your publication has present nonacademic ramifications -- e.g. if you are in some kind of bio-medical field and your publication has resulted in patient protocols that you know to be suboptimal -- then you should be thinking about how to get the word out ASAP.
Anyway, it sounds like you need to have a conversation with your Lead Investigator about this. Find out what he meant and why.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/07 | 740 | 2,964 | <issue_start>username_0: I am in the second year of my PhD in mathematics and I have recently decided I want to go into industry after I'm finished. I feel like a lot of what I'm learning in the program does not have direct, real-world applications, and I'd like to remedy this problem by getting some work experience while I'm still in graduate school.
I have some programming background (but not as much as a CS grad) and a couple years experience doing simple data analysis programming. I also have a BS in physics. It seems like there should be a place in industry for me somewhere, but I don't know how to go about finding it.
I would like to work part-time, or as a consultant, so that the job won't greatly hinder my progress towards my degree. (Of course, some time will be lost that could have gone to my dissertation, but this is made up for by gaining marketable skills.) I'd like to work in science or in software. I am aware of internships, but it seems like most are either for undergraduate students or engineers.
>
> Can a math grad student work part-time in industry during his PhD? If so, how would one go about finding jobs?
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: I think it would be very challenging and unusual to work part-time at a job *and* be taking graduate classes or doing thesis research.
But it's quite common for graduate students to work full-time (as interns) at government laboratories or in industry during the summer (or at another time of year) for perhaps 3 months. Mathematics students I have known have worked at
* Google
* Microsoft
* US Dept. of Energy labs (Sandia, Los Alamos, Livermore, Oak Ridge, Argonne, etc.)
* Oil companies (Schlumberger, Total)
* US NSA contractors (cryptography)
* US Geological Survey
* NOAA
and many other places that I've forgotten. Talk to your advisor and to other faculty in the program. Your university may also have someone who coordinates these things.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I can say that I am currently doing this and it works very well for me, but you *have* to discuss this with your supervisors.
My consulting work is in optimisation/operations research (part mathematics, part computer science) and directly relevant to my PhD. I use these experiences to motivate my research and I'm convinced it makes me a better researcher.
I work for the company I worked for before starting my PhD, but part-time consultants can be valuable to smaller consulting companies if you have the flexibility to work when they have more jobs, and not work when they don't.
I will second the call to apply for internships: a couple of the interns I worked with at Google last summer were mathematicians who could code, and one or two of us were PhD students.
It should be noted that I'm doing my PhD in Australia, where PhDs nominally take 3 years and teaching/research assistant work is not a condition of any scholarship, so your mileage may vary in other countries.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/08 | 540 | 2,215 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently a rising 2L law student who passed up an opportunity to do a joint JD/MS in Economics. I didn't think I was adequately prepared to take on the Economics degree, though. (Not enough math background.) I am considering pursuing a master's degree part time after finishing law school, though, because it seems to be more interesting and more valuable in the job market than law.
What bearing will my law school grades have on admission to a master's program, and would that calculus change if I took the requisite math courses (Calculus I, II, and potentially III,), as well as a remedial stats course?<issue_comment>username_1: The most critical law school grades for you are those that have a bearing on economics. Contracts, come to mind, and maybe public policy. In your shoes, I would concentrate on doing well on these, as well as "corporate law" courses. In an application/cv, I would set the GPA in these courses apart from the rest of the law program in say criminal or civil procedure, torts, etc.
Math courses might have a similar impact on your application as "commercial" law.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: The effect of your law grades probably depends a lot on the program you are applying to. I guess (really just a guess here) the overall GPA might in most cases serve as a signal for being a good/bad student, so they probably matter.
I think it doesn't really matter what the courses are. Most law courses have nothing in common with economics courses even if they cover the same topics. And to be honest, people are lazy and probably are not try to figure out which of your courses are useful for an econ degree. That is of course different for a law/econ master or a specialized econ master.
However, most master programs require you to have a sufficient knowledge in math.
But, as I already said that depends on the university/department/program.
So, my advice would be: ask the top 1-3 universities on your list what the necessary conditions are.
*A minor remark: I can't think of my econ MS being useful in a real job (i.e. not governmental or in academia) but maybe that is just me. Maybe don't pick a research master's degree.*
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/08 | 3,929 | 16,609 | <issue_start>username_0: I work at an educational institution where exam papers are considered protected. Leaking the exam question sheet and taking photocopies or camera shots is considered illegal and is strictly prohibited. I am not here to argue about this policy but to ask about the best ways to enforce it. Students have been taking pictures of exam papers during exam time, leaking them to subsequent sessions or posting them with solutions and often selling them to students of subsequent semesters. Though we don't use the same questions between semesters, they do exhibit some similarities at times for some courses.
Even with strict invigilation and requests not to bring cell phones to the exam room, there have been some incidents. Lockers are out of the question, as is collecting all cell phones before exam time. I would welcome any suggestions.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Make the punishment for being caught well-known. Make every effort possible to track down the perpetrators, and make the offence
> and punishment publicly known.
>
>
>
You could set up one or two cheap cameras to take high-resolution photographs at set intervals, say every 15 seconds (making sure it's all kosher legally, and warning the students). I know that Canon compact cameras "hacked" with the CHDK software can do this. Don't use an SLR, they have noisy shutters. If you find out an exam has been leaked, you should be able to comb the archive and catch the perpetrator. Yes, it's an extreme solution -- but also a scare tactic.
[Cell phone detectors](http://www.bvsystems.com/Products/Security/PocketHound/pockethound.htm) are another possibility to catch offenders in the act, though by no means foolproof. Turning on airplane mode would render them useless.
>
> Make offending harder by confiscating cell phones at the start of the exam. This won't stop pre-meditated offending, though -- you can't do pat-downs!
>
>
>
Yes, you claim this is out of the question. But I am truly surprised that this is not an institutional policy to collect all cell phones before an exam. Put this back into the question. My undergraduate institution also had a substantial fine (NZD $70, IIRC) for the owner of a cell phone that rang during the exam. It should go without saying that phones must be turned off.
>
> Place a subtle random symbol somewhere on each exam paper, that is unique to each individual.
>
>
>
Your average none-too-bright cheater might not take much notice of a "⎋" symbol in the corner of a page. But, it would be a pain to implement for a large class and will only work until someone catches on.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm going to be a bit harsh and say that your cause is doomed to fail if you want to solve the problem just by policing students.
What happened is that some factors contributed to atmosphere where it is considered advantageous to have a copy of past exams and your students are motivated enough to risk getting a copy. The tradition of having a monetary incentive makes things even worse.
At my previous university, I had opportunity to witness the evolution of hi-tech copying systems. At first, nobody was checking for cell-phones because they had bad cameras and weren't as popular, then cell-phone copying became popular. Then cell-phone detectors of various levels of sophistication came into use. After that, cheaters moved on to other devices.
Today, spy devices are cheap and commonly available and they are next logical step from cell-phone cameras. Are you going to start checking your student's [watches](http://www.dx.com/s/spy+watch) next? How about [buttons](http://spy-cam-review.toptenreviews.com/mini-spy-button-camera-review.html), [glasses](http://www.spytechs.com/spy_cameras/glasses-hidden-camera.htm) or even [pens](http://hidden-camera-review.toptenreviews.com/camcorder-pen-review.html)? What about say [calculators](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B0063PGCBW) (OK, that one in particular isn't the best example, but if there's demand, supply will come), whose use might even be allowed in some examinations? Are you going to have a spy-equipment expert on your staff to check what your students are using? What if they home-brew some equipment?
What if someone actually *steals* a physical copy of questions? That actually happened at my previous school. Guy (not a student at the school) came to a lecture hall where an examination was being conducted, waited for TAs to hand out the questions and then proceeded towards the exit with a question sheet, running over anyone who tried to stop him. There was even a recording from video-surveillance of him doing the deed and a wanted poster was placed at the school entrance, but it didn't do any good. That particular problem was solved by asking for IDs before handing out questions, but it shows the trend of escalation that can happen.
Next, what if a group of students organizes with the idea of memorizing questions in detail without any technological aids? There's literally no way of preventing that.
The more you press the anti-technological/anti-cheating offensive without taking away the incentive to cheat, the greater is the risk that you'll instead form a core of semi-professional cheaters who will have connections to the sources of appropriate cheating equipment and serve as a cadre which will train future generations and make problem even worse. For example, in my hometown, a sure way to detect presence of a higher education institution is the high concentration of flyers advertising rent and sales of spy equipment.
The only sure way (that I at least can think of) to solve the problem is to cut it at its source and take away the incentive to have the pictures of past exams. Try to take time to analyze all factors that could lead to such behavior and see if you can actually affect any of them in a meaningful way. Although questions aren't repeated, it's obvious from the response of students that seeing past exams is beneficial in some way. It's normal for questions to be similar, since there are probably some underlying concepts that students should learn and that knowledge needs to be tested. If the students are already aware of what they're going to find at the exam, then there isn't much need to see how exactly the sheet with questions looks like. If the exams is supposed to be a surprise, then you should reconsider if you're actually preparing your students properly for the exam.
If going in-depth when solving a problem such as this isn't real motive, then it would be best to take advice from username_1's answer. You'll be doing something "direct" and you probably won't challenge existing policies too much.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: When designing the exam paper, place fewer items per page. To reduce paper waste, this can be achieved by using A5-size exam papers, created by putting two exam papers on a single sheet, then cutting the pages in half. This will not prevent students from taking photographs, but it will mean that each photo they take will be obtaining less information about your exam. The student will need to take their camera out more often to get the whole exam, increasing the chances that your proctors, who should be watching the room carefully, will catch them.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Do you have the option of conducting the exams centrally? At my institution, all final exams and major mid-semester exams were conducted at the same time for all students, under the supervision of external monitors.
Any person who was seen using a phone or unauthorised notes would be guilty of serious misconduct, and likely get zero for the exam at the very least. Similarly, no person was permitted to leave the room until all papers had been collected, so it wasn't possible for the question sheets to go walkabout.
---
Unfortunately, that will be difficult if there's not institutional support for it. (Although I'm constantly amazed to find out that it's not the norm elsewhere.)
What I have seen work in the past, though, is to use subtly different question sheets for different students. On numerical exams it's easy enough to change a few numbers, but people who intend to copy answers out probably won't notice the difference.
Of course, that won't help if there's later sessions of the same exam, but honestly that's not something that should be happening at university level anyway. No technical solution is going to be able to stop students from talking.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I had a professor that solved this problem nicely when I was in college. This is all based on what he did.
1. Before the Final, tell the all the periods that everyone is getting the same test. And that all the grades will be scaled across all periods. If the second period class does better than the first period class, it will suck to be in the first period when the mean will be substantially higher.
2. Repeat this warning on the day of the test.
3. Hand out a substantially different test to the 2nd period students.
Yes, he lied to all the students, but he had watched the 2nd period Antennas class consistently score higher than the 1st period.
I've met people that had that second class, they studied our test exclusively and more than one of them lost 2 letter grades in their final class grade over it. Studying the other test exclusively wasn't a problem for this teacher after that.
His tests were deep in theory and derivation of where the equations come from, and Antennas is a very complicated subject. Might not work with all classes, but when word of this kind of apocalypse gets out, it will live in the history of the folklore for many years.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Exam questions can be shuffled, or reparameterized (being careful to make both versions equally difficult) to obtain at least 2 versions of the same exam.
But **don't** mark them version A/B. Let the cheater try to figure that out.
Start playing this game early. Do it on quizzes and midterms.
This doesn't eliminate cheating, but may make it not worth the trouble.
If you think there might be spies within your department who are leaking the exams, give one version of the exam to the assistants to photocopy, and say nothing about an alternate version. Photocopy the alternate exam version yourself, and substitute at time of test. You won't be questioned about wasting trees, but if you are, say you thought there was an error in the test or that it didn't cover things with the correct weight, and you wanted to correct that.
It is a bit of work, but it is not 2x or 3x the work and if it seems like it is, rethink what to change. A side benefit is a larger pool of example questions is generated as time goes by.
**Alternative:** Make the exam open book, no time limit (i.e. this should take about 3 hours but you have all weekend if you need it), and the questions impossible, like what you would expect at Caltech or MIT.
**Contraindications:** Requires working honor system; honor.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: This is not the answer you want but I have to get it out of my chest. (My background is engineering).
The best, most effective and easiest way to completely avoid students taking pictures of exams, selling them and making a profit out of that is:
Publish online *all* previous exams as an exercise book.
The questions in an exam and the exercises done before the exam should not be more different than an exam and a previous exam, actually old exams make for perfect exercises and practice.
The point is that studying the courses and making a few exams/exercises to practice should be easier and lead to greater success than checking the *whole compilation* of past exams, which should anyway lead to a good knowledge of the contents of the course (in a more tedious way than reading the theory and checking this with *a few* exams).
Personal story: When I was in high-school the homework would be much harder than the exams, anyone making the homework (optional) would get good qualifications and the qualifications would reflect actual good knowledge about the subject. In the university there were exercises, but they were explanatory and very basic, the questions in the exam were much harder. This made the exercises useless, students needed exams from previous years just to practice in answering the questions, and I hated that.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_8: To prevent questions being copied from one test period to another is relatively "simple"—just make sure that classes taking the same test take it at the same time. (This requires some central planning of course, but should be something the university would in principle approve of.)
As for the use of cell phones, we take care of that by making sure that students can't access them during the exam. Because our protocols require a "gap row" between students taking the exam, that gives us an extra row of desks. We ask the students to put their extra materials in the gap rows. That way it's immediately obvious if students start reaching for the materials, because they have to stand up or visibly get out of their seat to access them.
In addition, it is announced that cell phones are **not** allowed material, and that any violation of the exam regulations results in an automatic failing grade. (Thus, any use of a cell phone gets you in trouble.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: >
> I am not here to argue about this policy but to ask about the best ways to enforce it.
