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2014/09/27 | 1,835 | 7,609 | <issue_start>username_0: I am an instructor in a medium-sized state school in the USA. The price for the textbook to the introductory math course that I teach just increased. Again. A new, paperback copy costs 170 USD. I want to put pressure on the publishers to reduce their price, but I am not sure what the best strategy is.
Has anyone had any success in such an endeavour? Any ideas? A strongly worded letter, signed by the faculty?<issue_comment>username_1: If you don't have the authority to change the textbook on your own, at least for your own section, then your target should be, not the publisher, but the person or committee that *does* have that happy power.\*
Show them this: <http://aimath.org/textbooks/approved-textbooks/> and propose that you teach a section of your course using the appropriate open access textbook. (Edited to add: Pick out the appropriate book and an alternate before you talk to the committee or coordinator and be prepared to defend your choice vs. the approved text.) In the following semester, compare how well your students did in the next course in sequence vs. those who used the standard text.
Your secret weapon: work like hell to be sure your students are well prepared for the next course.
In the comments, <NAME> has said: "Here is a catalog I maintain of free books, including many open-source textbooks: <http://theassayer.org>" I've edited it into my answer so it doesn't get lost. Thank you, Ben.
\* Hat tip to Professor <NAME> for "happy power."
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I suspect—although I don't have actual proof for this—that the number of textbooks being sold has been rapidly declining, forcing upwards pressure on prices as publishers try to maintain their profit margins.
That said, I fully understand why teachers are reluctant to ask students to spend hundreds of dollars on a textbook. (Books that I spent $50 on as an undergraduate less than two decades ago now regularly sell for $150-$200!) I think this has also led to more and more instructors providing alternatives:
* Having departments order limited quantities of texts, and depositing them as "restricted reference" materials in the university library.
* Producing their own reference materials, either by making lecture notes and slides available online, or producing "prepared" materials closer in style to a textbook.
* Reducing the reliance on *individual* textbooks, so that students can choose whichever appropriate reference they wish.
I know from personal experience that all three approaches are useful (and I've used them in different classes, depending on the nature and structure of the course).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: At my institution, we asked a publisher to make us a "custom edition" of one of their expensive texts. The content wasn't really any different (I think we had them omit a chapter or two that wasn't in our curriculum) but they printed it in black and white, and it was somewhat cheaper than the four-color standard edition and still perfectly adequate.
We did encounter some difficulty in communicating to the bookstore what exactly they were supposed to order and stock.
I think the publishers like doing this because (a) it makes them feel more responsive to the needs of their customers and (b) it further fragments the used market. So I couldn't really say it turns the tables; maybe just wobbles them a little.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Many publishers will publish the same book at a much cheaper price for sale in markets in the developing world. These copies will be exactly the same (even down to the typesetting and graphic design) except that the paper, printing and binding will be of inferior quality, and the cover will be a generic design.
I've bought the South Asian editions of third year physics textbooks for $20 from various sellers on [AbeBooks](http://www.abebooks.com), whereas these textbooks would retail for over $150 in my university bookshop. I've only done this on AbeBooks, but this might be possible on other websites as well.
Perhaps you could search online to see whether cheaper editions of your text are available, and if so, recommend that students purchase their copies there.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: If there isn't too much of a difference, or if the differences aren't relevant, use the previous edition. This is always cheaper, and will be available second-hand.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I have never *had to* buy a book for a course¹. All the lectures were absolutely self contained, and I only used the books when I needed a clarification or a different explanation on a particular thing, in which case I borrowed it for a few days from the library. I did buy a few books, but only these that I though would be useful as a reference beyond the particular course.
The best way to reduce the impact on the student's pockets is not to require purchasing the book at all. The library should have a bunch of copies of different books, so the students can compare and choose what suits them best.
---
¹ Actually, once I did. It was not *compulsory* per se, but the professor was referring to *his book* every day. He was a bad lecturer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Two comments here ...
I know a professor who once wrote a popular textbook. When he wrote the next one, which was expected to be equally successful, he asked several publishers who could promise him the *lowest* sticker price. It might even have been a smart business move, because the next textbook was another bestseller by textbook standards. The author had bargaining power and used it for the benefit of his students.
On the other hand, I know that some textbooks have relatively low print runs and complicated layout/typesetting. Computers can only do so much, a good textbook needs manual attention. These overheads have to be divided over the print run in order to make *any* profits, and they might dwarf the costs of paper, print, and binding.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: One "easy" way to pressure textbook publishers to reduce price for a textbook about a given topic you know a lot about is by writing a textbook yourself and giving it away for free. So you become the publisher.
I did so for a German lecture about Geometry and Topology. I am a student and the professor did not provide a textbook. So I create one from my lecture notes (he prepared the lectures very well; but it still was a lot of work).
Here is the result:
* [GitHub repository](https://github.com/MartinThoma/LaTeX-examples/tree/master/documents/GeoTopo)
* [A5 - rendered PDF](https://github.com/MartinThoma/LaTeX-examples/blob/master/documents/GeoTopo/GeoTopo.pdf?raw=true)
Students now have something that fits exactly what is taught in lecture (plus some very small extras I've added) together with training material. They can print it for **less than 10 Euro**. If they build groups / if the institute would decided to print 200 (which should not be a problem) I guess the price could go down to **5-7 Euro**.
Another advantage of this OpenSource / science / education approach is that it gets easy to create derivates. In my case, another student asked me if it would be possible to create index cards for definitions. It turned out that it was quite easy to do so ([index cards for this project](https://github.com/MartinThoma/LaTeX-examples/blob/master/documents/GeoTopo/definitions/definitionen.pdf?raw=true)). I could imagine that students or other teachers could come up with other variations of the text.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/09/27 | 2,029 | 8,444 | <issue_start>username_0: Like many academics with an active research program, I am asked to review many papers. Borrowing an idea from peer-to-peer file sharing companies, I try to keep a rough sense of my recent "ratio" of **reviews I have done on other's papers** over **reviews my papers have received**. I try to make sure I have a ratio that is consistently above 1:1. Since many of my papers (and presumably the papers I review) are co-authored, this seems very generous to me.
How many reviews should I be doing? How many is normal? Is a ratio an effective way to keep track of one's reviews? Is a minimum 1:1 ratio appropriate and defensible?<issue_comment>username_1: You could count each n-author paper you are on as 1/n of a paper. Thus each time you submit for publication a 2-author paper, a 3-author paper and a 6-author paper, it's time to referee another paper.
If the journal uses more than one referee per paper, adjust up accordingly.
In some sense this must be what most people do, on average.
**Edit:** One could ask the editors how many referees they use per paper. Better yet, the editors should volunteer that information.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I have wondered about the same question. One thing that I've noticed is that there is an incredible amount of variation in the amount of reviewing done. I have two good friends who are strong, active mathematicians. The last time I spoke to them they were each at least six years past their PhD and had never reviewed a single paper. This seems bad, but it's not their fault: they are not being asked.
I suspect that the lack of coordination among journals in the same field causes the same small number of people to be asked to referee papers over and over again. I am not a journal editor, but I have begun to wonder how editors choose referees: I am someone who is getting (what I think is!) a large number of referee requests. I submit maybe 2-4 papers per year. Not so long ago I used to get that number of referee requests per year, and they were all from people who knew me directly and pertained to topics related to my thesis work or to the areas in which I have written multiple papers. Now I get at least a dozen referee requests a year, and in addition to the above I get some very strange-looking ones. Not so long ago I got asked to referee a paper in (what I think is!) control theory. This was so baffling that I assumed it was some kind of email crossed wires situation and asked the editor about it. It turned out that the paper on real analytic solutions to Bezout equations had been sent to me because of a question on math.SE that I answered, in which I explained why the ring of analytic functions on the complex plane is a Bezout domain. This is distressing: I can see why google would make a connection like this, but in the realm of academic experts, is it not obvious that we are on different sides of mathematics? Experiences like this make me wonder who is refereeing papers.
I'm not sure that counting papers is the right way to gauge whether you are pulling your weight referee-wise. As I mentioned in a comment to another answer, many -- I think most -- papers are refereed by more than one person, either simultaneously for the same journal or sequentially, as many (most?) papers are submitted to more than one journal before they are accepted. Here are some things that I have thought about:
1) It cannot be appropriate for everyone to referee the same number of papers. More experienced people should referee more papers, but also should referee more important / difficult papers. People who have permanent / senior positions in academia (especially: tenure) should have more obligations than those who are struggling to stay in the profession.
2) Not all papers take the same amount of time to referee: not even close, actually. I try to make a point of quickly processing especially short and simple papers: I probably do 3-5 of those each year, and I often process them in a week or even a day. But it would be silly to equate this kind of referee work with the long, difficult papers that you spend weeks or months *working on*, perhaps having to do considerable outside reading in order to adequately evaluate. Doing 2-3 substantial papers a year is what really keeps me busy as a referee. I suppose I try to keep my eye on the total amount of *time* I've spent refereeing rather than on the number of papers, although I admit that I don't do this in any formalized way.
3) Unless a paper is clearly of the "one day" variety as above, I try not to let my queue exceed 2 papers. This is also out of respect to the authors: if I have to read two papers *before I get to yours*, then you'll be waiting for at least six months, probably more. If at any given time every sufficiently experienced/qualified academic had either 0 or 1 papers to referee and made a point of processing papers faster than they submit them, then things would work relatively smoothly, I suppose.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Speaking as an editor and conference organizer, good and reliable reviewers are hard to find. For somebody to be a good reviewer, in addition to being in the right discipline, they must be:
1. A strong enough scientist that I trust their opinion
2. Capable of expressing their analysis of a paper clearly and constructively
3. Good enough at time-management to return the review rapidly
4. Not too overloaded with other responsibilities to accept
Lots of authors fail these tests, especially the first one---anybody who has spent significant time reviewing knows that there are a lot of *very* bad papers being written. Moreover, papers that are rejected often get revised and sent elsewhere, so they may require multiple sets of reviewers. All of this adds up to the following: if you are a good and trusted reviewer in your community, you will be in high demand, and it's reasonable to have a ratio of greater than 1:1.
For example, in the last three years, excluding grant and tenure case reviews, according to my records I have reviewed 31 papers in 2012, 24 papers in 2013, and 30 papers so far in 2014 (with a few more committed to return before the end of the year). This puts my ratio well above 1:1, with the actual value mainly depending on fluctuations in the denominator.
In sum, I recommend viewing reviewing not in terms of ratios, but in terms of how much time you are comfortable devoting to quality reviews for venues that you wish to support. Don't accept review requests from journals or conferences that you do not respect: there are many low-quality publications that can waste your time. Also, don't accept more reviewing than you can handle, even if that means your ratio is lower: it's better to give one well-thought review than two hasty and shallow reviews that may miss important points and piss off the authors. Do *respond* yes or no to every review request promptly: otherwise, you are making a problem for an editor who doesn't know whether they need to recruit more reviewers or not.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Four times as many as you submit as corresponding author.
My reasoning is:
* Most journals solicit between two and four referee reports for each paper that is sent out for review. Add to this the time of the volunteer editorial board member who is probably handling the manuscript.
* Some academics do not do their duty to the community and decline all review requests, so the rest of us have to make up for them.
* By my reckoning, this works out to about 4 x the number of papers you submit being a fair load.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: First of all, I totally agree with the answer of [username_2](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/29084/7269).
However, I do not agree with the mentality that thinks: "Reviewing a paper is **JUST** doing a favour to the community". We all read papers to stay on top of our fields, get a better understanding of the world around us and to get new insights. I personally read several papers every month. Nonetheless, every paper that I read, I must maintain my critical view. So, there is no harm in reviewing many papers.
When you receive a paper that seems interesting to you, you can decide to review it (of course there is a burden of writing down your thoughts, which is negligible). If the paper is not interesting, you can just decline the review request and move on.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/09/28 | 1,062 | 4,014 | <issue_start>username_0: It comes as known that some experimenters have died or suffered other ill effects because of consequences of their experiments, such as <NAME>. What is the distribution by gender/sex of those who perform potentially hazardous experiments in academia? How does their compensation for their work in terms of salaries or other benefits compare to other academics who have less physically hazardous jobs?
I'd like research with supporting citations if available.<issue_comment>username_1: Academia is unusual (in some countries possibly unique) in that it typically does not need to offer additional reward for exposure to hazards.
That's because of academia's fairly unusual characteristics: the people who expose themselves to the hazards are very well-informed about them, and uniquely positioned to mitigate them. And academia is not a profession that the unskilled and economically vulnerable are forced into by hardship: instead, it is very often an active choice.
In addition, several countries, including Britain, have pay structures that do not, and have never needed to, incorporate risk as part of compensation.
So, in Britain at least, there is no "danger money" or other compensation for exposure to risk: the market doesn't require it, and employees are far more empowered than most to handle the risks.
In terms of exposure by gender, STEM fields continue to have a problem with entrenched sexism (predominantly inherited from the 20th century), being very male-dominated at the top levels, where the power and money concentrates. Even today, STEM is still majority male at the level of undergraduate admissions in many countries at many universities: in [Canada](http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-006-x/2013001/article/11874-eng.htm), the [USA](http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/06/20/stem-fields-and-the-gender-gap-where-are-the-women/), [Britain and globally](http://felixonline.co.uk/news/3199/looking-into-the-gender-balance/), men dominate STEM subjects. And the risk exposure concentrates in STEM subjects- no physical risks in maths; but science, technology, engineering are where the physical risks concentrate; and those that expose themselves to them, do so with knowledge of what they are doing, and the ability to mitigate those risks.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: While I'm not aware of any research on employees *exposed* to safety risks in the academic workplace, there are statistics on actual workplace injuries in a variety of occupations, including scientific occupations. *If* the incidence of injury is uniform across gender among those exposed to safety risks (I don't know if it is), then you can take this as a proxy for the gender distribution of those exposed to risk in the scientific workplace.
In particular, the [United States Bureau of Labor Statistics](http://data.bls.gov/gqt/InitialPage) collects information on workplace injuries, which you can query at will.
According to their statistics, here are the numbers of nonfatal occupational injuries involving days away from work among employees whose occupation is classified as "[Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations](http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes190000.htm)":
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FrMIj.png)
I was also interested in the ratio of the number of injuries to the number of thousands of people of each gender employed, again in "[Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations](http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes190000.htm)":
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DHtnb.png)
Please [visit the BLS website](http://www.bls.gov/help/def/gqt_profile.htm) to learn more about how they collect these statistics and what they mean.
You can query their dataset yourself if you're interested in getting numbers specific to one area of science or another.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/09/28 | 593 | 2,481 | <issue_start>username_0: I have contacted a potential PhD supervisor and currently he is reviewing my work, however this evaluation process seems to be taking too long.
Is it ethical to give my research proposal to another professor (another university) while he is reviewing my work? Will this reflect negatively on me if he finds out about it?
There is a good chance that these two professors are in contact with each other ( though I can't be sure!)
He is the foremost expert in my field and I would prefer to have him as supervisor. I just don't want to lose my other opportunities.
Note : I have already secured funding for my PhD. I am only looking for a reputable school (and supervisor). I am considering two institutions in Europe, in Netherlands and Germany.<issue_comment>username_1: I'm assuming you are a normal student, i.e. you don't have single-author papers in science or something similar. If you have, contact your only choice again, if he has money he should hire you.
Assuming you are a normal student, then yes, contact other Professors and programs as well. This is normal (at least in the natural sciences) and increases your chances of actually having a position in the future. Don't worry about this reflecting negatively. If someone does, you maybe wouldn't want to work with this person anyway. Honestly, however, there are many applicants that individual withdrawels don't bother us too much.
Also, consider being less picky. If your choice of Prof. is indeed the foremost expect the (prior) probability of him actually hiring you is rather low. To increase the (posterior) probability of being hired, you need to stand out.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Finding a PhD advisor, like finding a job, is not a serial process. You can—and **should**—have multiple applications out simultaneously. If you get an offer you find acceptable, then you should take it.
If you are concerned about missing out on an opportunity with your first-choice advisor if someone else makes you an offer, then you can send a polite email informing the first-choice advisor something like:
>
> I would really like to work with you, but I am starting to receive offers of admission from other advisors. They would like to have an answer by <*date*>. While I understand you need time to make a decision, would it be possible for you to give me an answer by then?
>
>
>
If they're serious about having you as a PhD student, they'll respond.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/09/28 | 1,052 | 4,467 | <issue_start>username_0: I have the following dilemma: I am finishing my Master's degree in pure mathematics this academic year (summer 2015) and I hoped to apply to a PhD program (US schools) starting from September 2015. Therefore, I have to apply this fall (till December 2014 in most places).
However, I have the following problem - my first article has just been completed and I have to go through a painful publication process which will not be finished in time (surely not till December). Second problem is that I have not particularly high GRE Math results (around 750 I guess, still waiting for results); the exam can be retaken only in April 2015.
Therefore, the only strengths I have are high GPA and solid letters of recommendation. I guess I could send the article to Arxiv.org, but I am not sure if that is acceptable to admissions committee and I am not familiar with the process of placing the article there.
So my questions are:
Is it OK to apply this fall and in case I am not accepted to the desired program, reapply next year, in the fall of 2015?
Or there is some kind of cooldown like the one you have in industry jobs and it is wiser to skip this year's admissions and apply in 2015 with a solid application profile?<issue_comment>username_1: A solid GPA and letters of recommendation is nothing to sneeze at—particularly if one of the people who wrote your letter of recommendation is a co-author on the publication.
You don't need to publish the paper on arXiv if you and your co-authors don't feel it is appropriate; however, you can mention that you have a manuscript available, and submit it along with your application (if the department to which you're applying permits it!).
However, I wouldn't wait an extra year just to "improve your odds." Apply this year—if you don't like the results, try again next year.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: From context, I'm going to assume your field is mathematics and you are applying in the US.
I don't see any reason why you shouldn't apply this year. In particular, don't worry about your paper not being accepted in time. Just having a paper submitted is already pretty good for a PhD applicant. People in mathematics are well aware that the peer review process takes a long time, and will not fault you for the fact that it isn't finished. And many applicants are accepted without any completed papers at all.
However, it would be a good idea to make sure at least one of your letter writers is familiar with your paper and can give a credible assessment of its quality.
Posting to arXiv is really orthogonal to the publication proces. Most people post to arXiv *at the same time as* they submit to a journal (not "instead of"). It's a convenient way to distribute a paper that has not yet been published, but it isn't at all the same as publication itself, because arXiv doesn't do any peer review. So it's perfectly fine to upload your paper to arXiv. I think an admissions committee will see that as a sign that you (and your coauthors, if any) are sufficiently satisfied with the paper that you are willing to share it with the public, but in itself it doesn't signify much more than that.
And to answer your title question: yes, if you do not get accepted to any place you like this year, you can certainly reapply next year, typically without prejudice. Of course, it will help if your application next year is significantly stronger, so the committee can think "Wow, look at all the progress this person has made since applying last year."
But often a better alternative is to apply to a variety of places this year, so that you have a better chance of being accepted at somewhere that's reasonably good. If you are rejected by your first choice but accepted somewhere that's decent, it's probably a better idea to go to the decent place rather than waiting another year to try again. The grad school process is long enough without delaying it by a year to try to go to a slightly more prestigious place (which you might not get next year into anyway).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: As long as you meet the minimum requirements otherwise, go ahead an apply as often as you want. You may be able to have your application put forward to the next review cycle if it is rejected in the first. In all cases, acceptance of your application would be helped when you have a faculty member who knows of you and wants to take you as their graduate student.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/09/28 | 3,017 | 12,650 | <issue_start>username_0: Warning: Extremely long post. Not really even the full story but one must stop somewhere.
My problem is the following:
I am a pure mathematics PhD student in (a remote part of) Europe and am part of a Doctoral Programme, which means that financially I am in a good position (relative to other grad students anyway). This is the same university in which I completed my undergraduate education. I was chosen together with a handful of other applicants from a pool of over hundred candidates (all natural scientists, not just mathematicians). I'm on my first year.
During my stay I have struggled to find a suitable problem (In fact I have overheard graduate students leave work early in my university because the feel that they didn't have much to work on). Basically my supervisor suggested some problems, I didn't like them, I tried desperately to invent my own problems to fill the void and to find something in the intersection of my interests and my supervisor's interests (and expertise). I realize now that with many of those problems neither I or my supervisor could really judge whether the problem was good or not (or whether it was known or not). During the summer the possibility that this arrangement is nonsensical started to dawn on me and I started to wonder if I should just consider moving to another university in another country to do a PhD.
My interests have sharpened and shifted somewhat during my stay as I got a better understanding of the current state of the field. On a couple of occasions I tried to tell him about my interests. Quite recently my supervisor told me that I need to start working on something and offered some problems that I didn't care about. Inspired by some advice of Sir <NAME> (["Advice to a young mathematician"](http://www.math.utah.edu/~zzhu/Advice_to_a_Young_Mathematician.pdf)) and AMS blog post ["Tips for New Grad Students"](http://blogs.ams.org/mathgradblog/2014/08/29/tips-grad-students/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tips-grad-students#sthash.cMEdMTAn.dpbs) I brought up the possibility of changing supervisor/university/country. He was certainly not relieved, and was concerned about the reputation of his research group, among other things.
I have discussed my concerns with doctoral programme coordinator and the person in charge of the PhD studies in our faculty. I am considered extremely fortunate to be part of the doctoral programme and losing a student would be unfortunate for the faculty. Changing supervisors or universities is something that doesn't generally happen here.
To an outsider the differences between my interests and my supervisor's would probably appear like splitting hairs. Indeed this is the position of my supervisor. The topics are likely to be outside of his expertise. He has offered to study together some of the subjects that I am interested in and to later study abroad with a more knowledgeable professor (the supervisor does have connections). He claims he will eventually find suitable problems if we study the topic together. Basically I envy students who get to study in a big active university or get to work with a guru who dispenses expertise and problems matching students' interests. I would be glad if I was offered even a low hanging fruit problem if it at least would teach me something in a modern and interesting field. It seems backwards to me that to learn a field together *with* the supervisor, instead of learning the stuff *from* the supervisor.
Our relationship has suffered as a result of this debacle. I think he is frustrated about my doubts.
So should I:
Go seek the frontier where the actions seems to be (I believe the things that interest me are being actively studied):
Pro: Potentially more efficient and stimulating PhD experience.
Pro: Potentially more prestigious university and/or supervisor.
Con: Changing universities is risky, the fact that I got funding in one university doesn't mean I will get it elsewhere, etc.
Stay where I am and try to make it work:
Pro: Safe in the short term.
Con: Uncertain if I will get suitable problems and sufficient knowledge to tackle such problems and continue a career in research.
Con: I have learned that people doing their undergraduate and graduate studies in the same university do less well.
Con: The track record of the supervisor to get PhDs to good places is not great.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't really know your situation, so this is just a first impression but: slow down. Take a breath. You're describing frustrations with things not working out...but you're still in your *first year of the PhD program*. Where I come from, students find advisors and problems much more gradually than this. If you were given problems "quite recently", then how do you know you don't care about them? If you don't care about the problems suggested to you because you have your own problems that you want to work on: find out if your own problems are viable, and if so find out who can help you with them. But if you don't have anything else you're dying to work on, I'm tempted to say: spend at least a month or two working on every problem your advisor gives you before you decide it's not for you. Why be so picky?
However, if you feel sure that you are not interested in anything your advisor is doing, then...sure, go study with someone else. The "reputation of the research group" is not really a sensible thing to be worrying about at this stage. Look, I went to (what is, along with a few others) the top PhD program in mathematics in the US. Nevertheless in the five years that I was there I watched students: (i) drop out of graduate school entirely, (ii) switch to a math PhD program in a different university and/or country, (iii) switch to a different department at my university, (iv) switch fields and/or advisors within my math PhD program. I never heard a peep about any of this damaging the reputation of the department or the university. People change programs *all the time*. Someone who is telling you otherwise may not be looking out for your best interests...
**Added**: Maybe my answer is US-centric. Other questions and answers on this site have suggested that European academia may be less flexible on these matters. If so: maybe consider going to school in the US. In every US PhD program in mathematics I know about, you apply to the program as a whole rather than to any research group or to officially work under any one faculty member. Then you have a period of 1-3 years to find your footing, pass some general qualifying exams and decide who you want to work with and then more time to decide what you want to do for your thesis. The whole process can take longer than in Europe, but in your case it sounds like you would find it more pleasant than your current situation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: First of all I agree with @P<NAME>'s answer. Changing supervisors is not the end of the world, it happens all the time and it is your right to do so. But the question you should ask yourself is why should you change?
I assume that your supervisor is an expert on the "great" math area you want to focus on, otherwise you would not have chosen him. By that assumption, expecting your supervisor to spoon-feed you a specific problem that you will like 100% and all you have to do is just solve it and get a PHD is an unrealistic goal in any PHD program. Supervisors suggest possible problems or usually specific scientific areas to focus on, close to their expertise. Then the problem is gradually refined as time goes by, as the student works intensively on the suggested area. This is a gradual process that does not happen magically overtime. In that sense, you cannot simply dismiss ideas (ideas are hard to come by) without sufficient knowledge of the research area ("could not really judge whether the problem was good or not") for some vague idea on what you want to do, without actually be able to judge if the problem you are suggesting has any merit or not. Choosing a problem is something that needs research maturity which frankly you do not have. At least in your first year of a PHD, you should trust others (your supervisor) to "show" you the way. You should at least start by his suggestions, do the required research literature search, get a firm grasp on the problems he is suggesting and not just "brush them off", because "you do not like them".
Note that your supervisor also seems like a nice guy, who is willing to study more on a area he is not familiar with, to help you. Not many professors a) admit their lack of knowledge on a subject b) go this far to help an inexperienced student like you. And believe me, this is an important quality for any supervisor. Also, lack of knowledge on a tiny area now, does not mean that when he actually does his "homework", he will not be able to guide you towards the new area. Professors and researchers change directions and progressively expand to areas less familiar to them when they "run out" of problems on their main expertise and this also something that happens quite a lot.
So, I suggest caution. Your funding is good, your supervisor seems nice, your university / department is reputable. Do not blow them all away for a mislead ambition on what problem you consider important or not. You can always walk away but you do not need to do it now, before you examine your options carefully.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: The **most** important thing is to have great communication with your supervisor. More than just "we talk respectfully to each other" - you need to feel backed up and supported and understood by your supervisor. You need rapport.
If you don't have this, even at the beginning when everything is easy, then you are on a trip for disaster later as things get harder.
Reading between the lines, my sense is that this important rapport is not there.
If it seems hard to change now, wait till 2 years down the track when you discover just how poorly understood you are by your supervisor.
However, before you decide if this means you should change **supervisor**, you need to assess where the gap is. Maybe you need to change **you**?
Some of your statements are a little worrying.
>
> It seems backwards to me that to learn a field together with the
> supervisor, instead of learning the stuff from the supervisor.
>
>
>
What is is that you think you will be learning? In your PhD you are learning *how to do research*. It is an apprenticeship, not a life work. It's your first, not your last.
You will be learning **from** your supervisor *how to do research.* Together **with** your supervisor, you will be learning about some *small new element* in a field of interest, in the process.
>
> He has offered to study together some of the subjects that I am
> interested in and to later study abroad with a more knowledgeable
> professor (the supervisor does have connections).
>
>
>
On the face of it, this is a generous offer. Can you look back at it and see if this generous person might actually be a good partner ... or whether in fact he's making this offer only to try to save face from losing you?
This is the crux of it, in a way. If you can appraise the difference, you will be able to make the right decision.
>
> Basically I envy students who get to study in a big active university
> or get to work with a guru who dispenses expertise and problems
> matching students' interests.
>
>
>
This would be a bad reason to change. The grass is always greener on the other side - you have no idea what debarcles all those folk are dealing with!
Priority #1: establish whether you can have rapport with your supervisor, take it from there.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Another thing, when you find a job, it is not always exactly what you wanted to do. It is difficult to find a job where you are happy all the time. I imagine as a post doc, you get to work with problems that you are not super excited about. Is it realistic to find a job where you are super happy and everything is fine? I doubt that? Life will always be like this; you will work with things you are not really interested in.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: For what it is worth....
y experience also supports the idea that professors and programs are more flexible in the U.S. After working in academia with a Master's degree in the U.S. and now working on a PhD in Switzerland, I have experienced and heard about how much less flexible the professors in Europe are (mind you, there are exceptions on both sides of the Atlantic).
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/09/28 | 1,054 | 4,645 | <issue_start>username_0: I have a rough draft of my PhD dissertation, on which I was working on and off for about a year, but mostly I was doing other coursework. I have about 90 pages so far.
My dissertation advisor tells me that what I should do is pretty much make sure it is well-written and apply the theory to a few examples. By my estimates, if I go berserk on this, I can finish all that in under one month.
However, the dissertation advisor says that usually, it takes about 3 years to complete a dissertation in my department, and I should not expect to complete it soon. Also, he says that the level of my draft was intermediate (some time ago) and not yet advanced (but he hasn't reviewed the current one yet).
When I ask or suggest about expanding the scope of the dissertation / adding additional chapters, the dissertation advisor says he does not think it is necessary.
So, it appears that the dissertation is almost complete, but I should not expect to complete it soon. How should I interpret this apparent contradiction?<issue_comment>username_1: My PhD advisor once told me that one aspect he considers when rating a thesis is how much the candidate did try to go beyond the initial idea or goal. If they are like "I solved the initial problem, here's the thesis, I just want to finish a fast as possible" then they will earn an intermediate grade at the end. Only if they try to go beyond the initial problem, try to at least estimate the further implications or steps or apply the outcome of the initial problem to further problems, they really can earn a top grade.
To my experience, to successfully finish a physics PhD within roughly a year, you have to have had really great luck to find something really excitingly new that provided a huge progress to your specific field. In most cases after one year you can't even tell for sure what the final focus of the thesis will be. Those applications of the theory to some example cases can easily take up more time than the whole development of the theory as there might come up issues and flaws that you were not expecting. Also their importance is not necessarily reflected in the number of pages they make up in the final thesis.