>
>
>
Like some of the other excellent answers, I am going to argue about this policy as I do not see a good way to enforce it.
Like many other institutions (entertainment industry, telegraph ) you are clinging to an old model in the face of overwhelming technology and a client base (students) that simply don't care about your rules (copying exams is not illegal: your institution is not the government and cannot enact laws).
Focusing on cellphones will accomplish nothing. I have a high-res camera in my laptop that is smaller than a shirt button. While I personally cannot hide it under my hairline, many 20 year olds can. See other answers (or amazon.com) for more places to hide a camera.
Your end goal seems to be to reduce cheating, meaning knowing the answer to question 17 before going into the test. You reduce cheating by making the contents of question 17 irrelevant because everyone gets a different question 17.
Any decent-size institution will have a large question bank built up over the years. Digitize it if you haven't done so already, and get the IT department to make a system that prints out 200 different tests with questions drawn at random from the database. Randomize the order. If you want to be really fancy, have the system randomize values if that is appropriate. This is not a complex process, I would probably quote you delivery within a week excluding the questions themselves.
Administration will probably whine about running costs, but there are none. Printing used to cost more than copying but today it's exactly the same machine.
So, 200 students each getting a different set of 50 questions drawn from 1000 in a random order with random values -> copying any particular test is of no value to others and the problem largely goes away.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: In many jurisdictions student's answers are his/her intellectual property and he/she is legally entitled to copy and reproduce them. You need to consult with local lawyer ASAP, because your institution may actually be asking you to prevent students from exercising their rights.
(I do understand that students transfers some of their rights to the institution. But depending on local laws, some rights cannot be transferred nor relinquished, like the right to make a copy for personal use. There is also a possibility that university might have no rights at all to student's work - until he/she submits it.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: If a student submits the same essay for two courses they get into **big** trouble.
Therefore why are you allowing your staff to cheat the system and not do the work they are **paid** to do by using the same exam for more than one presentation of the course?
**The solution is to remove any member of your staff that are too lazy to do the job they are paid to do.**
And then publish all past exams, as is done for every exam I have taken in the UK, for some reason the UK does not allow the same lazy and cheating by it’s university staff.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/09 | 719 | 2,963 | <issue_start>username_0: I read through the forum and the opinion seems to be that doing a MOOC is equivalent of reading a book on that subject. This is largely because of that you can cheat through a MOOC.
So what if I join a signature track on a MOOC such as the one of Coursera ? I haven't ever tried a signature track out, but they capture your photo and recognize the way you write to ascertain if you have genuinely gone through the work or not.
[Even american council of education is acknowledging this ....](http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/07/ace-deems-5-massive-open-courses-worthy-credit#sthash.cLY7jQSF.dpbs)
How is this a duplicate of that question :|<issue_comment>username_1: At best, MOOC's are going to be viewed just like any other course on your transcript—they're not going to make it or break it anymore than any other course that you can take. However, as many people have pointed out, MOOC's are also viewed with substantial suspicion, in part because of their low completion rate and because of the difficulties with quality assurance.
So I would ultimately say that a MOOC probably has little or no advantage over a comparable course offered at your university. If it's something that is both highly relevant and not available at your university, that's another story—but then that should be clearly stated in your application as well!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It is unlikely that listing the completion of a MOOC on your CV will have any meaningful contribution to admission into a graduate program. The weight of this type of educational experience does not parallel that of credit-based coursework. However, in your narrative, you can describe a MOOC experience as evidence of your motivation and independence in learning / work.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: I am not in any admissions committee, so I am more or less guessing here.
A MOOC shows you have interest in the subject, and that you have a basic knowledge (you are familiar with the topics and some vocabulary). This knowledge is very easy to test in an interview by a few basic questions, so having a signed track will not add much to it.
Nevertheless, the skills learned during the course can be a good point if they are a good complement for your degree. For example, if you are a physicist wanting to get into experimental data analysis, knowing machine learning is very useful; but most Physics programs do not include this as subject. On the other hand, taking a programming course for a CS adds next to nothing.
An advantage of MOOCs is that you can take them for free, and you can just sign up for several of them just to see if the topic interests you, so they have a very low cost of opportunity. If you sign up for a university class, you have to pay for it (depending on the country) and/or actually see it to completion. Even if you find the topic too hard, too easy, completely irrelevant, or poorly taught.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/06/09 | 478 | 1,906 | <issue_start>username_0: Question is in the title.
More specifically, do emeritus professors (generally) check the emails which are listed on their university websites? I have emailed a few professors lately, asking about points in papers that they wrote, and none of the emeritus have responded.
I am assuming that they do not check their emails often, if at all - in this case, would it be appropriate to contact the university, requesting contact information for the professor? Or should I leave them be in their retirement? :)<issue_comment>username_1: Chances are, if they are not answering their university mail address, they are either busy or can't be bothered. They are retired, so **both is completetly ok** (it is sort of the point of retirement that you do not have an obligation to react to work mail anymore). Trying to get in touch with them over different media is probably fruitless, and somewhat obnoxious. Besides, I would really hope that the university administration does not give out private addresses to the request of random people.
Edit: an almost completely unrelated side notice: emeritus profs can be **insanely** busy in some cases. There is a [famous austrian physics emeritus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Oberhummer) who is now writing popular science books, breeding alpacas (!), touring Austria with a science-based stand-up comedy show (!!), producing and starring a TV programme, and waging an ever-lasting war against the catholic church (as head of Austria's atheist movement).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: If you think that there is a good chance that this professor *doesn't* check email, *and* you genuinely believe that your message is important, contact the department secretary/similar and ask if they'd be prepared to pass a message to the person. You could also ask if they know whether email is likely to be read by that person.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/09 | 658 | 2,908 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently reviewing a conference paper, which I found is just extended version of a previous conference paper. I have heard that a journal paper can be a new version of a conference paper with some new stuff added, while the paper I am reviewing is something like this. Would this paper be rejected simply because of the copyright issue?<issue_comment>username_1: It would seem that you should contact the organizing committee of the conference and get their advice. To me it seems kind of low to write papers that have very similar content but it does happen. If you are questioning it that much I would bring it up with the Organizing Committee and see what they say. You don't even have to mention names or specifics but just get their general opinion.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This depends entirely on the conferences involved. Some conferences will allow an overlap of up to 30% with other works (for example), and others require entirely original products. In either event, it is imperative that the earlier paper be referenced in the later one, ideally with an explanation of what is new.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I don't know if I read the question correctly. You are the reviewer? Not the author?
**If you are the reviewer, the thing you should do is:** Open your e-mail client, write to the jounral/conference editor that asked you to make the review, and tell them that you found this, and ask them if they will even consider it for the publication or not. It would be good to give them a link to the other paper, or send a copy attached (if you're legally allowed to do that).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: The only case in which it is intellectually honest for conference paper to be an extended version of another is if:
1. There is a major difference in the length of the two papers (e.g., 4-page extended abstract vs. 10-page full paper), and
2. The paper declares the relationship up front with a proper citation (e.g., "This paper is an extended version building on the results already presented in [XXX]").
I see the relationship between conference and journal versions as different. In computer science, where the principle is typically "30% new for the journal version," the theory is typically that the journal version is a final and archival version which ties up all of the critical loose ends and inserts all of the portions omitted for space purposes in the conference paper. Thus, it essentially supersedes the conference paper. A second conference paper, on the other hand, should generally present a new piece of work not previously shown.
Thus, for a conference, if both of these criteria are not fulfilled, then you are dealing with a case of [salami-slicing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_publishable_unit) and possibly also self-plagiarism and the paper should be rejected.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/06/09 | 754 | 3,306 | <issue_start>username_0: I have a MSc degree in Computer Science from a well known university, but the problem is that my degree is, for example in Computer Graphics. Now I would like to study PhD in computer Science, but related to another topic such as Green Computing.
How I can convince the admission committee or the Professor in charge of the research group that I can be a good student in his group?
One friend told me that one important thing is the motivation letter others about the research proposal (which for me is somewhat not so clear, because for what I know one do a research proposal only when one is inside a group)
Any help will be valuable? I have applied to a lot of PhD positions and the frustration is getting higher with each rejection.<issue_comment>username_1: It would seem that you should contact the organizing committee of the conference and get their advice. To me it seems kind of low to write papers that have very similar content but it does happen. If you are questioning it that much I would bring it up with the Organizing Committee and see what they say. You don't even have to mention names or specifics but just get their general opinion.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This depends entirely on the conferences involved. Some conferences will allow an overlap of up to 30% with other works (for example), and others require entirely original products. In either event, it is imperative that the earlier paper be referenced in the later one, ideally with an explanation of what is new.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I don't know if I read the question correctly. You are the reviewer? Not the author?
**If you are the reviewer, the thing you should do is:** Open your e-mail client, write to the jounral/conference editor that asked you to make the review, and tell them that you found this, and ask them if they will even consider it for the publication or not. It would be good to give them a link to the other paper, or send a copy attached (if you're legally allowed to do that).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: The only case in which it is intellectually honest for conference paper to be an extended version of another is if:
1. There is a major difference in the length of the two papers (e.g., 4-page extended abstract vs. 10-page full paper), and
2. The paper declares the relationship up front with a proper citation (e.g., "This paper is an extended version building on the results already presented in [XXX]").
I see the relationship between conference and journal versions as different. In computer science, where the principle is typically "30% new for the journal version," the theory is typically that the journal version is a final and archival version which ties up all of the critical loose ends and inserts all of the portions omitted for space purposes in the conference paper. Thus, it essentially supersedes the conference paper. A second conference paper, on the other hand, should generally present a new piece of work not previously shown.
Thus, for a conference, if both of these criteria are not fulfilled, then you are dealing with a case of [salami-slicing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_publishable_unit) and possibly also self-plagiarism and the paper should be rejected.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/06/09 | 842 | 3,214 | <issue_start>username_0: Is there any university in the United States (or Europe) fully committed to graduate programs (master and PhD)?
Why this is not a common scheme? Why research universities are not interested in this model? Without huge number of undergraduate students, a university can save money on campus expenses, and heavily uses its resources for research.<issue_comment>username_1: There *are* some universities that offer primarily postgraduate degrees; [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postgraduate-only_institutions) has a list. Some notable examples on this list are Rockefeller University (US) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel).
However, this doesn't necessarily save money; undergraduates in the United States typically pay tuition, after all. Other sources of income for universities in the United States (such as federal Pell grants) also apply only to undergraduate students. Furthermore, having a local population of undergraduate students allows budding academics (PhD students) to get teaching experience.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think it's a common scheme, but such places do exist (e.g., the [Austrian Institute of Technology](http://www.ait.ac.at)).
In Europe, the main reason why there are not more of these places is that it is damn hard to get public funding for them (and most universities around here are funded almost exclusively by the state). Simply put, the main incentive for the government to fund universities is **undergraduate teaching**, hence getting them to pay for a university without any of those is a tough sell. We tended to half-jokingly mention that teaching undergraduates is our day job, which we do to support our breadless research.
The above-mentioned AIT is a special case, in the sense that it is pretty young and mostly the result of a political process. That is, it was not a "scientific decision" to get the AIT started, but a political reaction to divert public attention away from the ever-sinking buget for the regular universities.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Behold the [Claremont Graduate University](http://www.cgu.edu) and the [Keck Graduate Institute](http://www.kgi.edu).
It's a little of a cheat, though; both are part of the [Claremont Colleges consortium](http://www.Claremont.edu) whose other five members are undergraduate-only institutions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: What you call is a research institute, not a university.
For example, my institute [ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences](http://www.icfo.eu/) does not have undergraduate students (except for some visitors/interns). Some Master's and mostly - PhD students.
And at least in Europe such institutes are common (or at least - not uncommon).
>
> a university can save money on campus expenses
>
>
>
Undergrads are the ones bringing money, if anything. ;)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: [University of California at San Francisco](http://insideguide.ucsf.edu/admissions) offers only graduate degrees. From the aforelinked web page:
>
> UCSF is unique in that it only offers graduate degrees (meaning it does not have an undergraduate student population).
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/09 | 1,372 | 5,593 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm currently applying for a Ph.D in Germany. Next week I'm sitting down with my potential Ph.D advisor to have a talk about the program.
Currently I'm collecting questions about things like
* teaching duties included?
* working hours
* what's the salary?
* vacation?
* budget for conferences?
I think I'm missing some important stuff.
My real question is: **What should I ask my potential Ph.D advisor in advance, before actually signing a contract / starting?**
(The question [What questions should one ask to the former/current students of a professor before deciding whether to do PhD under him/her?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8507/what-questions-should-one-ask-to-the-former-current-students-of-a-professor-befo) is related, but I feel it doesn't fit my situation)<issue_comment>username_1: I would add:
* What the average time-to-PhD is, and how many percent roughly drop out (although this is a question that is much better asked to other PhD students, as you may easily hear somewhat "tuned" numbers here)
* Paper authorship policy (via mhwombat's comment) - however, note that theory and practice may diverge quite strongly in this topic. This is again something better asked the colleagues.
* Grant / project duties - if you are e.g., paid by an FP7 or H2020 project, your project work may cost you *much more* time than teaching duties
* Administrative duties
* How free you will be in choosing whom to collaborate with, and what topics to collaborate on
* Whether you will be required to work on other projects on the side (e.g., consulting work, paid research, etc.)
* Whether you will be expected to help with writing grant proposals (time sink number one if yes)
* Whether there is a culture for working from home
* What office / lab space you will get, how many other students you share it with
* Whether it will be possible for you to do an internship, e.g., over the summer.
There may be more. I will extend the list once I remember more important things.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to username_1's list, here are a few more considerations:
* With whom in the group will you be directly interacting?