Therefore it seems to me, that you are somewhat belonging to the first type of people mentioned above who are just heading to leave before really having understood the implications of what they were working on.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Trying to get a PhD in a year or two is a bad idea, because employers will not take such a degree seriously. The only exception is if you're a once-in-a-generation talent (and the odds are you're not the next Albert Einstein or Lev Landau), in which case you'd already have a number of publications to your credit and enough work to justify a PhD.
So I would echo username_1's advice and not try to rush through things. Instead, focus on the **quality** of your thesis project. Have you completed publications? Have you personally explored the ramifications of the work you've already done? What else have you done "beyond the basics" of the original problem?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Science is really a publication driven field, not a dissertation driven one. I would *highly* encourage to you to put your time in to turning your research into peer-reviewed scientific publication, instead of doing just enough for a dissertation. If you can publish 2-4 papers out of what you have written in established journals your adviser will most likely graduate you. However, I imagine, since this was my experience too, that as you start to write your papers you will find holes that need to be fixed, etc., and fixing those holes will be a substantial part of the work.
Bottom line: focus on doing publishable research and getting published first! After you've done that, the dissertation will be easy and you'll graduate without a problem.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: In all the programs I am familiar with, **you become a "doctoral candidate" (or something similar) only after having successfully proposed a topic for your dissertation**. Usually that proposal includes several pages of detail regarding **what will be accepted by your committee as successful completion**. Of course, research is uncertain and there must be some flexibility, but your proposal can be viewed as the basis for deciding when you are done.
If you have such a document, you should reference it specifically in discussions with your advisor. If you do not, perhaps you should create one and iterate with your advisor until he/she is willing to agree to it.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/09/29 | 1,629 | 6,996 | <issue_start>username_0: In graduate school I have found that along with being a producer of good research, fellowships/post-doctoral advisers/faculty search committee are also often interested in what one has done *outside* of research (or teaching/TA-ing) as well. Examples of such activities include (but are not limited to) volunteering with younger students in science, organizing a journal club, mentoring undergraduate researchers, etc. In some cases, the importance of these activities is immense: for the NSF CAREER award, for example, having outreach is a substantial part of the application.
However, clearly, spending all of one's time on these activities is not the best idea, since then no research gets done.
So, my question is:
**What is the optimal fraction/amount of time to spend on "outreach" activities like those mentioned above, which are explicitly not research or teaching activities, for someone looking to pursue a career at a research university?**<issue_comment>username_1: Short answer: You should spend "some" time on volunteering and leadership activities.
Unlike an undergraduate student, a graduate student is primarily focused on research, so you don't want to spend "a lot" of time elswhere. Even so, proficiency in other activities is something of a "tiebreaker" against another candidate with comparable research activities that doesn't have "outside" activities.
This is in contrast to undergraduate work, where "leadership" is the "whole game" for some students (for later life)--provided they pass their courses.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I believe the optimal amount of time spent on these other activities is as little as possible.
Graduate students are notoriously overworked and underpaid. In essence, they are trying to see how much work they can get you to do for them, for free. In situations like this, where they attempt to get you to prove how much of a 'team player' you are by essentially providing them valuable work without them having to pay for it, you need to be on your guard and make sure you aren't taken advantage of.
You will need some of these 'extra-curricular' activities. But they are a means to an end. Essentially you must demonstrate your willingness to go 'above and beyond' the explicitly listed duties of your job without neglecting the official duties. It can be a tight balancing act.
There isn't a hard and fast ratio, like 70% research/ 30% leadership. Instead, you will need to be skilled at determining your peers/superiors expectations for you in this regard and meeting/exceeding them, and this will vary from institution to institution and individual to individual. A lot of potential feedback is likely to be of the 'you must read between the lines' variety.They are unlikely to say "You aren't going to get the position unless you do more work for us for free". Instead they might hint "you are doing great in your research, but it would be very nice if you would take more initiative and perhaps be more of a mentor to younger students" - indeed, anything phrased as definitively as that is equivalent to being posted in bright red flashing letters.
In general you will be pressured to spend more time on these activities than you can afford to, or is necessary for your career. Finding out where that level is (somewhere between 'nothing' and 'everything they ever ask you to do') may be a matter of trial and error.
I would spend time on the research unless you get the distinct feeling you are not meeting expectations in the extra-curriculars department.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: It has to factor in *what your goals are* for 5 years from now. Are you *truly interested* in the field in which you are doing research? Or do you actually need to think about changing tracks to make some of the volunteering your career? What would give you joy in daily work?
If you are committed to the research field, then think about the *relevancy* of the volunteering. If your goals include highly competitive academic positions, you will need to be publishing 2 solid articles per year to survive. Solid research even now is the foundation without which nothing happens.
The volunteer work should be meaningful ideally to both you and those who hire you either academically or in industry. Joining too many organizations with little contribution may make you feel you are doing something but won't add to your credentials. Focusing on perhaps at most 2 and rising to some official capacity or being able to document accomplishment is deemed essential according to many who have succeeded.
What kind of *"cake"* do you seek to make out of your work life? Volunteering is frosting for which you feel good. But you need to work on the cake foremost.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: One point I'm missing in the answers so far is that you learn skills with many such activities that you need later on. As a postdoc, people will expect that you *can* teach and supervise a small group as well as doing research on your own. The same is true if you want to become a group leader in industry.
So unless you're the natural born group leader and teacher, you'll need to put in a certain amount of time to try out how these things work. When and where you do this is maybe less relevant\*: I learned a lot of this volounteering in a student group as an undergrad. You may also convince people that you learned teaching by fincancing your studies giving private lessons.
I have learned more about group leading looking after students doing research practicum, and after students doing their bachelor/master/diplom theses. In terms of getting research done, research practicum students typically require a multiple of the time I need to do the work. (And I find it important to be clear about that beforehand, and also to communicate this clearly to everyone, in particular to supervisors and students.)
In terms of learning how to formulate a decent research project, how to find someone capable and willing o work on it and how to supervise such work, I don't see many alternatives to putting in the effort.
I'm less enthusastic about looking after a 101 labwork practicum. I do get out a thorough update on my general professional knowledge, but the time put in to knowledge gained ratio is really bad. You can still learn skills like teaching and grading, though.
Note: during most of my PhD I've *not* been paid for the research, the wage I got was for looking after a labwork practicum. However, this was non-negotiable in the sense that while I could have refused the contract, I'd still have been assigned as TA. So at the end of the day, there wasn't much volounteering about this. It was part of "everyone has to make their contribution to keep the institue alive". Where I'm now, teaching practicum is officially required during the PhD in some faculties.
\* With the exception that *starting* to learn these skills as a postdoc is very late.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/09/29 | 1,161 | 4,310 | <issue_start>username_0: I have several questions related to open-sourcing the source code used for a research article.
Is there any research/study that addresses any of the following:
* What percentage of research articles are provided with their source code? (i.e. the source code is made available somewhere online)
* What percentage of research articles provide the source code at or before the publication date?
* What percentage of research articles who promised they will release the source code actually do so?
* What percentage of research articles provided the source code at some point but then the latter disappeared?
I am mostly interested in the field of computer science > machine learning, and English-speaking venues.<issue_comment>username_1: Here's a relevant study on computer science systems research that addresses your first question, "What percentage of research articles are provided with their source code?". The study is described in a tech report:
>
> "[Measuring Reproducibility in Computer Systems Research](http://reproducibility.cs.arizona.edu/v1/tr.pdf)." <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>. March 21, 2014.
>
>
>
The authors of this study observed the following protocol to determine code availability:
>
> We downloaded 613 papers from the latest incarnations of eight ACM conferences (ASPLOS’12, CCS’12, OOPSLA’12, OSDI’12, PLDI’12, SIGMOD’12, SOSP’11, VLDB’12) and five journals (TACO’9, TISSEC’15, TOCS’30, TODS’37, TOPLAS’34), all with a practical orientation. For each paper we determined whether the published results appeared to be backed by source code or whether they were purely theoretical. Next, we examined each non-theoretical paper to see whether it contained a link to downloadable code. If not, we examined the authors’ websites, did a web search, examined popular code repositories such as `github` and `sourceforge`, to see if the relevant code could be found. In a final
> attempt, we emailed the authors of each paper for which code could not be found, asking them to direct us to the location of the source. In cases when code was eventually recovered, we also attempted to build and execute it. At this point we stopped — we did not go as far as to attempt
> to verify the correctness of the published results.
>
>
>
Here is a summary of their findings:
* Total papers examined: **613**
* Papers that appeared to be backed by source code (not purely theoretical): **515**
Of these 515 papers, 105 were excluded from consideration so that the resulting set of papers had no overlapping author lists. That leaves 410 papers, with results as follows:
* Papers with link to source in the paper: **85**
* Papers not in above category, where source was found via web search: **65**
* Papers where author shared source following email request: **81**
* Papers where author declined to share source following email request: **149**
* Papers where author did not respond to email requests for source: **30**
More details of methodology and results, as well as all the data and other materials used in this study, may be found at [this web site](http://reproducibility.cs.arizona.edu/).
There is an "Anecdotes" section appended to this tech report, which I think you may find very interesting, as it relates to some of the other points in your question. It documents the author's struggles to get authors to give up their source code :)
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: From <http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/missing-data-hinder-replication-artificial-intelligence-studies> ([mirror](https://web.archive.org/web/20180216221212/http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/missing-data-hinder-replication-artificial-intelligence-studies)):
>
> In a survey of 400 artificial intelligence papers presented at major conferences, just 6% included code for the papers' algorithms. Some 30% included test data, whereas 54% included pseudocode, a limited summary of an algorithm.
>
>
>
(Source: " At the AAAI meeting, <NAME>, a computer scientist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, reported the results of a survey of 400 algorithms presented in papers at two top AI conferences in the past few years.")
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/09/29 | 1,796 | 7,858 | <issue_start>username_0: In the past term, my teaching evaluations were full of complaints that I assign too much homework. To solve this, I've scaled back the assigned workload and threw several assignments into extra credit. This seems to make many student happy:
* Students just passing through complete the basic coursework and meeting the course objectives, without feeling the course is harder than other courses.
* Students who enter the course finding the material is too difficult can complete the extra work to offset their poor mid-term exam grade while getting additional practice for the final.
* Students eager to learn the material are happy with the extra work and feel they can get more out of the course.
In the next term, I hope to offer much more extra credit, equal to 20-30 hours of work, to meet the needs of those top 20% eager learners.
* All of the work aligns with the course objectives.
* The point values are kept low, to discourage students from skipping regular work.
I have never seen a course instructor ever give more than a little amount of extra credit. Is there any reason why it would be a poor choice to offer a great deal?<issue_comment>username_1: I think the answer to your question is "No one knows, but you are about to find out." The only thing that can be guaranteed is that there will be some unexpected consequences, because the nature of human interaction--and the diversity of things like motivation and preparation--is such that it's too complex a system for us to know what the introduction of a novel approach is going to do.
You are attempting to transfer power to the students which is traditionally vested almost exclusively in the instructor. I feel that this is a good thing, but that it is difficult to predict what people will do when given power that they previously did not have.
To give you an example (which I don't think will happen in your case, but there could be some analogous effect), I know of an instructor that tried dispensing with grade pressure altogether by announcing on the first day that everyone in the class had an A for the course [the highest rating possible, for those not familiar with common practice in the US]. The consequence that surprised him was that at the end of (or perhaps during as well, I don't remember) the course, students expressed resentment toward the policy. The realities of time pressures put on them by other courses meant that they ended up spending little to no time on the gradeless class, because they knew ultimately that it would not affect their record. The resentment came from the fact that they wanted to learn the material, but with nothing to force them to spend time on it, they ended up not giving it any time but instead allowing the other demands on their time to crowd it out completely.
In my opinion, I think you've covered your bases as well as you can (in particular, it's not a wild shot in the dark, but a further change to a previous, successful modification), and all there is for you to do is observe the effects and see what student feedback is. The most interesting question in my mind is whether the most talented students will do as well (in terms of "total learning outcome") under this system as they did under your original one. For similar reasons as the example I gave, they may just make a decision not to put as much effort in because of time pressures from other classes.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: There are a couple of points in your question that I don't quite understand:
* You're proposing to offer "much more extra credit" but "keep the point values low": don't those two things work against each other? In my experience, students don't do much extra credit when they do not in fact feel that it will lead to a higher course grade.
* You speak of using extra credit to offset poor midterm grades and also speak of meeting the needs of the "top 20% eager learners". Those are different pools of students.
In my own experience, the second bullet point is a major point of tension for extra credit. Students would like extra credit to be routine work that they can do to improve their grade, possibly even to offset more challenging or time-consuming course tasks at which they didn't excel. But instructors usually see extra credit as a way to reach the "eager learners" at the top of the class and end up giving extra credit that is *harder* than the normal material. For instance, when I teach freshman calculus if I assign extra credit it's usually the less routine and more theoretical problems. Most students (correctly!) perceive that just doing the standard work would be a more efficient route to a good grade.
>
> I have never seen a course instructor ever give more than a little amount of extra credit. Is there any reason why it would be a poor choice to offer a great deal?
>
>
>
I think that most instructors feel that students who get bad grades on exams and then make it up with ancillary work should not get similar final grades to students who do well on exams. In other words, since many (most, maybe; certainly not all) courses have "mastering the material, as shown in exam performance" as the primary goal, giving too much extra credit works against this goal. Most extra credit is a kind of "homework": I hope that people know that in 2014 it is all but prohibitively difficult to ensure that homework is being done by the student. In an earlier question you asked about assigning [Amazon Mechanical Turk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Mechanical_Turk)-type questions to the students as extra credit. That very terminology raises the objection: maybe the students will use the MTurk website to get others to do their work for them!
But there is no absolute right or wrong answer here: you do get to decide what works best for you. Honestly, I think you're essentially proposing "rebranding" some of the course work as extra credit in an attempt to make the students more excited about it. Could that work? Yes, it could! You are certainly entitled to give it a try. However, since most students do substantial amounts of extra credit only when they are trying to increase their grade, if you repackage too much "normal credit" into "extra credit", then you risk decreasing the amount of work done by the typical student in your course. So you should analyze the incentives carefully.
Finally, speaking of the mind games that get played out in a classroom:
>
> In the past term, my teaching evaluations were full of complaints that I assign too much homework.
>
>
>
This need not imply that you are assigning too much homework!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I can't speak for your institution, students, or department, so take this with the usual grain of salt.
At a highly competitive and stressful institution like Columbia, many courses are graded on curves based on the final overall grade. Particularly as a result, anything offered as extra credit becomes de facto mandatory. When the extra credit simply gets added into the numerator of the grade it's pretty irrelevant whether those 15 extra points came from a "midterm" or "extra credit."
I suppose there MIGHT be ways of constructing a syllabus such that the extra credit was less distortionary, but I can't come up with one.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Extra credit work is good for telling you how much *ground* a student has covered.
That's usually to the advantage of the learning process.
The one advantage that "tests" have over extra credit is that tests measure *proficiency.* That is how fast a student can produce the work within a short period of time. Some employers prefer to judge their employees on this basis. If the students can earn extra credit just by putting in time, the extra knowledge could come at the expense of proficiency.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/09/29 | 513 | 2,308 | <issue_start>username_0: I teach a lab class that is only constrained by some broad learning objectives. I have been using the same project now for 5 years. It now runs very smoothly and I know what difficulties the students are likely to have. I think that is an advantage, but teaching the class is beginning to feel stale and I am worried that hurts the students. Given I could easily chose a brand new project and still deliver the learning objectives, how do I know when it is the right time to change topics.<issue_comment>username_1: The interesting question is, does the project feel stale for *you* or for the students? The students are, after all, only doing the project once, so there is in principle no harm in using the same project year after year.
Of course, there is the possibility that the project that was cutting-edge when you defined it is now an old relic, using methods and technologies that nobody actually cares about anymore. In this case, you should of course move on, but if this is not the case, I see no inherent value in changing the project (especially since any change also means that the first iteration of the new project will be a bit rough around the edges).
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: My high school Physics teacher changed his course every two years. The reason was that after that time, he would start thinking that what he was teaching was way easier than what it actually was, and he wanted to remind himself of that. Of course, the content was almost the same, but the notes and the preparations were brand new.
A lab is of course very different, and having a rock solid set up is very useful (better than spending an hour just to find out that one of the cables was broken inside, happened to me).
You could take advantage of your knowledge of the instrumentation by using the same machinery, but slightly changing and improving the experiment. For example, instead of reading values from the LCD screen of a multimeter, you could upgrade to a USB one and get the full stream of values (budget allowing). Then, one could try to do a finer analysis of the data. Another option is to look into the residuals of your data from the theoretical curve, and see if there are any patterns beyond noise, and try to figure out why.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/09/29 | 1,562 | 6,524 | <issue_start>username_0: I had two advisors for my master thesis. One, as my first advisor would take the theoretical part to guide me. I have been meeting with my first advisor once every two week and he has been examining each part of the text. During these meetings, he continued to tell me how good I am doing and I should keep writing in this way. There were never real feedback, which could be pointing out my mistakes.
So I developed a full confident in myself and in the work. He offered me that I should consider starting a PhD with him. In short, during the time I have been writing my masters thesis, he gave me all signs that he approves and likes my work.
My presentation took place a week ago, and was pretty much successful in my opinion and in the opinions of other people who came to listen. But at the end of the presentation, I received a totally different attitude from my first advisor. He started to criticize the work in a way he has never done in our meetings.
I was shocked about how my first advisor could not defend me and his own ideas in front of the committee and I am incredibly disappointed. Not only have I lost my belief in him and his judgments but also, I am now doubting my own skill of writing.
I am going to meet my first advisor next week and planning to talk about his twist of judgment and criticism. In this talk, I will question the PhD idea. I'm not sure though, how to put my anger, disappointment in right words, without making him feel that I am attacking to his personality. Also, when I asked him if we can meet earlier than next week, he refused. I have the feeling that he knows what i am going to say and now trying to construct a distance.
I know that trust is a very important issue in between the advisor and the advisee. If we will continue work together, I have to ask him an explanation but as I said, I'm afraid of my own frustration and if I cannot express myself in a right way.
My question is, would it be wise to express my disappointment in him, especially now that we will start to focus on my PhD? On the other hand, I need him to justify his inconsistency, which is quite crucial for me to keep working with him.<issue_comment>username_1: You cannot go after him for asking questions, that's his prerogative. You can choose to work on your PhD with him, or without him. That's what the conversation ought to be about.
Check out Crucial Confrontations:
<http://www.frumi.com/images/uploads/CrucialConfrontations.pdf>
With a crucial discussions like that, it is always good to give yourself a pep talk and imagine why would a rational being do something like that. Was is really that bad? Were you his first student, and was he nervous? Could he have had some personal issues to deal with? Perhaps he feels embarrassed for his behavior?
That will help you develop compassion and temper your anger (regardless how justifiable it might be). The goal is really to channel your emotions.
Then you are ready to develop a focus for your discussion. You can pose it as the discussion about your concerns about doing PhD with that advisor. Let's face it, you were not going to do PhD with him, there wouldn't be need for the conversation. Ask questions, at this point.
For example, I was surprised with the level of question received during the defense. I was left doubting the quality of my work, and now I am concerned about proceeding with PhD because my work is not as good as I thought it would be. What is your take? That should be enough to start the conversation without accusations.
Keep in mind, they are supposed to ask you hard questions at the defense, it is an exam. It might even be a compliment - he wouldn't have asked you these questions, if he didn't think you can handle them. My advsor holds practice defenses. The labmates and the adviser ask hard questions then. For my defense practice, I was answering questions for an hour! If it wasn't for the practice, these questions would have come at the defense time.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Concurring with the comments above, I would suggest you:
1. Calm down
2. Consider (on your own, at first) whether you want to do the PhD with this supervisor given how the defence went (do you feel that the questions were valid and having them asked earlier would have made your research MUCH stronger and hence your PI should have asked them before, or were they more tough questions to show how good a student you really are).
3. Prepare for a polite but emotionally challenging meeting. DO NOT criticize or in any way express your "disappointment" in your supervisor - ask him why the questions he brought up were not asked during practice runs. Then consider (again) whether you want to commit to a PhD with him/her, depending on the answer.
Most importantly - understand that a Masters (and *especially* a PhD) is YOUR project, it's not your supervisors job to defend your ideas and results - it's YOURS...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I feel you, I had the exact same experience at larger level, at my PhD proposal defense.
I spoke with most of them individually to understand the issue. My advisor and my chair were very supportive before the defense and all of a sudden they acted as if they have never seen it before. No question wise but suggesting totally something different with unreasonable justification.
The fact that you are considering a PhD may have contributed to their response or else they wouldn't care much about a master thesis. That is probably because they are trying to shape the direction of your future work to particular area in their mind.
What I found out is that a Lot of office politics were involved in my committee. My advisor and chair didn't like each other much and my chair is more senior so she cared less to what he think nor he were able to stand for me or risk having a conflict with her for some student.
On the other hand, the PI who wanted something else were very influential (I didn't know at the beginning since he is from a different department). My chair listen to everything he says and after the meeting her suggestion was as if it was coming out of his mouth.
Observe them carefully so see what work or grants they are heading to and how they interact with each other. Who is more respected and who have more power in the department structure? Once you find out, I think everything will make sense. Bear in mind that your goal at the meeting is to know, not to complain or express emotions.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/09/29 | 525 | 2,266 | <issue_start>username_0: I noticed that some scholars in my field are best known for their earliest writing, even if their ideas were later found incorrect.
I am writing a book in my area of interest and hope to publish within a year. The target audience is not academics, but practitioners, although I suspect academics would be the first to seek out a book of this kind.
Year by year, my understanding of the subject matter grows, through reading and experience. It is highly likely that in a few years time I will realize I made many mistakes in the book. Perhaps, for example, I was not aware that some of my described solutions to problems in the field did not actually work as well as I thought they did.
If I later started a PhD in the same area, would such a past publication create problems for an academic career?<issue_comment>username_1: Anything you write places you at risk of being wrong somehow. Certainly a book of this kind is asking for a wider audience that then might be aware of those mistakes. Alexandros points out in a comment that you certainly need to do your due diligence now to assure that what you write is as correct as it can be. No one is going to blame you if you suggest a response to a certain legal framework which is overhauled in three years but if you describe a chemical solution that could never react in the way you claim that one is on you. So how certain you can be that your work will remain correct/useful is somewhat field dependent.
The big question is about this hurting your ability to start and pursue a PhD after writing such a book. I don't think it would. Except in the rather extreme case of your book becoming well enough known and wrong/controversial enough to annoy members of a PhD admissions committee. For the most part I would suggest that already being an active member of a practical field (read: has published work discussing the field) would be a very helpful piece of an application for a PhD program.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, publishing a book full of inaccuracies will make people consider you as a person that publishes inaccuracies.
If you read a book by someone that wasn't even a PhD yet and their book was full of errors, wouldn't you think less of them?
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/09/29 | 277 | 1,182 | <issue_start>username_0: I was wondering if there is a site or something where I can find announcements for all (most of) the special issues of journals (upcoming and past) . For example of Springer, IEEE, Elsevier, ...
If I search for this now, I find scattered call for papers. Also, I can't seem to find this on wikicfp.<issue_comment>username_1: No, there is not.
Speaking as somebody who has dealt with a number of special issues on both sides of the editorial table, there is simply too little coherence in how different journals advertise their special issues. Sometimes it's hard even to find a coherent explanation of how a journal is approaching special issues even on its own website.
Maybe somebody like Google could address this, but it would be a *hard* problem requiring either serious investment in human curation or serious natural language processing mojo.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There are similar services for conferences, but there is no such service (as of yet) for special issue journals.
Hence, the better option at hand would be to periodically and selectively look through publisher sites for special issues.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/09/29 | 619 | 2,271 | <issue_start>username_0: Is someone aware of software that can help me create certain goals and research (sub)questions (digitally) and connect these questions in an organized way with the secondary literature on my computer, as well with my own notes.
I have over 2000 pdf files on my computer. The problem is that I don't want to create a new folder (and copy of the file) every time I come up with a new question.
Ideally, but not necessary, the software should also keep track of edit history and I should be able to make notes on files. It would also be nice if I could access my research organizer from everywhere, though this is not a necessary requirement.
I have looked into some software to manage bibliographies, but the main goal of this kind of software is to export the bibliography, rather than organize my research-questions, computer files, and own notes.
I suppose I want to create some kind of database/tree with the following structure
>
> WEEK 1 ("short title comes here")
>
>
> -- more detailed description of research question; goal/workplan/etc.
>
>
> -- literature to read this week (software links correct files on my pc)
>
>
> ------- book 1
>
>
> ------- book 2
>
>
> ------- article 1
>
>
> ------- etc.
>
>
> -- output
>
>
> ------- version (monday)
>
>
> ------- version (friday)
>
>
>
The software, ideally, must have a "search function" which redirects me to the correct node of the tree (i.e. "WEEK 1" not "this-pdf-contains-the-string.pdf")<issue_comment>username_1: I'm not sure there exists an all-in-one solution as you would like, however [Docear](http://www.docear.org) is pretty close to what you want and allows you to organize your thoughts/files and connecting them.
On the meta level, I use a bare-bones website from Google Sites (free), set to private, to record daily thoughts and progress (searchable).
Hope it helps
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Try using Microsoft's [One Note](http://www.onenote.com/). It recently became free to use and is a very good application to store your content, no matter how lengthy it may be.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: You can try **Evernote**. It's a simple application yet powerful. You can even sync your notes between devices.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/09/29 | 271 | 1,180 | <issue_start>username_0: On mathjobs.org, a few jobs request a research statement of no more than 3 pages. Are reference pages typically counted for such requirements in the United States?<issue_comment>username_1: Generally speaking, no. Two reasons:
1. Nobody reads the references.
2. It is unethical to penalize the author for giving credit where it is due.
That said, an HR staffer may not know about academic practices.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Unlike the NSF, where references often do not count towards page limits, I would assume that references *do* count as part of the 3-page limit for a research statement in a job application.
At the same time, few research statements I have seen in mathematics are as thoroughly referenced as an NSF proposal. The main goal of a research statement when applying for a job is to describe your own research and to demonstrate that you will be able to meet the research expectations of the job. As such, you want to keep the research statement relatively brief.
If you really need more than 3 pages including references, you should email the chair of the search committee to find out if it is acceptable.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/09/29 | 701 | 3,101 | <issue_start>username_0: Here are the features of an advanced graduate mathematics course:
* 24 hours of optional lectures over the course of the term;
* No homework, labs, guided assignments, quizzes, tests, previous year exams, or sample solutions;
* A concise syllabus;
* A list of recommended reading with about 5 items, with titles such as a Harvard University Press textbook;
* The final exam lasts three hours and consists of several problems with sub-items.
What would be an advisable way to properly prepare for the exam?<issue_comment>username_1: Hopefully you went to lecture - in my experience, in courses like this, the best you can hope for is that the professor draws questions directly from the lectures notes/questions that he raised during lecture. You can attempt to read the books, but there's probably too much material there. Focus on the lectures notes, and hope the prof is just trying to test "how smart you are", i.e., just doesn't give you a bunch of hard questions tangentially related to any material discussed in class.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In my experience, a study method in this case would include the following
* Be present at all lectures if possible.
* It is especially important to be present at the first and last lectures, where key information about the course and the exam is likely to be conveyed.
* A good idea in such a case is to record the lectures in audio or audio and video format, to have a reference to every detail; an alternative would be to write everything down verbatim.
* Read the textbook, if the course has one, or at least the one or two of the items from the reading list, cross-referencing the material with the syllabus. Some relevant material may be skipped with careful discretion without substantial decrease in quality of exam preparation.
* Make a notebook, which summarizes all important items from the lectures and the literature, such as all major theorems, formulas, concepts, and other items that can be expected on exam.
* Find problem sets, which fit well the course syllabus. For example, those can be end-of-section problems in the items from the reading list or problem sets from a similar course offered elsewhere. Also, students that took the same course before might still have exam problem statements.
* As you work through lecture notes, reading list, problem statements, and problem solutions, highlight and annotate the items of relevance to the exam (to the extent of that being possible), so you can quickly go over it later and recall auxiliary information that is not in the text.
* Add all concepts and patterns from problem solutions, as well as, preferably, all concepts and patters from the relevant material in the reading list, to the notebook.
* Ask the instructor if there are any questions in regards to preparation for the exam.
* Before the exam, go over the lecture notes, reading list items, and especially the notebook. In particular, reread the entire notebook several times the day before the exam and several times about one hour before the exam.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer] |
2014/09/29 | 1,176 | 4,988 | <issue_start>username_0: I met a professor last year through an online search and expressed my interests to his research and his advanced lab technique, in which I lack of experience.
I also asked for a PhD opportunity from him, he says that he has no money or limited funding now, so I agreed to work for 3 months for free. Would be practical that this volunteer experience could lead to a PhD after this 3 months? On one side I am not happy with working for free, as I had employment for 1 year as a research assistant. On the other side, this potential professor appears nice to employees around and keeps his words, and has good tracks of papers.
But am I just wasting of time, what actions should I take to figure this out before too late?
Supplementary information: He said that he was on travel, so I was off for a while. He did not contact me till I found him. Is this normal or just my altitude should be changed? I feel not well, maybe he does not really want me as a fellow at all?
I am really frustrated, should I go further or not, is he just being polite to accept me to practice the techniques in his lab for 3 months? Am I wasting of time to even practice these test methods?<issue_comment>username_1: If you *WANT* to volunteer in the lab as a learning opportunity, it can be a great practice.
If you don't want to, decline the offer and either look elsewhere or come back when his budget can handle bringing someone else in... and hope that he hasn't already found someone who was pleased to work as a volunteer and delighted to be paid.
The world is what it is, not what we wish it should be.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Ultimately, the decision is based on what you feel comfortable doing and at the same time, is consistent with what you want to achieve in research. The fact that you have mentioned that you are feeling frustrated and are having doubts that the volunteer work will even eventuate are not good signs at all - especially as you have indicated that you are not comfortable working for free.
So, some things to consider:
* How important is learning and practicing this lab technique for your future goals?
* Is it possible to ask to collaborate on any research that will also allow you to learn the test method?
* Have you checked any other similar labs?
* What is a new aspect of research that uses the test method that you could offer as a PhD project?
Some suggestions:
* Look at other opportunities while you are waiting to hear back from the researcher (do not pester them).
* Best not to second-guess the researcher's intentions, give them the benefit of the doubt.
* Read the researcher's papers and at least master the theory.
Remember, to take on a volunteer may require permission from the researcher's Dean/Human Resources, and may involve aspects such as safety induction (for the lab) etc (and as Moriarty said in his comment, taking on a volunteer may be forbidden).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: The most important thing I would work out is what do you want to gain for this opportunity? From your question it sounds like you would like to get a PhD afterwards.
You say the professor has no/little money at the moment. You need to work out if this is likely to change in 3 months. The best way to do this is probably just to ask him.
Such a role may still be useful even if it doesn't lead directly to a PhD position with this professor. He may provide a good reference or may result in a publication. However, you must way up these benefits against the cost of working for free for three months.
Things to consider are what is the reputation of the professor/how much do you want to work with him? What is the likelihood of you getting a similar (paid) role in reasonable amount of time.
Finally, before taking unpaid work it is important to consider how you will support yourself financially. If you can't afford to eat you may need to do something else.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Besides all that has been mentioned, the liability issues stand foremost. Imagine that you work for free and get injured while on that job. The university has no obligation to pay you any compensation. Imagine that you damage a major piece of research equipment. You and the faculty member could be personally sued by the university for the repair costs.
The other side is, what do you get from this? Sure, experience is a great thing, but it only goes so far. Suppose you work for free and have no achievement from the work. What exactly are you going to put on your CV? Do you believe that a future job interviewer will really care to discuss what you "experienced" in your own "free time" versus what you have a valid record of doing?
For the first reason, I do not accept students that offer to work for free in my labs. For the second reason, I always attach credit hours for either formal research or a special topics course to the transcript of students who work for me doing research.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/09/30 | 2,212 | 9,294 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a postdoctoral researcher in a lab, having person (e.g.) X as a colleague, also a postdoctoral researcher like me, having obtained a PhD two years after me.
Here is the problem: In the last two years, I have taken initiatives that have led to a number of publications. My collaboration with X was not so close, since I ended up doing 80% of the work, in addition to having the original ideas, and he/she was only helping by e.g. writing a Section, having general discussions, or giving general comments.
I have tried "pushing" (with frequent emails, meetings etc.) but it did not have a good result, as I understand that he/she does not feel motivated by me: the result has included some "ugly" emails, not an oral though.
I have been doing this, waiting that in exchange, X would include me as a coauthor in one of the papers that would occur from his/her research (none so far and nothing in-progress from their part, as far as I know).
How to treat this person, given that he/she will not leave, as the professor seems to have some special interest in them.
In my domain, the order of the authors in publications matters, so in our "joint" publications I am the first author, but is this enough? I am thinking that if we both continue independently we would both lose, but do not know how to motivate him/her. I suppose the pressure has to come from the professor, who let's say that cares but has other more important priorities. I have mentioned the problem to the professor, he/she just told to X that they should produce more, and that's it.
How to handle this situation?<issue_comment>username_1: I believe one possible solution is to bring in understanding of what the scientific community puts in the terms authorship and contributorship. Note that the term contributorship is gaining interest because it focusses on the entire research process, not just the authoring, which can be misread as writing.
The Vancouver Protocol (exemplified here by the [ICMJE](http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html) version; you may find it worthwhile to do a search on "contributorship", "vancouver protocol" and "authorship") provided a first stated criteria for accepting someone as author. Putting this on the table for discussion is always a good idea. Many will probably not like the quite strict rules but when one considers them they do provide a good framework for accepting someone as author. Defining what you or the group within you work sees as acceptable grounds for being listed on papers should definitely help avoid discussions in the future. Anyone disagreeing will have to set their contribution in the light of the rules and convincingly show they fulfil them. Of course some may have a very inflated view of their own contribution but within a group such discrepancies will be harder to maintain.
An interesting idea for establishing is also provided by the [authororder.com](http://www.authorder.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=53) (I am not in any way associated) site.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You might simply consider that the current situation is fine: you say that you do get help from your collaborator, so there is little reason to stop working with him or her; you lead the collaboration and, for this, get first authorship. This will earn you much (well deserved) better opportunities; by comparison, your collaborator will have a hard time, because no recent first-author publications will look bad on his or her CV.
You might have wanted a more active collaborator, and it is a good idea to try to help him or her do better, but you just cannot push someone against their will. It is possible that he or she does not have what it takes to handle more core tasks, or that so he or she believes. In this case, pushing too hard would amount to cornering him or her into an impossible situation, no good would happen.
Learn to change what you can (e.g., if you have the option to start another collaboration with someone else it might be a very good idea; if you have another job available with potentially better co-worker, you might want to try it, etc.) and do with what you cannot change. Ultimately, you have the upper hand on your own work, and that is how it is supposed to be.
Ho, and about getting co-authorship in exchange for your work: no one is supposed to *give you co-authorship* in exchange for anything; you can rather be *invited to work on a project*, and then this work is what grants co-authorship. I am not sure how you meant it, but giving co-authorship as a mere reward for something unrelated to the publication is a serious academic misconduct.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: (username_1's answer is interesting, and I personally do like the idea of documenting contributions more explicitly than is currently fashionable. But I think it is fair to say that this more like tomorrow's solution than today's: though people like us would like to see these protocols followed, at the moment those who follow them assiduously seem to be in the minority, so it will probably not be effective in the short term to try to hold a "lagging" collaborator to this standard.)
In my opinion there is relatively little you can do to force your colleague to pull his own weight on your current and past projects, but on the other hand your situation is not so bad.
>
> Here is the problem: In the last two years, I have taken initiatives that have led to a number of publications.
>
>
>
That is certainly not the problem! Rather, that sounds great for you.
>
> My collaboration with X was not so close, since I ended up doing 80% of the work, in addition to having the original ideas, and he/she was only helping by e.g. writing a Section, having general discussions, or giving general comments.
>
>
>
At least X did 20% of the work; that's a lot better than nothing. Seriously, a lot of people on this site are complaining about being pressured or forced to add coauthors who have literally done nothing helpful on the paper, or who have even dragged them down / wasted their time. I think that in most academic fields, 20% contribution is certainly sufficient for coauthorship.
>
> In my domain, the order of the authors in publications matters, so in our "joint" publications I am the first author, but is this enough?
>
>
>
That's really the good news: by consistently appearing as first author, you are getting the lion's share of the credit. If it makes you feel better: I work in a field in which author order is alphabetical, and in my experience it is relatively common for some coauthors to have contributed less than 20%. So cheer up. By the way, your quotation marks around joint look a little uncollegial: your coauthor did some of the work, so it is joint work. This and other clues make me think that you may be overly worried about this and perhaps pushing a little too hard.
What *can* you do in the situation?
1) If you don't value someone's contribution, don't pressure them to include you on their own projects. Moreover, if you feel like someone is not pulling their own weight on a project, adding a project where you don't pull your own weight may seem just with respect to the two of you, but from the perspective of the larger academic world you're each trying to take credit for more work than you actually did. It would be easy for most of us to multiply our apparent productivity simply by "exchanging more papers" with our collaborators. We must resist that.
It sounds like you are, or perceive yourself to be, a more productive / serious / insightful researcher than Dr. X. If so, the story you want to tell is that Dr. X did some work with you but that his contribution is not a major part of your research program. You accomplish that by doing your own work, not letting your interactions slow you down, and making sure that in your joint work the primacy of your contribution gets documented (as it has been).
2) Make sure that your supervisor knows the situation and can speak and write accurately about your respective contributions.
If you are getting first authorship every time and your supervisor has told Dr. X that he needs to work harder, then you are laying groundwork for him to describe you as being the prime mover in your collaborative work with Dr. X. It would be a good idea to speak to him explicitly about this. Assuming he agrees, he is then ethically obligated not to try to characterize Dr. X's contribution as equal to your own. If you are in doubt that he might not see it that way, I would suggest erring on the side of showing (not telling) your supervisor how capable and productive you are. You do this not by complaining about Dr. X -- just get the facts across; don't rub it in or be bitter about it -- but by going on to do more and better work.
3) If you don't want to collaborate with Dr. X in the future unless he does at least X% of the work -- you can choose a specific value of X, at least up to 50 -- hash that out with him now, before you work on any new projects. You are more than within your right to do so. Indeed, as username_1 indicates, that is a best practice.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/09/30 | 373 | 1,696 | <issue_start>username_0: Reviewing is time-demanding. It makes huge sense to re-review if comments and changes are submitted. While first review takes a lot of time, the second can be very quick.
If authors provide a version that shows the changes - this makes re-review very fast. They also don't have to spend too much time on resonse-to-reviews letter.
Can I simply reject to re-review if such changes-highlighted version is not provided?<issue_comment>username_1: You can certainly ask for it but if the journal does not require authors to provide such files, you are not likely to get one. So why ask? Well, by asking you provide the editors with the wish from reviewers to see this as a permanent feature and in the end such changes may be made by the journal in their instructions for authors.
The reason why I think it is unlikely your request will be immediately heard is that editors usually handle many articles and may work under severe time constraints (often on their free time outside of work). Communicating back and forth with authors of varying background requesting new versions of manuscripts is usually a time consuming venture that could delay the process by weeks, depending on the responsiveness of the author.
So, there may be a good reason to make a request but I would not expect the wish to be heard in many cases.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: What format for such "changes-highlighted version" would you like? Maybe you could just use a tool like DiffPDF?
Another problem with your original intent is that you're going to re-review by looking only at the "changes highlighted". What if there are other changes, not highlighted by the author?
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/09/30 | 901 | 3,901 | <issue_start>username_0: (There is a similar question but not exactly.)
When you write a paper, you need various views. So you invite collaborators and it often works well. But assume that out of 5 invited, for example, one or two, don't contribute to the paper much but are kept on the email thread with updated versions of the manuscript.
How do you politely remove them from the author list (paper) and how do you say that politely in email. Do you just send them a separate email or a general "authorship rules" email to everybody?<issue_comment>username_1: Removing people late in the preparation stage of a manuscript is always prone to bad feelings. It is of course unfortunate that this is a fact. This is why it is always a good idea to try to set up some ground rules for authorship (or contributorship). There are many posts under the authorship tag that discusses the Vancouver Protocol which is a set of rules under which authorship/contributorship is determined. I usually provide the link to [ICMJE](http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html) as an example. The basic idea is that to be listed as author you need to fulfil certain criteria. Some have even devised a point system to calculate if a person is worthy of authorship/contributorship.
But, to answer the question when you face the fact. There is no easy answer. You could decide to be strict and simply state that no sufficient contribution has been made (quoting the Vancouver Protocol list). How badly this is received is something only you can evaluate. And, only you can assess if you think it is worth it if the consequences are in some way "high cost". You can also decide to let this one slip through and make sure you have a clear arrangement around the next manuscript you write. I also think it is a good idea to start introducing ideas around authorship/contributorship in your research environment. I am sure many will dislike the topic but you are on safe grounds. Remember, many, maybe I should say more and more, journals request lists of contributorship and provide a basis for evaluating them (usually following the Vancouver Protocol list)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Of course, username_1 is correct to define the rules ahead of time. If you have not, and from your question it is hard to know if you already have authorship order in mind (if this is appropriate for the field), then you could ask to receive contribution statements from each person.
Sometimes, it is hard to gauge others idea of how much they contributed or how other collaborators feel about the others. Instead of making a direct decision without warning, you could email everyone asking for a contribution statement (as username_1 mentions, some journals will require it). From there, everyone can see the contributions from the eyes of your collaborators, and some collaborators may willingly mention to take them off as they had little input.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Some journals provide guidance on who to recognise and not recognise for authorship, e.g. [ICMJE](http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html). You could also take a look at [PhD on Track's page on this topic](http://www.phdontrack.net/share-and-publish/co-authorship/)
You should discuss this issue with the other co-authors. I'd assume that some might have more experience in this area. Any such decision needs to be taken with the consensus of the remaining co-authors.
Finally, if the non-contributors did in fact provide some useful input during conversations, etc, then maybe you should acknowledge that in a section after the conclusion. This is sometimes even done for anonymous reviewers when there has been a couple of iterations through the review process.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/09/30 | 1,117 | 4,826 | <issue_start>username_0: I regularly teach an undergraduate course in which students are expected to complete projects that involve writing code. I also supervise undergraduates in other project and thesis work that involve writing code.
I am considering requiring future students to publicly release their project code, and any other materials needed to reproduce their work, under an open source license. (This would, of course, be stated up front in the syllabus, or before I agree to supervise a thesis student.)
(Fortunately, the research platform on which my students work is very well suited for reproducible research, having been designed specifically with that goal in mind.)
On the one hand, I have this vague idea that it's to the students' benefit to practice participating in open, reproducible science.
On the other hand, students may feel reluctant to release their code (for all of the reasons documented [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10247/why-are-cs-researchers-reluctant-to-share-code-and-what-techniques-can-i-use-to)). Furthermore, I want to avoid things that distract too much from the main goals of the course, which don't directly involve reproducible research.
Are there any specific pedagogical arguments for or against instituting this requirement?
(Note that I'm asking about the pedagogical impact on my students, *not* the benefit to the broader research community of having my students do open science.)<issue_comment>username_1: Removing people late in the preparation stage of a manuscript is always prone to bad feelings. It is of course unfortunate that this is a fact. This is why it is always a good idea to try to set up some ground rules for authorship (or contributorship). There are many posts under the authorship tag that discusses the Vancouver Protocol which is a set of rules under which authorship/contributorship is determined. I usually provide the link to [ICMJE](http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html) as an example. The basic idea is that to be listed as author you need to fulfil certain criteria. Some have even devised a point system to calculate if a person is worthy of authorship/contributorship.
But, to answer the question when you face the fact. There is no easy answer. You could decide to be strict and simply state that no sufficient contribution has been made (quoting the Vancouver Protocol list). How badly this is received is something only you can evaluate. And, only you can assess if you think it is worth it if the consequences are in some way "high cost". You can also decide to let this one slip through and make sure you have a clear arrangement around the next manuscript you write. I also think it is a good idea to start introducing ideas around authorship/contributorship in your research environment. I am sure many will dislike the topic but you are on safe grounds. Remember, many, maybe I should say more and more, journals request lists of contributorship and provide a basis for evaluating them (usually following the Vancouver Protocol list)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Of course, username_1 is correct to define the rules ahead of time. If you have not, and from your question it is hard to know if you already have authorship order in mind (if this is appropriate for the field), then you could ask to receive contribution statements from each person.
Sometimes, it is hard to gauge others idea of how much they contributed or how other collaborators feel about the others. Instead of making a direct decision without warning, you could email everyone asking for a contribution statement (as username_1 mentions, some journals will require it). From there, everyone can see the contributions from the eyes of your collaborators, and some collaborators may willingly mention to take them off as they had little input.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Some journals provide guidance on who to recognise and not recognise for authorship, e.g. [ICMJE](http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html). You could also take a look at [PhD on Track's page on this topic](http://www.phdontrack.net/share-and-publish/co-authorship/)
You should discuss this issue with the other co-authors. I'd assume that some might have more experience in this area. Any such decision needs to be taken with the consensus of the remaining co-authors.
Finally, if the non-contributors did in fact provide some useful input during conversations, etc, then maybe you should acknowledge that in a section after the conclusion. This is sometimes even done for anonymous reviewers when there has been a couple of iterations through the review process.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/09/30 | 601 | 2,525 | <issue_start>username_0: I am completing a master's by research (in Humanities), and thus shall be writing a thesis with no class work. I am using both a mixture of primary and secondary source but one item that has me a bit unsure is the use of other master's theses. Is there an expectation at the master's level that you would only consult documents at a higher level (PhD and up)? I know the simple answer would be to ask your advisor, which I intend to do, but I wondering it their any accepted academic practice or principle on the issue?
Should or can I refer to (and cite) other master's thesis as source material or should I be only using material that would be considered above the master's level, such as PhD theses?<issue_comment>username_1: Firstly, I would ask your supervisor/advisor for advice.
But, generally speaking this should be fine, as Masters thesis are examples of completed and verified research (in that they have either undergone defense or are peer reviewed - as was my case).
One thing you could do though, is to use the thesis almost like a well-referenced Wikipedia page - in that you find the main referenced points that are relevant to your research and seek and peruse the paper that was used - chances are, you may find more information to assist in your specific research.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, you can cite another master's thesis. You also should, if it is relevant to the work. And no, don't just pillage that other thesis for sources and ignore it. That would negate the benefit of access to that thesis, which you should make available to future readers of your own thesis.
Above all, don't think like a student. Think like a writer, which is what you are. Your work, and those of other writers, should be treated with due consideration no matter the pedigree of the writers. Stop thinking of academia like some sort of sacred place where "students" are lesser beings. There are no gods here; only flawed men and women with nary a grasp of purpose.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In general, there is no such widespread requirement or expectation anywhere in academia. (Perhaps a particularly unusual advisor might have such an expectation, but even then, I doubt it.)
If you note the citations of research papers, a decent number of them will cite master's theses—some of my papers certainly do! And if I can submit a paper to a major journal that cites a master's thesis, why wouldn't another student's master's thesis?
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/09/30 | 549 | 2,309 | <issue_start>username_0: My friends, family, and partner often mention that they worry about my life as an researcher/academic mentioning how I work too much (I love my job!) am never satisfied (I want to go great work, and great work is hard to do!), and that I'm often distracted (I think about my research a lot!). I've tried to explain these facets of academic life to them, but I have trouble completely communicating each of these feelings.
**Are there any good articles or stories that you have found particularly useful in helping others understand your lifestyle as an academic?**
**For people outside of academia who you feel understand your passion and drive, how did they come to do so?**<issue_comment>username_1: Might not help you in communicating your thoughts, but will certainly help in understanding what it is you are engaged in.
Serres "The Troubadour of Knowledge"
Enjoy.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: [This response may be specific to my culture/situation, so take it for what it's worth.]
As a student in the health sciences, I find it helpful to explain my passion in terms of 'needing to know'. The human body--and it's response to disease--is so complex, with so many interactions that we don't fully understand, I find myself continually in a position of wonderment. "The more I learn, the less I know."
I am passionate about becoming the best healthcare professsional I can be, and the individuals who are important to me seem to be able to understand this. I know that I cannot expect them to totally understand the fascination of research, or the passion that drives me to devote all available time to learning, reading, writing, etc. Both they and I have come to accept this. I do not push my world onto them, nor do they demand that I be able to explain.
Perhaps the really crucial part of this is taking time to be really present with the non-academics in your life. Let them know that you care for them and accept *their* non-academic lifestyle as well. Understanding and acceptance is often a two-way street--be willing to give as well as get.
This really only answers your second question. Perhaps others may be more able to respond to the first query about stories/articles to help your loved ones understand the fascination of research.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/09/30 | 986 | 4,289 | <issue_start>username_0: Let's assume, for the sake of example, that I have found a new figure of merit which is of the same complexity as the one currently used, but is much more justified from a mathematical and physical standpoint. However, the whole development barely goes over one paragraph (maybe two), as the "proof" is extremely simple and straightforward.
Now, I was planning on saving this smaller result for a bigger paper on the same topic, where I'd introduce this new figure of merit along with other results, but the future of this other paper has become quite uncertain lately.
Is there any way I could still present this new (small) result?<issue_comment>username_1: You can think of publishing it as a *short communication*, many journals accept this kind of contribution (they can be designated in different ways, depending on the journal). As I recall, the shortest article ever published was of about 3 lines [1] ;-)
[1] <NAME>, "The Ratio of Proton and Electron Masses", *Phys. Rev.* **82**, 554, 1951.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I would submit the manuscript as a short paper, or even a poster in a workshop. Workshop papers and posters in my domain (computer science) usually demonstrate more early results of ongoing research.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The reason why you're publishing is because you think you have a new way of doing things that is better than the old way of doing things. Simply publishing a derivation of the new way isn't sufficient to convince people of that fact. You need to **convince** people that your new way is better.
So yes, your derivation is a simple one to two paragraphs, but in addition to that you should spend several paragraphs explaining why your new way is better. Why was the old way used? Why weren't the deficiencies not considered a problem until now? (Or if they were, how were they addressed with the old way, and why is your way better?) What are some of the objections that the people used to doing it the old way will raise? Why might they not want to switch to your new way? What do you say to those potential objections? Are there possible use cases might your new way not be appropriate for, and if so, how do you choose between the old way and the new way?
You'll probably also want to spend several paragraphs in an introduction, explaining how the field got to the old way, and outlining the deficiencies. You probably also want to include and example of using your new way, comparing it to the old way, illustrating why the new way is better.
Basically, you think your paper is too short because you're planning on just presenting the derivation and assuming its merits are obvious to others. They won't be. In all likelihood you'd be chewed up in review - not because your paper is too short, but because you won't have convinced the reviewers that your new method is worthwhile. Fleshing out the paper with necessary background and discussion to presents a coherent argument for your new method can easily take you into the 1-2 page range which is the typical size of "brief communications" (depending on field, journal, etc.)
Don't pad your article just to increase its size, but don't omit things which will bolster the arguments in favor of your new method.
Edit: In response to comments, here's an attempt at clarification: An academic paper is not *just* about presenting results. It's also about presenting a story and an argument. How does this result change the field? How should it change how the readers think about the topic?
I'm guessing that the original questioner thinks their paper is only one to two paragraphs because they were anticipating presenting just the short proof/derivation of the new figure of merit. My point was that the proof itself is insufficient for a decent paper. In addition to the proof you also need to convince the reader that the new figure of merit is better than the old one - and to do so for people who may be unaware that there was anything wrong with the existing way in the first place. Doing this properly can easily extend the paper from 1-2 paragraphs into a size which is more typical for a standard journal article. Write a proper paper, and it's no longer "too small to be publishable".
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer] |
2014/09/30 | 678 | 2,660 | <issue_start>username_0: A *Nature* paper published in 2000 currently has around 400 citations, but there is a mistake in the paper and surprisingly, still it gets citations. The mistake affects the result of the paper in a way that half of the arguments in the paper are invalid.
I warned the authors two years ago and they confirmed the mistake. I expected them to put some announcement that there is a mistake in the paper to avoid misleading researchers, but unfortunately they have not done so.
How should we address these situations? Should we send a comment and report it to the editor? Is it rude? Or should we simply dismiss it because it is an old paper?<issue_comment>username_1: Some journals accept a type of short correspondence or comment in which objections to some published material can be submitted. If you can articulate your objections in a scientific way suitable for publishing you may try this approach. For example, imagine the original analysis has some error. Reanalyzing the data gives different results and invalidates the previous publication. Conversely in this approach the authors of the original study have the opportunity to reply to your complaints.
An example of this is a [commentary](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v39/n7/full/ng0707-807.html) published in *Nature Genetics*, where the authors highlight important deficiencies in the design of the experiments in [an earlier publication](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v39/n2/full/ng1955.html) that can lead to incorrect conclusions. Of course, the authors of the original paper are allowed to [respond to the comments](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v39/n7/full/ng0707-808.html).
Correspondences have the advantage that can be very short. I am not sure at this moment if *Nature* also accepts this format.
If the material that demonstrates the error in the original publication is substantial it may grant an additional publication. This is for example what happened with the paper that demonstrated [the divergence between human and mice inflammatory responses](http://www.pnas.org/content/110/9/3507.abstract), which led to a response paper analyzing the same data, and [arriving at the opposite results](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/07/31/1401965111.abstract).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to the excellent suggestions above, I'd also suggest blogging about it. [A recent study](https://peerj.com/articles/313/) found that corrections to the literature were 8x as likely to occur if blogged about, as opposed to corrections that had gone the traditional route (contacting editors, authors, etc).
Upvotes: 5 |
2014/09/30 | 785 | 3,142 | <issue_start>username_0: Due to the circumstances surrounding my graduation and other factors, I didn't apply in the Fall of 2013 for any jobs. I did happen to see an opening that was still posted in February and applied on a whim. In a short period of time I was asked to do a phone interview followed by campus interview followed by request for more info from my references. At this point it was summer and quite a bit of time went by before I was asked for some start up costs (nothing substantial for my field) at which point the dean said it shouldn't be a problem.
Fast forward 2 months and all I've heard is "you'll hear from us soon" and that the process is moving slowly. Every time I think they must have filled the position they tell me just enough to make me think I am still in the running. At this point we are way off of the normal hiring schedule so I do not know what to think.
Does anyone have any thoughts--is it likely that they have offered the position to someone else and are in negotiations? Why bother getting all of my startup details? Has anyone else had any experiences with a super long, off-schedule hiring timetable?<issue_comment>username_1: Some journals accept a type of short correspondence or comment in which objections to some published material can be submitted. If you can articulate your objections in a scientific way suitable for publishing you may try this approach. For example, imagine the original analysis has some error. Reanalyzing the data gives different results and invalidates the previous publication. Conversely in this approach the authors of the original study have the opportunity to reply to your complaints.
An example of this is a [commentary](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v39/n7/full/ng0707-807.html) published in *Nature Genetics*, where the authors highlight important deficiencies in the design of the experiments in [an earlier publication](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v39/n2/full/ng1955.html) that can lead to incorrect conclusions. Of course, the authors of the original paper are allowed to [respond to the comments](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v39/n7/full/ng0707-808.html).
Correspondences have the advantage that can be very short. I am not sure at this moment if *Nature* also accepts this format.
If the material that demonstrates the error in the original publication is substantial it may grant an additional publication. This is for example what happened with the paper that demonstrated [the divergence between human and mice inflammatory responses](http://www.pnas.org/content/110/9/3507.abstract), which led to a response paper analyzing the same data, and [arriving at the opposite results](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/07/31/1401965111.abstract).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to the excellent suggestions above, I'd also suggest blogging about it. [A recent study](https://peerj.com/articles/313/) found that corrections to the literature were 8x as likely to occur if blogged about, as opposed to corrections that had gone the traditional route (contacting editors, authors, etc).
Upvotes: 5 |
2014/09/30 | 694 | 2,426 | <issue_start>username_0: I have a citation that is at the end of a sentence with dual punctuation. What I mean is that I have a sentence of the following form:
>
> Blah blah blah is mentioned by Author et al.
>
>
>
What is the proper way to include the citation in this case?
1. >
> Blah blah blah is mentioned by Author et al[##].
>
>
>
2. >
> Blah blah blah is mentioned by Author et al.[##]
>
>
>
3. >
> Blah blah blah is mentioned by Author et al.[##].
>
>
>
4. Other<issue_comment>username_1: This really depends on the publisher's style guide. If the style calls for the use of periods after "et al." or other such expressions, then you should use them, independent of whether the reference forces an additional period. if the guidelines don't ask for one, don't use it.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> 4. Other
>
>
>
Two other possibilities are the followings:
4a. "Blah blah blah is mentioned in [##]". This is ok since you are using numeric citations.
4b. "Blah blah blah is mentioned by Author *et al.* in [##]"
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: **Another *other:***
>
> Blah blah blah is mentioned in Ref. [##].
>
>
>
At least this is what is used by all journals using a numeric citation style that I am aware of.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: Blah blah blah is mentioned by Author et al. [##].
(Note the space before the brackets; whether there is "et al." or not makes no difference here.)
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: Since "et al." is an abbreviation of the latin *et alii* meaning "and others" the period in "et al." should be treated as periods in any other abbreviation such as "cf.", "Op. Cit.", "conf.", "c.". In most cases of which I am aware periods are shown after abbreviations but I am not a stranger to styles where the period after abbreviations are ignored. So my bet is that "et al. [##]." or "et al. [##]", depending on where the preferred location of the numbered references are, in a majority of cases. If you are uncertain you need to consult the journal style sheet (if any exists) or simply check other recent papers published by the journal in order to see how they prefer to have things set.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_6: The IEEE referencing guide can be found [here](http://libraryguides.vu.edu.au/ieeereferencing/gettingstarted) for those seeking IEEE specific referencing instructions.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/01 | 1,082 | 4,350 | <issue_start>username_0: I am reconsidering whether I want a professor's (call him X) letter of recommendation for a PhD program. The basic facts are these:
* I took Dr. X's class and did well. He encouraged me to apply to a PhD program in his field, and I took his advice. At that time, he offered to write me a strong letter of recommendation.
* More recently, I requested via email a letter of recommendation from X. I'm certain that he expected this request, and we are on good terms.
* He did not respond to my request. I managed to find him in person to ask; he said that he's already responded to my email and agreed to write it, and brushed me off in a somewhat impatient manner.
I found this interaction off putting and certainly unexpected.
This is my rationalization for what happened:
* X is very busy and does not want to write me a letter. But he promised in the past and I remained in contact with him since.
* Moreover, I already have stronger recommendation letters that I can use.
Here is my current plan:
* I will see professor X at least one more time to give him materials for the recommendation. I plan to see his reaction then, and how to proceed.
**Question**: Is there a polite way for me to ask whether he wants to write the letter, and possibly "let him off the hook"? (I don't even know whether this is the right question to ask, because honestly I don't what the right thing to do is.)
The problem is that I don't want to second-guess him, but I don't want a negative letter either. Additionally, if he's already written a letter, I don't want to waste his time.
I am based in the US, if that matters.<issue_comment>username_1: The key thing here is that you say that you have stronger letters already. If you no longer need him to write a letter, just reply to your own email to him saying you don't need one anymore. Something like this should do:
>
> "Thank you so much for agreeing to the write the letter. Another professor just got back to me about writing a letter so I should be all set for letters in this round of applications. I really appreciate your offer and I will be in touch in the future if I need one though. Thanks again!"
>
>
>
Keep in mind that most people won't write a letter until they have a deadline in front of them. That said, it is certainly more polite to let any potential letter writer know as soon as you know you won't need it just as it is polite to let them know well advance of when you will.