* How often can you expect to be able to meet with the institute leader, as well as your direct supervisor?
* What are the expectations for you to be able to graduate (paper output, etc.)
To directly answer two of your questions:
* Vacation time is regulated by German law. You should expect to be able to take between 5 and 6 weeks of vacation per year, with the amount of time escalating with age. This should be in addition to the official holidays. How your advisor expects you to take the time, however, may be a suitable subject for discussion.
* Salary depends on your funding source and field. If you are funded as a standard *Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter* (academic employee), then your salary and benefits are calculated according to [Group E13 of the TV-L scheme](http://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/c/t/rechner/tv-l/west?id=tv-l-2014&matrix=1). Your salary will be some percentage of this—typically 50% or 100%, depending on field. Presuming you have not been employed full-time for at least a year somewhere prior to beginning your position, you will probably start at TV-L 13/1. (Note, however, that this determination is largely made by the HR staff at the university; a professor can recommend a higher starting position with a valid reason.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: If you are interviewing for a Ph.D. position in Germany, the supervisor will probably already know what you will be working on, since he will have gotten a grant on some particular topic, and you will be the warm body to actually do the work. So, in addition to everything else already mentioned:
* What is the specific project that will pay your salary? Can the supervisor send you a copy of the successful grant proposal? Read that proposal carefully, especially concerning any timetables and financial information.
* How much leeway will you have in actually implementing the grant proposal?
* Presumably, the grant proposal builds on previous work by the supervisor's working group. Can you talk to current Ph.D. students working on the topic? What are the specific challenges in this topic? Would it be possible to get any additional information, like manuscripts? Will you have to take over existing stuff, like experiments that are already running, or legacy code (which pretty much nobody wants)?
The goal would be to get a feeling for the topic you will be working on for the next couple of years. Will this be something you can get sufficiently excited about?
And of course there are additional questions. In no particular order:
* What kind of supporting infrastructure is in place? Is there a full-time sysadmin, or will you keep your IT running by yourself? Is there a statistician to help you with data analysis? Somebody technical to keep the apparatuses running? Someone to feed the lab rats? Or will all this be your responsibility?
* If you are interested in this kind of thing: is there a possibility for you to work in a different lab for a few months, perhaps abroad? This kind of thing can be enormously valuable for your network.
@username_2 already mentioned asking how often you will meet with your supervisor, and I think this is one of the most important questions. If your supervisor tells you that he meets with each and every Ph.D. student once a week for half an hour, great. If you only meet once a semester when you give a seminar talk... not so great.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/09 | 1,853 | 7,634 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently having a disagreement with a coauthor on a paper over the matter of significant figures.
He would like to specify (for example) that a certain organization has an environmental footprint of 7,622 gha. Environmental footprinting rests on a tonne of assumptions and is not a precise methodology, so I don't think we have anything like 4 significant figures of precision in our calculations - more like 2 at most. So I would like to publish that figure as 7,600 gha.
I have pointed out that doing otherwise implies a level of precision we don't have. Currently we are publishing an executive summary prior to peer reviewed journal paper, so I also said it would be embarrassing if the precision issues were picked up at peer review stage and we thus ended up publishing two different sets of figures. He responds that he has never had a problem with publishing more accurate figures in previous journal publications.
The coauthor does not have a quantitative background so has limited understanding this issue, however he is more senior.
So two questions
* does this issue even matter?
* what would you do about it?
UPDATE
It looks like you all agree with me that this matters. Good, I'm not insane :)
As we are currently writing an executive summary/press release for the general public, there is no place for scientific notation or estimates of error - they will make it harder to read and likely put off some people.
Can someone link me to a good, polite and authoritative rant on why this matters that I can show to my colleague? The trouble with almost all material I have seen on significant figures, is that it doesn't discuss rounding off digits left of the decimal point. i.e. it talks about turning 7.36654 into 7.4 but not 736654 into 740000. I suspect my colleague draws an arbitrary line in his head at the decimal point, being unaware that the position of the point is just a function of the units used. And I doubt they would be open to that sort of argument.<issue_comment>username_1: **Just because you have the additional digits, doesn't mean you should report them.**
Accuracy and precision are extremely important concepts in the reporting of scientific data. Excessive precision, as you suggest, implies too much reliability in the accuracy of scientific data. For instance, someone turned in a report to me saying that a particular parameter was known to be:
>
> *E* = 1.3405987423423 GPa
>
>
>
If this were to be published in a paper, it could be rejected out of hand for incompetence, because the parameter *E* is often known only to one or two decimal places, let alone four.
In general, you need to make your reporting consistent with the assumptions and the accuracy of the measurement techniques. One way to figure this out is to note the *accuracy* of your measurement—what is the expected error in the measurement? If the error in your measurement technique is, for instance, plus or minus 1 global hectare, then by all means report it to the nearest hectare. If it's plus or minus 1000, though, reporting to the nearest hectare will look quite silly.
**How do you deal with this?** (I've actually had to do something like this before. Similar argument, but not exactly the same.) In this particular instance, engaging in a little hyperbole might be useful. Instead of reporting it to four significant digits, show him a version of the text that lists the data to the full precision you have available—something clearly ridiculous that reports things down to six or seven decimal places, if possible. Then, when he argues that what you're doing doesn't make sense, you can argue "what's the harm in reporting extra digits?" That should be enough to have your coauthor "see the light."
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Ideally you should give an indication of the uncertainty to go with your value e.g. 7600 ± 100 (or whatever) even if the uncertainty is only a rough estimate.
The problem is that your proposed solution doesn't really give any indication of your accuracy is 7600 the true value, have you rounded to 2s.f or 3? On the other hand the other solution suggests too great an accuracy which is also wrong.
If you do state an uncertainty the actual value you put matters slightly less. Ideally you should still give the answer to similar levels as that in your uncertainty, as you suggested, but my putting more your not actually creating any ambiguity.
As for whether it matters I suspect in lots of fields people don't really care about this sort of thing. But it does matter so they should care and so should you.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: This will be an addition to username_1's answer with which I agree. When reporting numbers like 7600 the trailing zeros are not significant but there is no way to know it. Therefore, writing the number as 7.6 kgha or 7.6 x 10^3 gha directly points to the significant numbers. A key point of publishing information is to provide the reader with an accurate picture for the results and providing quantitative information in its proper context is key. Using appropriate notation to present numbers is therefore important so rather than removing digits that are not deemed significant, it is better to present the data in a different notation by either using established [SI-prefixes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI) or [scientific notation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_notation).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Just to add to the answers with some academic citations, style guides for Tables often list this point. Although they often give examples of extraneous fractional digits (as these tend to be the most egregious examples of where they are illogical), the logic behind the rounding extends wherever the significant digits are location.
For instance, [Feinberg & Wainer (2011)](http://dx.doi.org/10.1198/jcgs.2011.204a) suggest that *at maximum* only 3 digits should be displayed in the table, as humans have a hard time making comparisons among any more digits (and they strongly suggest two or less). So here is advice extending beyond just decimals. (In Table 3 they give an example of rounding to the billions.)
They also appeal to the trivial amount of error introduced by such rounding. In your example the error would be `22/7622 ~ 0.003` - I think 0.3 percent is alright for a wide variety of circumstances.
To justify reporting all 4 digits from a statistical perspective the standard error of the estimate would need to be *less than* `0.5`. If the error is more than `50` you really *shouldn't* report any more than the hundreds.
I provide more citations in my blog post for the stats site; [*Some notes on making effective tables*](http://stats.blogoverflow.com/2012/02/some-notes-on-making-effective-tables/), although not all are applicable to this question.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: If you're specifically interested in the case of writing for a general audience, I think this problem can be usefully resolved by thinking about your choice of units. I have very little sense of what a [global hectare](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_hectare) actually is, or how to visualize it. So can you express these quantities in terms of units/objects that might be more accessible to your readers? See [this](http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/06/units_measurement) and [this](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mind-your-language/2010/may/17/mind-your-language-david-marsh) for a discussion. Presumably, once you've moved to non-scientific units the arguments for precision fall away...
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/09 | 1,746 | 6,799 | <issue_start>username_0: All countries have visa waiver for certain nationals, but it is only for touristic purpose. People use this scheme for attending scientific meetings (isn't it some kind of business trip?).
Anyway, academic visits, in which the guest is paid, is definitely a business trip. For example, when an academic organize a paid two-week course in the host university, or when visiting for a join project in which he is paid.
For example, a German academic traveling to the United States for two weeks for working on a NSF-funded project in which he is paid.
1. Is it theoretically illegal to travel without Business Visa for such academic visits?
2. If yes, how often it happens in practice?<issue_comment>username_1: Each country might have different rules, but in the example you're considering, you can benefit from the [US Visa Waiver program for business purposes](http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/visit/visa-waiver-program.html) if you would qualify for a [Business Visitor Visa (B-1)](http://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/BusinessVisa%20Purpose%20Listings%20March%202014%20flier.pdf):
>
> **Lecturer or speaker**: No salary or income from a U.S. based company/entity, other than expenses incidental to the visit. If honorarium will be received, activities can last no longer than nine days at any single institution or organization; payment must be offered by an institution or organization described in INA 212(q); honorarium is for services conducted for the benefit of the institution or entity; and visa applicant will not have accepted such payment or expenses from more than five institutions or organizations over the last six months.
>
>
> **Researcher**: Independent research, no salary/income from a U.S. based source, or benefit to U.S. institution.
>
>
>
Researchers who receive US payment should apply for a Temporary Worker (H-1B) Visa or Exchange Visitor (J) Visa.
So, to answer your first question: **if the guest is paid** (other than an honorarium, and in addition to have his/her expenses covered), then **travelling on the visa waiver program is theoretically illegal**. Otherwise, if could be legal. Check with the legal team at the US institution.
About whether it happens in practice, I doubt you'll find plenty of people who are happy to claim they are doing something illegal.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: The visa waiver program of some countries allow for business trips.
For the [USA](https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/WebHelp/ESTA_Screen-Level_Online_Help_1.htm#vwp3)
>
> You are eligible to apply for admission under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) if you:
>
>
> * Intend to enter the United States for 90 days or less for business, pleasure or transit
> * Have a valid passport lawfully issued to you by a Visa Waiver Program country
>
>
>
For US passport holders to the [UK](https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa/y/usa/work/six_months_or_less)
>
> You don’t need a visa if you’re coming to the UK for activities allowed under the following visas:
>
>
> * a business visitor
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: To clarify the comments on the original question, there is a huge difference between attending a conference, speaking (uncompensated) at the conference, and being a headline item at the conference.
If you are simply attending a conference / meeting you can typically use a visitor visa. These are short-term, no-money-to-you events that happen daily, immigration has a standard process.
If you are doing something and getting paid **by your home country / primary employer** for it, most places will consider it to be the same. A company in their country hired a company in your country to do something, you are the something. Technicians, trainers etc. are similar.
If you are doing something and getting paid **in the other country** then you do not fall into the (slightly expanded) Tourist/Short term visitor category. A featured speaker would be considered "working" no matter how the money is handled. Another way to think about the distinction is "Can another person do the job just as well?" In the case of a technician, the answer is usually "yes".
Also note that immigration in many places (UK, AU, CA, US etc) interpret "compensation" rather broadly. If you received anything of value in exchange for your services, you are working. If the local contact is charging money for you specifically, you are working. Plenty of people have been bounced because their plans were building a deck in exchange for accommodation & entertainment (items that normally have value).
Notable examples you can find on YouTube:
A puppeteer was refused by the UK because he was intending to do a weekend seminar that charged participants. No work visa.
A chef was refused by AU because she had "tools of the trade" (kitchen knives) in her baggage. Knives are not a problem, but when you are a chef and also have 30 resumes in your bags......
A very large (all muscle), tattooed German man was going to AU to supervise work his company in Germany had been contracted to do. Immigration had no problem with the work - it fell under the technician principle. They refused him because of several criminal convictions and a decent amount of jail time, all of which he noted on his documents. And he probably scared them (although he was actually very pleasant and polite, that could probably change very quickly). They also said that if he applies for a formal visa through the embassy he will likely be accepted.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: One answer is that what people commonly call “tourist visas” really aren't. The distinctions are more complex than business vs. tourism.
For example, short-stay Schengen visas are valid for many different purposes (you do need to declare what you intend to do on the application form and if you are going to work you also need a separate authorization but they are by no means restricted to tourism). The US B1/B2 visa also covers various purposes.
Similarly, visa waiver programs or their equivalent also cover many purposes. So if your citizenship allows you to visit the Schengen area without a visa, you can certainly do it to participate in an academic conference or meet colleagues for a joint project.
At the same time, as others already wrote, working usually follows other rules and it seems your scenario would fall under this category in many countries. In the US, even a “business visa” is not enough in that case. In the Schengen area, you would use the same visa than for a conference (or no visa at all, if your citizenship allows it) but you would also need a separate authorization to get the visa. You wouldn't get the visa without either lying about the purpose of the trip or presenting that document.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/09 | 2,366 | 9,094 | <issue_start>username_0: I am asking myself the question "Should I do PhD or should I leave academia and go for an industrial career?"
My life-goal is being a professor. And I love to do research.
PhD is surely a bite that not everyone can chew.
But I wonder *who* can chew it?
I never was good at tests and exams. My BSc. GPA was 2.84/4.00 but finished my MSc. with 3.50/4.00
However, currently I am working on a conference paper and I feel like even that is too much for me. It has been nearly 3 months and still, the paper draft is to be improved (not the wording but the content).
I am surely a hard-worker but not always. Sometimes, I let go of my work and absorbed in other stuff (composing, amateur radio etc). If this period is too wide, I have to spend double effort to warm-up and remember where I left.