You frame this question as about "rescinding" a request and seem to be worried that the professor is going to be upset. You should understand that for professors, writing letters of recommendations is *a thankless chore.* Although this is generally the case, it is particularly the case for undergraduates that we only know through a single class.
Writing these letters takes hours on aggregate. Worst of all, because we also sit on the committees that read these applications, we are also all deeply aware that the letters will be read by a few people on a graduate admission committee *if we are lucky*.
Seriously though, he is not going to hold it against you. By agreeing to write a letter in the first place, he was offering to do you a favor. By letting him off the hook, you are doing him one.
Although it's not part of your question, I think you are spending too much time trying to unpack and interpret what *really* happened. Maybe he was busy or in a bad mood? Maybe he was emailing with somebody else and was confused? You say that you don't want to second guess him but that is exactly what you're doing. If he encouraged you to apply for a PhD program and said he will write a letter, it seems extremely unlikely that he's trying to sabotage you.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Remind him that he's busy.
I'd do it like this
1. Greeting
2. Appropriate amount of pleasantries.
3. I know you're busy, so thanks for taking the time to see me/read this.
4. A few weeks back We spoke about a letter for my application to program x.
5. Do you expect to have time in your schedule to fit it in in the next few weeks? I understand if you're going to be busy. I think you know me well, so it'd be great if you could manage it. (1/2-1 second silence) but if you cant it's really no big deal, I can manage.
Something like that.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/01 | 1,004 | 4,013 | <issue_start>username_0: As a PhD student in a US university, my tuition fees are ~44,000 USD per year, despite the fact that I don't take any class: only 6 classes are required during the PhD program, and I've completed them during the first two years. Why are tuition fees so high? (tuition is paid by fellowship / RA / TA / ...)<issue_comment>username_1: There are costs to you being on campus and using university resources whether you sit in a lecture or not. True, my non-lecture years were a lot cheaper for the university, but that doesn't mean the costs were zero.
My university required me to register for place-holder Research and Dissertation courses which never met so that they would have some way to account for how much to charge me. My real courses and these fake courses had the same per-credit-hour charge (more or less). Imagine if you only had to pay for the real classes that actually met. Your tuition bill for the first couple of semesters would have been $100,000 to $150,000 and then your later semesters maybe only a few thousand. This is pretty imbalanced and hard to justify to some people, so many universities average the costs across all their students rather than piling it on the ones that have lectures. It's not the only model (see Aru Ray's comment about Rice), but it mostly works out.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I think it is essentially a scam. There are essentially 3 types of students (1) self funded, (2) departmentally funded, (3) externally funded. For departmentally funded students the tuition fees are essentially meaningless and just represent money being shifted around internally. Self funded students can be really hurt by large tuition fees, but departments can offset these fees by partial departmental funding (again just internally transferring money around). The scam comes when students are funded externally and the external funder is required to pay the full fee (and potentially even indirect costs on the tuition fees). Things get messy when the funding has a cap on tuition fees. For example the [NIH NRSA](http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-14-046.html) pays 60% of the tuition up to $16,000 plus a $4,200 "institutional" allowance. Most departments I am aware of offer a tuition subsidy to individuals who get an NRSA.
It is worth noting that high fees not only puts PIs at expensive universities at a disadvantage (okay to be fair, it reduces their advantage) in that their research is more expensive than someone at a cheaper university, but it also puts them in an ethical dilemma. When tuition fees make hiring a PhD student more expensive than a post doc, it is hard for a PI to justify hiring a PhD student.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Because, as you mentioned, they are paid for by someone other than you. This happens in any subsidized industry/system. Interestingly, the subsidies grow over time instead of shrink -- the reasons beyond that are something you should ask an economics professor; it is a distinct trend.
You'll find folks who say this is the way things should be as much as you'll find folks who think its a scam. It is a logical outcome of the current academic system, may be a leading indicator of its eventual demise, and at the moment is something you should probably not dwell on unless you happen to actually be an economics postgrad (in which case I doubt you would have posed the question in the first place).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Consider this. A PhD dissertation advisor has one to a few PhD students, and their salary is somewhere in the range of 100k to 200k USD per year. Advising PhD students is a higher level work and may be considered, as a matter of an abstract principle, more challenging or meritorious than teaching a course. While 44,000 USD per year is probably somewhat on the high side, considering the above and that tuition also covers various campus services and facilities, I think it is still quite fair.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/01 | 964 | 3,542 | <issue_start>username_0: What does academic community think of anglicising foreign names in their research? For example, saying Istanbul rather than İstanbul (with capital "İ"), or, author's name, Tasan, instead of Taşan.<issue_comment>username_1: **EDITED** to clarify the type of spelling changes I'm referring to, and to address other types of spelling changes.
As someone with an 'é' in my name, I'd say that it depends on whether or not there's a good reason to leave off the diacritical marks.
I'm aware that you may not know how to type special characters, or your keyboard may make it difficult to do so. So if you send me an email, I wouldn't be offended if you leave off the diacritical marks, spelling 'é' as 'e', for example.
I'm aware that computer file systems and programming languages sometimes don't deal elegantly with non-ASCII characters. So if you name a module in a computer program after me, I wouldn't be offended if you leave off the diacritical marks.
*But if you publish something* (e.g. an academic paper), *there's no good reason not to spell my name correctly*. (You can cut and paste, can't you?) I would be annoyed if you didn't take the trouble to do so. Not only have you been lazy, but you've made it more difficult for others to know the correct spelling of my name.
**EDIT:**
As for names that aren't written in the Latin alphabet, I agree with username_2 that it makes sense to transliterate them. Unless the name is extremely well-known, the first time I use the name I would probably add the original name in parenthesis. That way, the reader can search for additional information under both names.
Of course, if Владимир Путин chooses to go by Vladimir Putin, I would respect that. I wouldn't insist on writing Владимир Путин.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: For anything that's not written in the Latin alphabet, use the standard transliteration from the relevant alphabet (e.g., "Vladim<NAME>", not "Владимир Путин"). For people's names written in the Latin alphabet, keep the accents if possible. For place names, if there is a standard Anglicization, use that (e.g., "Cologne" rather than "Köln", "Istanbul" rather than "İstanbul"); otherwise, keep the accents (e.g., "Lübeck" and "Şanlıurfa").
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: As with so many questions in life *it depends*. In Irish there's one major accent, known as a síneadh fada (pronounced sheena fa-da, meaning *length accent*, usually abbreviated to *fada*). It occurs over vowels only i.e. á, é, í, ó, ú are the long equivalents of the vowels a, e, i, o, u and it dramatically changes the sound (and as I'll illustrate below, the meaning).
The canonical example that I use here is the word "sean" pronounced in the Munster dialect as "shan"; this means *old*. Put a fada over the a and it becomes the name Seán (Irish for John, pronounced *Shawn*); put it over the e and and it becomes a verb meaning to *disavow* or *repudiate*, pronounced *shane*. So with ostensibly the same word, the accents create three different words which you can construct a sentence from:
Séan sean Seán [Disavow old John]
This is one example why you might want to spell words as they are originally.
Another reason, and this is purely opinion, is that it feels somewhat arrogant to me to insist that your pronunciation and spelling is so much better than the people who live there.
In summing up I'd exhort you to focus on the impact of your message rather than the intent; IOW tailor it for your audience.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/01 | 780 | 3,436 | <issue_start>username_0: A PhD is supposed to be an "original contribution to knowledge". In my own PhD (in an area of Earth Science) I have so far focused on developing a particular method of computer modeling that will hopefully have a range of applications in my field. In short, my question is: Is the development of an original/novel *method* a contribution to knowledge worthy of a PhD?
The reason for asking this is that my supervisor seems concerned that I am drifting away from the 'pure science questions' in my field - i.e I ought to be trying to address a fundamental research question with this new model, rather than spending most of my time developing and testing a new method.
My instinct says that it should be just as valid, and browsing some of the other PhD theses from the department suggests that a few others have gone down this route. I also see plenty of papers published that are more 'methods-focused' than 'fundamental-question-addressing'. Personally, I get a lot more satisfaction from pursuing the former kind of research, even though I accept I am not directly answering 'the big questions' as my supervisor puts it.
On the other hand, I don't predict an entirely healthy academic relationship down the line if our opinion on what constitutes an interesting PhD thesis differs so fundamentally, and I also consider the possibility that I could just be plain wrong in my interpretation of "original contribution to knowledge".<issue_comment>username_1: While developing a method has merit within science, that method needs to be useful to answer a question which is not currently answerable. I too have worked primarily on methods development in graduate school, and got stung by this in some of my early work. So, while it's good to focus on the method, always have the question in front of you: "what do we want to know, that we can't know yet, that my method will be able to tell us?"
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes. This was the basis of my successfully completed PhD.
Scientific methods must be able to solve something that can not yet be solved, or be (as was my case) an innovative improvement on an existing methodology that is more accurate, more accessible and if possible, more inexpensive. The latter requires considerable validation of the data produced.
It is critical that the method be able to be scrutinized scientifically for repeatability and reliability.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Is the development of an original/novel method a contribution to knowledge worthy of a PhD?
>
>
>
This depends largely on what you mean with "method". Coming up with a theoretically sound way to tackle a specific class of research problems better than currently possible is likely a good contribution (with potential for very high impact). If "method" means a technical improvement of an existing approach or tool, the contribution may be too technical.
However, as you indicate yourself, this really isn't the important practical question in your case. Even if we all here agree that a new method is a solid research outcome for a PhD student, what good is this to you if your advisor disagrees? At the end of the day, your research needs to make both, you and your advisor happy. Doing something that your advisor does not think is PhD-worthy will lead to no ends of trouble, no matter what we random people on the internet have said.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/02 | 1,705 | 7,046 | <issue_start>username_0: Suppose that a famous mathematician E (long deceased) made a conjecture (C), but no written record of this can be found (either because none exists, or because it exists in a very obscure source). Then, a senior mathematician S, who knows for a fact that (C) was conjectured by E, tells another mathematician X about this problem, and indeed X manages to prove (C). Just to clarify: S is sure about the conjecture, but does not have a publicly available source for it.
This creates a problem: one of the reasons for X's interest in the problem was the question asked by E. Without context, the problem is still interesting, but less so, and it would be better to include a reference to the conjecture whenever communicating the result. Presumably, in verbal communication this is not a problem, since one can simply explain how things are. But what about publishing the result?
I see the following options. Which of these are most widely accepted? Is there any better alternative?
1. Not mention E at all, simply state the result as is.
2. Mention that (C) was conjectured by E but not make effort to justify this.
3. Mention that (C) was conjectured by E, try to use elaborately justify that.
4. Keep digging for a reference (the real question here is - for how long.).
*The question is most natural in mathematics, but I suppose it makes some sense in other disciplines. Feel free to post non-mathematics based answers/comments.*<issue_comment>username_1: "Which of these are most widely accepted?" sounds like you're asking a poll-type question, which is not quite kosher for this site. I believe that the situation is sufficiently unusual that there is no "standard" answer. Nevertheless I will say what I think.
First of all I want to express some skepticism of the premise that the information that Conjecture (C) was made by famous, long-deceased professor E is an important to the extent that the work of the paper would be less interesting without it. If Conjecture (C) had been well known to the community and many other people had worked on it and/or written about it, then its provenance would be key information: those who knew about the conjecture would make a clear audience for the paper and would vouch for the prestige and value of the work. But if no one -- or almost no one -- except S has prior familiarity with Conjecture (C), then the information that it is due to professor E becomes more of a piece of trivia / personal motivation for professor X. If the provenance of the conjecture had really been a key motivation for X, then one wonders why X did not verify this before working on the problem.
Second I want to say that I think you are using "knows for a fact" in a way different from the way I would use it. If S is "sure" about the provenance of the conjecture because he saw it in print once but now cannot locate that printed source -- then actually he is not sure, I would say. Often someone thinks they saw a certain piece of information in print, but when they go back to check it turns out they did not remember it accurately. In fact probably every working academic has had this experience more than once. I'm sure S is great, but "S says it, and S can be relied upon" is not really convincing to me no matter who S is. In a professional context, the things that one is "sure" about should be verifiable: if E is a famous mathematician, then it should be possible to get a comprehensive list of their publications, and then with sufficient effort one can look through all of them, including "obscure conference proceedings".
The way I would handle the situation is by first corresponding with S and making sure that S is completely comfortable with being attributed the claim that Conjecture (C) was first made by E: if this gets published, then S may get asked some questions about this. If they are not comfortable I would go with something more mild like mentioning S in the acknowledgments. If on the other hand S really insists that Conjecture (C) is due to E, then that is what X knows and X can put that in the paper in that form, i.e., something like
>
> Conjecture (C) was conveyed to me by S. According to Professor S, the Conjecture was first made in a paper of E. Unfortunately we have not been able to track down a reference."
>
>
>
I would also be prepared to get some questions about this from the editor or referee when you submit the paper.
Finally: have you asked about this on MathOverflow? This would be a very appropriate question on that site: if the paper exists then *someone* ought to know how to find it, though you may not know nor even know how to find that person. Even if the question does not get answered in this way, you (or X) can still point to it as proof of your due diligence in the matter.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This is a very old question. I would like to add that in my experience, this is actually quite a common occurrence in mathematics, counter to the belief of the previous answer. It's not usually that Famous Mathematician E whispered their conjecture into the ear of Professor S in secret. Rather, that Famous Mathematician E (potentially in an informal context, perhaps not) made a conjecture, and that conjecture---now in a *very* modified form that fits modern notation and perhaps a more generalized conclusion than was originally postulated---is still referred to as the "E Conjecture" even though it's hard to find an original source (and that original source would not be helpful to the problem at hand).
The solution is simple: find another paper in the literature that names the explicit form of this conjecture (with the right assumptions, etc.) that you want to work with, and cite it as a conjecture in your paper, with something like "E Conjecture (as stated in [reference]).
Examples:
When writing something about the Sato-Tate conjecture, for instance, I was unable to find the original reference for the conjecture: as far as I understand, the conjecture was made by <NAME>, to explain computational data recently found by <NAME>, about the distribution of Fourier coefficients of modular forms corresponding to non-CM elliptic curves. The statement was later expanded to correspond to *all* non-CM automorphic forms with trivial nebentypus, and was then proven in 2011. However, it is still referred to, even in the most generalized form, as the "Sato-Tate conjecture" in most of the literature. (even though it is not a conjecture anymore, and the now-proven statement is far more general than what Tate originally envisioned envisioned).
Similarly, suppose you're writing something about the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis for a specific class of L-function, say, Dirichlet L-functions, Rankin-Selberg L-functions, or Symmetric power L-functions; you're unlikely to find a single, first postulation of the conjecture as the "Generalized Riemann Hypothesis for \_\_\_\_ L-functions," even if it is commonly referred to as such in the literature.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/02 | 819 | 3,490 | <issue_start>username_0: I have completed my masters in English Literature from India and now want to do my PhD from the US. Should I take both the tests, i.e. TOEFL and GRE? Or only TOEFL will be enough? And if I need to take the GRE, then is it a must to take the subject test as well?<issue_comment>username_1: There is no general rule here. The only solution is to look up the requirements of each program you are interested in applying to. Some schools may require both, others the TOEFL but not the GRE, or vice versa. (As for the subject test, it will most likely be required of all applicants or not required for all students. Domestic versus international likely won't matter.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The TOEFL and the GRE are quite different. The 'point' -- in as much as standardized tests have one -- of the TOEFL is to figure out if you have sufficient mastery of English to study (and potentially be a Teaching Assistant/Instructor) in an English-speaking environment. The TOEFL is generally required of all non-native English speakers. Graduate programs often waive this requirement if the student is enrolled in and about to complete a degree from a US institution (or did so recently). It's possible that they might waive the requirement for a similar student from a university in other English-speaking countries such as the UK, Australia/NZ, etc. but I am not sure (I don't know anyone who has tried.) Sometimes graduate programs will state that they will waive the TOEFL requirement for a student from a bachelors/masters program with English as a language of instruction. Most Indian colleges/universities I know of are English-medium, but I've never heard of an Indian student applying from India who has had the TOEFL requirement waived this way. (I am an international student from India. I was an undergraduate in the US, and the TOEFL requirement was waived for me by all the graduate programs I applied to.)
The GRE on the other hand is generally required for *all* applicants, domestic and international. Wikipedia says that it aims to measure ''verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, analytical writing, and critical thinking skills that have been acquired over a long period of time and that are not related to any specific field of study.''
The TOEFL is more of a checkbox - programs just want all their international students to have some minimal mastery of English so they can perform the usual duties of a graduate student. The GRE is more of an actual comparative tool for all the candidates which can actually affect an admission decision. The two tests are quite different in content and questions --- the TOEFL might contain a question which will play an audio clip of a 'usual' conversation between a student and a professor and ask you whether you can understand what was said; whereas GRE questions might ask you to critique the logic of an argument or perform some high-school level problem-solving task.
Notably the TOEFL obviously does not have a quantitative section whereas the GRE does.
At this point in the US, I believe there are very few graduate programs that do not require at least the general GRE of all its applicants. Subject tests are not as widely required, but in my experience the better programs require them.
tl;dr: you will probably need to take both the GRE (general) and the TOEFL. Look into the programs you want to apply to to figure out whether you should take the GRE subject test.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/10/02 | 687 | 2,790 | <issue_start>username_0: Is there any research/study/survey that looked at the pedagogical benefits of assessing students with closed-book exams for graduate-level courses (vs. open-book exams)?
I'm mostly interested in computer science and math education in the USA, if the answer is field- or country-dependent.<issue_comment>username_1: It depends on what you're trying to teach, and what you're trying to assess.
If your goal is to convey concepts, or to teach the things that everyone needs to be able to do without consulting references in order to be productive, closed book may be entirely appropriate.
If your goal is to test their ability to combine and apply the concepts, open book may be more appropriate.
(And yes, I too remember tests with "official" cheat sheets as a balance between these. Then again, I also remember one test whose official cheat sheet was essentially a set of mathematical jokes, because the test itself didn't require any of the rote-memorization material. Then again again, I also remember closed book tests where one of the tools I used was a set of mnemonics that would let me quickly scribble out my own cheat sheet for the formulas/simplifications I most needed -- I can still recite "quasineutrality, uniformity, equilibrium, low-level injection, steady state" but I'd have to hit the books to again remember how those assumptions were used.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A Google search for "research on open book testing" gives many results. For example, there is a paper "Examining the testing effect with open- and closed-book tests" by <NAME>, Kang, Roediger and McDermott (<http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.1391>) with abstract as follows:
>
> Two experiments examined the testing effect with open-book tests, in
> which students view notes and textbooks while taking the test, and
> closed-book tests, in which students take the test without viewing
> notes or textbooks. Subjects studied prose passages and then restudied
> or took an open- or closed-book test. Taking either kind of test, with
> feedback, enhanced long-term retention relative to conditions in which
> subjects restudied material or took a test without feedback. Open-book
> testing led to better initial performance than closed-book testing,
> but this benefit did not persist and both types of testing produced
> equivalent retention on a delayed test. Subjects predicted they would
> recall more after repeated studying, even though testing enhanced
> long-term retention more than restudying. These experiments
> demonstrate that the testing effect occurs with both open- and
> closed-book tests, and that subjects fail to predict the effectiveness
> of testing relative to studying in enhancing later recall.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/02 | 1,146 | 3,927 | <issue_start>username_0: Various research articles1 have been published on the prevalence of stimulant medicine (Adderall, Concerta, Ritalin) abuse among undergraduate students.
By "abuse of stimulant medicine," I am referring to the practice of students taking prescription medication that is prescribed to someone else (or, that is prescribed to them under false pretenses) in order to improve their focus and concentration while studying.
There is some [anecdotal evidence](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/popping-pills-a-popular-way-to-boost-brain-power/) of university faculty taking Adderall and related medications to enhance academic performance (and *not* to treat an attention disorder).
Is there any reference to research2 on the prevalance of stimulant medicine abuse among university faculty?
---
1 Here is a review article that covers some of them:
>
> Varga, <NAME>. "Adderall abuse on college campuses: a comprehensive literature review." *Journal of evidence-based social work* 9.3 (2012): 293-313.
> DOI: [10.1080/15433714.2010.525402](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15433714.2010.525402)
>
>
>
2 I am looking for answers that are a reference to such a study. I am not looking for answers from anecdotal evidence not supported by a study or citation. I am also not looking for answers explaining why such a study is unlikely to exist, or why it should not be trusted if it did.<issue_comment>username_1: There were several prominent publications in Nature, spurred by a survey that they conducted of their readers who were able to broadly identify their area of work. See this link here for information about the survey, which also cites the papers that were published in Nature. <http://network.nature.com/groups/naturenewsandopinion/forum/topics/1309>
In researching this topic, I used google scholar and the search terms "stress stimulants faculty -students" and published 2008 or later to arrive at meaningful search results.
The most likely reason there is more work published on student use is that students as a demographic group are both easier to study and are a more similar group of cohorts than faculty as a demographic group, which are more diverse in age, race, ethnicity, etc.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This is a more detailed answer explaining the results of the survey given by [Sydney E. Everhart's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/36884/11365).
The results of the informal 2008 Nature survey1 found that
>
> One in five respondents said they had used drugs for non-medical reasons to stimulate their focus, concentration or memory.
>
>
>
More specifically, a [comment](http://network.nature.com/groups/naturenewsandopinion/forum/topics/1309?page=1#reply-3604) attributed to the author of this article clarifies:
>
> For the record, our poll didn’t parse out academics, or practicing scientists very thoroughly and the overall results can’t really be tied to scientists exactly. But our demographics do allow us to make some assumptions. We asked what category generally describes your field and included among the limited choices, Biology, Chemistry, Earth & Environmental Science, Engineering, Medicine, Physics, and Education. So if we assume those are ‘academic’ fields and academic respondents, we have 817 respondents out of a total 1,400 that fit that loose demographic. Of those we found that 106 (13%) used neuroenhancing-type drugs for medically prescribed reasons. And 159 (19%) used drugs for non-medical (i.e. cognition-enhancing) purposes. That’s pretty consistent with the overall distribution in the poll.
>
>
>
Unfortunately, the data from that survey - which was previously freely available for download - seems to no longer be online.
---
1 <NAME>. "Poll results: look who's doping." Nature 452 (2008): 674-675. DOI: [10.1038/452674a](http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/452674a)
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/10/02 | 6,706 | 28,833 | <issue_start>username_0: At my university, most lecturers and professors use slides in teaching. This is true for most engineering, mathematics and science courses. I am more comfortable with doing the board work and then sharing my hand-written lecture notes with the students. From my personal experience, I feel that the latter is a better way of teaching.
So, what are the advantages of using slides? Why do *you* use slides?
Secondly, does the answer to the above question change if you were teaching graduate students?<issue_comment>username_1: I am a student and I much prefer lecturers who write on the board than the ones who use slides.
Profs using slides generally go into loop mode where they have the objective of going through all the slides before the end of the class. As such, profs tend to go in a very fast pace.
Writing on the board brings some dynamism to the lectures. The lecturer tends to pace himself much better, and students are then more encouraged to ask questions as they go along.
Also, having students write notes help them become more active and aware during the lecture.
In my experience I've seen lots of profs who just read the stuff from their slides without elaborating any further. The students then tend to fall asleep since they know the lectures are basically in the slides.
Also, I have the impression that profs using slides are lazier in their teaching, in the sense that they don't even review the slides they are about to present before the lectures.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Slides can be great to force you structure your lectures before class and actually stick to them, and they are always more legible than writing on a board (plus less messy if you have to deal with chalk rather than a whiteboard).
That being said, the slides remove some of the dynamism from the course in that they have students think less critically than when watching you work with a board. Part of this disengagement simply comes from lighting, but another part comes from the way that slides can't easily be amended during a lecture.
The most fun aspect that I've noticed when I use boards is that the students who are taking notes write down *everything* that I write on the board. Those notes are much less structured than what I could produce with slides that they would later download, but the actual process of writing out the notes keeps students mentally engaged as well as promoting a discussion rather than just a lecture.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: First of all, let me say that I think that there are lectures that are better taught with slides (e.g. more applied lectures) and lectures that are better taught on the board (e.g. most math lectures).
>
> So, what are the advantages of using slides? Why do you use slides?
>
>
>
The most common (but imho the worst) reason is probably: because it is easier and less work in the long run. You can concentrate on what you want to say and you can easily reuse your slides from last year. You can also just upload your slides which is less work than writing down everything that you have written on the board.
It is easier to implement pictures/sound/videos/... what ever media works in your context. For example you can show data, output or interface of a program, how a plant looks like, ...
Students don't have to copy everything from the board and have more time to concentrate on the lecture and just make their own notes on the slides and fill out the blanks you left for them to fill. In addition there are no handwriting issues.
You can do more material in less time which is, when used incorrectly, a disadvantage but can be extremely useful if the material is very easy or if you just want to show some interesting applications/examples.
And ,you can still use the board for things that have to be done slowly, e.g. proofs, and to keep things less static, e.g. if there is a question you can just switch to the board.
>
> Secondly, does the answer to the above question change if you were
> teaching graduate students?
>
>
>
No. Graduate lectures are more often in the category that I personally would present at the board (more proofs and complicated things) but that has nothing to do with the students, just the things I want to cover in the lecture.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I use slides as
1. I'm more likely to get the details correct on slides than when I'm trying to explain *and* write at the same time (e.g., writing out a moderately large matrix example);
2. I much prefer heavy use of figures in explanations, but I can't draw to save my life;
3. I'm often teaching courses on numerical methods, and if I can't show how it could be done on a computer "for real" then I'd feel I was cheating the students.
However, my personal preference for any "proof" sections of the course is never to *just* use slides, but to use both slides and board. The slides hold the statement and maybe a key step or detail that's a pain to write down. The steps of the calculation are done on the board. This can be a pain in rooms where the projected slide overlaps with the board, but can be made to work in my cases.
I have used the same approach for UG and PG teaching without change: concepts and figures on slides, details on the board. The only difference I find, as a rule of thumb, is that in the graduate case it's tempting to give more details on the board as the concepts are harder and the steps involved longer. Using the slides helps me resist this and keep focused on the big picture, but the slides still tend to be shorter.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Advantages of slides over boardwork? Laziness, clean hands, digitally distributable product that represents all the work you didn't actually demonstrate in class.
And... those are also the disadvantages.
Board work is usually more engaging, and at least the classes I've taken and given, board-based classes kept the students (*and the instructor!*) mentally and verbally engaged in the material. Its naturally more exciting to watch an animated instructor write things out, check himself mentally for a moment, subconsciously sharpshoot him yourself as he moves along, etc. than to just listen to what may as well have been a recorded session flashing by on screen.
People who write on boards tend to *only* write the important bits on the board, and have prose handouts full of other details for reading and reference later. The constraints of live board work perform a magically precise editorial function which *forces* the instructor to either be concise or fail. Handouts retain every benefit of the slides but without exposing the instructor to the temptation of drifting into a passive or mentally absent teaching mode.
This is particularly important in graduate or corporate classes where the material may be new, originated by the person teaching and not yet fully baked (a wonderful situation where the gallery's questions actively deepen the instructor/researcher's knowledge *right then* -- is there any greater ideal?). People who write on boards usually have either rehearsed their material or know it intimately enough to pace through an essentially hands-on class as they go -- even (or especially) in the case of new research. This is as good as it gets for live instruction!
And this leads me to the worst thing about slides...
The laziness permitted by slides is paradoxically compounded by the temptation to be verbose in the slides themselves. This is the worst form of detached instruction and often devolves to the point that the "instruction" consists of an underprepared instructor who feels prepared (he's got his slides, right!) essentially reading whatever is written on the slides to the class. In these cases equal time spent with a book in a quiet place benefits a student more than having suffered through the presentation. Such sessions are a sad satire on modern pedagogy; but satire is not what your students came for.
The points above also happen to be relevant in organizational briefings. The cardinal rule is that the person doing the talking *is* the class, not the board or slides or other AV assistance. Someone with something to say who knows how to say it doesn't require anything but his energy and voice -- the other stuff is either enhancement or distraction.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: From the perspective of a student, I have seen good and bad teachers, irrelevant what method they used (board or slides).
However, I never liked boards. You need to copy everything from the board. That is, you concentrate pretty all of your brain time on copying (depending on the teacher's writing speed which is usually quite high). This might be a good practice in your early school life, but in higher levels of education we can assume that students know how to write.
The advantage of using slides is that students can spend a small amount of their time on writing (additional notes) and most of their time thinking about the content. Hence, allowing them to connect and understand the information they hear and ask interesting questions.
For me, that's the critical and important advantage. If I want to read, I read a book. If I go to a lecture, it should be interactive. I should be able to ask questions. And answer questions posted by the teacher to the class!
In my opinion, it does not depend on the level of education. You should learn how to think and ask questions early on.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Not huge, you have more freedom to respond to students responses and questions with board work while slides tend to have a better structure.
If the class is looking a little lost it's easy to expand on something on the board but you can't make more slides on the fly.
If you do choose board work please do provide handouts or similar with the actual material you'll be scribbling up on the board.
when I was a student I could either be writing down what you just said or I could be thinking about what you just said. Your choice.
If you try to force students to scribble down everything while you're talking they're going to be thinking "damn, where's my spare pen, this one is going dry" not "Hm. I wonder how that principle applies to...." when you say something.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: I teach courses written by other people. Thousands of trainers around the world teach the same courses. Using slides generated by the courseware authors gives us consistency and repeatability. Our courses prepare students for certification exams, so the course content must be consistent.
I do, however, also use whiteboards, mostly for scribbled quick diagrams. If the diagram is complicated I'll create and make it available electronically.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: I use slides when I teach because:
1. It forces me to prepare for class in advance. (This is usually not a problem for me, but I had a professor in undergrad who only wrote on the board because he didn't have a lesson plan or anything prepared for the day. I vowed to never ever teach like that!)
2. I have time to articulate my thoughts on my slides.
3. The information that I want the students to know is on the slides. That means that EVEN IF I was lecturing too fast or a student couldn't take notes fast enough or the student couldn't read my handwriting or a student couldn't come to class, it doesn't matter. Because all the information is on the slides and I provide them with digital copies.