I don't know how things work in PhD. It usually is 5-6 years. It is the one of two most-challenging milestones in academic career (the other is getting the title Assoc. Prof).
Should I completely be a "nerd" and work on my thesis systematically (something I could never make in my entire life) or working periodically but with extra effort is still sufficient?
So, here's my question: If I say "I'm considering to do PhD" and ask your advice, what would you ask me? What kind of skills/characteristics do you look for a potential academician?
I know it is way too late for me to ask this kind of question, as a person who almost finished his master's degree. But better lose the saddle than the horse.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> So, here's my question: If I say "I'm considering to do PhD" and ask
> your advice, what would you ask me? What kind of
> skills/characteristics do you look for a potential academician?
>
>
>
The first questions I would ask is: are you really interested in the subject? Can you imagine spending the next 5+ years thinking about pretty much nothing else?
Why do you want to do a PhD in the first place?
>
> However, currently I am working on a conference paper and I feel like
> even that is too much for me. It has been nearly 3 months and still,
> the paper draft is to be improved (not the wording but the content).
>
>
>
Now imagine the same thing but replace 3 month with 3 years.
>
> Sometimes, I let go of my work and absorbed in other stuff.
>
>
>
This is also not very helpful for pursuing a PhD.
I think in most fields (that might be different for some fields of science) getting a PhD is only for people who want to do research. Apart from that it is only a waste of time and money. So the question you should ask yourself is not: Am I able to get a PhD? But rather: Do I want to get a PhD?
However, if you decided that you really want to give it a try: talk to someone from your university about it, maybe the supervisor of your thesis. Grades are not always a good indicator of the quality as a researcher.
---
EDIT:
>
> My life-goal is being a professor. And I love to do research.
>
>
>
That answers most of the questions.
>
> But I don't know if I'm capable of doing a Ph.D.
>
>
>
No one here can answer this question. You should try to talk to a professor at your university, the supervisor of your Master's Thesis, or someone who is doing research you are interested in. However, do not let your grades disencourage you, I know many students who had pretty bad grades but are great as PhD students and many excellent students who struggle with their research.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Among the people who should pursue a PhD degree are the ones who can write:
>
> My life-goal is being a professor. And I love to do research.
>
>
>
This is the number one reason to get into grad school. However, it's not clear at this point that you have an accurate idea of what it means, on a daily basis, to work in research.
Sure there are fun times fiddling with the knobs of expensive equipment, drawing equations on napkins until late in the night, traveling to exotic conference locations like Baltimore, etc. There are also these brief moments when you feel like an undergrad actually learned something from you, and those where you share inside jokes that you can tell for sure only your advisor and yourself can understand. I recall a quote from a senior researcher in my field saying "Can you believe that they pay us to do what we love?".
But there are other aspects that are less glamorous. Administrative work, data bookkeeping, *actual* bookkeeping, wondering what you will do with your life, filing grant applications, etc. There is the anguish about funding, the frustration of aborted projects, the time and energy wasted in dealing with department politics.
And there is teaching which can be both a joy and a pain in the neck.
>
> My BSc. GPA was 2.84/4.00 but finished my MSc. with 3.50/4.00
>
>
>
I don't know what GPA is, nor how to interpret your grade, but the context tells me that you think they could be better. Passing exams and conducting research are different jobs, not being excellent at one does not mean you can't be good at the second one (a) although it often helps; b) the reverse is also true). It will make things harder for you when applying to grad school, but after that it becomes irrelevant. What matters more is *what you actually learned*, some people have ok grades but understood a great deal of the concepts.
>
> I let go of my work and absorbed in other stuff
>
>
>
That you will have to work on. There is an *infinite* number of things that you can do but work on your research. Nobody will force you to do it since pretty much the only one who will suffer from your procrastination will be you. The good news (sort of) is that [you are not alone](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/5786/10643)...
>
> What kind of skills/characteristics do you look for a potential
> academician?
>
>
>
There are many, and most of them overlap with what it needs to achieve a successful career in the industry. But I don't know any successful researcher who is not *thorough*. Being creative sure is necessary, but it's the easiest part. What will make you stand out is when you can discipline yourself into rigorously testing them.
It also help if you know how to sell your ideas. Researchers hate to admit it but a significant factor in their success relates to how well they can convey a message. (Note that bad communication is an indicator of bad science, but it gives a lot of false positive).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: You sound a lot like me when I was thinking about doing a PhD, albeit you aim to be a professor, and while I like the idea I'm not so fussed about the administrative side of being in a university.
If you have a tendency to concentrate on whatever is the most interesting thing in front of you, then I would very strongly advise proceeding if and only if you find a good, hands-on supervisor. Ask their previous doctoral students how often they met with them in the first few years - some supervisors will see you once a month or so, others I have heard meet their students individually or collectively several times a week.
In the UK, PhDs are usually 3 years. And the rough schedule is that for the first year you look at one or more problems, trying to understand how you might make some progress. In the second year, you make some small advance on one project and try in vain to develop the project into a more concrete thesis. In the third year you accept that your small advance was all you are going to get, and write it up. The slow pace of progress in the second year commonly causes distress or apathy.
In order to complete such a project, you either need to be personally very disciplined or be part of a team (you, your supervisor, perhaps some peers) that can keep you honest - remember that rubber-ducking is a vital part of academic work; most academics in the UK will congregate in the department kitchen once or twice a day just to talk to other academics, because often just explaining yourself gets you closer to a solution. Similarly, you need people to ask you where you've got to so that you don't just disappear off for a month because you're faced with something annoying and your symphony suddenly seems fascinating.
I struggled with this; my supervisor was hands-off, my peers were in very different fields (I was a theorist among experimentalists for a start) and I didn't really understand my own character enough to see what was happening.
One of my peers had a supervisor who used to take students through rigorous textbooks, and expect them to grasp whole chapters to be quizzed on - the sound of it terrified me, but in retrospect the foundations are well worth laying. Instead I often disappeared down dead-ends because I was unaware of entire fields of research, and just didn't have the terminology or context to find them.
So, in sum, you have some well-placed concerns, but the answer is not just whether you are capable of a PhD but whether you are in the context of your supervisor, peers and department.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/10 | 652 | 2,214 | <issue_start>username_0: I've got to cite the author of a text and her full [title](http://emba.ust.hk/academics/faculty-lecturers/) is
>
> <NAME>, <NAME>, Jr., Distinguished Professor of
> Dispute Resolution and Organizations; Director of the Dispute
> Resolution Research Center
>
>
>
I'm at a loss, her name is <NAME> so why is this person's name in her title? When I google "dewitt w. buchanan" all I get is entries for `<NAME>` or this professor. What does it mean in academia terms, is this a prize, the name of an institute, an honorific title, is it important to cite it when talking about the professor?
I could have posted it to ELU, but it seems something very idiomatic to academia. So...help ?<issue_comment>username_1: It looks like the professorship she holds was named in honor of Mr. Buchanan. You shouldn't need to include it when you cite her.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: You would list the "<NAME>, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Dispute Resolution and Organizations" if you were, for instance, issuing a press release about Prof. Brett's accomplishments, or writing very formal correspondence. You might also mention it if you were introducing Prof. Brett in a seminar.
Under most normal circumstances, however, such information is not needed, and could come across as being almost pretentious.
As for what the "<NAME>, Jr., Distinguished Professor" represents, it's what's known as an [*endowed chair*](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12607/what-is-an-endowed-chair-exactly-how-does-it-compare-to-a-normal-position) or *named chair*. Mr. Buchanan was the person honored by the chair—either because he gave the money to establish the chair himself, or others gave the money on his behalf or in his honor.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: This is a so-called "chair" professorship, where the "chair" was endowed by a wealthy man named <NAME> Jr.
That means that the donation given by Mr. Buchanan Jr. was large enough to pay the holder of the "chair" over her probable tenure, so he gets to have his name attached to the work of that one professor.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/06/10 | 1,058 | 4,488 | <issue_start>username_0: A PI started a study and collected some data. The study was originally meant to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment. After a year or so of collecting data, the PI decided to do some analyses. When I looked at the design of the study, I informed the PI that this design will not be able to provide any meaningful evaluation of effectiveness.
Some time later, I came across a novel method to analyse this data and tried it out. The results were quite interesting and with the PI's agreement, I decide to try and publish it.
My question is this:
Since the PI was not involved at all in the conceptualisation of this novel method and did not contribute in the interpretation of the results, should he be granted authorship? According to ICMJE guidelines, the answer should be no but I am unsure.
Addendum:
I would like to add, while thinking about this problem, I thought of big studies like the Framingham Heart Study, the Global Burden of Disease study. The PI of these studies are not automatically authors on every paper that came out of the data they collected. Would this be any different from my situation?<issue_comment>username_1: This doesn't seem to be related much to the fact that the other person is a PI. According to the question, someone collected data, and you have analyzed it.
Unless the data was published elsewhere, you cannot cite it. So you will need to include the person who collected it as an author in order to have a source for the data. It's hard to expect otherwise, if you want to use unpublished data as the source for a paper.
The ICMJE guidelines agree; one of their criteria for authorship is:
>
> Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
>
>
>
The other person has met this point through acquisition of the data.
The most gracious thing to do would be to offer the other person a co-authorship, which will then allow them to meet the other three bullet points in the ICMJE guidelines.
The other person can then decide whether to accept the co-authorship, or whether to take a smaller form of acknowledgment for the data collection.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Let me get this straight:
* Your PI (who is on a different institution than you) made a study and
collected some data
* He gave his data to you
* He proposed some ways to process the data which did not work out
* You made a better method and you plan to publish without him.
From what I understand, this is not the way collaboration works. Even the fact that he proposed some methodology to process the data (even if it did not work out) it still proves that this work is a joint work and he did not simply handed the data, in the notion that you can do what you want with it.
After all, those simple facts remain:
* If you were in his shoes, would you ever collaborate again with a guy who takes your data and does not give you co-authorship, even if you were part of the entire process? The answer is a big NO, because there is nothing to gain from such a collaboration.
* What do you have to lose by sharing co-authorship? You will be first author, he takes credit and he will willingly share his data again if needed. Then he will be a reference for you which in the long run, means more papers for you.
* What if your paper gets rejected and he finds out? You got nothing and you just burned a bridge with this man.
* Imagine the other case. Even, if the other guy was an undergraduate student and he collected the data under your supervision, would not it be unethical not to include this student as a co-author?
Do not be short-sighted. Share co-authorship
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I remember seeing a paper or Letter to the Editor discussing the requirements to be an author on the paper. They came up with the 5 types of contributions towards a paper, as I remember they were:
1. Initial Idea
2. Data Acquisition
3. Data Analysis
4. Write the paper
5. Revising the paper
As long as someone made a significant contribution toward two of these items they should be an author on the paper.
It completely depends on conventions in your particular area. For example in my field the supervisor is always the last author. I know some fields might have them as first author.
But, what it comes down to is what many others have said... don't burn your bridges. You need collaborations!
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/10 | 929 | 3,875 | <issue_start>username_0: I received a scholarship from a funding organization to do my PhD. I chose a department within a reputable research center to do my PhD at, and I did start working there 2 months ago.
My career ambitions are to proceed in the academic career path, eventually becoming a professor in my field.
As far as I know, your experience as an academic (or as a researcher) is defined based on your h-index, citations count and publications count. The more strong papers I publish during and after my PhD, the better position I can get in the future. Please correct me if I am wrong about this.
Now in the place I started working at, turned out to be more of an engineering department. They are not concerned with publishing as much as they are concerned with applications to show off to the industry. Most of the PhD students working here intend to work in the industry (factories or companies). Absolutely no PhD student here is intending to work in Academia.
I am very concerned that I might be at the wrong place. I was hoping the place where I do my PhD at would encourage publishing, and involve me in their publications. I still need to learn how to do proper evaluations in our field, I thought that's how I learn it, by getting involved in papers they submit at top venues (not necessarily being a co-author, but just to learn by observing). They are not concerned with submitting papers to top venues because they think their work is more of applications than the research such venues would expect. Moreover, from their perspective it is not worth the effort, because it won't give them better chances in the industry.
Nevertheless, they understand my situation and they will support me financially and by providing resources if I decide to publish at top conferences. But I just feel now there's no hope I can learn to write a high quality paper given these conditions.
As I mentioned at the beginning, my funding comes from a third-party organization. Technically I can switch to a different department, and there is a department I have in mind that belongs to another branch of that same research center, located in a nearby city, they are more research-oriented and they work in the same field. It will not be easy to do that and I will have wasted a lot of time by the time I move out, but it is still doable.
So.. is it worth the hassle?
P.S. These events are taking place in Europe, where in most of the cases you spend your entire period as a PhD student working on your thesis, unlike the courses-then-thesis style in USA.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> I did start working there 2 months ago.
>
>
>
and
>
> It will not be easy to do that and I will have wasted a lot of time by the time I move out
>
>
>
don't fit well together. If you're worried about the 2 months you've spent, I'd say that's insignificant. If you're worried that it might take (with application processing etc) upto a year, I'd say the same thing. Think of a 30-40 year long research career. A year (or 2 months) is not a long time.
It sounds like you've done your homework and have a plan for what you want to do, and you're just worried about taking the leap. Take it ! You only get one career, and taking action to further it is always "worth the hassle".
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Not all choices are binary. This may be one of those situations where this applies.
Is there a way for you to "transition over" from one group to the other? If the group you're currently working with is supportive (and this seems to be the case), would they be OK with you starting a collaborative project with the new group while you complete the paperwork process? That way you can get started on research before everything is formalized, and perhaps your old group can find some new collaborators for future projects.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/10 | 834 | 3,718 | <issue_start>username_0: I am PhD student and the main author of a research-in-progress report in computer science. The paper is already published at a *workshop* (in the proceedings, this is not a journal paper) and was presented there a few months ago.
While continuing to work on the topic of the paper, I discovered a mistake I did in the already published workshop paper. A value that is referred to twice in the paper is wrong; it is still unusually high but lower than reported. The value is also mentioned in the summary of the paper. First I told my coauthors who sit in the next room in the same institute.
Now I want to publish an Erratum on my academic website.
My first idea is to publish a text file next to the download like that is labeled "erratum" (it is a single mistake). As an example for this "text file", I looked [at the following webpage](http://pauillac.inria.fr/~herbelin/articles/index-eng.html).
My second idea is to change the author version of my workshop paper that is downloadable as PDF file from my website. My current idea is to solve this via a footnote in the PDF version of the paper. So how would I handle that? Do I correct the value and add a footnote saying that the original published value was wrong and explain the mistake? The other option that I think is unsuitable is the following: to leave the wrong value in the paper and add a footnote that explains that this value was a mistake and give the correct value in the footnote?
Also, are there websites on how to handle errata for conference/workshop papers in technical fields like computer science? Please note also that in my field conference papers are quite important (e.g., the POPL conference) while in some other fields only journal papers count (sort of).<issue_comment>username_1: A published paper is a published paper so if your paper has a unique identifier (e.g. doi) and is considered an official publication, I do not think it is a good idea to make versions of the paper with differing information. That would just cause confusion since the reference would still be the same (you cannot publish the same paper twice with only a number changed).
If you publish with a regular journal, it would not be problematic to publish an errata in the same journal explaining the error. It is also possible to publish a correspondence where the error is discussed and hopefully convincingly shown not to alter the conclusions made in the original paper. Which way is applicable in each case can be discussed with the editor of the journal and also the best way to proceed. So contacting the journal and editor is a good first step to find out the best way forward.
You are of course entitled to provide this information on your own web site but the problem may be that it will be lost to most people reading your paper that way. Hence trying to get a published correction is the best way forward. A journal should be able to link the errata to the original article so that anyone interested in the paper will find the correction at the same time.
How this relates to a conference is unclear to me and is something you need to research for your specific case.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Mistakes happen. I would say that since it's a conference proceedings, therefore often the presented work is short of proofs, it's work in progress and it's very quickly baked, mistakes happen.
It is probably impossible to post errata to the paper. I would suggest the following steps:
* If you put it on arXiv, upload a new corrected version.
* If you put it on your personal webpage, add the errata there.
* Make sure that once you sumbit it for journal publication, the mistake is correted.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/10 | 483 | 2,233 | <issue_start>username_0: I started a collaboration with some other research group, where the main objective was to model some data. The project was very interesting to me, since I had obtained that data. After some months I got no news from them, I wrote them and they always told me they were very busy and had no time. I understood they were not interested anymore, so that I contacted another research group for the same collaboration objective, and this time, the collaboration progressed quickly, and we reached the stage where we are writing the paper about the modeling of the results. At this same point I got news from the other group, telling me they had obtained very interesting results with their modeling technique, and regretting the previous lack of contact. It turns out they have obtained much better modeling results than the "second" group. My problem is that I do not know what to do now. One option would be to publish two papers, one with each group, that would be very similar. Other option would be to decide for one of the two groups and go ahead, forgetting the other, but that would not be ethical. Perhaps a last option would be to publish both papers, bur giving them very different focus and audience.
What would you do here?<issue_comment>username_1: I'm surprised you did not mention the option that I would probably do: combine all data into one paper. Based on your description it sounds as if both data support a similar hypothesis/line of enquiry. If that is the case, publish one much stronger paper using two independent sets of data. All authors would need to be included. You could check with both teams to see if they agree. Speaking of which, have you asked them what they want to do?
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Well, Your two research team could do the research together again and combine all research data, then write a paper. Because one research papers must be rigorous, as you know, there would be many scholars will read it and cite it, only rigorous academic writing will not mislead them. At the same time, the paper needs to be peer reviewed by at least 3-5 professional reviewers, which could help you to improve the quality of the paper.
Upvotes: -1 |
2014/06/10 | 1,356 | 5,808 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently a PhD student who will graduate in July.
I am currently applying for academic postdocs,
with the goal of taking a tenure-track job at the end of my postdoc position.
In my field (operations research),
most of the postdoc positions are for one year
with a possibility of extension to two and sometimes three years.
If I am given the choice, should I spend one year as a postdoc, or two?
Would I be able to make a significant contribution to a research project if I were to only work as a postdoc for a year?
Currently, I am leaning towards a two year postdoc.
If I were to only spend one year as a postdoc,
I feel that it is a rather short period of time
in which to start and finish a research project.
If I spend two years as a postdoc,
then I would be applying for tenure-track jobs one year later,
and I am also hopeful that at that point,
I would have done some research which I could submit in my job application
in addition to my existing PhD work.
What advice would you have for me?
### Edited in response to question in comments
As <NAME> mentioned, in my field, a postdoc appointment is for a fixed term (typically one or two years, or one year with a possibility of extention).<issue_comment>username_1: Your goal is to get a faculty position somewhere, assumably :-)
Given that, at least the field I work in, you need publications and a good record of academic research. This might be slightly different in other fields. If you can get a few papers out and prove yourself then 1 year might be sufficient. If the PI is good then stay a second year to make yourself even better.
Again, I think it comes down to what it will take to get a faculty position.
Your best bet might be to talk to some current post-docs in your research area as they might have the best advice as it will likely depend on your specific research area and conventions there.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: One year is not very long. You will lose some time at the start while you settle in and get 'set up' for doing research; you will lose more time at the end as you make preparations to move on. You also need to factor in time spent on securing your 'next job'. I would therefore strongly encourage you to take a two-year position rather than a one-year position, all else being equal.
Remember, it's generally much easier to resign a position *before* the money runs out than it is to secure an extension!
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Two.
----
In the United States, at least in computer science, most postdocs are synchronized with the academic calendar. A typical postdoc starts in August, and faculty application deadlines start in November. So for purposes of applying for faculty positions, **a one-year postdoc is really only three months long**. A two-year postdoc gives you **five times** as much time to strengthen your faculty application!
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: As this question may receive more attention over time - and it deserves that - I'd like to add a more wider scope to it.
There are reasons why one year is fine for a post-doc. For example, if you are going to work in a very similar area as you did your PhD in and since then it may take only little time to familiarise yourself with the research. If you are staying in the same country, settling in will be minimal. It might also be that you are working on a very concise subject and a year would completely suffice. You might also think about doing another post-doc somewhere else, then you probably want to consider a shorter period, as it allows you intensify your professional network.
You should always also keep in mind, that a post-doc might not work out as you expected it. Going for only one year is a safe bet then. In most cases however, since you are a professional, there will be workaround for this problem.
There are probably many more reasons to choose the longer period. Most of them were already mentioned by username_2. Sometimes doing a post-doc is leaving the comfort zone, i.e. you are working much more freely than during a PhD and probably working on something completely new. Settling in is probably the biggest worry you will have. You may be wasting a lot of time in that procedure - very much depending on where you go, there might be a lot of paperwork involved. If you are planning on going abroad, this may take ages. When I started my post-doc I had about a month before I actually could start with my research. It might also take time to get yourself acquainted with the local infrastructure and/ or command structure.
When you finally started your research there might occur other problems along the line. Distractions you cannot plan, for example you might have more responsibility in many more related fields. Most likely PhD students and undergraduates of your new research group will ask your advice often. If you are the only post-doc, you *are* the go to guy, when your advisor is not around.
Another point to consider is cooperations with other groups, writing manuscripts, attending conferences, developing new research proposals, maybe write a grant application, prepare for your future plans. But apart from this all, a key role in the beginning will also be socialising, become part of the group, member of the faculty/ institute. (I underestimated that a lot when I started - there was a lot of "shake-hands" involved.)
During a post-doc, you should be able to develop yourself, your methods, your profiles. You are already a contributing member of the science community, keeping that up is a lot of work. That all only works if you are comfortable with your surroundings and make the best time you can possibly have. One year might have flown by, without you realising that.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/06/10 | 3,432 | 14,731 | <issue_start>username_0: I just finished a PhD in mathematics and am about to start a postdoc in the fall. My question is pretty straightforward (although the answer might not be), namely:
>
> What should one do to have a successful mathematics postdoc (apart from perhaps doing as much math as humanly possible, or more)?
>
>
>
I expect this will be different depending on one's goals post-postdoc, such as staying in academia vs leaving, research vs teaching focused jobs, etc.
---
Some possibly related questions:
[What is expected of a postdoc?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3327/what-is-expected-of-a-postdoc)
[Transitioning: PhD to Postdoc and Productivity](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21951/transitioning-phd-to-postdoc-and-productivity)<issue_comment>username_1: I'm not sure that your parenthetical comment ("doing as much math as humanly possible") is necessarily correct. In my opinion, you are best looking for a postdoc in an area that is as far removed from your PhD areas as you are willing to tolerate. Unless you are an unassailed leader in the field (in which case, skip the postdoc and just get an academic position directly), your postdoc is a good time to:
* diversify your interests
* set up connections between disparate fields
* and, in the words of the great Arnold Ross, "think deeply of simple things"
Believe it or not, after your postdoc it will be a long time before you can actually devote a similar amount of uninterrupted thought to academic interests (possibly not until retirement).
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Aru,
Your question is phrased in rather general terms. There are different kinds of postdoctoral positions in mathematics, and two mathematical postdocs hired side-by-side in the same department may have different career goals. So advice which is guaranteed to be applicable must be rather general. Here goes:
1. **What is the point of a postdoc in mathematics?** I think it is this: the position of "tenure-track assistant professor" at a US math department is really much different from what it used to be. It used to be an extended apprenticeship combined with an audition for a permanent job. Now the job market is so competitive that institutions at all levels tenure the vast majority of the assistant professors they hire: I could easily name hundreds of people who have gotten tenure over the last ten years; I'm not sure I could name ten who were denied tenure. The "apprenticeship" that used to take place at the beginning of these positions is now somewhere between immensely abbreviated and completely absent: in my own department (UGA) we have "graduate faculty" status, which must be conferred separately, but every tenure-track hire in last eight years has been given that status immediately upon arrival. In my department you cannot tell the assistant professors from the associate professors (and from some of the full professors) without your scorecard: the job is really identical, including supervision of PhD students.
Even most brilliantly talented and competent PhDs need time to perform the laundering process from student to faculty. In particular, 99% of the time it just doesn't work for your PhD advisor to have just gotten her own PhD a couple of years ago. This laundering process is what the postdoc is for.
2. **How does a postdoc work towards the goal of tenure-track readiness and marketability?** In what follows I will assume that the desired tenure track job has substantial research expectations (keeping in mind that "substantial research expectations" is still a continuum).
To attain your goal of a tenure-track position, you need to concentrate on two things:
2a) **Research**.
* Put out product -- accepted papers. Both quality and quantity matters.
Many people get a PhD in mathematics before having a single accepted paper (I did), and if they have an eminent advisor who goes to bat for them, having no papers need not be much of a strike against them in the postdoctoral market. Things change tremendously when you apply for tenure-track jobs: you need to show conversion of your research promise into research success. With multiplicity. Publication standards vary significantly among mathematical disciplines (topologists and algebraic geometers publish fewer papers; combinatorialists and applied mathematicians publish more) but I think that at least one publication per year is a reasonable lower bound for almost everyone.
Most math postdocs have not published all the work that appears in their thesis before graduation (my understanding is that this is almost the complete reverse of what happens in most other STEM fields). There are good reasons for this: mathematics is such a technical, specialized field that you spend 90% of your time as a PhD student attaining mastery of one specific subfield, and the PhD is awarded within a very short time period of that attained mastery (in some cases, it is awarded when the advisor feels confident that such mastery lies in the student's near future). So many if not most math postdocs spend the majority of their research time in their first year working on the papers that come from their PhD research. Why does it take so long given that the thesis has already been written? One reason is that they are usually not just transcribing the work but also significantly *improving* it: again, this goes in hand with the observation that as soon as you know what you're doing you're out the door with a PhD. If you compare a PhD thesis and the paper that it results in, you often see stronger results, simpler and better proofs, and so forth.
Spending time in your postdoc working on publishing your thesis can be tricky: you are in a new environment with new distractions, and after you give a talk or two about your thesis work, many of your research conversations will be about the research interests of those around you, who will probably at least want to involve you in seminars and may in fact want to collaborate with you on further projects. And it's good to do that...but not at the expense of getting your thesis work done. There is even a bit of a trap here, since as a PhD student you get so much care and attention on every aspect of your work, including someone whose job it is at times to tell you to slow down and be more careful: that you haven't yet fully nailed down what you thought you had. Most postdoctoral advisors don't work as closely with their postdocs as thesis advisors do with their students, and when they do it is probably not on the topic of their thesis (they may not even have enough expertise on that to work as closely as the thesis advisor did). So the first priority of any postdoc is to make sure that they actually write up for publication all the work that was "promised" in their thesis, and the second priority is to figure out how to continue this thesis work in a meaningful way.
* Acquire a research program -- distinct from your thesis advisor's program.
I think this is really the hardest part. It is a well-known fact that the most common number of MathSciNet publications for any given author is one. In some cases this just means that some bright young person passed through mathematics on the way to something else -- e.g. [this one-hit wonder turned out fine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danica_McKellar) -- but it is distressingly common to see one strong, cutting-edge publication followed by dead silence. What this means is that the work was -- in some suitably high-level sense, at least -- really that of the advisor rather than the student. A lot of postdocs follow the previous bullet point -- i.e., they get their thesis written up -- and then they just can't see their way to a continuing research *program*. In some cases this means that they still publish some papers, but they have just switched from being one person's apprentice to a different person's apprentice. This is still not good enough for a research-intensive academic job nor, increasingly, a job at a nationally reputable liberal arts college.