4. I get way more joke opportunities with slides and I can keep the students engaged.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Advantages of using slides:
* Students get insufficient sleep, and a slideshow presentation allows them to catch up on their sleep hours somewhat.
* Slides decrease student-teacher interaction, and we are all introverts nowadays, so less interaction is a good thing!
* Slides make it less likely that a student will take notes in class, thus saving on ink.
* The presumption that slides or video will be posted disincentivizes students from attending class, thus allowing for smaller classrooms.
* Slides are good for ignorance, and as we all know, ignorance is bliss!
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_11: It is, of course, possible to use slides in good ways and bad ways, just as it is possible to use blackboards/whiteboards in good ways and bad ways. I hardly ever use slides for reasons I document here:
<http://okasaki.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-i-dont-use-powerpoint-for-teaching.html>
But you asked for ADVANTAGES of slides.
One is for showing pictures. For example, if you wanted to talk about brush strokes in the Mona Lisa, you probably wouldn't try to duplicate those brush strokes on a blackboard. Many fields have plenty of pictures to show. (But note that I'm not talking about gratuitous pictures like 99% of clipart and stock photos.)
A second advantage can be when the presenter has a terrible memory or otherwise gets confused easily. The slides can be helpful reminders that keep you on track (but written notes might work as well). One place where I run into this situation is if I have to give the same lesson more than twice in quick succession, when it can be easy to become confused about whether you've made a particular comment during THIS session, as opposed the same presentation an hour ago, or the one an hour before that.
A third "advantage" is that slides made by somebody else can be a great timesaver for a lazy teacher. For example, some textbook publishers offer slides to go along with the textbook. So if you are a teacher who wants to put very little time into a class, using the premade slides can seem like a great choice. As a less perjorative example, I have sometimes provided slides to somebody that I was asking to fill in for me when I was sick or on a trip.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_12: I teach math - mostly to undergrads. As of late I have started using slides more and more. The reasons (and my rants):
* Our sciences building is being renovated, so the math department is "temporarily" relocated in social sciences building. Thus we need to use whatever sorry excuses for lecture halls they, the nearby law school, and the adjacent educational sciences building have to offer. In a metrosexual climax those had largely opted to "modernize" and only equip their auditoriums with video projectors and stamp sized whiteboards, whereas I used to fill up a set of 8 blackboards of total area 6ft x 30ft every 45 minutes.
* Students have been complaining about the legibility of my handwriting for quite some time. Moving to the whiteboards made the problem worse. Also, the standard of cursive taught in our schools has changed a number of times since I did time in grade school. Thus my handwriting is a twice removed cousin to what the students expect.
* Try as I may, my 3D-sketches suck, which makes it a bit more difficult to explain my points in, say, multivariable calculus. When I leave rendering to Mathematica I have extra tools at my disposal. Such as full control of the perspective and color - colored chalk has always been hard to find (when the need springs up), and some colors are hard to see on a whiteboard. Also animations become feasible.
* I have always been complaining about how the students concentrate on frantically taking notes instead of trying to follow my thought process. Thus it is simply intellectually honest to provide them with copyable documents about those examples that I really want them to spend time on.
* I have not observed noticeable dips in the attendance as a consequence of me using slides. Some freshmen are intoxicated about their newly achieved "academic freedom", and cut a class or three. Quite irrespective of whether I use slides or a blackboard. The choice of method of learning the material is their responsibility. My role is to provide them with various ways of achieving that goal. They are free to pick and choose.
* Also, is there a significant difference to copying the notes from the course web page as opposed to from a "designated writer" class mate? If anything, the quality of the copy I provide is probably better. If somebody missed a class for family reasons or illness, they have a sporting chance of keeping up, when the lecture slides are available.
Edit: Having said all that I do agree with the point of another answerer that it is easy to make the slides too polished, and only present the end product - a solution, a proof, whatever. This may be a problem on those occasions when the journey is more important than the destination. I am trying to learn how to capture that on the slides, too. At least the most scenic points. Also, I still like to give the students who do show up something extra. In those auditoriums, where the video projector's screen won't roll down in front of the whiteboard/blackboard I can do both.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_13: It is quite controversial whether slides are better than a board, and I think this also depends very much on what and how you are teaching. But you have asked specifically for advantages, so I will try to focus on those. I will, however, mention caveats.
* As Shawn says, slides can work as a very nice conceptual map of where you want your lecture to go, compared to just going up to an empty board with a chalk. The caveat is that you can simply prepare a few sheets of handwritten notes, and use these to accomplish the same goal.
* It is much easier to pace yourself, both because the slides serve as a detailed outline and also because you can use the number of slides as an estimate of how long you will take. (but this can also be done by preparing notes, counting the pages or doing a practice lecture with a stopwatch)
* You can return to previous slides easily or peek ahead as needed without having to erase the board and re-write everything.
* There is no risk of students having trouble reading your script (unless your slides are truly pathological), everything is clear. Of course, you could just write legibly.
* Typing is faster/less tiring than writing for many people. Perhaps it takes you 50 minutes to type up everything on the slides you will use, but it would take you 70 minutes of lecture time to write it all out in class. Plus, all the time is invested before the lecture, so you can devote all your lecture time to lecturing, instead of writing.
* On that note, with slides you can focus on your lecture without being distracted by writing (eg. which part of the board to write the next bit on, how big to write, how to lay it out, whether to erase some parts first). This may sound silly, but for instance my script is beautiful on paper but hideous on a board - every time I must use a board, I always feel very insecure with how ugly and not-neat my writing and drawings look, and this is very distracting to me because it makes the usual public speaking anxiety that much worse.
* Generally, the maximum speed you can write legibly at is not guaranteed to be greater than the optimal speed of covering the material. With slides, there is less danger of having to spend a long time writing out lengthy material that can be understood very quickly, but only once all of it is displayed/written. But conversely, if you are lecturing faster than you can write, how will students keep up with their notes?
* You only need to prepare slides once, and can reuse them with minor updates. If you tend to write on the blackboard, you will have to write all of the material again and again every time you teach the class (although you can reuse your notes).
* You can (and should) speak information which is related, but not identical, to what's on the slides. Often slides have more basic, fundamental points as you develop more complex ideas verbally. In this way, students can easily solve problems like "what does that new term that the lecturer just used mean again?" and follow more easily. You can essentially have 2 parallel threads running simultaneously, and students can switch back and forth between them depending on which one is easier to follow. Imagine you are teaching archeometry to a class that is half chemists and half historians. During the chemistry slides, the chemists can listen to you talking about the intricacies of the chemistry, while the historians focus on the basics from the slides. Then during the history part (eg. metallurgical developments), vice versa. But it can be argued that such heterogeneous teaching is not a good idea in the first place.
* The slides can be given out to students for study in their own time. (but so can scanned notes, photos of the board, video recordings of lectures, etc)
* If slides are given ahead of time, students can print out slides, and significantly reduce how much writing they need to take by writing down only things which you say that are not on the slides (because they are better explained verbally, or because they came up after a question, etc). The caveat is that writing helps retention, so this may actually impair students' ability to learn the material on the slides.
* With slides, you can display arbitrary images. For instance, complex patterns that would take time to draw on a board, plots that are hard to draw just right, photographs (both ordinary and technical such as micrographs), busy figures with many intricate features (sometimes the figure simply cannot be any simpler). *But*, you can just print handouts with the pictures, or use a good old fashioned slide projector.
* You can include things like animations, video and audio. Animations are useless 99% of the time (although they may help at times). Video and audio can be invaluable in some classes, for instance videos of behavioral psychology experiments or audio in a music theory class. But then again, you can still teach your class on a board and only go to slides for the audio/video.
* A bright rectangle of light in the middle of a dark room will focus everyone's attention on it. But on the other hand, it also makes it very easy to zone out and catch up on some quality Z time. (plus, if you darken the room it will be hard to write notes)
Conclusion
----------
It is possible to name many advantages of using slides, especially if you don't mind very specific advantages. However, most aren't real advantages, in the sense that you can have a lecture that's as good, and probably better, by:
* Preparing paper notes for yourself.
* Practicing the lecture before class and timing yourself.
* Thinking about your learning objectives for the lecture and being mindful of them to stay on track and not get derailed.
* Preparing handouts if you must show many images that are hard to draw or many equations that take too long to write out.
* Using the computer only to show video clips and so on, and then returning to your usual lecture after the video is over.
If you follow these, there are very few real advantages of slides, and many disadvantages (distraction, restricts your freedom of drawing and writing to PowerPoint's formatting options, not effective for learning). This is, of course, if your goal is to have a very effective lecture.
Sadly, often people aim instead to spend as little time and effort as possible on the lecture. In that case, PowerPoint will produce a mediocre lecture, while writing on the board will produce an awful one. Too often people take the idea that "old fashioned teaching on the board is better than slides" and then think they can do a good job with inadequate preparation by just teaching from the board instead of using slides. They end up rambling on and on, and after the lecture all the students say to each other, "What the hell was he going on about up there? I didn't understand a single thing!" (unless this happens to be an extremely talented teacher)
On the other hand, it is impossible to lecture from slides with zero preparation (since you do have to *make* the slides at least) so it forces some semblance of coherence on you, although not much. So, if you are going to do your students a disservice by not preparing adequately, you are better off with PowerPoint (but only in the sense that you are better off losing a hand than losing your arm).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_14: Powerpoint corrupts absolutely ... but you can write slides that help students memorize what is the main point you are talking about.
Then I use lot of board space to illustrate what I am saying.
I taught once in Sweden and was very happy: there were boards all around the room so I could keep important drawings and assertions still alive and well!
(I teach programming and programming is an art and what you say should be tailored to your students way of thinking so pre-cooked slides are not extremely detailed but often show images intended to illustrate a problem and help students memorize a path to their own re-engineering of the topic)..
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_15: Another alternative is to use a tablet device with a computer projector to hand write notes. This has the advantage of slowing the lecturer down (just like writing on a black board) while being visible to a very large audience and easily recorded by a lecture capture system. I've switched to this approach in recent years and find that students really prefer it to prepared slides (which just fly by too fast.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_16: <NAME> has an essay on "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Piching out corrupts within" ([link](http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint)). As you may expect, it criticizes slide show style in favor of hand outs, speeches and non-bullet listed slides. The essay is not a direct answer to your question but I think it contains relevant points.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_17: Some great answers contributed so far. I think slides are great for illustrative purposes and to give some kind of structure to the lecture. However, there are certain subjects that are better done on the board-for example mathematics. On the other hand, subjects like biology are better illustrated on a slide. You can use slides to illustrate graphical displays, videos, etc (In my experience most lecturers don't use enough of these anyway). The pace of the lecturer is more difficult to control when using slides compared to boards. Using boards encourages students to ask questions and this makes the class more interactive-there's just something about approaching a blank board with creativity. If you have a bigger group, it may be more appropriate to use slides as students may not be able to see a board from afar-however, electronic boards would be a solution to this.
All in all, I think slides are often used inappropriately and a combination of the two won't hurt in most cases.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_18: The reason I use slide in my gen-ed science classes is
...wait for it...
to get the students **to engage**.
---
This runs counter to much of the advice that you see in other answers because slides by default make it very easy for watchers to *not* engage.
I'm doing what PER people call "active engagement" in these classes and it takes the form of making them interact with me and their peers on the topic of the day. The slides are so that I can quickly put up question that will be the focus of interaction sessions five or more times a class: I force them to interact with me through class polls, answer cards, and direct questioning; I force them to interact with each other by asking them to convince one-another of their answer to these polls with there is disagreement and circulating to hear how they are approaching the problem.
This is not without it's costs. If I have misjudged how much the class will actually get I won't finish my material that day, or will finish early. I haven't been able to get this working to my satisfaction in classes other than gen-ed sections, though I am trying to do a little of it.
So, the slides aren't really the focus of the instructions. It's the interactive questions that make up the bulk of the class time, and the slides help me put them up without a lot of fuss. Of course, I also put the structured part of the lecture on the slides because I am going to have the lights dimmed and the projector on.
I also only lecture for about 60% of these classes, turning the later part of class over to activities, group exercises, and directed follow-up investigations. I can circulate during those times and try to help out students who were floundering during the lecture part of class.
---
I've had less luck porting this style to my deeper and more math intensive courses, and mostly lecture from the board for those classes, though I do fall back on the questions-on-slides style for some foundation building days.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/02 | 2,003 | 8,534 | <issue_start>username_0: I am applying to a tenure-track assistant professor job in an applied math department,
for which the job posting states
>
> Applicants should state their current and expected salary in the application.
>
>
>
Questions:
* Why does the department ask for "expected salary"?
Is it because they are trying to exploit my naiveté?
* What number should I state in my application?
If I state a number that is on the low side,
will they use that to offer me a lower salary?
At the moment, I am thinking of just stating my estimate of the mean salary
for new assistant professors at math departments,
which according to a [Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Salaries Survey](http://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?SurveyID=24)
is $71,412.<issue_comment>username_1: If you want to take the safe approach, it may help to choose the mean assistant professor salary for the kind of school you are applying to, and where the school is: a state school in Wyoming will have a lower average assistant professor salary than a private research-level school in Cambridge, MA, for example.
And, although I haven't been on the job market, I know (from discussion with my adviser about this question) that while this may be a factor, others are more important: how much does the department want you and what your other offers are, being two of the biggest.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I feel it's kind of obnoxious to ask for an expected salary, and it does raise issues of whether the answer could be used to lower the initial offer (or decrease the applicant's negotiating power). I don't see anything wrong with giving a vague answer or just saying you are flexible. If you specify a number, you should try to choose one that's representative of the type of school you are applying to, as username_1 suggests.
As for why they do it, one reason is that salaries vary enormously. A regional liberal arts college may pay less than half as much as a leading research university. Some U.S. states scandalously underfund their state universities, so there can be dramatic salary differences between what you'd think are comparable institutions. The net effect is that schools that aren't able to pay a lot worry about attracting candidates who have no idea how little they pay. They don't want to waste time trying to hire someone who will never accept any amount they could plausibly offer. One way to get around that is to announce a salary range. However, some departments are hesitant to do that, perhaps because they don't want to publicly emphasize how little money they get (and thereby humiliate themselves or discourage applicants). Instead, they ask for an expected salary and filter out anyone who names a figure far out of their range. I don't like it, but it seems to work well enough that departments keep doing it.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: If it's a public university, look up the local/regional salary website that covers it (like the [Texas Tribune site](http://salaries.texastribune.org/)). Record the names and salaries for all of the Assistant Professors in that department. Estimate via Google search when each of them started at the university in question. Add a year (since the salary sites are usually a year out of date). Assume 2%/year annual raise. Work backwards to their starting salaries. Decide where you think you would rank among the tenure-track professors if you were all starting at the same time, and pick that percentile among the salaries and submit it. If public data isn't available for the university you are applying to, model a similar university in a similar town that does have data available, and then adjust for cost of living.
This is an applied math problem *par excellence*. You best option is to use your skills to predict a reliable answer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Taking the numbers from higheredjobs.com, you'll see that there is considerable variation across types of institutions- the number you quoted was for "research universities", while "doctoral universities" was a separate classification with a lower average salary. The survey also didn't distinguish between private universities and public universities (salaries at top private universities are considerably higher.)
The American Mathematical Society also publishes an annual salary survey that I'd encourage you to examine. The AMS numbers actually show higher starting salaries at the most prestigious research universities (over $80K), but also show much smaller starting salaries at the bachelors and masters level institutions where most of the jobs are. I think this AMS survey is more reflective of the variation in salaries than the CUPA survey that higheredjobs.com reports.
I also searched AMS's web site for job ads that featured this requirement. There were five such ads, Two were for positions outside of the US (where these salary surveys aren't meaningful.) One position is for a department chair (an administrative job that these salary surveys don't cover.) One position is for a postdoc. The last ad is for a named associate professorship (an endowed chair) where the department will be looking to hire talent away from other departments.
Asking candidates for a more senior level position (department chair or the named professorship) what their salary demands are is a reasonable thing to do- you don't want to waste everyone's time interviewing someone who is already much better paid than you can afford. It makes a lot less sense when you're talking about an entry level tenure track position where most of your candidates are applying from temporary positions (VAP or postdoc.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: It's easy for me to say this, since I'm not applying, but I simply wouldn't list anything. There's always some risk when leaving out a part of the application that someone is very bureaucratically minded, but I think in this case, the chance is pretty small. It's very hard for me to imagine the conversation in the hiring meeting going: "This application looks very promising." "But it doesn't list his/her current salary. Well, in the trash it goes!"
It'll be trickier if someone directly contacts you, points out that you missed this and asks you to clarify. At some point, if you decide getting the job is more important than optimizing your salary, you may have to just tell them. I personally find this a pretty insane request, though.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: Q.1: The dept wants to know whether you have realistic expectations about compensation for this position. Trying for >$20k over median for entry level position for institution of this type/location may raise eyebrows.
Yes, they are also trying to exploit an applicant's naiveté (although obviously this should not be taken personally). In particular, a reasonably low figure might suggest to them that salary will be a non-issue. If their resources and room for negotiation for this position are tight, it might tell them which applicant may be worth their time and which might not be worth a significant investment of time if their offer is likely to be out-matched by another institution.
Q.2: If the number was not used at all, it would likely not have been part of the application. So most likely, a very low "self-appraisal" might yield a lower offer.
That said, it does not necessarily mean you should *not* be modest in your self-appraisal. It is unlikely that your final decision will be solely based on salary. Money only matters when you don't have any. As soon as you have a sufficient amount, other things kick in and shape the quality of life. Friendly colleagues in the department. Overall budget situation at the university and on the state level, and projections for the next 5-10 years. Location, amenities, recreation opportunities, and cost of living in the area. How long you plan to stick around at this institution (keep in mind the likelihood of raises, which over 5 years can lift a salary to a level higher than what you may be shooting for now, risking rejecting offers that might not be quite up there from yr1). Good luck and hope this helps.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: Just write negotiable. That's it. Then negotiate when the time comes.
As a rule, I avoid salary discussions before an offer. If asked, I answer that I'm flexible and I'm confident we could come up with a mutually agreeable figure. Then I move on and start asking questions about the job.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/03 | 1,062 | 4,694 | <issue_start>username_0: Whenever I open a graduate text (on pretty much everything), I'm instantly overwhelmed as most topics are not well motivated, book reads like an encyclopedia and extremely high level topics maybe mixed in with an introduction to a specific topic. Oh, the text also tends to be printed in a horrendous font that does not at all induce eagerness of reading!
Think of Springer series on mathematics if you want to know exactly what I'm referring to.
Why are graduate texts written that way? Why isn't there a plethora of classic texts at the graduate level?
Just out of curiosity.<issue_comment>username_1: The font aspect is a rant, not a question; take that up with the publishers. (I don't think I've especially noticed it, but I have a wide tolerance range. It could be worse, it could be dot-matrix.)
For the rest: "Graduate texts" are written with the assumption that the reader already has a fairly sophisticated understanding of the subject and the symbology/shorthands/jargon it uses. They're also often intended to be reference material that supplements a class, rather than tutorial material readable by itself... "prescriptive rather than descriptive". Different audience, different needs, different focus, more context is assumed so informational density can be higher and presented more rigorously.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The differences between undergraduate and graduate texts seem to me to be no more dramatic than those between high school and undergraduate texts, and I don't consider it especially problematic. But there are some differences:
>
> Why are graduate texts written that way? Why isn't there a plethora of classic texts at the graduate level?
>
>
>
There certainly is, but there are also plenty of mediocre books. There's nothing special about graduate texts in this respect. Classic examples of anything will always be rare and noteworthy, more or less by definition.
You should keep in mind that graduate texts cover an enormous breadth of material (far beyond the undergraduate curriculum), and the upper limits of their depth can be impressive. Some books are written for very advanced courses aimed at senior graduate students specializing in a certain area. Of course they won't be easily accessible, since the research community barely understands this material. With luck, fifty years from now we'll have clearer expositions. In the meantime, we should be grateful that the author at least managed to distill the research literature into a coherent textbook, even if it is not yet easy to read.
Other graduate texts are intended for introductory grad courses. Certainly there are some bad books out there, but in my experience there are plenty of beautiful introductions that are accessible to students with a strong undergraduate background. It may still take more effort to read them than a typical undergraduate textbook, the same way an advanced undergraduate book may be tougher than one aimed at first-year students, but that's not a bad thing. The increased difficulty comes with corresponding rewards.
You can also find especially accessible textbooks. For example, some graduate texts are written specifically to ease the transition to graduate school for students with weaker backgrounds. They aren't necessarily advertised that way (to avoid putting off readers), but some books are pretty widely known to be less demanding than others. They can be a great way to fill in any missing background or just get used to graduate texts.
And it's worth having many different texts available for the same material. Undergraduate courses can sometimes be fairly regimented, with clear expectations regarding exactly what students should already know and what they need to learn now. Graduate school is much more diverse. One book may be entirely appropriate for someone with certain preparation, but utterly inappropriate for others.
If there's a subject you'd like to learn about, the best approach is often to ask for reading advice from someone who knows your background and tastes. If you can't get personalized advice, you can always take a look at lists [like this](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/21344/what-should-be-in-every-grad-students-library). Once you have some candidate books in mind, it's worth going to the library and gathering copies of them as well as any similar books that catch your eye on the shelf. Then you can spend an hour or two comparing them to see which might best serve your needs. It's going to take you far longer to actually master the contents, so a couple of hours is nothing if it helps you find the right book for you.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/03 | 1,691 | 7,274 | <issue_start>username_0: I am in a PhD program in mathematics, and I am in my last year in the program. This is the last year that they will fund me for. If I need more time, I will either need to pay the tuition on my own, or not complete my degree.
I feel that my advisor and department do not support me well. I am not going to go into the details, but if I had known better, I should have left with a Master's three years ago and applied for another PhD program. **I was wondering how feasible it would be to re-apply into a PhD program at another institution.** Keep in mind that I am entering my sixth year into the program, and I've already passed to candidacy. I realize that this may look bad on my part, that I've stayed at my own institution and at the last moment decided to leave. I am looking for advice and thoughts on this.
I realize that the reasonable thing to do would be to stick it out in my own program and try to finish, and if that doesn't work, then possibly try to apply somewhere else. One of my professors told me that it may be just as hard for me to get a postdoc as it is for me to be accepted into another PhD program. So I am curious if anyone has any experience with a similar situation. The reason why I am considering re-applying to grad school is that I feel that I may thrive at a different institution and have a better possibility of landing a postdoc or an academic job if I started all over.<issue_comment>username_1: Unfortunately, it's probably not feasible to start over elsewhere in the near future. You can certainly try applying, and it might work out, especially if you have a really compelling explanation. However, I think the chances are slim.
The basic question is how much progress towards a thesis you have made during your six years in grad school. If you're close to finishing, then nobody will think it makes sense to start over from scratch in the same subfield (or even a related one). At that point, you're not genuinely starting over, but just extending your time in grad school beyond six years. In particular, continuing in a similar area will come across as a request for another school to provide the additional funding your current university won't give you, and that won't sound like a good use of money. Most schools wouldn't give their own students a seventh year of funding, so why would they give it to a student from another university?
On the other hand, if you aren't close to finishing after six years, then starting over might make sense, but your track record will look bad. You'll need to present a powerful argument for why you'll do much better the second time around. In particular, there are people who have strong backgrounds and excellent grades but somehow don't end up succeeding at research, and the admissions committee will worry that you may fall into that category. Taking a chance on a fresh graduate student will seem like a much better bet than admitting someone who has already spent six years in graduate school but been unable to finish.
So basically you're stuck. Either you are too far along for starting over to make sense, or you have a track record of failure.
Of course it's difficult to say without knowing more about your specific situation, but I'd guess your best chances lie in two possibilities:
1. Even if you don't get admitted now, you might fare better in a few years. As your previous time in graduate school fades into the past, you can try to make a case that you have increased perspective and maturity and a renewed desire to get a Ph.D. in math. I don't know how likely this is to work, but at least it gives you a chance to explain that you have changed since your first attempt at grad school.
2. You could try radically changing your research area. For example, from algebraic geometry to bioinformatics. Of course this depends on being able to make a good argument for your change of interests. You have to really demonstrate that you've finally figured out what you want to do, in the face of skepticism (many people will assume you are just flailing about looking for any chance to try something new). However, it gives you a ready-made explanation for what went wrong the first time: you were trying to do something that in the end just wasn't suited to your interests and talents, but you've discovered that this new topic is a much better fit.
Whatever approach you take, I expect it will be difficult to get admitted. It can't hurt to try, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. My gut feeling is that it would be easier to try to finish your Ph.D. and then salvage your career (but of course I don't know enough about your situation to say that with any confidence).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: While this does not answer your stated question, I think it is important to point out that **the end of the normal enrollment period is not the end of the road**. At a research university, it is often accepted that some students will, for reasons possibly beyond their control, require longer time to finish a degree than typically envisioned. And schools are often willing to accommodate this by offering special enrollment status to these [ABD](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_but_dissertation) candidates, often at reduced tuition rates, and at effectively part-time or in absentia physical presence, which would allow you to continue towards finishing your graduate degree while at the same time holding on to an external job.
I do not know how close you are toward finishing your dissertation, but I will assume here that
1. You have completed all coursework requirements.
2. You are well into the process of writing your dissertation.
3. By "last year in the program" you meant the last year in the standard program length and not the last year in the standard program length + any additional special terminal status.
Under such assumptions you may want to contact the graduate school of your university to see if they offer anything similar to
* [Princeton's DCE status](https://gradschool.princeton.edu/academics/statuses/degree-seeking-statuses/dissertation-completion-enrollment-dce) which gives up to two years of additional enrollment past the regular period at a heavily discounted tuition rate.
* [Princeton's ET/DCC status](https://gradschool.princeton.edu/academics/statuses/degree-seeking-statuses/enrollment-terminateddegree-candidacy-continues-etdcc) where you are actually not enrolled as a graduate student. But you get a little extra time during which you are expected to keep in touch with your advisor and finish your dissertation on your own. In particular, you will not get charged tuition at all.
* [Stanford's TGR status](https://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/students/special-graduate-status) in which you remain enrolled but at a reduce tuition rate.
---
I should also remark that while the job market has not yet rebounded entirely to the pre-2008 glory, it has improved sufficiently that this year I saw some advertisements for teaching positions that are willing to take ABD students if will complete their dissertation within one year of the start date. So if you are really close to finishing, but just need a little bit more time, you should consider that as an option.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/10/03 | 995 | 4,067 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm looking to do a graduate course in computer science in the US and was particularly attracted to several non-terminal MS CS programs, which you'd enroll as a PhD student, but acquire the MS en route. Some of these MS-PhD programs have better financial support by the institution compared to the terminal MS program.
For example Harvard offers all of its PhD students full financial support.
My question is:
If I'm enrolled into say Harvard's or any other PhD program looking to get MS en route.
After acquiring the Masters Will I be able to have the flexibility to not progress towards after PhD for whatever reason, without any consequences like having to pay back the financial aid or something?<issue_comment>username_1: (Copied from my comments)
Firstly:
1. In some cases the terminal MS program costs you more because you are expected to only do coursework, whereas in the MS-PhD program you are expected to service the department as a research or teaching assistant.
2. I would expect that if a school offers both options they would frown upon your entering the PhD track with the intention of quitting after the MS
3. Most importantly, this is something that you can and should ask the administrators at the schools you are looking at. There's a good chance that the policy is different school to school.
To answer your second question, it depends on what you mean by consequences:
If you meant only financial ones: I've known many cases (not in CS) where students quit after the masters, and in none of those cases were they asked to pay the school back. Mostly because of point (1) above. In fact, some departments offering the MS-PhD program seem to take it as a given that some students will drop out. But depends on what you want to do, there could be non-financial consequences: People who've invested time in you may be reluctant to write you recommendation letters etc.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In my experience in looking for graduate programs, many schools won't let you graduate with a Masters if you apply for a PhD.
That isn't entirely true, however. Depending on the school, you can drop out once you reach ABD status (All but dissertation) and they will give you the Masters. This means you have to complete all the PhD course work before granting you a Masters.
Speaking with one of my professors as an undergrad, she told me that if she knew a student intended to be a terminal MA/MS, they'd throw their PhD application out.
To my knowledge the reason for this is mostly because of what username_1 said in his answer. PhD students who receive funding are taking resources from the school that could otherwise have been given to another applicant. They don't want applicants who intend to drop out after getting a Masters using up funds intended for PhD students. It requires applicants to be serious about completing the program.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The answer depends on which program you enroll into. Extrapolating from the small number of universities I have looked at when applying for a PhD in computer science, many universities do allow students to leave after getting an M.S..
E.g. at MIT, [~10% of students](http://web.mit.edu/accreditation/report/selfstudy/chapter06.html#s2b) get the M.S. but leave before getting the PhD, so it's far from being an exception:
>
> MIT closely monitors the retention and graduation rates of its
> graduate students. When preparing the data schedules for our
> accreditation report, the Office of Institutional Research analyzed
> several graduate student cohorts and confirmed that retention rates
> are high. For example, **among those entering the School of Science
> from 1996 to 2001, approximately 90 percent graduated with a masters
> or doctoral degree (roughly 80 percent earning doctorates)**. Further
> information can be found in the Graduate E Schedule. Many of our
> efforts to support and retain graduate students are described in the
> advising section of Chapter 5.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/03 | 614 | 2,492 | <issue_start>username_0: When writing any kind of paper or homework at the university I am supposed to give references for my citations. At the same time, sources like Wikipedia are not considered good for university level. Now let's say I am writing about malware, and I want to give definition about virus. Wikipedia has a good explanation, but I obviously cannot just copy without references (right?), and to give reference to Wikipedia is considered unacceptable.