It is here that I must disagree with another answer to this question, which says:
>
> In my opinion, you are best looking for a postdoc in an area that is as far removed from your PhD areas as you are willing to tolerate.
>
>
>
That really doesn't sound right to me. It is a relatively easy path to give up on what you've already done and start fresh on something unrelated, for which you can get local supervision. As above, this is not good enough. You want your research program to be considerably deeper at the end of your postdoc than it was when you got your PhD. Sometimes that involves a significant course correction, yes: in my case I spent less than 1/3 of my time as a postdoc working on the subject of my PhD thesis, but the other material that I worked on was material that I had already been interested in and even started writing up for publication as a student. Moreover the two areas were related because I was interested in both of them, and that allowed me to work towards closer relations. Finally, by the time I gave job talks I was able to talk about Hasse principle violations for Shimura curves (my thesis was on Shimura curves) alongside Hasse principle violations for torsors under abelian varieties (which is what I spent most of my postdoc working on). Moving to something "as far removed from your PhD areas as you are willing to tolerate" would have moved me several orders of magnitude farther away, just as I was experiencing a rapid improvement in my understanding of the part of arithmetic geometry in which I did my thesis work. (Eleven years after my thesis, I am now *also* exploring parts of mathematics that are considerably farther away but I still do some work on things closely related to my thesis.)
A research program has some breadth to it as well as depth. But the ideal way to develop breadth is to expand outwards from your current position, not give up and move to a new position chosen for its substantial distance from your current one.
* It is good to have done more than one thing, or at least to know more than one trick.
I want to reaffirm that *after* establishing depth, the next thing hirers look for in a research program is indeed breadth. If you're working on what looks to all outsiders like *exactly* the same thing now as you were three years ago, that's less than exciting, and it creates concerns about your future trajectory: mathematics does move on, and long-term colleagues grow together in their research interests and expertise. However, if you're working in a hot, technical area and doing well with it, then you probably don't want to diversify out of that area as a postdoc, but you do want to take steps to show that the potential for diversity is there. Often digging deeper in exactly the same spot requires learning new tools, even basic things that early career graduate students in other fields learn. I think it's important to continue that kind of learning as a postdoc (and beyond) and show that you're doing it: for instance, in any job talk you should showcase the variety of knowledge and techniques that go into your results, especially if the results themselves look narrow and specialized.
2b) **Teaching** Teaching is challenging for a postdoc because for a certain range of intended careers it is less important than research...but it is still important, and in fact increasingly so. You have to crank up a different kind of professional vibe to be a successful teacher as a postdoc: whereas for research you are trying to burn the midnight oil to make the transition from excellent to outstanding, what a disaster it would be for you to vow to be the best calculus teacher ever and devote all your time and energy to that. (Part of the disaster is that vowing to be the best calculus teacher ever and putting three times as much time in as your office-mate will not necessarily result in teaching evaluations that are any better than hers: unfortunately they might even be worse.) Rather you need to set a more temperate teaching mark and learn to hit it while leaving plenty of time for your research.
Your specific teaching goals will depend upon what kind of tenure-track job you have. On the other hand, you may be hoping for a job at an elite research institution but may have to settle for a job with higher teaching requirements. A good all-around plan is to showcase at least competent teaching across a fairly broad range of levels, including: calculus courses / service courses for non-majors; courses for undergraduate math majors; and graduate-level courses. If you can cover those bases by teaching fewer courses, that is probably better. In three years of postdoctoral work I taught five semester courses: this was close to ideal, but if I magically had control of my own teaching load, I would have cut it down to four. Because your overall teaching responsibilities are relatively limited, it is good to start thinking about where your teaching letter(s) will come from right away. If you feel that a course is going especially well, by all means invite some faculty in to watch you teach it. That together with good evaluations is sufficient for a strong teaching letter in many cases.
3. **You've written a lot, but actually everything you've said is fully consistent with "doing as much math [including math teaching] as humanly possible". So I still suspect that doing a tremendous amount of work -- of the right kind -- in a relatively short period is the key to a successful math postdoc. Am I mistaken??**
No, you're quite right. Being a math postdoc should not stop you from having a satisfying personal life, but professionally speaking it is one of the most intense, work-intensive points of a mathematical career. There's no secret remedy for that.
One could give a lot more advice for math postdocs, and this has been done. The [Young Mathematicians Network](https://www.youngmath.net/) has lots of information on this. Google searching reveals that several mathematicians have math-specific postdoctoral advice on their webpages, including <NAME> and <NAME>. I tend to think that it is better to talk to people -- lots of people -- and get advice rather than just read about very generalized advice (including this answer, of course). A lot of times you don't even need to explicitly ask for advice: look for young, successful mathematicians (that includes most people who have recently gotten tenure-track jobs nowadays) and talk to them about their experiences. By comparing the backgrounds of multiple role-models you can get a sense of what the "market wants".
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer] |
2014/06/10 | 1,412 | 5,845 | <issue_start>username_0: In Academia, a [sabbatical means a leave to do only research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/8557/1033), as opposed to an unpaid leave to do anything you want.
A [recent question over on The Workplace SE](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/q/27097/1898) raises the situation where someone *has too much money and just want to have more time.* — like working for 6-9 months per year, which would earn one enough to spend the rest of the time travelling. Regardless of the relatively low pay in parts of Academia, the same situation may apply, in particular to [DINK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DINKY)s.
The answers mostly boil down to: *be a consultant or freelancer.*. That may work in the software industry or other private sectors, but it doesn't translate very well to academia.
Is a career which includes one or more extended unpaid leaves, such as [sabbaticals in the classic meaning of the word](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbatical), or unpaid leaves in the order of 3 months or more in a row, compatible with working in academia at all? If yes, how?
**Clarification:** I am interested in answers considering *either* a career that contains specific gaps (such as a year to see the world, either between jobs, or interrupting a job), *or* a fixed job that contains less than 12 months per year (minus holidays) of work.<issue_comment>username_1: Frequent, extended periods of unpaid leave are easily compatible with certain types of academic careers, such as teaching as an adjunct on a course-by-course basis. However, this involves low pay and no prestige or job security, so it's far from an ideal solution.
There will be a lot of obstacles to doing this with a tenure-track job. Your collaborators will be unhappy when you put the collaboration on hold to go do something else. You colleagues will be unhappy when you aren't available to teach courses or supervise students (thereby making the department work around what they consider to be your eccentricities). Wanting to take substantial amounts of time off will be considered a bad sign, and everyone will worry about what you might do once you have tenure. Your chances of getting tenure will go down.
Taking time off can also make you a less productive researcher, even normalized by the amount of time you spend on research. The problem is that keeping up with the field takes a certain amount of time and effort. If you work on research for only six months per year, you still need to keep up with twelve months of progress by others, so it's as if the rest of the world were moving twice as fast.
It's not impossible that you could find a flexible academic job. You might end up with a specially negotiated soft-money position (funded by grants under whatever terms the funding agency will agree to), you might take a job at a less prestigious university than you could have (who are so eager to hire you that they are willing to make a deal), or you might happen to find an unusually accommodating department. Unfortunately, this isn't something most people can reasonably expect to work out. I don't know what the chances are, but I expect they are pretty low on average. The academic job market is tough, and adding non-standard constraints makes it even tougher. If you can't be happy without frequent, extended leaves, and you have good non-academic employment options that fit your needs, then that might be the way to go.
Another theoretical option is to take advantage of tenure: work hard, don't tell anyone your plans, and then quit doing any academic work over the summer once you get tenure. You shouldn't do this. Your colleagues will feel resentful, the administration will be upset, and you'll be manipulating the system in a way tenure is not intended to support (and thus weakening the case for having tenure at all). If you're too extreme, you could run into trouble with a post-tenure review, depending on your university's policies.
[I'm assuming you intend to use the leaves for something entirely unrelated to your academic career. If it's more closely related, such as applying your scholarly expertise to government service, then you may have better luck. However, it doesn't sound like that's what you're talking about.]
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: One case when this does happen in an academic setting is when faculty get on a glide path to retirement. In such cases, it's possible to negotiate a reduced workload (and pay). The incentive here is that the department can sometimes use this (along with other funds) to support hiring a new faculty member: since faculty slots are expensive commodities, such an arrangement works for everyone.
Your question doesn't indicate the level of the person who might want to do part-time academic work. I think it goes without saying that doing this before tenure is a BAD IDEA for reasons already outlined above. But if someone is tenured but far from retirement, it might be possible to pull off such an arrangement if the department sees an opportunity to cash in on it via new hiring.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I think the previous answers were focused on academic positions focused on research. However I know of colleges and some universities where the teaching load drops off dramatically in the summer and during certain summers it's possible to be off for at least 8 weeks without pay. To me this is very acceptable considering that you will also get 3 weeks around Christmas.
You can also consider working remotely for some periods, if your research allows you to do so. I think also that traveling hard every year for 3-6 months might be hard to pull off, physically and mentally for many years. But if you could rent a house for 2 months on the beach of Fiji and work from there, that doesn't sound too bad :-)
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/10 | 1,038 | 4,142 | <issue_start>username_0: I graduated from a reputed North American university with a master's degree in 2013. Due to severe personal problems (deaths/illness in the family, war-torn homeland, divorce, financial issues, and so on), it would be fair to say that I did not perform well. My thesis had a critical error which was duly pointed out during my defense by my examiner. My advisor had not noticed it before. I managed to pass but with major corrections to the thesis.
While I was waiting for the situation in my home country to settle down, we improved the results significantly. We wrote much of a paper with the agreement that we would correspond over email when I go back home to finish it and send it for publication.
This was a year and a half ago. I am back home and I have been trying to get her to finish writing her part but to no avail. Once every couple of months she responds with "I need more time" but that's about it. It would be a huge help in my career to have a paper published. But I am paranoid about being rude to her and keep nagging her because I need her reference if and when I decide to apply for a PhD later. Also I believe she's a genuinely a nice person! So my questions are,
1. Is a year and a half a normal amount of time to write on a paper in
which the research is finished?
2. How do I politely convince her to hurry up?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is a year and a half a normal amount of time to write on a paper in which the research is finished?
>
>
>
**No**, this paper should've been finished a year ago.
The research is done, so you are not waiting for something else to fall into place for your paper. You already tried writing your former advisor's portion of the manuscript to no avail. Your former advisor did not even catch a critical flaw in your thesis. I hate to say it, but it sounds like your former advisor is quite a bozo.
>
> How do I politely convince her to hurry up?
>
>
>
If you've not already done so, send your former advisor your "final" draft of the manuscript (including the parts you wrote for her). Give her a timeline for returning suggestions/modifications to you. If that doesn't work, you might have to get on the phone and talk to her about how important it is for you to submit this paper. If this fails, you may need to move on, and hope that at some point in the next year or two that she finally matures enough to help you out.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I guess your advisor is not really "procrastinating", just not working *on your paper* for one reason or another. She may very well be working on other things.
Now, of course the interesting question is *why* she is ignoring the work on your paper. Some potential reasons that come to mind:
* She simply is swamped with teaching or administrative matters
* The paper is outside of her research interest
* The paper is still too much work
* She thinks that the results of the paper are not very strong, and she honestly does not give the paper good chances of acceptance / impact
You say she is a "genuinely nice" person. In my experience, all too often this also implies some avoidance of confrontation (I am certainly guilty of that), which makes the third and the fourth reason more likely. Yes, in theory she should simply tell you when she thinks that material is too weak or the current draft too bad, but for her the "easier" out might be to ignore the paper, especially since you are far away.
**Edit:** the fact that your advisor apparently did not even read / check your thesis carefully (and missed a critical flaw) rather indicates the second reason.
As for what you should do I agree with user11192 - after such a long time, it is time to essentially give up on getting her to do "her part". Write it for her, and send it to her only for review. Since it has become abundantly clear that the paper is not a priority for her right now (for whatever reason), you can either do it alone or not do it at all. You have no leverage over your old advisor to get her to do her part, *especially* if you are afraid of burning any bridges.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/06/10 | 1,750 | 7,454 | <issue_start>username_0: I have been asked to review a paper that I know to have been authored by a friend and former colleague. Is it my responsibility to inform the editor and decline to review the paper?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is it my responsibility to inform the editor and decline to review
> the paper?
>
>
>
Yes. It should also be stated somewhere, but there is no other way.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Some journals have rules about reviewing the work of former colleagues. For example, I've seen journals claim that papers will not be reviewed by people that have been at the same institution over the last five years. You have to check with the editorial policies of the journal to see about this but if the editor has made a mistake by sending the paper to you, they'll appreciate you pointing it out.
The bigger issues are that (a) you know who the author is so the review will not be blind and (b) the author is your friend which might reasonably be seen as a conflict of interest. If you know the author because you have seen the work in the paper before, that is a third problem. I would not review papers that I know are written by my friends for all of these reasons and I think it is in the interest of the journal and of the peer review process to defer review to someone else.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: All other things the same, it would be better to inform the editor and decline, yes.
Similarly, if the author is not a "friend", but some sort of opposite to that, ideally one would decline for the opposite reason.
It starts to become trickier when the author is "a competitor".
In any case, with time, it can easily happen that many people in a given field are well known to you, "good acquaintances" (or "bad"...) if not "friends". That is, the ideal of dispassionate opinion due to lack of personal connection becomes impossible, not matter the ideal.
Thus, in practice, although it is harmless to inform the editor, they probably won't be surprised, and most likely would *not* at all insist that you decline... although you are within your rights to do so in any case.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Assuming you reviewing the paper would not violate any guidelines of the journal or conference in question, the primary issue is *objectivity*: can you review the paper on its own merits, or will your association with the author in question "color" your opinions?
Personally, I would never review a paper written by a former *co-author* or *personal friend*. However, I may accept the review of someone whom I know professionally but have not worked with in any formal capacity, provided that I am not working on a similar project.
In this particular example, you claim that the person is "a friend." If that is the case, then I would recommend leaning against accepting the review.
The issue of informing the journal editor is a separate matter. You may explain that the reason is you know the author, but you are not necessarily obligated to do so. If you want, you could simply say "I don't have the time right now," and that would be just as valid a reason as "it's a conflict of interest." But I don't think there's anything lost by informing the editor of why you don't feel comfortable providing the review.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> Is it my responsibility to inform the editor and decline to review the paper?
>
>
>
It is your responsibility to inform the editor of the situation, but the two of you can decide together whether or not your should decline the review.
The editor may ask you whether you feel that you can objectively review the work (the *real* answer is that none of us are truly objective, but the question here is whether you would feel comfortable rejecting the paper if you think it is bad *and* accepting the paper if you think it is good).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: It depends. Is this a double-blind refereeing system? If so, how do you know the paper was written by a close colleague? (Technically, everyone working in your discipline is a colleague, but some colleagues are closer than others.)
In some disciplines, blind reviewing isn't used or single blind reviewing is used. In that case, you know because the author's name is on the manuscript.
In either case, I would notify the associate editor who asked me to review the paper that I have a (potential) conflict and explain the situation exactly. If I felt I could maintain a disinterested perspective on the paper I would say so and leave the decision up to the associate editor. If I felt I could not maintain a disinterested perspective, I would say so and decline to review the paper.
With all that said, my perspective on my duties as a referee is a little different from the norm. I review work for technical correctness and point out any errors and limitations I might find. I comment on whether I find the work interesting. I will not make publication recommendations. I see that as the editorial board's job, not mine. That perspective reduces the potential for conflict of interest in my mind. I basically won't tell an editor anything I would not say directly to an author.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: It depends on the journal. Some Elsevier journals do not consider this as a conflict of interest:
<http://www.elsevier.com/reviewers/reviewer-guidelines>
>
> Avoid a potential conflict of interest
> A conflict of interest will not necessarily eliminate you from reviewing an article, but full disclosure to the editor will allow them to make an informed decision. For example; if you work in the same department or institute as one of the authors; if you have worked on a paper previously with an author; or you have a professional or financial connection to the article. These should all be listed when responding to the editor’s invitation for review.
>
>
>
So, unless you feel that you cannot provide an objective (to the extent possible) review, you can take the job. However, when you write the letter with your decision, you have to specify your connection with the authors or the paper. I am taking the word "friend" in a more relaxed sense. If, for instance, one of the authors donated you or your parents one of his kidneys, then it may be difficult to provide a useful review.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: I guess if this were a double blind review you would not run into this problem! I have been in a small community of scholars for more than 30 years. It is impossible for me to avoid this conflict. I have to decide for myself, or let the editor decide. If the conflict might be perceived as significant, I usually leave it to the editor, telling them of the conflict and asking if they want me to continue. The entire review process is inherently subjective, and there are many reasons one can have bias when reviewing a manuscript, for example, what if their results contradict yours, but are well supported and it's a good paper? You have to use your best judgement in all cases.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: Inform the editor. If he is OK with it (and you are) than you may still review the paper. After all he knows you are conflicted and will weigh your response.
It is not the only form of conflict. Rival groups, subject of critical papers, etc. Good editors know how to involve such parties, including when to cut off unfair reviews, get another opinion, etc.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/06/10 | 1,060 | 4,446 | <issue_start>username_0: In my class, we have project groups of 4 or 5 students. This period has everything to do with game development. The project is to build a XNA game for children at primary school.
Now, there is one group of students in my class, who snitched a game from the internet and are going to hand that in. I saw a Facebook post from one of the students about "their" game, and a fellow student found almost the exact same game on a Dutch game site.
What is according to you the right way of handling this -in my eyes, plagiarism? Should I inform the project teacher, to have them exposed to the exam committee?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Should I inform the project teacher, to have them exposed to the exam committee?
>
>
>
Yes. Tell the teacher exactly what you know: that there is a game that seems very similar to your classmates' project.
As a student, it's not your responsibility to decide what is and isn't plagiarism, or to decide who should be punished for dishonesty and who shouldn't, or to start a "movement" to let the cheaters know you're onto them. If you believe you have evidence of misconduct, report it and let the administration handle it from there.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Teachers have the resources to check for plagiarism and would be able to check for such things. I would recommend checking the project through one of these resources and let them know if you could spot it, so can your teacher. Then, you protect your reputation and put the responsibility back on them. So that once your teacher spots it, you will have proof you let them know in advance how you felt about the submission.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Mind your own business - it's not your problem.
If someone working in *your* group suggests or does plagiarism, or someone tries to plagiarize your work, or does something which could affect *your* mark or *your* academic record, go ahead and report them.
But you shouldn't get involved with this. It's not your job to police other students behaviour. It doesn't prevent you from learning, nor does it prevent you from getting the grade you deserve.
You are laying yourself open to unpleasantness and ill-feeling between you and your classmates. Other students who are honest, might resent you or feel that you will be surveilling them in future. You might end up with your own behavior being closely watched by classmates who are trying to get you in trouble. It is also possible that the information you have is wrong or that you have misinterpreted it. For someone who is innocent of cheating or who has been co-erced to be disciplined for plagiarism is a serious thing to have on your conscience. In some (rare) situations various forms of cheating are tacitly being tolerated by the teacher, and you will be seen by them as 'rocking the boat'.
In short, you have a lot to lose and very little to gain by reporting them.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: College is competitive enough without having to compete against cheaters lazy enough to represent an entire work that is freely available online as their own. Grading is often quite subjective, and your work should not be compared to work of those working outside your class's structure.
You don't need to give the information to the instructor with your name on it. You can leave an anonymous note to the professor (and give a copy to the department chair if you want to ensure they will at least investigate, because the temptation is to sweep it under the rug).
You need to be careful not to overstate your case. Just state that you believe they *may* be passing off that particular work as their own, point to the evidence, and let that stand and do not pursue the matter (unless you have hard evidence, the instructor and the department sweep it under the rug, and you feel the need to act further, but be careful because you may quickly become a target for political retribution yourself.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I agree with username_3. I don't intend to be rude, but I would call this squealing. It shouldn't be your stuff as it doesn't hold you from achieving what you want to achieve. Actually after the grading took place, if you detect that your grade has been dimished because of the 'exceptional' work of the other group, well then it is another situation. In this case you could still think about reporting the issue.
Upvotes: -1 |
2014/06/11 | 482 | 2,081 | <issue_start>username_0: So, I'm just now finishing my master's thesis. When thinking about who helped me aside from my official supervisors some of the StackExchange fora (especially Stack Overflow and TeX) came into my mind.
I asked some questions in these fora but most of the time I was just looking for information in older posts (and finding it most of the time). Now one the one hand it feels weird to me to acknowledge a site I browsed to, e.g., find out a certain programming command (like I would not really think about acknowledging Wikipedia). But on the other hand I am really grateful for some of the quick and professional answers I got from StackExchange users.
So what do you think, should I acknowledge StackExchange in my thesis?<issue_comment>username_1: Your acknowledgement is a place where you are free to thank anyone or anything (I have seen dogs being thanked) you think deserve mentioning. To acknowledge StackExchange is highly appropriate since it is a community driven open site where help can be obtained to solve problems from many different perspectives.
In my PhD thesis, I, perhaps a bit over-ambitiously, thanked <NAME> for creating TeX. Had StackExchange been in existence back then, some of the terror of writing my thesis in plain TeX would have been eased and it would have been placed along-side Knuth in the acknowledgement.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Think of it not as acknowledging the site but of the community that contributes and curates the content. (From the way you asked the question, I think this is what you have in mind as well.) I'm sure a correspondingly worded acknowledgment would be appropriate (and appreciated -- in particular the TeX.SE community is by a wide margin one of the most helpful and welcoming I have ever seen on the internet, and they deserve the recognition).
Also, keep in mind that some future student might read your thesis when preparing her own; if she reads your acknowledgment and learns of the value of StackExchange, you are doing her a service.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/06/11 | 641 | 2,776 | <issue_start>username_0: What if my PhD advisor doesn't want to give me a letter of recommendation, because he doesn't want me to leave on postdoc? None of his young assistants have ever been on any postdoc or fellowship exchange.<issue_comment>username_1: Based on your comment responses, I think that you are working for a young faculty member who is trying to build his group and encouraged his first two PhD students to stay on after they graduated. It's an admirable goal to start building a research group, but in the US it would be discouraged to do so by keeping all of your own students in my experience. US academic research has a bias towards sending one's students out into the world to cross-pollinate ideas and avoid stagnation and closed-mindedness.
That being said, refusing to provide a letter of recommendation to a good student for this purpose is borderline if not outright professional misconduct and wouldn't be tolerated at most US universities (though I'm constantly surprised what weak administrators let star faculty get away with sometimes).
I think you should sit down with your advisor and explain your life goals to him. Include the fact that you are eager to get out into the world and learn more in a different environment. Try to convince him to see it from your perspective without getting antagonistic. If that doesn't work, go see your department chair, but only as a last resort.
You are in a bit of a tenuous position since your advisor could refuse to sign off on your dissertation (or let you defend, or drag his feet on revisions, etc) if he becomes scared by feelings of abandonment in your desire to leave. Bringing in higher authorities could make this worse. It would be best to convince him with the power of good arguments than to make the situation adversarial.
The timing of this can be tricky. He's probably going to find out that you applied for postdocs with out his recommendation and blessing, and given the usual schedule for postdoc recruiting, I'm assuming you will have to apply before you defend. I think it's probably better to be open with him that you are definitely going to apply, find a postdoc, and leave than to do so behind his back. Maybe when he sees your resolve to do so, he will change his mind about writing you a good letter.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: A small portion of postdoc positions do not require a letter of recommendation. People who have not got access to a letter have received those jobs.
It is not always possible to identify if a job requires a letter until after you have applied.
Normally, a PhD supervisor would only refuse a PhD student a letter if the student committed major misconduct. Not writing a great letter reflects poorly on the supervisor.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/06/11 | 5,638 | 23,882 | <issue_start>username_0: I just started reading some papers (Computer Science, specifically Computer Vision) and thought "now let's look at the source code" and was quite astonished that most of the papers don't have any source code implementing the described methods to look at, while claiming some performance or being better than other papers.
How do these papers get accepted in journals / conferences? Do people have to submit their source code privately to the reviewers at least, so that they can reproduce the experiment if possible.
Do most journals / conferences just "trust" that people who submit the paper really implemented the theory and got those exact results?
I always had this idea that any experiment should be reproducible by others else it's not scientific justified. Been wondering about this the last few days.<issue_comment>username_1: For me it seems that the reasons are two:
* the belief that code is only a tool, a particular implementation being secondary to the idea or algorithm,
* the historical residue (it was unpractical to print a lot of pages; especially as no-one could copy-paste it).
Additionally:
* many scientist seems to be afraid to show their code in public, as they are aware of its poor quality (see also [Why do many talented scientists write horrible software?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17781/why-do-many-talented-scientists-write-horrible-software)), so they don't want to risk reputation (for both quality and catching possible errors).
Moreover, things related to current incentives in academia (where publications, not code, are related to one's career possibilities):
* sharing code may mean risk of being scooped (instead of milking the same code for years),
* cleaning up code takes time, which can be used for writing another publications.
>
> Do people have to submit their code privately to the reviewers at least, so that they can reproduce the experiment if possible.
>
>
>
Typically - not. If the code is not made public, almost for sure no reviewer have checked its existence; much less - correctness.
However, many scientists are starting to notice the problem (and they see how open source culture flourishes). So, there are new initiatives addressing such issue, like [Science Code Manifesto](http://sciencecodemanifesto.org/):
>
> Software is a cornerstone of science. Without software, twenty-first century science would be impossible. Without better software, science cannot progress.
>
>
>
Or e.g. [this manifesto](http://figshare.com/articles/Reproducibility_PI_Manifesto/104539). Try to search for *reproducible research* or look at things such as [knitr for R](http://yihui.name/knitr/) and this intro to [IPython Notebook](http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/batterio/intro_ipython_notebook/blob/master/notebooks/index.ipynb), or read about [using GitHub for science](https://github.com/blog/1840-improving-github-for-science). And [it seems it is taking off](http://statwonk.github.io/blog/2013/12/15/are-academics-adopting-github/).
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: What field are you talking about? A CS paper describing the design and performance of a computer vision algorithm is different from a sociology paper that used a spreadsheet to crunch demographic data.
>
> Do most journals / conferences just "trust" that people who submit the paper really implemented the theory and got those exact results?
>
>
>
Yes. The presumption is always that there is no scientific fraud involved.
>
> I always had this idea that any experiment should be reproducable by others else it's not scientific justified.
>
>
>
If the algorithms are fully described in the paper, then the result is reproducible. To reproduce it, you have to reimplement the algorithm.
>
> I just started reading some papers and thought now let's look at the code and was quite astonished that most of the papers don't have any code to look at, while claiming some performance or being better than other papers.
>
>
>
Presumably the better performance is because the algorithm described in the paper is a more efficient algorithm. For example, when sorting a large amount of data, a quicksort is a better sorting algorithm than a bubble sort. The quicksort has O(n log n) performance on the average, while the bubble sort has O(n^2), and this is true regardless of the details of the implementation.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I think an issue that is related to that raised by Piotr (+1) which is that research funding is not generally available to cover the costs of producing highly reliable portable code or the costs of maintaining/supporting code produced to "research quality". I have found this to be a significant issue when trying to use code released by other researchers in my field; all too often I can't get their code to work because it uses some third party library that is no longer available, or that only works on a Windows PC, or which no longer works on my version of the software because it uses some deprecated feature of the language/environment. The only way to get around this is to re-implement the routines from the third party library so that all of the code is provided as a single monolithic program. But who has the time to do that in an underfunded "publish or perish" environment?