So how am I supposed to give reference to such an item? Am I supposed to change the sentence in such a way that it cannot be tracked where I took it from?<issue_comment>username_1: Standards for papers and homework is not the same as for publications. Moreover, there is nothing fundamentally right or wrong about a definition as long as you introduce it as such ! (in University words mean what you decide they mean -- within reason, that is). You can definitely write something like
>
> In this paper I will use the definition of a *virus* as a '...' (1)
>
>
>
and refer to a footnote that says
>
> (1) definition taken from Wikipedia article *Virus*, retrieved on
> 2014-10-04".
>
>
>
Of course if Wikipedia's definition is taken from a printed reference, use the latter.
If you want to be extra-cautious you can have a look at the change log and discussion of the Wikipedia article.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Two points to remember:
1) Always give a reference for anything which is not your own! Changing the sentence in such a way that it cannot be tracked is NOT an acceptable substitute.
2) For as long as you are a student, the university sets the rules for what is considered an acceptable source.
Since your university, like many others which I am familiar, does not consider Wikipedia to be an acceptable academic resource, you should not cite Wikipedia in papers/homework. (When writing for an audience other than your professor(s), you be the judge. [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/19083/7921) provides a nice overview of the pros and cons of citing Wikipedia.) **For the example you've given, the relevant Wikipedia [page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus) has many linked references. The usual workaround is to follow those references, find one which contains the definition you need, and cite that reference rather than Wikipedia.** Of course, as JeffE noted, be sure you've actually read the source you are citing!
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/03 | 673 | 2,584 | <issue_start>username_0: In an attempt to make a poster of my work, I search for tips on the internet and books and I meet two opinions that conflict with each other:
**Tell a story:**
1. Why do we choose this (Objective)
2. How do we do? (Experiment, simulation, etc)
3. What do we find? (Result/Conclusion)
4. What can we do more? (Future work)
5. Reference
**Important first:**
1. Result/Conclusion
2. Objective
3. Experiment, simulation, etc
4. Future work
5. Reference
In my opinion, I will choose *tell a story* if the audience is not in my field, and *important first* if the audience has a good knowledge on what I do. But I am still confused if this is right. And should I apply this to my paper work?<issue_comment>username_1: Standards for papers and homework is not the same as for publications. Moreover, there is nothing fundamentally right or wrong about a definition as long as you introduce it as such ! (in University words mean what you decide they mean -- within reason, that is). You can definitely write something like
>
> In this paper I will use the definition of a *virus* as a '...' (1)
>
>
>
and refer to a footnote that says
>
> (1) definition taken from Wikipedia article *Virus*, retrieved on
> 2014-10-04".
>
>
>
Of course if Wikipedia's definition is taken from a printed reference, use the latter.
If you want to be extra-cautious you can have a look at the change log and discussion of the Wikipedia article.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Two points to remember:
1) Always give a reference for anything which is not your own! Changing the sentence in such a way that it cannot be tracked is NOT an acceptable substitute.
2) For as long as you are a student, the university sets the rules for what is considered an acceptable source.
Since your university, like many others which I am familiar, does not consider Wikipedia to be an acceptable academic resource, you should not cite Wikipedia in papers/homework. (When writing for an audience other than your professor(s), you be the judge. [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/19083/7921) provides a nice overview of the pros and cons of citing Wikipedia.) **For the example you've given, the relevant Wikipedia [page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus) has many linked references. The usual workaround is to follow those references, find one which contains the definition you need, and cite that reference rather than Wikipedia.** Of course, as JeffE noted, be sure you've actually read the source you are citing!
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/03 | 247 | 970 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm a PhD student and I prepared a poster for a conference. Do you think I should send the poster file to all the co-authors? The list is quite long so I mailed the draft only to a few of them.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes. Everybody who is listed as an author should see and be able to contribute to the poster. You wouldn't want to be listed as an author of a work that you have never seen either, right?
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Completely agree with username_1's answer:
>
> Everybody who is listed as an author should see and be able to contribute to the poster.
>
>
>
Also, if it is a big file (assuming your poster is heavy on graphics) perhaps it is best to upload it to dropbox or a similar service and then send the link to all the authors. Depending on their (and your) digital fluency, the team can refine the document right from dropbox without having to send email back and forth.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/03 | 466 | 1,746 | <issue_start>username_0: Assume we have a paper published in a conference or journal. Should I mention my co-authors while posting some content of the paper (or just paper's link) on Twitter or Facebook?
Let's assume I am aware of their Twitter or Facebook accounts.<issue_comment>username_1: It would be a polite thing to do to at least link the co-authors, for example, something along the lines of:
>
> Paper title, paper link, #co-author
>
>
>
It also depends on the amount of space available in your tweet - their names will be written on the paper itself in any case. At the very least, let them know that you are tweeting/posting the link/paper, which would give them an opportunity to retweet/share it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I would mention your co-authors, but check with them about how they want to be "linked". Even if they have a Twitter or Facebook account, they may no longer use it, or they may use it for personal contacts only.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Agree with Omen.
Also add the following:
If you shorten the URL of your work (using bitly.com or something similar) and "twitterfy" the title (perhaps make a hashtag combining a few select words from your title and the subject e.g. #semweb\_info\_integration\_newway), you should be able to cite at least 5 or 6 twitter handles easily. I am not sure facebook is a good idea, considering (IMHO) for a lot of people it is more of a personal medium.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Having trouble [considering so many coauthors](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16759/is-there-an-inflation-in-the-number-of-authors-per-paper) with 140 characters? Link to the paper, which lists the coauthors. #winningatacademia
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/10/03 | 1,940 | 7,802 | <issue_start>username_0: I am interested in Math, specifically pure Math, in the USA. I will be on the job market soon for a tenure track position and mathjobs ads usually do not specify the teaching load.
What is the average teaching load of tenured faculty (in pure math say) at a research university? (and let's say we are talking about faculty members who are still very much research active)
I've met faculty who teaches 1+1 (or even 0+0...), 2+1 or even 2+2. But I don't have a good general picture of how much teaching is done (partly because I haven't studied in the US).<issue_comment>username_1: In mathematics departments at U.S. research universities, typical teaching loads are 1+2 or 2+2, with 1+2 being common at fancier or better funded schools. See [this chart](http://www.math.utk.edu/Dept/AppIII.pdf) for some data; I don't know how accurate it is, but it looks approximately right to me. 1+1 is not absolutely unheard of, but it is very rare. Of course what counts as a "research university" is unclear, and some places that consider themselves research universities may have 2+3 loads, but I don't think any of the more prestigious research universities have 2+3.
Of course there are a lot of other factors that come into teaching load. How much flexibility is there in the course assignments? How does the teaching credit differ between huge lecture courses and small graduate seminars? How many people (if any) get a reduced teaching load? Does the department allow faculty to buy out of teaching using grant funds? Without answers to questions like these, a numerical comparison of teaching loads only tells you so much. What I'd recommend is that you apply for every job you might plausibly want, and then once you start to get interviews or offers you can look into the teaching conditions at these schools in detail.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Teaching loads of 1+2 or 2+2 (where the courses are 3 credit hour semester courses) are typical of the better research universities. Some institutions do weird things like the quarter system or semester courses that are 4 credit hours, but there are ways to adjust for this.
Teaching loads of 3+3 or even 4+4 are quite common at regional comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges. Keep in mind that most tenure track faculty positions are going to have those kinds of higher teaching loads.
If I were looking at teaching loads and comparing positions, I'd also be looking at the types of courses that I'd have to teach and the size/format of the classes. For example, I have a 2+3 teaching load, but I get to teach small junior/senior/graduate level courses for science/engineering/math majors in my areas of interest. I'd rather have this teaching load than a 2+2 load where 3 courses per year were large sections of freshmen calculus for business majors and I only got to teach one upper division course per year in my area.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I don't have a good general picture of how much teaching is done (partly because I haven't studied in the US
>
>
>
A **lot** of teaching is done. It is easy to get the impression, when talking with faculty from the relatively small number of research institutions, that there is little teaching. But most institutions in the U.S. are not research institutions, and most institutions have teaching as their primary mission.
A two-course-per-semester load would be viewed as extremely light at most institutions; three to four courses per semester is common in mathematics departments at the university level. Higher loads are common at the community college level.
When applying for positions, one of the easiest *faux pas* to make is to try to negotiate an unrealistically low teaching load. It is unlikely that a school will give a new tenure-track professor a load significantly different than the existing ones have. But they will view the request as as a sign the applicant hasn't done their research, or a sign the applicant will not be a good fit.
So you want to know the typical load at a school as soon as possible in the interview process, preferably before you apply. When investigating the typical teaching load at a school, there are several important things to ask about:
### Do they count courses, or do they count hours?
The "N + M" system of counting loads is not universal. Many schools count loads by the credit hour. In these schools, a 12-hour-per semester load is viewed as high, and not compatible with much research -- essentially a 4+4 load. But if the school has courses that are more than 3 credit hours, a 12-hour load might be a 3+3 load. In mathematics, the three calculus courses are often 4-hour (or even 5-hour) courses, and sometimes so is differential equations or linear algebra. You have to research this on a school-by-school basis. Schools with loads higher than 12 hours per semester are unlikely to require any research, but I have heard of some teaching-only schools with 15-hour (or higher) loads (e.g. community colleges).
To find out the "real" teaching load, look up the schedule of classes for the fall and spring and count how many courses the existing tenure track faculty are teaching.
### Do they have "research releases" to reduce teaching loads?
Only the best research schools will guarantee a light teaching load. Many schools have a uniform, heavy load for everyone - but then give "research release time" to reduce the teaching load of faculty who are active in research.
This was true even at the highly ranked institution where I did my PhD - the default load was used mainly for older faculty who were no longer active in research, while the lighter load was used for research active faculty. Research releases have become common even at non-research-intensive schools that want to increase their research profile. In almost all cases, they are not written into the contract, and are handled by a separate policy. So you also have to investigate these on a school-by-school basis.
For example, at my institution the default load is 12 hours per semester, which is typical for this type of institution. But research active faculty receive a reduction to 8-9 hours per semester. Several freshman and sophomore level classes, including precalculus, calculus, and others are 4-hour or 5-hour classes. So, depending on the way the course schedules turn out, the 12-hour load is often a 3+3 load, and the 8-9 hour load can be a 2-2, 2-3, or 3-3 load. For me, this is a quite reasonable load which allows me to publish regularly as well as teach several courses.
Some schools that otherwise have a high teaching load give a research release for first-year faculty, to give them a chance to write up the results of their dissertation and publish those.
### How often do you get a sabbatical?
A sabbatical is a semester or year of modified duties, typically with no teaching.
Some institutions guarantee a sabbatical before tenure, which can help offset a higher teaching load. The main examples I've seen of this are small liberal arts colleges. At other institutions, you will never get a sabbatical before tenure (e.g. regional public universities). So you need to investigate the sabbatical policy, as well, because a semester or year of no teaching significantly affects your average teaching load in the surrounding years.
### Is there a good balance?
The final question about teaching load is whether there is a balance between the amount of teaching and research you would like to do, the amount of teaching and research you are expected to do, and the amount of teaching and research you are able to do with the teaching load at the institution. Low teaching loads, on their own, are not a guarantee of happiness!
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/10/03 | 1,011 | 4,446 | <issue_start>username_0: I am preparing an NSF grant proposal in mathematics. I am requesting summer salary and a travel budget (and not much else), and after I compute the total I have to add an extra 50% of it and add it as the "indirect costs" of my proposed research.
This feels absurd to me (although it is the same, sometimes with an even higher rate, everywhere in the United States) -- especially since I do not require any special facilities or equipment to conduct my work. Is there a convincing argument to be made that this is reasonable?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is there a convincing argument to be made that this is reasonable?
>
>
>
One answer is no, it's not based on any real accounting. Indirect cost rates were negotiated individually by universities in the early days of federal research funding in the U.S., and they are very difficult to change now (because many funding agencies have to coordinate on these rates). Some universities genuinely have different costs, for example due to location, while others just negotiated more aggressively. There's little rational basis to it, so you can't hope for a detailed breakdown that indicates exactly why it should cost this amount.
On the other hand, the indirect costs are not meant to cover just special facilities or equipment (in fact, those would be direct costs). They are meant to cover office space, library access, computer infrastructure, administrative support, etc. These are all rather expensive, and taking these costs into account could very plausibly increase the total by more than 50%. So even though the numbers aren't arrived at by adding up actual costs, they really aren't crazy.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The indirect costs help to pay for all of the other resources you have access to which are not directly paid for by other costs. For instance, these indirect costs help to pay for administrative assistants, information technology, library subscriptions, utilities, and other costs.
They can also go to pay for the costs of administrators (including the fine folks in your university grants and contracts office who actually submit your NSF proposal).
Whether or not the rate is reasonable for *your* university is hard to judge, but a 50% overhead rate overall is not that excessive. Compare that to industry or the US national laboratories, where the overhead rate can exceed **200%**, and things don't look so bad in comparison.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: You can take a more birds-eye view of the question.
Recall that the main purpose of the NSF is to support part of the public policy interests of the U.S. government. Here is a quote from "[NSF at a glance](http://www.nsf.gov/about/glance.jsp)":
>
> NSF's goals--discovery, learning, research infrastructure and stewardship--provide an integrated strategy to advance the frontiers of knowledge, cultivate a world-class, broadly inclusive science and engineering workforce and expand the scientific literacy of all citizens, build the nation's research capability through investments in advanced instrumentation and facilities, and support excellence in science and engineering research and education through a capable and responsive organization.
>
>
>
As the NSF says on the same page,
>
> We fulfill our mission chiefly by issuing limited-term grants -- currently about 11,000 new awards per year, with an average duration of three years -- to fund specific research proposals that have been judged the most promising by a rigorous and objective merit-review system.
>
>
>
It is true that indirect costs on a grant don't directly support costs of research - that's why they're "indirect costs". But they do support the national research *infrastructure* by passing additional funding to institutions that show merit by winning competitive grant funding. The indirect funding helps these institutions provide a research environment not only to the researchers who are awarded grants, but also to other researchers and students.
Supporting the overall national research infrastructure is certainly a reasonable part of the public policy goals of the NSF, and the indirect costs system is not the worst way I can think of to decide which institutions will receive such funding. Of course, there are also equipment grants and other specialized NSF grants, which also help support the national research capacity.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/04 | 789 | 3,316 | <issue_start>username_0: The NSF postdoctoral application is due in less than 2 weeks and I am trying to send out invitations for my reference letters. However, for the past week (on fastlane.gov) I have gotten the same error.
"A database error occured while performing fastlane.pdoc.ProcessReferenceLetter."
I contacted the NSF by email and by phone and haven't gotten any response by either format. Is there anyone getting this?<issue_comment>username_1: Screen shot and date stamp every attempt to do this operation until it works. Call the helpdesk [800 number](https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/contacts/contact_fl.jsp) back every hour during business hours until someone answers the phone, but don't just leave message after message if it goes to voicemail. If you haven't already, send invites via email personally to each of your references so that they know the request from FastLane will be coming eventually. Tell each of your references about the problem so that they'll be prepared to take alternative action if NSF gives you a workaround. Keep good records of all your attempts.
If you can figure out who the cognizant program officer is for the specific fellowship you are applying for, write them an email Monday after you have tried to get in touch with the FastLane user support folks again with a short explanation of your problem and ask them for options.
FastLane being down on broken is usually a great reason for NSF to give you an exception to a deadline.
As noted in the comments, there is some upcoming Fastlane downtime due to the [NSF financial system upgrade](http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14083/nsf14083.jsp), but that shouldn't be the problem today or for the rest of the week. The FastLane user support team is usually very responsive, but with the financial system update going on, they may be swamped.
Finally, you might also try talking to the Sponsored Research Office/Office of Sponsored Projects/etc. at your current university. They work with staff at NSF all the time, and may have contacts that can help you.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I realize this is now a year old but I was just working on my NSF PRFB application on FastLane today (2015 and a year later), ran into the same error and stumbled on this page. I called FastLane help and they were able to resolve the problem. The person who helped me figured out that you have to re-save the "Cover Sheet" component of the application. He said the reference letter writer submission refers to this part of the application and so it needs to be updated/completed for some reason.
He did this for me but I'm assuming he just opened the "Cover Sheet" in the main "Form Preparation" window by clicking "Go", cleared something and changed it back to what it was before and saved it. You might also be able to just click the "Go" next to "\*Remainder of the Cover Sheet". When I do this it says "The Remainder of the CoverSheet has been automatically filled in and saved." If you are able to re-save, the "Saved" date next to "Cover Sheet" in the "Form Preparation" window should change to the current date.
Once this was done I was able to add a reference letter writer without getting the error message. I hope this helps someone else out there if they run into the same problem!
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/04 | 965 | 3,733 | <issue_start>username_0: According to [this answer](https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/10775/5645) it is a feature that BibTeX converts all characters to lower case for titles in the bibliography. This is confusing for me. What characters in the titles I cite should be upper case?
Here is a screenshot were I marked all characters that I would have written uppercase:
(The first 'r' in recognition was a mistake)
So I think I should write everything in capital that I would write in capital in a normal English sentence. Is that correct?<issue_comment>username_1: Some journals use capital letters for All The Words In The Title. Some others (thinking about legacy systems) may put it ALL IN UPPERCASE or all in lowercase.
Really, the case of the letters is completely irrelevant for the reference itself, so it is understandable that BibTeX wants to give it all a coherent format. All in all:
>
> <NAME>, The Foundations of General Relativity.
>
>
> <NAME>, THE FOUNDATIONS OF GENERAL RELATIVITY.
>
>
> <NAME>, The foundations of General Relativity.
>
>
>
Are equally easy to find and unequivocally point to the same reference.
Note that in the comments to the linked question it is stated that the style may override this behaviour, using a different convention, or leaving it as written on the bib.
As always, general rules for English grammar apply:
* Proper names should be capitalised, so Markov is capital.
* Acronyms, like NPEN++, ought to be in all upercase.
* Academic disciplines (like Physics or Biology) should be. It is debatable if "pattern recognition" should be or not.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: It depends on the citation style. Basically there are two possibilities: [title case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Title_case), or normal English sentence style.
If you are writing for a journal, it surely has a citation style that you should adhere to. In practice, however, the style of citations won't really matter until the time your paper is accepted, so you do not need to worry about it when writing.
If you are writing for yourself, you are free to decide as you prefer, as long as you are consistent. If you are writing a thesis, be sure to inquire because some OCD university committee might have imposed requirements.
Bibtex is essentially a program to abstract out citation styles and apply them programmatically, separating content (in the `.bib` file) from formatting. Using a properly formatted `.bib` file, you just need the command `\bibliographystyle{}` to change from a style to the other.
So, how should the title field be formatted in a properly-written `.bib` file? Like this:
`title = {Handwriting Recognition with Hidden {M}arkov models and Grammatical Constraints}`
Basically you use title case and embed into a pair of braces the characters that should stay in capital even if the text is converted to sentence case. Bibtex can convert automatically title case to sentence case (but not vice versa). Commands for diacritics and special characters (such as `\"a` or `\c{c}`) and dollar-delimited formulas should also go inside an extra pair of braces.
Incidentally, another tricky aspect of Bibtex syntax is author name formatting. Authors should be in the format
`author = {von Lastname1, Firstname1 Middle and Lastname2 jr., Firstname2}`
or, if full given names are not available,
`author = {von Lastname1, <NAME>. and Lastname2 jr., F.}`
Note that 90% of the bibtex files that you will find on the internet, even the ones from the publishers' websites, are badly formatted. Bibtex's syntax is quirky and complicated to get right.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/04 | 625 | 2,770 | <issue_start>username_0: I have been in a tenure-track position in 5-6 years and I am applying to positions in other universities, including tenured positions. For the list of references, should I include my former PhD advisor? I have some other good names to include and also I have a good relationship with the former advisor. I was wondering the pros and cons of including/excluding the former advisor in the list of reference.<issue_comment>username_1: In most cases it seems a good idea to include the former adviser.
I suppose an exception would be if you are now much more "established/senior" than your adviser, or if there is some serious problem with your adviser's professional reputation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: This might vary from field to field, and based upon how established and well-regarded you are within your own field, but personally I would not feel that it is mandatory to get a letter from your prior advisor, if you have other letter-writers who you think will be more suitable (know your work better, are better-regarded in the community, will write you a stronger recommendation). At this stage in your career most faculty are now established enough that they are your own brand and can stand on their own, separate from their advisor. In particular, 5-6 years in a tenure-track position is probably far enough along in your career that I don't think the hiring committee will look askance if you don't have a letter from your prior advisor.
In any case, if the hiring committee wants an assessment from your former PhD advisor, they will ask your former PhD advisor. For jobs at this level, it's not unusual for them to ask others for their opinion of you (beyond the letters that you provide), if you are a serious candidate.
That said, usually your former PhD advisor is someone who knows you well, wants you to succeed, appreciates your work and your interests, and is well-informed about your research -- so they are often a good choice of a letter-writer, all else being equal.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: My impression is that at this stage it has much higher value if your recommendation letters can prove that you already somewhat established yourself in your field, your independent research topic is going well and people beyond your lab/institute start recognising your name.
Most cases a recommendation letter from your former supervisor hardly can demonstrate independency, it may even suggest just the opposite. I saw cases when a well-meaning ex-supervisor was writing pages about how friendly and docile is the candidate, how good student and doing always everything as ordered. This kind of recommendation letter you really DON'T want to get for a tenured position.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/05 | 484 | 2,164 | <issue_start>username_0: A very high profile Prof. A recommended me to another high profile Prof. B to do some work for him. While normally as a graduate I should be very thankful and jump on this, I simply cannot do the work asked due to time and I also believe there would be a more suitable candidate for the work. Prof A's recommendations hold very high weight in the field I work in (his previous recommendation got me a job as an undergraduate). I feel that Prof A may have misunderstood my skills (he confused Java programming with Java web programming essentially). Prof A knows me somewhat well (I work for him currently), so perhaps this is why he recommended me.
How do I turn down Prof B's request in a polite manner without losing any face to myself or Prof A? In my response, should I also forward candidates whom I think would be able to do the work (e.g. cc them in the email)?<issue_comment>username_1: "While normally as a graduate I should be very thankful and jump on this, I simply cannot do the work asked due to time and I believe there would be a more suitable candidate for the work."
That is more or less exactly what you should say. Express your gratitude to Professor A. If you have a major academic obligation taking up your time, like comprehensive exams or something, mention that. Do NOT CC the candidates you have in mind, but do mention to Professor B that you can recommend someone else who you think would be a good fit.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Don't bother going in the detail about Java, just tell both professors that you do not have the available time to commit to prof B.
If they mention changing your schedule with prof A, then recommend your alternative candidate (which hopefully you do anyways), and express your concern that taking on prof B's project may take more time than you have available, even if prof A gives you time off from working for him.
Another possibility (though I don't know how well this would work, since you don't provide any project details), would be to say that prof B's project is going in a different direction than you see your future heading.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/05 | 715 | 3,074 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently an undergraduate physics student in the fall semester of my junior year. Until recently, I thought I would have to stay an extra semester to complete my undergraduate physics degree, but after looking over my scheduling possibilities for the next three semesters, I've realized I will be able to graduate on time (spring semester of my senior year).
My dilemma arises from the fact that I am also trying to meet the requirements for two minors (one in computer science and one in math). The two possibilities I see are as follows:
1. If I choose to graduate on time, my curriculum for the next three semesters will consist of 9 physics courses, 2 computer science courses, and 1 general education. I would finish with my bachelor's in physics and a minor in computer science.
2. If I choose to stay an extra semester, I will be able to complete the requirements for both a computer science minor and a math minor, and I will be able to spread out my physics classes a little more. Additionally, I may be able to take one or two extra elective classes in either math or physics.
My plan is to go to graduate school after my bachelor's , so given my circumstance, is it worth it to stay that extra semester just for the minor in math? Will the additional time to graduate or the extra credential make any difference when it comes to physics graduate school admissions?<issue_comment>username_1: Will the additional time make any difference in admissions? I don't think so, since you are pursuing more credits, it's natural that it takes more time.
Will the extra credits count? Since you're enrolling a post-graduate degree that is also your major, I don't think it matters much. If you're doing a master on Math, it probably matters. Don't forget you can always consult the admission office.
It sounds like you enjoy (or at least don't dislike) university life anyway, so if financial support is not a problem for you, I'd encourage you to take an extra semester. Besides earning the extra minor, you'll also benefit from a more relaxed schedule, which should improve your grades.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Basically, a second minor doesn't really convey any additional benefits to you in terms of admission. It just means you've done enough courses in a specific area to be recognized by your specific school as having completed a "minor." Some schools in the US (and most foreign schools) do not offer minors, so it won't make a big difference.
Also to consider—if you are planning to do graduate school after your bachelor's degree, taking an extra semester in the US likely means that you will have to wait *a full year* before starting graduate school. This can have significant impacts, as you will then need to find something to do in what would have been your spring semester. There is also the possibility that, because you will be out of school for a while, you may need to start repayment on any student loans you have. (Usually you're allowed a six-month grace period before repayment starts.)
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/05 | 449 | 1,919 | <issue_start>username_0: This question came up after reading some answers to [this one](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29185/is-it-possible-to-use-one-thesis-for-two-degrees).
Is it useful either for applying for a job or for applying for a PhD position to have two degrees in the same area on two different universities without needing more time than usual for the degree (in case of master: two years, or maybe two and a half year)? Are there advantages, are there disadvantages?<issue_comment>username_1: I would be very confused about why somebody needed two degrees *in the same field*. If the fields were overlapping but distinct—mathematics and computational science, for instance—that would not be such a big deal. But somebody with two biology degrees or two mathematics degrees from different universities would be such an exceptional case that I would want to have some explanation for this in the statement of purpose. (Why did the applicant feel it necessary to have a second bachelor's or master's degree on the same topic?)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: At its core, no. Why did you think it might? Having two degrees implies increased experience academically, certainly, compared to someone with only one degree. But it also implies other things that are not as good, to me, personally. I explain why in the next paragraph, but as mentioned this is a very rare thing and will definitely bring increased scrutiny on why it happened.
My only experience with people having multiple same-rank degrees in the same field has been with failed PhD candidates who immigrated already holding ME degrees and then failed their defenses at the end of their PhDs.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: No, it is not useful and will only cause employers to ask “why?” and scrutinize your application. -from an 18 year career professor and director of grad program.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/05 | 540 | 2,077 | <issue_start>username_0: How do you check if a book is a new edition of an older book, but they have different titles, without accessing the books? Are there websites which maintain such records?
For example, is [this book](http://lccn.loc.gov/2007012974)
```
Fundamentals of data structures in C / <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>.
Edition 2nd ed.
Published/Created Summit, NJ : Silicon Press, 2008.
```
a newer edition to [this one](http://lccn.loc.gov/76015250)
```
Fundamentals of data structures / <NAME>, <NAME>.
Published/Created: Computer Science Press, c1976.
```
Does the second one have later editions?<issue_comment>username_1: I would be very confused about why somebody needed two degrees *in the same field*. If the fields were overlapping but distinct—mathematics and computational science, for instance—that would not be such a big deal. But somebody with two biology degrees or two mathematics degrees from different universities would be such an exceptional case that I would want to have some explanation for this in the statement of purpose. (Why did the applicant feel it necessary to have a second bachelor's or master's degree on the same topic?)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: At its core, no. Why did you think it might? Having two degrees implies increased experience academically, certainly, compared to someone with only one degree. But it also implies other things that are not as good, to me, personally. I explain why in the next paragraph, but as mentioned this is a very rare thing and will definitely bring increased scrutiny on why it happened.
My only experience with people having multiple same-rank degrees in the same field has been with failed PhD candidates who immigrated already holding ME degrees and then failed their defenses at the end of their PhDs.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: No, it is not useful and will only cause employers to ask “why?” and scrutinize your application. -from an 18 year career professor and director of grad program.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/05 | 638 | 2,556 | <issue_start>username_0: I am in the process of applying to PhD programs in Computer Science. A professor with whom I'm interested in working is moving from university A to university B. While he is not super well-known, his research interests and mine align very well, and I am quite sure I would have been admitted to university A had he remained there.
He will not moving to B until latter half of 2015, which means that he will not be able to give input into PhD applications to university B for the 2015 admissions cycle.
I will be applying to university B (with the hope that I can work with him), but is there anything that I can (or should) do with regard to my application? Or just mention it in SoP?
(B is slightly more competitive than A, and both are top 15 schools)<issue_comment>username_1: >
> which means that he will not be able to give input into PhD applications to university B
>
>
>
This is incorrect. He certainly can, if he chooses, e-mail the director of graduate admissions at B, say that he's interested in working with you, and ask him/her to consider your application favorably. They don't have to admit you, but that would be true even if he were at B now and had been there a long time.
I'd recommend mentioning this in your SOP, and perhaps also e-mailing him and letting him know that you are applying to B with the idea of working with him. (If you have not done so already.)
That said, "I am quite sure I would have been admitted to university A had he remained there" sounds possibly a bit presumptuous, although I don't know your circumstances. In any case, do what you would have done if this professor wasn't moving: apply to the graduate program where he'll be, let him know, and hope for the best. Good luck.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Usually it's presumptuous to plan the professor you'll be working with in years 3+ of your Ph.D. before completing the first couple. There are many reasons you might not want to work with a professor, but either you will not want to (your interests or goals change) or they will not want to or be otherwise unavailable.
Therefore, **first and foremost, you need to demonstrate to a school you belong at the school.** Specific interest in a professor may very well be a major factor in your decision, but from the stance of your application it will be supplemental. If the target professor can vouch for you, remember they are vouching for you to be admitted to the school, and that they would be very interested in working with you in the future.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/05 | 682 | 2,776 | <issue_start>username_0: I've just finished my PhD in Genetics, and I am looking at moving into industry, as a scientist.
"Senior Scientist" seems to be the closest match, because the salary is slightly higher than a junior post-doc.<issue_comment>username_1: I am not sure how much sense this question makes, given that no position in a research lab is really comparable to a postdoc position.
That being said, I have seen the term "research staff member", or just "researcher" or "scientist" being used a lot as an entry-level, permanent position in a research lab which requires a PhD. "Senior scientist" or "senior researcher" is typically a bit more advanced ("researchers" become "senior researchers" through regular career progression). However, concrete names of course vary between companies, so you should never assume much of anything about a position purely based on its name.
>
> "Senior Scientist" seems to be the closest match, because the salary is slightly higher than a junior post-doc.
>
>
>
That's a very bad heuristic. Too many other factors influence salary for it to be of any worth for judging the level of a position.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Some companies, including the one that I work at, actually do offer positions that are explicitly postdocs and fill the same type of role as postdocs in academia: a limited-term position connected to some specific set of projects/responsibilities, with the expectation that the person will move up or move elsewhere at the end of the period.
Beyond that, industry titles tell you nothing, because there is nothing even vaguely like a standard. Where I work, "senior scientist" is approximately equivalent to "associate professor" in academia. At a smaller company I know of, it means "has a master's degree." At yet another company, it might mean "has been here for 30 years." You just don't know.
Instead, look at the background required and responsibilities associated with the job, and see if they match what you have to offer. Beware that position postings are often the result of a mangled committee process, and if it calls for a long laundry list of skills, you're probably in good shape to apply if you have at least a couple of them.
Salary may also vary wildly, depending on the sector of industry and particular company, but as a rule of thumb it should be well above what you would be paid as a postdoc in academia. In computer science, for example, a Ph.D. entry-level position in industry gets somewhere between 1.5x and 4x a typical postdoc salary (it's one of the compensations of stepping off the traditional track). Sites like [Glassdoor](http://www.glassdoor.com/) are a good way to tell whether you are being made a fair offer or not.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/06 | 821 | 3,551 | <issue_start>username_0: While I was studying abroad, I was offered a PHD position for having a very impressive project. I was actually only in 3rd year engineering at the time and I din't want to go into the professor's specific area of research, so I declined the offer. The only written confirmation I have of this is an e-mail exchange.
That course is important in the field that I'm going into, so I really want to mention that I did really well on it, but I'm afraid that a verbal conversation and an e-mail exchange isn't official enough. After all, if someone asks the professor, it's highly probable that he will have forgotten and he might claim I mis-understood the e-mail exchange. Should I:
1. Include the fact that I got an offer on the resume anyways.
2. E-mail the prof to get a written confirmation and only include his distinction in my resume if he replies. What type of written confirmation would this even involve?
3. Tone down the claim to say that I had the best project and leave out the offer.<issue_comment>username_1: I would not include such an offer on a CV. Saying you were offered a position is fine to include in a cover letter or statement of purpose or other such document, but a CV should be a listing of demonstrable accomplishments. Including something like this is potentially awkward—and declining a job offer is not normally what you want to "show off" on a CV anyways.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I would recommend against including a verbal offer on your resume. Even aside from whether the professor remembers, an offer of a PhD position might not be very meaningful. Professors vary in how careful and responsible they are about making such offers, and I've known of cases in which faculty expressed interest to potential students in ways those students thought of as near-binding offers but which were not intended that way. (If someone says "Would you like to come do a PhD with me?", they may view the question as having implicit conditions such as "provided you meet the admissions requirements and I can come up with funding for you," while the student may not realize that. This question means the professor will try to make things work out, but it doesn't guarantee that they will try hard or succeed.)
Of course your offer may well have been far more serious, but it's hard to convey this on your resume without going into too much detail about it.
>
> Tone down the claim to say that I had the best project and leave out the offer.
>
>
>
I would take this approach, assuming you have some official recognition such as an award for the best project in the class. (If it was at a prestigious university, then having such an award might mean more than the PhD offer.) If you don't, then there's insufficient basis for calling it the best project.
If you're applying to graduate school, why not ask the professor in question for a letter of recommendation? That would give him an opportunity to write about how impressive the project was, how it was the best in the class, and how he wishes you wanted to specialize in his area since you would make a wonderful PhD student. Hearing these sentiments from him would mean more than anything you could list in your resume.
Similarly, if you're applying for jobs, you could ask the professor whether you could list him as a reference.
If it wouldn't make sense to ask him for a letter or to serve as a reference, then it's probably not important enough to be worth worrying about indicating on your resume.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/10/06 | 667 | 2,808 | <issue_start>username_0: I am moving to a new place to take a new academic position. **Now that we have committed to it, what can I do to help my spouse adjust to or enjoy the new location?** We are both academics.
Edit: Several considerations were made in wording the question. 1. Questions that are specific to a particular situation are discouraged here. 2. I am past the negotiation stage so I do not want negotiation advice. (Yes, my spouse had many chances to change our plans.) 3. Presumably this situation will occur to dual-career couples at most career stages. Therefore I am thinking beyond my current situation in anticipation of the next one. Answers from people who have been in this situation are appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: I was told the other week that the new undergraduates' top priority for freshers' week is 'find a friend'. I think that's very important for anyone moving to a new city. Ignoring the academic aspect, I would encourage you to think about what social life both of you will have outside work, other than your time with each other. What things do you each enjoy doing? Are there ways you can make contacts before you arrive? Will your choice of living arrangements affect what opportunities are open to you? Do you need to make sure you each have suitable transport? How will you stay in contact with friends and family elsewhere? Can you find a replacement for your favourite restaurant/park/...?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The answer depends on the academic ambition of your spouse. If she/he has none, your question is borderline off-topic on this site. In this case, you can look into things similar to the [Harvard Spouse & Partners Association](http://hsspa.harvard.edu/), which I personally would only join with a gun to my head, but might be something your spouse is into.
The rest of my answer assume she/he wishes to stay in the academic loop.
From what I saw in several universities in Europe and the US, several universities try to take into account dual career ambitions. Especially if your spouse is a woman, chances are the institution that hired you will consider creating some sort of academic position for her. Look for things like 'gender-equality office' to have more information on the topic.
If there is no such thing, I know that some people attend classes and seminars in the local universities (this is true in universities unlike Harvard, were guest attendance is allowed and free). Some volunteer as lab assistants. Some join [local chapters of scientific societies](http://www.amstat.org/chapters/) (a good way to meet potential employers or hear about academic opportunities).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: (answering self) In retrospect, getting my spouse a good gym membership was very helpful.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/06 | 1,550 | 6,580 | <issue_start>username_0: For the next 6 months or so, I plan to study hard for GRE. Since I don't have much time, I plan to ONLY study for the mathematics portion of the test as I would like to score at least in the 90th+ percentile for the Mathematics Subject Test. But in order to have the capability to achieve such a task within my time frame, I plan to spend no more than 3-4 days to study for the analytic writing and verbal reasoning portion of the general test.
So my question is: Do graduate schools focus or take into consideration the (possibly low score for the) analytic writing and verbal reasoning portion of the test if you were to score high on the mathematics part? Advice from those who are familiar with how selection committee of graduate schools (in Mathematics) pick applicants would be great!
Some clarification: I feel as if I was not too clear with my question. By "studying hard" I don't mean to sit down and just study "specifically" for the GRE test but rather to enhance my knowledge in Real Analysis, Abstract Algebra, Topology, and Differential Equations among other topics such as Set Theory and Logic. GRE Mathematics Subject Test will be something that I will be preparing for along the way. My reason to spend ~6 months has nothing to do with scoring high on GRE. I will perhaps spend no more than 1-2 weeks reviewing the Princeton Review. I just don't know if I will have much time to work on my writing skills if I'm deep-neck into learning Mathematics.<issue_comment>username_1: As a graduate student you will have to write a thesis or dissertation. Your communication skills are important!
When I'm evaluating applicants to our graduate program in mathematics, it goes without saying that the applicant had better have a very high quantitative score and anyone who doesn't isn't going to be a desirable applicant. What separates the desirable students from the undesirable students are reasonably high scores on the other sections of the test.
Keep in mind that students in many disciplines take the GRE. I don't expect a mathematics student to be as good a writer as a student in English, but if the student has a ranking in the 10th percentile, I've got to wonder whether that student will be able to write an acceptable thesis without me doing a lot of editing.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, a decent verbal score is definitely desirable. I mean it: I have done graduate admissions for my math department, mentioned low verbal scores as a point against the applicant, and had the point taken by the rest of the committee. But I would think that spending three-plus years in a university would be the best possible way to study for the GRE verbal: if after all that you need separate study in reading comprehension, sentence completion, and so forth, something has gone wrong!
(I remember the GRE as the SAT all over again, to the extent that my GRE scores were each within 30 points of my corresponding SAT scores. The GRE has been retooled multiple times in recent years with the unfortunate effect that a lot of people doing graduate admissions, like me, are now a little vague on what it actually contains. We tend to assume that the changes are cosmetic and that the exam is more or less the same as the one we took years ago.)
The math subject GRE is not a hard *test* in the sense that you need to devote much (or any, necessarily) time to study for it. I remember contemplating studying for the Math GRE (circa 1997), learning that the study guide was really pretty miserable, and maybe spending a weekend flipping through a book on differential equations because I had never taken a course on that. More pertinently, I remember that at least one third of the test was rendered trivial by my deeper study of subjects like topology and analysis: e.g. I think there was a question like "Which of the following properties does the real line, as a topological space, *not* have? Hausdorff, compact..." To me this read more like a mathematical joke than anything else.
Here's the bottom line: please don't spend six months only, or even primarily, studying for any/all of the GRE. What a terrible waste of your time. If I am honest, the fact that you think this might be a good use of your time makes me concerned that you might not be a good candidate for a graduate program in mathematics. I would not say this if you provided any distinguishing or identifying information whatsoever, but as you are completely anonymous it is something to think about. The way you prepare for graduate school in mathematics is by learning math. That means absolutely mastering truly basic, undergraduate level topics like linear algebra and deepening your knowledge of algebra and analysis. This knowledge and mastery will serve you well at every step of the graduate process, starting with admissions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: My fairly extensive anecdotal experience is that "verbal" scores are harder to "cram" for, perhaps harder to "game", than the math subject test and "quantitative" exam... so that, perhaps oddly, a high verbal score seems to be a very positive indicator of future success, while subject test success has a more limited indication.
Lowish verbal scores, even with high Subject test scores, seem to be correlated (again, extensive-anecdotally) with a certain brittleness moving forward into PhD-level mathematics, ... perhaps after considerable success in lower-level mathematics. (We can observe the substantially non-verbal, nearly cryptic stylized form of much low-level mathematics.)
So, yes, some people on admissions committees (e.g., me...) pay attention to those other numbers. On the other hand, it's not at all clear that these things can be "studied-for", much less studied-for for several months.
As <NAME> noted, learning more sophisticated mathematics is often far more effective at more-than-gaming the system, since quite a few of the prankish-shallow questions that would stump novices are transparent to a person with some experience, perspective, and context.
Even so, self-coaching about how to take a timed, multiple-choice test, and some prior samples, are surely helpful to best represent one's knowledge of the subject matter. And being rested, not over-caffeinated, not hung-over, etc. Despite the potential silliness of the last observation, I have observed many people disserve themselves by putting themselves into bad physical states for these and other exams... If diagnosable anxiety is an issue, it should be dealt with forthright-ly...
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/06 | 1,305 | 5,508 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a student of LLM. After LLM I want to do Ph.D on Waqf family courts. I am also interested in doing a Ph.D on comparative religion from Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi. My doubt is can I do a Ph.D in both subjects simultaneously from the same university or different university, or is it necessary to complete in one subject and then pursue another. After all is it allowed to obtain two Ph.Ds.<issue_comment>username_1: As a graduate student you will have to write a thesis or dissertation. Your communication skills are important!
When I'm evaluating applicants to our graduate program in mathematics, it goes without saying that the applicant had better have a very high quantitative score and anyone who doesn't isn't going to be a desirable applicant. What separates the desirable students from the undesirable students are reasonably high scores on the other sections of the test.
Keep in mind that students in many disciplines take the GRE. I don't expect a mathematics student to be as good a writer as a student in English, but if the student has a ranking in the 10th percentile, I've got to wonder whether that student will be able to write an acceptable thesis without me doing a lot of editing.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, a decent verbal score is definitely desirable. I mean it: I have done graduate admissions for my math department, mentioned low verbal scores as a point against the applicant, and had the point taken by the rest of the committee. But I would think that spending three-plus years in a university would be the best possible way to study for the GRE verbal: if after all that you need separate study in reading comprehension, sentence completion, and so forth, something has gone wrong!
(I remember the GRE as the SAT all over again, to the extent that my GRE scores were each within 30 points of my corresponding SAT scores. The GRE has been retooled multiple times in recent years with the unfortunate effect that a lot of people doing graduate admissions, like me, are now a little vague on what it actually contains. We tend to assume that the changes are cosmetic and that the exam is more or less the same as the one we took years ago.)
The math subject GRE is not a hard *test* in the sense that you need to devote much (or any, necessarily) time to study for it. I remember contemplating studying for the Math GRE (circa 1997), learning that the study guide was really pretty miserable, and maybe spending a weekend flipping through a book on differential equations because I had never taken a course on that. More pertinently, I remember that at least one third of the test was rendered trivial by my deeper study of subjects like topology and analysis: e.g. I think there was a question like "Which of the following properties does the real line, as a topological space, *not* have? Hausdorff, compact..." To me this read more like a mathematical joke than anything else.
Here's the bottom line: please don't spend six months only, or even primarily, studying for any/all of the GRE. What a terrible waste of your time. If I am honest, the fact that you think this might be a good use of your time makes me concerned that you might not be a good candidate for a graduate program in mathematics. I would not say this if you provided any distinguishing or identifying information whatsoever, but as you are completely anonymous it is something to think about. The way you prepare for graduate school in mathematics is by learning math. That means absolutely mastering truly basic, undergraduate level topics like linear algebra and deepening your knowledge of algebra and analysis. This knowledge and mastery will serve you well at every step of the graduate process, starting with admissions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: My fairly extensive anecdotal experience is that "verbal" scores are harder to "cram" for, perhaps harder to "game", than the math subject test and "quantitative" exam... so that, perhaps oddly, a high verbal score seems to be a very positive indicator of future success, while subject test success has a more limited indication.
Lowish verbal scores, even with high Subject test scores, seem to be correlated (again, extensive-anecdotally) with a certain brittleness moving forward into PhD-level mathematics, ... perhaps after considerable success in lower-level mathematics. (We can observe the substantially non-verbal, nearly cryptic stylized form of much low-level mathematics.)
So, yes, some people on admissions committees (e.g., me...) pay attention to those other numbers. On the other hand, it's not at all clear that these things can be "studied-for", much less studied-for for several months.
As <NAME> noted, learning more sophisticated mathematics is often far more effective at more-than-gaming the system, since quite a few of the prankish-shallow questions that would stump novices are transparent to a person with some experience, perspective, and context.
Even so, self-coaching about how to take a timed, multiple-choice test, and some prior samples, are surely helpful to best represent one's knowledge of the subject matter. And being rested, not over-caffeinated, not hung-over, etc. Despite the potential silliness of the last observation, I have observed many people disserve themselves by putting themselves into bad physical states for these and other exams... If diagnosable anxiety is an issue, it should be dealt with forthright-ly...
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/06 | 679 | 3,044 | <issue_start>username_0: I want to submit an extended abstract of my Ph.D. dissertation to a workshop that looks for summaries of recent work. My dissertation is based on several publications done in collaboration with other researchers (and my adviser).
Who should be listed as authors for the purpose of the workshop submission? Just myself, because I am the sole author of the dissertation, and would be the sole author of the newly written extended abstract. In which case, I knowledge my collaborators. Or do I list all the collaborators as authors of the extended abstract?<issue_comment>username_1: Well, you will mention your co-workers in your dissertation, and I would recommend to add the significant ones to the paper. If your new abstract is just discussing your own work, you should be the only author, but from your question I got the ipression, that original work of others is included and therefore they should be co-authors.
One exception could be if you are just citing already published material, then it would be formally correct to be the only author - but personally I would not choose this option unless I really have t,o because it lowers the motivation for others to collaborate in the future.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: It's safest to ask your collaborators what they would prefer. You can't include them as coauthors of an extended abstract without their permission, and they might be upset if you leave them off. (Even if doing so is standard at this workshop, they might not know that or might disapprove of this standard.) I'd guess that they would politely decline authorship of the dissertation abstract if asked, but there's no way to be sure other than asking.
But first I'd recommend asking your advisor about this issue. I'm not sure what sort of workshop you mean, which suggests that this may be field-specific. In that case, you need to be aware of the conventions of your field and this workshop in particular. Presumably you aren't the first person to submit a dissertation abstract to this workshop, so this issue must have been dealt with before. If your advisor doesn't know offhand, then it's worth looking through past years to try to find examples. (As a last resort you could ask the workshop organizers for advice, but you shouldn't bother them with this unless you have to, and I'd be very surprised if you had to.)
Then you can write to your other coauthors and say "I'd like to submit an extended abstract of my dissertation to Workshop X. When people have done that in the past, coauthorship of papers appearing in the dissertation has been handled like this: ... Is it OK with you if we do the same here?" It's worth including a copy of your proposed submission, so they can see exactly how they would be mentioned if they won't be authors.
If you don't include them as formal authors of the abstract, then of course you should make it very clear that this is merely a summary of work published elsewhere and who the authors of those papers are.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/06 | 405 | 1,636 | <issue_start>username_0: A publisher for an e-textbook is offering me an honorarium if I try it with a class. My own ethical take on this is that I would not entertain this regardless of the size of the honorarium (which I don't know). I certainly wouldn't do this without full disclosure to the students who I'm forcing to buy the book. I also don't see this as a particularly good text for my course.
While my own position is sort of steadfast, it's something that I haven't seen before in academic publishing, so I'll ask "Are there situations where taking an honorarium for trying a textbook on a class is acceptable behavior?"<issue_comment>username_1: I think if you'd not seriously consider the text *without* the honorarium, that clinches a "don't do it". That is, external monetary motivations should not be allowed to color your professional judgement. And, given that the appearance of impropriety is itself a potential problem, even if the text is plausible, better to be able to later claim objectivity by not taking an honorarium/bribe...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In this situation "honorarium" seems like a glorified bribe. It would be OK to accept payment for actual work (like, producing a written report on how the book did in a class), but as long as no such work is expected then all the publisher would be asking is for the instructor to sell his students. So my answer would be a plain "no".
One of the reasons that Universities pay their professors handsomely is precisely in order to buy them freedom.
I would add that such a publisher deserves to be made "famous" for such practices.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/10/06 | 1,386 | 5,748 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a senior who is graduating in December with a Bachelor's Degree in Pure math. I would really love to apply to the PhD program. However, I have been really depressed because even though I have a good GPA (3.85), and I have gotten mostly A's in all of my math classes (I have taken math classes up to Topology, measure theory, and Algebra), I feel like this is not good enough since I have 8 W's [withdrawals--no grade given] on my transcript. The horrible part is that 6 of these W's are on math courses. All those W's occurred during my first year at my university. The second year up to now I haven't gotten any W's.
My question is: How horrible (by the Committee who selects candidates for the program) is a W seen on a transcript? Is there anything I can do about it?
I feel like I have a big hole on my transcript, and it has been chasing me throughout my undergrad years even though I managed to hide myself from this monster and continued to take a lot of math courses, earning A's (and two B's) in all of them.<issue_comment>username_1: Good point in your transcripts is your GPA. However, you have some withdrawing courses which may/may not affect your admission chances. Here are my general suggestions:
1. For a PhD admission, you will need two or three letters of recommendation. You can ask the professor who knows you and is writing the letter for you to explain why you had such problem. I think it will be better if the professor who is writing for you be the lecturer of the course you withdrew. He can explain the instances on it. (For instance, some other people in the same class also withdrew the course, the exams and assessment was really tough, etc.)
2. You can improve your chances and your problems with your transcripts by having a better GRE score report; so try to have higher scores on your GRE to improve your chances in your admissions.
And a final advice; this is your transcripts. You may not be able to change it. Don't be afraid of it and apply for the programs you like. Don't prejudge and let the admissions committee decide whether you are eligible for their program or not. May be the other applicants may not have better resumes than you and you be admitted in a good program, who knows? You will not miss anything.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Your situation doesn't sound so bad to me at all.
First of all, though perhaps I shouldn't, I will admit that many graduate admissions personnel do not thoroughly scour the transcripts. They look at the GPA and they look at the courses taken. Often this information is given separately on the application, so a look at the actual transcript may only be required if there is something missing there. So there's a **tip** for you: if you are asked for separate information about courses taken, definitely be sure to list it. (If on the other hand you are asked to list the courses taken together with the grades you got, it seems to me that you are ethically obligated to list the W's.)
More than this though, W's occupy a sort of nether region in academic grading. In my university we have WP (withdrew passing) and WF (withdrew failing). Only the latter affects your grade, and my understanding is that WP is not meant to be a stigmatic mark at all. (In fact undergraduate students are limited to 4 WP's over the course of their careers.) Unless the registrar puts an asterisk next to your 3.85 GPA and says **warning: there were some W's!** then in at least one very official sense the W's are *not being counted*.
More good news: all of the W's are in your first year. That is exactly the sort of localized difficulty followed by dramatic improvement that admissions committees are looking for.
I think it would be a good idea to use your personal statement to *briefly* address the W's. I'm thinking of one or two sentences which acknowledge that they exist, say a few vague words of excuse (e.g. "time to adjust to a new academic environment", "personal difficulties long since resolved"; nothing too specific or gory), and especially: point out how nicely you've moved on. If you feel like you can use the W's as part of a larger depiction of a crescendo of academic accomplishment, you might try that, but that's a more "advanced technique", so to speak.
I think it is quite likely that the average effect this will have on your application is little or none. Honestly, to me you sound significantly more guilty / apprehensive about a minor issue long since resolved than you need to be. I forgive you! Please don't hesitate to apply to all the PhD programs you're interested in. (If you like algebra/number theory/geometry/topology, please consider UGA.)
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Well, I'm personally a current Ph.D student who was in exactly this situation....I had a *ton* of withdraws for psychiatric/medical reasons on my transcript, but I had my life and my psyche straightened out by the time I was ready for grad school. My advice is to be open and honest in your communication with the schools in question, let them know the reasons for the withdraws and that you have your headspace settled now.
There's a long tradition of mental health issues and mathematicians, there's a lot of us out there.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: The first thing is to talk to the professors who would write recommendations for you. Firstly, those professors know a lot more about what happens in graduate admissions than you can guess. Secondly, recommendations are usually more highly weighted (and more closely read) than grades, so if they give you good recommendations that will out-weigh odd things on your transcript (especially if they were in freshman year).
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/06 | 2,175 | 8,376 | <issue_start>username_0: What should I opt for?
Option A) very well paid PhD, around €3000 per month at a respectable university
or;
Option B) a non-paid PhD, where I have to pay €2000 per year at one of the top 10 universities of the world?
EDIT: Actually they are both UK universities, Option B is ranked **between the top 10 in the world in engineering and tech**, and I do get a scholarship that pays 18000 pounds which covers the difference between international student tuition and EU tuition. In Option A, I will be doing research in a good university and will be working alongside giants in the industry.<issue_comment>username_1: Unless you're independently wealthy I think it is always unwise to do an unfunded Ph.D. program. With the current academic market the way that it is, there's just no guarantee that you will get a good job with the Ph.D. that will allow you to quickly pay off your debt. There's also no guarantee that you'll get a Ph.D. at all. We're talking about over a hundred thousand euros! There are some advantages to a top ranked department (as ff524 says, university ranking is irrelevant), but it's not 100K euros worth of advantage (especially since often a lot of the advantage of a top dept. is that they're better funded and so students can concentrate more on research).
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Usually no, it is not worth self-funding a PhD program; in your case, however, I think it is worth it for two reasons:
1. Awesome top-10 school in your country
2. Relatively cheap (ration between cost of education to future income).
I will share my experience with you. Right now I am in-directly paying for my PhD. I was accepted in a Computer Engineering PhD program at a state school which is a fairly well known public research school, among the top 50 in the United States. I am using my company's education benefit to fund my education. For me it has been worth it but if I had to pay tuition entirely myself, I wouldn't do it since I already have masters degree and there won't be any major pay increase at my current employer.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Congratulations on receiving these two offers from good universities, both of which offer at least some funding. I make it that the difference between your two options is about €114000 over the three-year period that UK PhDs are usually funded for. This is probably a very large difference and it might be worth trying to ask somebody within your field who knows both institutions and departments whether that would be worth it.
Certainly, self-funded students can survive PhDs in the UK, and your prospects of successfully completing are probably better than average if you are in engineering and tech. In addition, it may be a realistic prospect in the UK to receive payment for carrying out some teaching and demonstrating. I would advise asking about this possibility before you commit to option B. Look at the research council guidelines beforehand to try to gauge the best practices for salary and training.
However, there may be more important criteria than money. In one department I worked in I saw hoards of both funded and self-funding students abandoned by a particular supervisor before they quit. Don't let this be you. The (prestigious) department did nothing; it was absolutely buyer beware. So the usual advice applies: Talk to your supervisor's previous students, did they complete on time? What are they doing now? Did they see others around them succeed and being supported? Did they feel the supervisor, department and university helped them to succeed? Unfortunately, a top department is absolutely no guarantee of a non-toxic research culture in the group.
If option A is research council funded (or is funded by a high-profile UK body or another funder demanding results for their money), this would weigh heavily in my decision to take it, even if it is at a less prestigious university. There will be consequences for the group and department if a council-funded student fails to finish by the four-year deadline, and this means that both the supervisor and institution are absolutely committed to the student succeeding and solutions will have to be found if things start to go wrong.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: While what you should opt for is clearly a personal decision, my stance is the following:
**You Should Never Take An Unfunded PhD Position**
There is already a decently high opportunity cost for getting a PhD - adding substantial amounts of debt (or erosion of savings to it) just makes this opportunity cost worse. It will put tremendous pressure on you coming out the other end into the job market, and generally speaking I've never encountered an institution that didn't use unfunded positions as a sort of "soft rejection" signaling mechanism.
The hope may be, of course, that you come, prove to be an outstanding researcher, and can find funding with a member of the faculty, but that's a *hope*, and one that's far from guaranteed.
Especially considering that your second, funded option sounds like a very decent choice of school, I wouldn't do it unless you're genuinely independently wealthy to the point that all of this is a purely theoretical discussion, but my guess is that's not the case.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Make sure your supervising professor is a world famous researcher in your field of choice and that they are a large research department. Check out their past students. Did they achieve research careers or leaving the country?
I did a PhD that straddled two fields; my supervisor was expert in field A, while I was interested in working in field B. The department was also based on field A. After I had successfully published a paper, a rival university tried to derail me from working in field B, because I was stepping on their toes. I ended up having my PhD deliberately dragged out for four years.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: Some calculations using the input parameters you gave.
**Option A**: Assuming a 3-year PhD, you are earning €36,000 a year, or €108,000 over the duration of the PhD.
**Option B**: Assuming a 3-year PhD, you are losing €24,000 a year, or €72,000 over the duration of the PhD.
Let's assume that if you take option A, you go on to a job that pays a discretionary income of €3,000 a month (i.e. 3000 after all taxes and basic spending are deducted). If you take option B, you instead get €3,000 + X a month, where X is a positive number. (This is an assumption, and there's no guarantee that it will indeed happen.) Further, let's assume you save the entire sum, that you graduate at age 30 and work until 65, and your monthly salary never increases faster than the rate of inflation.
Next we assume that you already have enough money saved such that if you take option B, you start your working life with €0 (no student debt). That means that if you take option A, you start with €180,000. [The average return of the S&P 500 per year over the past 90 years is 9.8%.](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/18/the-sp-500-has-already-met-its-average-return-for-a-full-year.html) This is the rate of return at which you're increasing your savings.
Now we can use [a compound interest calculator](http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calculator.htm) to figure out how much money you have at retirement. Given €180,000 starting principal, €36,000 annual addition, 9.8% interest rate, and 35 years to compound, **Option A gives €14,978,512.10**. With option B, you have €0 starting principal, unknown annual addition, 9.8% interest rate, and 35 years to compound. Fiddling with the annual addition yields the result: **to get the same ~€15 million retirement fund, you need an annual addition of €52,700**.
You'll need to vary the parameters to fit your situation of course, but the result of this analysis is typical. **Your monthly discretionary income needs to be at least ~€4392, or X must be at least €1392, for Option B to be competitive with Option A**.
Do graduates with a degree from a top 10 university earn €1392 more per month than graduates from a lower-ranked university? You can ask around, but I'm pretty confident the answer is "no" unless you are in a field where average monthly earnings are five figures or greater.
tl; dr: **take the funded position.**
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/06 | 434 | 1,881 | <issue_start>username_0: I would like to know if someone knows whether there are IT solutions (websites etc) that help with meeting interdisciplinary researchers from local academic institutions (socal).<issue_comment>username_1: I would suggest you try finding researchers on [Academia.edu](http://www.academia.edu). Generally, you will find a whole host of researchers who have similar research interests and who are willing to collaborate. You also might try to find email or snail mail addresses of researchers you are already familiar with in order to establish links with them. If you don't attend conferences and network, I believe the above are viable options you should consider.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Attend a hackathon or tech event, or atleast attend the last day (presentation) of these events, you are bound to connect with people various background and research area.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: If you really want them local, the best social network is actually being social.
You can either attend conferences and university events in your city, attend seminars at other departments (some are announced in their webpages), or just send a series of polite emails to researchers working in thins you want. Just list the departments that may be doing something you like, browse their personnel, and skim their last publications to see if your research interests may be aligned.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In my case, through my universities intramural cricket league! Seriously, getting to know academics in a social context not directly related to work is an excellent way to find people to work with, and if they are people you get on well with, that makes the academic collaboration more enjoyable and productive. Most universities have social clubs and societies (and e.g. language courses) that are open to staff.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/07 | 780 | 2,640 | <issue_start>username_0: What does (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87) mean in author biography. I am writing a paper and the format given for author biography also include a must fill entry: (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87). I tried to Google it and I can see many similar entries in authors biographies in published papers.