If society wants high quality code to accompany every paper, then society needs to make funds available so that good software engineers can write it and maintain it. I agree this would be a good thing, but it doesn't come at zero cost.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: You seem to think that we *should* request code, because without code, any crazy result, be it fraud or honest mistake, can be slipped into the journal. But this is not so. Including code is a nice-to-have feature, not a must-have feature. The other answers silently assume this and explain the (good and not-so-good) reasons which lead to the current situation of uncommonly included code. I think I can complement them by explaining why it is not a must-have feature.
For theoretical results, you don't need any empirical tools like code to reproduce them, as others mentioned (e.g. proving that an algorithm has a better big O behavior than another). Of course, there are also empirical results, which cannot be replicated that way.
But your reviewers will have an expectation of what your idea will result in. If the current best performance for wugging zums is 3 zums/s, and you add a minor tweak and report 300 zums/s, your reviewers are supposed to notice that your claim is unusual, and do something (possibly demand to resubmit with the code). This is not foolproof, but with multiple reviewers per paper, it is effective, because the magnitude of most empirical results is predictable once the reviewer sees the idea and understands how it works.
For this class of paper, both honest and dishonest mistakes have a good chance of being caught, with bad results for honest scientists (reputation loss, especially if caught after publication) and worse results for dishonest scientists (end of career if proven!). Moreover, the graver the mistake (as measured in the size of error), the higher the chance of being caught. It is less likely that you will get caught if your algorithm manages 4 zums/s and you report 5 zums/second, than if you report 300 zums/s. So, scientists are disincentivized from submitting incorrect papers, leaving less incorrect ones in the submitted pool, and the reviewers catch lots of the remainder.
There are cases where it is totally unknown why an observation is the way it is, and in these cases, it is very important to describe the exact test setup perfectly. But I have never seen this kind of paper in computer science, it is associated with natural sciences. So no code there. Even if you got such results in computer science (e.g. you observed that users are capable of reading a 12000 word EULA in less than 30 seconds, which contradicts common reading speed observations, and you have no explanation for it), it is unlikely that including the code you used to obtain the result will be pertinent to replication.
To put it together, among a large mass of computer science papers, the theoretical ones and the natural-phenomenon-observation ones don't need code inclusion for replication, and the remaining ones will contain only a low percentage of incorrect-but-uncaught papers. Aggregated, this leads to an acceptably low level of incorrect papers being submitted. Requesting the code to go with them will increase quality for one class of paper, but it will be an increase of an already high quality level. It is not that not having this feature makes the current quality too low.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I would think that most readers/reviewers would find a sufficiently detailed algorithm enough. You write your paper showing, oh, C++ code, and I use SPSS in my shop -- your code is useless to me. Not that most readers would *enjoy* reimplementing the code (especially for non-CS papers), but with a specific code that runs on a specific platform, there's bound to be a lot of clutter to wade through. An algorithm reduces it to its bare essentials.
If my paper is showing the improvement in speed of my new Quicksort method over the standard Bubble Sort, showing algorithms for the two methods would make it easier to support my claims for *O* (n log n) vs *O* (n^2) speedup. If my paper is on population age distributions in wealthy vs developing economies, unless there's a really neat trick I used to process the data, most readers probably wouldn't even care about the algorithm, except in very broad brushstrokes.
It's going to depend on the subject area (general, say, Computer Science) and the specific subarea (say, sorting methods), as well as how heavy an impact the algorithm used has on the results, as to whether the algorithm is necessary. If I'm showing compiler differences in Fortran code, then it would be good to include actual code. Otherwise, code itself is rarely of interest.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: I'd like to add a slightly different point of view from an experimental field (chemistry/ spectroscopy/ chemometric data analysis).
Here, the study starts in the lab (or maybe in the field), with an old-fashioned type of notebook. Old-fashioned typically still being paper + pen. Data analysis is often done with GUI programs in an interactive fashion. Records are kept just like in the lab: paper + pen. Maybe with some saved and/or printed figures. As already the part in the lab was recorded this way, not having a log-file or even a script of the data analysis is not seen as a problem. Anyways, asking for the code to be published is only one part of what you need to re-run the analysis: you'd also need the actual data.
Already the suggestion to type in the data analysis and at least save either a log of the matlab/R session or type it in script form is still kind of new (though people love the `knitr` generated reports I produce...). But IMHO things are moving quite fast now. I'd say that with tools like `git` and `knitr` the largest practical obstacles are almost solved at least for the type of person that prefers code over clicking. However, it is not that all already works smoothly (consider large binary raw data and `git`, and I frankly admit that I have no idea how to practically set up a "real" database server in an efficient way that it keeps track of changes). This is from my perspective as a scientist that just needs tools for reproducibility as a *user* - and thus I understand my non-programming colleagues who nevertheless need to analyse their data: they just do not have (or know of) the tools that would enable them to log their analyes with reasonable effort.
The traditional estimation of where the big difficulties lurk also focuses on the lab part. I think many researchers are just not aware of the reproducibility issues with the calculations/data analysis. To be honest, I usually share that point of view: IMHO in biospectroscopy one of the big important problems is the far too low number of individuals in the studies.
If you have only 4 mice in the study, the precise handling of the data will cannot affect the practical conclusions too much. There is a gray zone where not doing a proper validation may affect the conclusions, but again: everyone I know who does the validation according to the best-known practice does spell this out very explicitly - so again (and accepting some risk of *falsely* discarding few papers as "probably not reproducible") I tend to think that the practical conclusions are hardly affected.
---
On the other hand, looking at the requirements that e.g. the [Chemmical Communications](http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/guidelines/AuthorGuidelines/JournalPolicy/Journals/CC.asp) put up if a new chemical substance is to be published I don't see why there cannot be computer science journals that require the code in a similar fashion.
Like e.g. the [Journal of Statistical Software](http://www.jstatsoft.org/) does. (I'm quite sure other such journals exist, but I don't know them.)
To me this falls into a much larger field of reproducibility issues. Of course, if the data analysis cannot be reproduced there's big trouble.
---
Yet another point: although publications about software are still very rare in my field, I recently had such a paper for review. Unfortunately, the software is proposed to be distributed by contacting one of the authors - which, as an anonymous reviewer I obviously could not do.
Thus, the actual software may be even less accessible for reviewers than for normal readers!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Usually "performance" of code relates to "how well it scales with the size of the problem". This means, in my opinion, that a paper claiming "algorithm A is faster than algorithm B" needs to show timing for both A and B \_ for different size problems\_. While there may still be inefficiencies (and errors) in the implementations, this will at least demonstrate whether the underlying algorithm is more efficient (lower big-oh).
Where software is they key to the paper (the product, not the tool) I would expect it to be available (github or other). So a paper that says "I can sort in order 1/n by kerfugling the dargibold number" needs to show how that was done; the paper that claims "when I sorted these two data sets, the one from Whoville had bigger flubbits" does not need to show how the code was sorted - they need to focus on explaining what is significant about the flubbits from Whoville.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_8: As an associate editor of a journal (bridging statistics and psychology), I requested the authors to submit the code when they proposed new algorithms and procedures, and then sent the code to the experts in the statistical package to check that (a) the code does what the paper describes, and (b, secondary) that it is a good code (robust to bad inputs, computationally effective, etc.). I was also asked to review some papers for [Stata Journal](http://www.stata-journal.com) whose focus **is** the code, and did the same. There were times when (a) failed, so I had to return the paper and say that the authors had to align the methodology and the code. There were times when (b) would fail, and in case of Stata Journal, this would also mean returning the paper. There were times when the code wouldn't come.
Most of the time, I would be happy to share my code, but it is complicated enough (with internal meta-data-based checks, customized output, etc.) that a researcher less proficient with the packages I use won't be able to edit it to make it work on their computer.
Going back to your main question -- reviewers are lazy pressed for time, and have their own research to push to their journals, so few of them go into the effort of fully verifying the results. This is just how the world is. May be these full professors could request the code and give it to their graduate students to play with, break and debug, as this would be a good educational opportunity for the latter. But again this does not happen very often, as the confidentiality clauses for accepting the reviewer role usually preclude one from sharing the paper with anybody else.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: Because some researchers do not like to think about the real world and reviewers do not want the hassle.
(What's next is a bit of a rant)
I've recently done a survey of a specific type of geometry related algorithms. In all the papers the program was described as working perfectly but once I requested the source code from about a dozen authors things became ugly.
50% of the software was missing important advertised features. For example the software would only work in 2D while the paper showed 3D examples. (Which in my case really makes things a lot more difficult). After inquiring why these features were missing they had usually never been implemented or had been implemented but proved unstable/non-working. To be clear: it was 100% impossible to generate the results shown in the paper with software that was often even improved after the paper was released.
75% of the software wouldn't work perfectly in normal cases. In my case this usually was because the algorithm was designed with 'perfect numbers' in mind but the algorithm was implemented using normal floating point numbers and thus had representation problems which resulted in large errors. Only a few papers mentioned these problems and only two tried to (partially) address them.
85% of the software wouldn't work in scenarios specifically designed to find problem cases. Let's be honest; if a 'mere' student can find a scenario in a few weeks that totally breaks your algorithm you probably already know about this.
Not supplying code makes it possible to lie and to my disgust (I'm new to the academic world) this is done extremely often. My supervisor wasn't even surprised. However testing code is a lot of work so this behavior will probably go unchecked for a while longer.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_10: This is a view from Computer Science/Theoretical Computer Science/Mathematics.
Ask yourself: **who is the target audience of an academic paper?**
It is *not* end-users. It is **reviewers**!
Do reviewers want code? Depends on the situation. Sometimes they do. Often they don't.
Think about this: why mathematicians don't provide formal proofs but use informal arguments?
It is costs vs. benefits. Providing a formally verified proof is possible but usually needs too much work, work that authors are not trained for and don't have much experience with. On the other hand, what do authors gain from it? Does it help convince the reviewers about the correctness of the results? No, usually reviewers prefer short informal explanation that allows them to understand and *see* why the result is true. A formal proof usually will not help much. There are people who don't like computer-assisted proofs which cannot be verified and understood directly by humans.
The same costs vs. benefits thinking applies to programs. If providing code will not help convince the reviewer about the correctness of the paper, then why waste resources (time/money/pages/...) to do so? Do reviewers have time to read codes with thousands of lines to check there is no bug in them?
On the other hand, sometimes the software resulting from the paper is of primary interest. Having the code is helpful in verifying the claims. E.g. you claim you have a faster algorithm for SAT. Then it is helpful to provide the code. In such cases authors provide their code. This is mainly in more experimental parts. We don't care about the correctness of the code but obtaining results better than existing algorithms. In such situations there are typically standard benchmarks to compare algorithms. (See for example [SAT competitions](http://www.satcompetition.org/).) If there aren't established benchmarks then why publish code? If it is a theoretical result where the asymptotic benefits take place over instances which are too large to test what is the benefit of have the code? More so considering the fact that large code developed by non-professional programmers is highly likely to be buggy? Employing professional software developers to develop quality code is costly ([the median annual income for a person with a bachelors in CS is around 100K in the US](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/09/10/219372252/the-most-and-least-lucrative-college-majors-in-1-graph)) (except possibly as graduate students ;) and doesn't typically have any profits afterwards.
But does code need to be included in papers? Of course not! There are better ways to publish code, e.g. having a link in the paper to an online copy (on their website or a public repository like github). Why would one prefer to include a code with thousands of lines inside a document which is supposed to be read by *humans*?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: Taken from the book SKIENA, S. The Algorithm Design Manual: Springer. 2008:
>
> After a long search, Chazelle [Cha91] discovered a linear-time
> algorithm for triangulating a simple polygon. This algorithm is
> sufficiently hopeless to implement that it qualifies more as an
> existence proof.
>
>
> [Cha91] <NAME>. Triangulating a simple polygon in linear time. *Discrete & Computational Geometry*, 1991, 6.3: 485-524.
>
>
>
I think that the authors consider costs and benefits and avoid the submission of code when the costs outweigh the benefits.
According to [<NAME>](https://github.com/davidwhogg/DataAnalysisRecipes/blob/master/sharing/sharing.tex#L230) costs are:
1. you might get scooped
2. you can be embarrassed by your ugly code, or by your failure to comment or document
3. you will have to answer questions (and often stupid or irrelevant ones) about the code, and spend time documenting
4. you will have to consider pull requests or otherwise maintain the code, possibly far into the future
5. you might have to beat down bad and incorrect results generated with your code
6. your reputation could suffer if the code is used wrongly
7. there could be legal (including military) and license issues
Benefits are:
1. more science gets done, more papers get written; all measures of impact increase
2. you get motivation to clean and document the code
3. results become (more) reproducible and (more) trustworthy
4. outsiders find bugs or make improvements to your code and deliver pull requests
5. you get cred and visibility and build community
6. citation rates might go up
7. code is preserved
8. code becomes searchable (including by you!) and *backed up*
9. there are good sites for long-term archiving and interface
10. can establish priority on an idea or prior art on a method
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_12: Because in truth most academic researchers in technical fields can't code to save their lives. In computer vision, they just hack something together in a single Matlab file. They like to think that coding is for undergrads. They believe it's beneath them to waste their time on such trivialities. Most of them never learned good software engineering practices and don't have an understanding of the complexity and skill it takes to write good code.
The major problem is that this is supported by researchers because all academia cares about is publishing, quantity over quality. Success is measured by how many citations you have, not by how good your contributions are. At the end of the day, when the only people citing you themselves don't produce anything useful, it doesn't matter. It's not science anymore as much as it is "research for the sake of doing research".
Upvotes: 0 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.