Can someone please help me about how to fill up the field (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87) for myself?<issue_comment>username_1: *Disclaimer: I base my answer on my familiarity with the IEEE. Other societies may follow similar conventions.*
For members of the IEEE, the notation in your example is a "shorthand" way for indicating when the author achieved a certain membership status within the society. For example,
>
> (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87)
>
>
>
means that <NAME> became a *Student Member* (S) in 1973, a *Member* (M) in 1976, a *Senior Member* (SM) in 1981, and an *IEEE Fellow* (F) in 1987.
If you are not a member of the IEEE, then you do not use this shorthand in your biography.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: *As well as [username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11192/mad-jack), I'm basing my answer on IEEE.*
You can find IEEE's documents guiding authors on how to style their papers. The most updated one that I could find today can be download from [here](https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/your-role-in-article-production/ieee-editorial-style-manual/). The document is called [IEEE Editorial Style Manual](http://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE-Editorial-Style-Manual.pdf) and it was published in 07/10/19.
The passage you are looking for is located in the **section Biographies**, **page 13**:
>
> [...] The format for listing the IEEE membership history is to list each grade of membership attained followed by an apostrophe and the year it was attained, with each year and grade combination separated from the others by an en dash. Note that if an author attains the same membership grade in more than one year, list only the first year that it was reached. The current membership listed with the biography must match the byline.
>
>
> Abbreviations for IEEE membership grades are S (Student Member), GS (Graduate Student Member), A (Associate Member), M (Member), SM (Senior Member), F (Fellow), LA (Life Associate Member), LM (Life Member), LSM (Life Senior Member), and LF (Life Fellow). Note that A stands for Associate, not Affiliate, Member. Affiliate memberships are not listed in the byline or biography membership history. Do not include references to IEEE membership from the text of the biography.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/10/07 | 1,241 | 5,815 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm in the process of applying for master of "Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems" in VU university. The university requires me to write a letter describing why I deserve a scholarship. I have written this letter multiple times, but every time I read it from beginning to end I feel it contains pride words and I think this will not help me to get scholarship.
Can someone help me to write effective letters like this?<issue_comment>username_1: Committee must be convinced that the money will be well used. It would look best if you told you would invest the money to become better at the field of your studies (buy literature, go to conferences, pay for some courses or certifications, publishing your articles in journals). However, trying to look perfect could backfire. **In my country** it would be reasonable if you wrote that part of the scholarship would be spent on something not related to education. But that depends on the country, culture, traditions, committee members etc.
You must also convince the committee that you will do good in studies. That is why you should mention your study results and achievements.
You must convince the committee that you like the field of your studies, you are passionate and will keep working hard. If your studies have helped you at your work, mention that. Also mention your short and long term goals - educational and professional.
You can also mention your strongest characteristics and give arguments. (example: leadership abilities, you lead a student team in project x which was successful. )
The motivation letter as a whole is the answer to the question "Why do you deserve a scholarship?”
**edit #1:** I changed the part about spending scholarship money on something not education related, because of the comment by Trylks.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Scholarship is the grant for those students who are either extraordinary and talent or who are unable to pay their college or university fees due to low economic status of family.So the reason differs to individual.And I feel that student need to write their true story seeking for scholarship such as if his/her family cannot pay the sum maybe because of poverty or the individual is extremely good or expert at something and can contribute to the welfare and fame of university.And needless to say, the student need to meet the criteria of scholarship scheme and should write accordingly including their true need of scholarship.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: I think one of the main reasons why questions like this are included in scholarship or fellowship applications are to distinguish exceptional candidates from each other. In most programs, a lot of applicants will be quickly eliminated by the selection committee on the basis of various criteria: because they didn't complete the application form correctly, because their previous experience doesn't suggest they'll benefit from this program, because they have access to other funding sources, because they aren't outstanding academically or socially, because they didn't interview well, or any number of other criteria.
However, once that filtering process has ended, the selection committee has a list of exceptional, driven applicants who would clearly benefit from the funding -- but may not have enough funding to support all of them. That's when they start comparing those applications in detail, and that's where an applicant who can demonstrate why they'd be even a *slightly* better candidate than the others has a better chance of getting funded. This question is an opportunity for you to demonstrate what makes you unique when compared to other exceptional candidates.
In line with this, you don't need to say, "I would benefit from this funding because I have an exceptional academic history and I would be unable to take this opportunity otherwise", because the rest of your application already proves this. Instead, think about the committee comparing you with the best candidate that you can imagine: someone just as smart as you, just as accomplished as you, and someone who would benefit from this funding as much as you. What could you tell the selection committee that would convince them to pick you instead of this other candidate?
Some suggestions:
* Are you (individually) particularly suited for this opportunity? Maybe you have previous experience with distributed systems that you can apply to this Masters degree?
* Is this opportunity particularly suited for you? Maybe there's a professor at VU you'd really benefit from working with, or maybe their program focusing on some aspect of distributed systems that are really important to you.
* How will selecting you benefit your hosts? What is something interesting you could bring to VU that other applicants can't?
* How will selecting you benefit your sponsors? Find out exactly what the scholarship's goal is: is it to give students access to opportunities that might not otherwise be available to them? Is it to transfer some skills to your country or community by educating you in those skills? One of the people at my university pointed out that one of the biggest benefits they get from international students is that their local students -- who might not otherwise be able to afford international travel or the chance to work closely with people from other cultures -- could now do exactly that without traveling anywhere! Whatever the sponsoring organization is doing, figure out how sponsoring you will help them advance their goals.
As with all application questions, do **not** lie or exaggerate, or try to anticipate what the selection committee wants to hear: figure out what's unique about you, and figure out the best way to explain this to them. All the best!
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/07 | 1,661 | 6,702 | <issue_start>username_0: After reading this question about [slides making](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7523/should-the-slides-in-a-presentation-be-self-explanatory-or-be-as-minimal-as-poss/28751#28751) and asking myself two questions about [poster making](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29352/which-is-the-better-scheme-for-a-poster-tell-a-story-or-important-first) and [TED talking](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26277/are-ted-presentations-academically-credible), I realize that these activities are for showing what you found, make the audience be attracted. If they need further explanation, they should read your paper, which has successfully defensed and proved that your work is validated. One important thing when you attempt to attract people is concentrate on the important, which means unnecessary things need to be trimmed. I think the reference is one of those. So, should we put the references in slides/poster when we already have them in paper?<issue_comment>username_1: I've only done one of these. I followed the same rules I'd follow in a paper. If the poster mentioned the work of another, there was a citation in the poster text and a reference at the bottom of the poster. That resulted in ten references (out of about 100) on the poster. <http://scis.nova.edu/~robebrow/dissertation/cellular_automata_poster_brown_robert_20131209.pdf>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If you subscribe to the "slides should be teasers to motivate people to read the paper" view ([I don't](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/7574/4140)), then make sure you provide full bibliographic information *for the paper* at least. If the paper is not published yet when you give the presentation, take the time to edit your presentation once the paper is published, if you can still access the presentation - e.g., if it is on your website.
There is little more frustrating than looking through an old presentation about a paper that nowhere tells the reader which paper is being talked about, so you have to scare up the presentation's author and hope he tells you. (As likely or not, he may not even remember himself which paper he was talking about.)
And then you can certainly skip references in your presentation.
EDIT: And I would suggest the same for a poster: if you make the poster available even after the paper was published, e.g., as a download, add the info what paper it was about.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: There's different schools of thought on that, and I don't think there is any really dominant convention (at least in my field). By and large, for conference papers, I tend to only include citations when it seems particularly important to do so (for instance when citing something in verbatim), or when I want to stress that an opinion that I am presenting originates from a different author.
It is somewhat different for defense-style talks (thesis defense, job talks, etc.). I tend to use more (self-)citations in such presentations, as it seems more essential here to make immediately clear that I am not making my content up as I go along, i.e., that the material is actually peer-reviewed. Also, having references to good papers of yours directly on the slides is a subtle but powerful reminder that you were able to get your research published in good venues.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: My rule for presentations is:
>
> Don't say anything that an interested member of the audience will not be able to remember.
>
>
>
This includes tables, but also bibliographic references to things that are not absolutely central to the presentation. There is a caveat: if the conference is recorded or the slides are available offline, you could write them in a non intrusive way (but not mention them during the talk).
Posters are different, as an interested reader may spend a longer time reading it. But then, the rule becomes:
>
> Don't include anything that an interested reader will not be able to remember, or won't bother to write down.
>
>
>
This trims away "previous work" (except, perhaps, a single very good review) or citations for the exact value of a certain constant you used; but you should include things that are indeed central.
And of course, by all means, you should include the reference to your own paper, so it is easy to find.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I always include key references (i.e. ones necessary to ground the work in the literature including my own refereed work) in my slides and on my posters. I absolutely consider the references to be important as they ensure appropriate credit for prior work and to demonstrate one's understanding of the current state of the field. I do this in one of two ways for slides:
1. Include the bibliographic reference by author at the bottom of the slide. This is my preferred way for conference presentations where people familiar with the field will likely already know the article you refer to.
2. Provide a bibliography at the end of the presentation. This approach can be useful if there are quite a few references, or especially if the presentation is likely to be used as a resource in its own right. This can be the case if you ever upload slides to e.g. your personal website, or if it's for a tutorial-style presentation.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: One important consideration is whether any of the people who wrote the references are in the audience. It can't hurt to mention them because academics like to have their egos tickled. Of course, this doesn't apply for posters.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: Just give the references in the **shortest possible manner**, e.g.:
>
> (Smith et al. 2004)
>
>
>
There is no need to provide a full list of references anywhere. Such a minimal reference is sufficient for the following purposes:
* It clearly shows that this particular result is not from your current work.
* The **year of publication** helps to clarify the relative timing of prior work.
* Smith et al. in the audience will appreciate your talk.
* The few experts in the audience can guess which work you are referring to, especially if this is a very well-known paper in the field.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: According to
<https://wilkes.libguides.com/c.php?g=191944&p=1266692>
If you have a handout to accompany your poster, you may list your references on that. If not, you should list them in small type at the bottom of the poster.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: I always try to put references to papers of people that are likely to be in the audience.
I noticed that it draws their attention and keeps them alert throughout the talk.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/07 | 750 | 3,091 | <issue_start>username_0: This is a topic I constantly think about when writing a document.
Often after I complete a document in LaTex I would go through the document to make sure that the figures are where I want them to be (I want you here, not there!) and this is a very frustrating procedure.
My question is: How important are figure locations in a document, e.g. if the figure you refer to is not on the page where you are referring to it, perhaps even two pages after.
I have noticed that textbook publishers rarely give any thought to it and I cannot decide whether it bothers me or not. It would certainly make my life easier if I don't have to worry about floats jumping around in a LaTex document.
Any thoughts?<issue_comment>username_1: If you are publishing your work as an article in a journal or a book with a publisher than it is often not your decision. It is even very common for the figures and tables to be all collected at the end, and within the text there is a text like --- insert figure 4 here ---. For that reason it most of the time hasn't bothered me. The only time I considered the exact placement of figures and tables was when I was publishing my own dissertation and I was responsible for the lay-out.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: There are many policies that publishers imply considering figures. The most common ones are:
1. All figures or tables (so-called floats) have to be numbered and get a caption.
2. All floats have to be placed at the top of the page, or at a page solely made of figures and tables.
3. All floats have to be referred in the text by their number.
4. Every float has to appear no sooner than on the page where it is first mentioned (i.e. if it's first mentioned on page 5, it shouldn't be placed on page 4, but it can be placed on page 6).
5. Numbering should be consecutive (i.e., no 1 then 3 then 2).
6. The first reference to the floats should be consecutive (with the exception where you basically only "confer it" (with "cf." or alike).
Some journals want you to provide figures and tables separately, some don't care, some have typesetters that do it themselves, some don't force captions, some allow in-text placement, etc. Just check what you have to do. If nothing is said, I recommend complying with the rules above.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: It may be that your journal's style guide will have something to say about this, so you should read it, but my preference is for figures and tables to appear in the order they are discussed in the text even if that makes them relatively far apart. You should do your best to get them $\pm 1$ page from their reference, but it's not the end of the world if they go further.
Sometimes you need a headline figure to appear somewhere prominent, but otherwise, it's usually worth relaxing a bit over figure placement.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I personally don't care. The default LaTeX algorithm does a decent job, and I don't consider it worth my time to tweak it manually (other than adding an occasional `[!ht]`).
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/07 | 774 | 3,150 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm currently writing a paper that has some kind of tutorial parts in it. I have written sentences similar to:
«... depending on your operating system, the procedure is different»
Is addressing the reader directly like that in a scientific paper ok? Or should I try to rewrite these sentences?<issue_comment>username_1: Except when outlining a motivation for a particular section in a paper, I would recommend speaking in third person as much as possible. An example of the exception is:
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> Because our primary interest is in \_\_\_\_ we have chosen to follow the method developed by \_\_\_.
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For your case I would reword your sentence as:
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> Depending on the operating system used, the implementation will differ.
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Always shift the focus to the things being manipulated, whether it be an experiment, computer program, or anything else.
As for your sentence in the comment you could write it as:
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> How the scripts are run is at the user's discretion; it may be interactive, line by line, or in batches, depending on its function.
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>
I have used the `at the user's discretion` a lot in my work; it's a professional way of saying `you can do this part however you like`. Also, whenever I have to identify somebody whose completing a task, I try and identify them based on the task they are completing (e.g. `the analyst`, `the user`, or `the programmer`). If you say `you`, you are assuming that the reader is the one who will be carrying out these tasks, which may not be the case.
If you have to address the *reader*, then you can say something like:
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> For the reader's convenience, the pertinent information has been summarized in Table 5.
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or the famous, albeit witty, cop out:
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> \_\_\_\_\_ is left as an exercise for the reader.
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Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Whether to speak in third person or directly in first person is a matter of taste and tradition. However, when you consider reading papers that are written in an active voice and in a direct way, compared to third person and passive voice there is probably no contest which will put you to sleep first.
Using "this author" about yourself or "the reader" distances both you and the reader from the work, it is as if you are reading account which only concerns others. There is no question that appropriately using "I" for yourself and maybe you for the reader is more direct and makes the communication clear. In an account where you also involve the reader you can also use "we" as in the reader and you, jointly. This is not the royal "We" as used by some.
In your example of "...depending on your operating system, the procedure is different" skipping the "your" would not detract from the message: "...depending on the operating system, the procedure is different". But since you really want to say that differences appear because of the type of operating system used, I would suggest rephrasing to something like "...depending on the choice of operating system, the procedure is different". I am, in this case, not sure if "your" makes the point any clearer to the reader.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/07 | 753 | 2,949 | <issue_start>username_0: Since I'm applying for grad school, I'm currently in the process of acquiring recommendation letters from my professors. They usually ask me a few questions about how to guide the letter, such as what do I want to emphasize and how to address the letter?
How does one address a grad school applicant's recommendation letter? I mostly settle for "Dear Madam or Sir". Is "Dear Graduate Admissions Committee" or some other alternative considered better?<issue_comment>username_1: According to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salutation#English "Wikipedia")
1. Dear Sir or Madam or 'Sir/Madam' (If the gender of the reader is unknown).
2. To Whom It May Concern (If the writer wishes to exclude the gender of the reader from the salutation and/or to convey that the reader should forward the copy to one more suited to receive or respond appropriately).
As [@Davidmh](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29536/how-to-address-grad-school-recommendation-letter/29538#comment64401_29536) has mentioned it is least concerned. I personally have chosen to use "To Whom It May Concern" when I applied to grad school as in some grad schools the recommendation letters might get forwarded from the admissions staff to various professors.
**Edit :** The first is British English and the second is American English as mentioned by [@Davidmh](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29536/how-to-address-grad-school-recommendation-letter/29538#comment64405_29538)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: If you are required to send your letter of recommendation to a specific person (may be your future advisor), the admission committee, head of department or an office in the university where you are applying to, then you should tell your professor to address that specific person or office. If in the guidelines of your application, you have not seen any emphasis on to whom/where should the letter be written, then ask your professor to write you a general recommendation like the one indicated in the [@Srikanth's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/29538/15723).
P.S: As I read the first paragraph of your question; I think your professors want to know what is most important for you to be included in your letter of recommendation. Something which will positively affect your application chance and something that should become [bold](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29536/how-to-address-grad-school-recommendation-letter/29541?noredirect=1#comment64409_29541) in their recommendation. Of course they have many students in their classes and they may miss some positive and important points about you. So, they ask you to remind them the important things which comes to your mind. I have seen some professors that ask the students who want letters of recommendation to write a draft themselves and by reading the draft, they write a recommendation letter for their student.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/07 | 966 | 4,101 | <issue_start>username_0: In preparing my academic vita for applications to PhD programs, I came across this question: Since I have some papers published in less known journals, should I list them or not to list them?
Will listing them instead hurt my applications?<issue_comment>username_1: PhD admission committees look for evidence of your ability to successfully complete the PhD program. Published papers can be a big hint that the answer is "yes".
Unless it can be argued that the journal is a predatory one, I would suggest mentioning the published paper in your application if you think that the paper is of good quality. Even when the journal is not so well known (but has good standards), it shows that you can perform the type of work expected from you if they choose to accept you.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Unless you have published in predatory or other journals with some suspicious reputation, all publications count positively. The more you demonstrate your productivity the stronger your application. How much each publication counts will depend on other factors, like the order of authorship (being first or middle; note that depending on the field ordering may be irrelevant) or how many times the publication has been cited.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Here is a [well-known list of predatory journals](http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/01/02/list-of-predatory-publishers-2014/).
As username_1 says, you probably shouldn't publicize publications to any of these. For any others, go ahead! A less reputable journal paper is better than no journal paper. Once you have dozens of publications, you can start thinking of filtering out less reputable stuff.
Note: I would have added this as a comment to the previous answer, but don't have the reputation.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I asked this same 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) when I had a student apply to do a Phd with me who had three articles published in essentially predatory journals (maybe a hair better). My concern was that the papers indicate a student whose potential goals are not well aligned with the requirements of many competitive PhD programs. The answers convinced me that that is not a big issue. I would suggest including them and mentioning in your cover letter/statement of purpose that you understand the differences between high and low quality publishers. I think that would help to convince potential supervisors to evaluate the publications based on the quality of the research and not the place of publication.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: From a current PhD student:
I would definitely recommend listing them on your CV.
The publication expectations for PhD applicants are relatively low (compared to postdocs, etc), and many PhD applicants don't have a published manuscript in a peer-reviewed journal yet. So having something on your CV that shows you're published, even if in a journal with a 0.1 impact factor (lesser known), will still make you stand out.
Something else to consider - humans are busy. And academicians are super busy. And unless you're applying to a program in the same field as the journal you published in, there's a good chance the people reviewing your application won't even know the quality of the journal on your CV. And they most likely won't look it up. And even if they do, the key is that you've published something. This, in itself, is great.
As I see it, you can only gain from adding these to your CV.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: If you are just beginning your Academic carrier, list EVERY reputable publication, including popular pubs such as magazines and news stories (be sure non-peer reviewed pubs are marked).
Even after you have several publications, and need to thin your CV, keep a list of all published articles in a longer format CV in case it is needed by a committee of some sort.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/07 | 1,310 | 5,806 | <issue_start>username_0: I took a research writing course at my university (which is required of most students) and did extremely well in the course, winning a writing award for the work I did in that class and having it published in the school's textbook for their introductory English courses. I went on to be a TA for that professor for two semesters afterward and did extremely well, and I think his recommendation would be nothing but glowing.
However, I am an Electrical Engineering major applying for an MS in Computer Science, and while his recommendation shows my ability to write and teach, the work I did was entirely non-technical. Would it still be worthwhile to ask for a recommendation from him, or should I focus on getting more letters from my EE/CS professors instead? I currently have one excellent letter from my employer (a small company that I worked for a little over a year during school, was able to lead development on a few projects and teach some people, mostly industry), but sadly don't have a good enough relationship with enough of my other professors beyond "got an A / did well on some projects".<issue_comment>username_1: I can't think of how an excellent letter of recommendation from a professor in an unrelated field of study could hurt you. Perhaps if it was the only (excellent) letter of recommendation, maybe then. But you mentioned you have an excellent letter from your employer and can (I assume) get at least one more good letter from someone else, so I think you are in a good position.
You are right, his letter of recommendation would not be about your technical skills related to EE, but it would mention your characteristics, work ethics, teamwork ability in a very good light. Research writing course is also not that far away from EE. It shows you are more diverse than the stereotypical programmer or engineer. You worked with this specific professor for 2 semesters, he could give you an outstanding letter of recommendation. I think his letter will give you more than any single average/solid letter from other professors.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The two relevant points are: 1) you took the course and 2) you had the professor. And may I add a third, you may well get your best recommendation from this professor.
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." That is, don't overlook the opportunity to get a very good recommendation from somebody. It's better if it is in a related field, "all other things being equal," but all other things AREN'T equal.
In a graduate school situation, it is quite important that you can (and did) excel "somewhere." That it is in an area close to your field is certainly of some importance, but it's not the only thing. And good writing skills are relevant in engineering, science, or ANY technical skill.
It's hard enough to get good/great recommendations as it is. Don't pass this one by.
Then, of course, try to get good recommendations in your field as well in order to produce a strong, all-around package.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: It is always a good thing to have letters from faculty who are wholly enthusiastic about your performance. However, if the performance is in a different subject from the one in which you're applying for graduate study, their relevance will be at least somewhat lessened compared to letters from faculty in that subject. One reason that this is true is that the admissions faculty are more likely to know faculty in the same subject personally. Even if they don't, they have a lifetime of training at evaluating people in the same subject: e.g, when I read a striking letter from someone I don't know, I often look them up to find out their research profile.
It may be that my field -- mathematics -- is snobbier than most when it comes to discounting letters from those in adjacent fields. But with the exception of physics, statistics and computer science, if I get a letter from someone in a different academic field, they simply can't directly convince me that the candidate they're writing for will be successful in my PhD program because I can't be confident that they know what it takes to be successful in a (let alone my) PhD program in mathematics. They can convince me that the candidate is a very strong / talented / accomplished student in general, which is certainly a good thing, and what they tell me about their skills in Subject X might make a positive impression on me. I would be delighted to hear that a candidate was an award-winning writer. But this would not be a good substitute for a letter from a mathematician telling me that the candidate has what it takes to succeed in my math PhD program. (And you don't need a faculty letter to list the awards you've won; that information should be included elsewhere in your application.)
So I would say: sure, get the letter from this faculty member in a different subject. But use it *in addition to* other letters from faculty in your subject, not as replacements for it. (In most programs I know, you can freely turn in more letters than are asked for.) If you really can't find more than two strong letters from faculty in your field -- that's a separate issue, by the way -- then it would probably be better to use this letter in place of a letter from someone who is not going to rate you highly. In my opinion you should not use the letter to replace a letter from a faculty member who will say you are strong even though they don't know you well enough to say anything really insightful about you. We don't need deep insight from every letter: merely being vouched for by someone that we know (at least, by reputation) and respect may be good enough. "Got an A / did well on some projects" is not actually a bad letter from the right person.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/10/07 | 604 | 2,490 | <issue_start>username_0: In some countries, it is required for students to contact a professor and find an advisor before they start their application for that university. I have heard from some of my friends who are studying PhD that if a professor is eager to advise a student who has contacted him (because of his outstanding vita, publication, etc.), he will help that student to find a good scholarship or even offers some scholarships from funding providers he knows (maybe from industry, research institutes, etc.).
I am asking this because after I heard this comment, I feel that if a professor does not show support for scholarships, or if he says in emails
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> I will be happy to advise you on your PhD, please go to admissions webpage, also visit scholarships webpage and apply for one you are eligible for receiving.
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it means that this professor is not *strongly* interested in advising me.
I mean, if the professor really wanted to have me in his research group as a PhD student, he would try to help me finding scholarships. If he is not helping and is not talking about it, he is not really interested in having me as a PhD student. He believes that I am not a strong student and I will not find any scholarships. So, this is a way to politely and automatically reject a PhD student. Is this really true?<issue_comment>username_1: That could be the reason, but I can think of a few alternatives.
* He may have a deadline for a paper next week, or has heavy teaching, or any other very time consuming task.
* He hasn't had a new PhD student lately, so he is not really updated in the funding sources available.
* You know your eligibility much more than he does. For example, you might state in your CV that your were born in Colombia, so he knows you have that nationality, but you may also have a Spanish passport, and thus be eligible for funding for EU citizens.
I would guess that these applications require you to submit some sort of research plan; that should be done with your future supervisor. Once you found a suitable funding possibility, ask for help to write the proposal.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It could be, as is usually the case in the UK, that the Professor has no direct influence on the awarding of scholarship money. It would, therefore, be irresponsible of him to mislead you about your chances of obtaining funding. I certainly wouldn't take it as a sign that he doesn't wish to supervise you.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/07 | 682 | 2,845 | <issue_start>username_0: I recently got a good job and I want to thank a very senior professor in my department, who spent time to write me a very good reference.
I am thinking maybe to give him a thank you card when I go to see him before leaving the department.
I come from a culture where gift-giving is considered obligatory if someone has helped you to achieve something major. I'm not sure this is appropriate in the UK context.
Any ideas?<issue_comment>username_1: A thank you card is definitely a good idea and I cannot see that it would be considered inappropriate. If you are from abroad, a little something typical of your country of origin may also be appropriate. Like a small box of traditional sweets, a little traditional doll, a fan, or something like that. I have had this kind of little things given to me by students.
Also, the university will probably have a policy on gifts which you may be able to locate on their web site. The general idea is that it should not be something worth a significant amount of money.
Rather than asking a classmate, I would ask a junior faculty for what goes as the norm. A classmate may be as inexperienced in this as you are, because the rules in academia can be significantly different from other parts of society.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: A well thought-out thank you note would be good. Better if you know them well enough to know they like a particular place, e.g. their favorite coffee shop, and you could buy them a gift certificate. I'm probably reading my own biases into this, but I would not get them less than a $20 gift certificate, or maybe a nice bottle of wine (if you know they'd like it). If that's too expensive for you, just focus on making your thank you note mean more than a couple cups of free coffee.
But you're under no obligation. They performed their duty as they were obliged to do, likely because you did so as well. If you're on good terms, and I think it's safe to assume you are, a simple thank-you note is likely to mean much more than anything else you might do.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: A thank-you card would be perfect, or even just saying thank you.
There isn't a strong culture of giving thank-you gifts in the UK so your professor won't expect one and certainly won't feel that you are ungrateful if you don't give him something. However, it's almost never inappropriate1 to give a small gift if that's what you want to do. The suggestions in the other answers (a gift card for a coffee shop, a bottle of wine or especially something from your own country) are all good ideas. I wouldn't spend more than about £10 on such a gift.
1 The situations where it would be inappropriate would mostly be cases where the gift could be interpreted as a bribe; that obviously isn't the case, here.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/07 | 1,370 | 5,831 | <issue_start>username_0: When applying for academic jobs in the US, one is often asked for a recommendation letter from someone who can attest to your teaching abilities.
How much experience should the letter-writer have with your teaching? Should they have observed you teach multiple times? (In my present postdoc I will teach 3 courses per academic year, should I be inviting potential teaching-letter-writers to visit each course? Or perhaps a selection of undergraduate/graduate courses/seminar talks?)
Are the answers to the above different for postdocs/tenure-track jobs? Within tenure-track jobs, are they different for research-focused versus teaching-focused jobs?
---
I am personally in mathematics. I am assuming the answers will not be too field-dependent (please correct me if I am mistaken), so I left it out of the main body of the question.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> How much experience should the letter-writer have with your teaching?
> Should they have observed you teach multiple times?
>
>
>
I don't think there is a "right" answer here, but there are a number of educated guesses that represent sensible approaches. I will list a few points that common sense suggests, as a starting point.
It makes sense that the person providing a letter should be familiar with your teaching at least "on paper." In other words this can be someone who has observed your teaching at least a couple of times. (I don't think it is critical that the observer has sat in on *all* the classes you teach, but maybe a couple sessions in one or more classes, to have some general idea of how you are doing. Chances are these were representative examples.) OR, it could be someone (like dept chair or your PI/postdoc advisor) who can be reasonably expected to have access to your end-of-semester course evaluations and has some decision-making capacity with regard to your teaching assignments.
>
> should I be inviting potential teaching-letter-writers to visit each
> course? Or perhaps a selection of undergraduate/graduate
> courses/seminar talks?
>
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I think both are fine ideas. Keep in mind the availability of those you are asking, so as not to overburden them with these requests. Sometimes once sit-in might be enough for an experienced faculty member to form a reasonably accurate judgment of your capacity for teaching. Kudos to you if you do not 'orchestrate' the specific class they sit in on, but invite them to drop by 'any time' on any class (except exam time). This is mostly for your own sake, so you can hold yourself to a higher standard overall across your classes. The confidence required to extend such an invitation may not go unnoticed as well.
>
> Are the answers to the above different for postdocs/tenure-track jobs?
> Within tenure-track jobs, are they different for research-focused versus teaching-focused jobs?
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Seems a bit like splitting hairs here...I believe any sensible approach should be sufficient across all of your purposes. The only caveat would be that common sense suggests that deeper familiarity with your teaching will allow the letter writer to write something more coherent about your teaching than the collection of generalities that may be the limit for someone only casually (e.g. indirectly) familiar with your teaching.
(Side note: There are more public though less formal records compared to course evaluations, like RateMyProfessors.com. Not the most authoritative resource on objective evaluation of teaching, but see how you are doing there, just in case.)
Finally, teaching simply doesn't matter as much when applying for research-focused jobs. If your core responsibility will be to drum up grant funding, worry about that in your application, and don't worry so much about your teaching record. This may not be universally the case, but should serve as a reasonable rule of thumb.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: In a situation where "teaching matters", there are two significantly different tangible assessment types: student evaluations, and peer (or supervisor) evaluations, not to mention the more extreme sort of commercial sites which have the systemic problem that the commenters self-select, typically with skewing to negative, even ranting reviews.
The aggregate response in university-organized end-of-term student reviews is useful, not necessarily as a gauge of whether you're a good/effective teacher, but whether the students are "happy". For that matter, successfully generating no "complaints" during a term is some kind of success. This does matter.
Peer-evaluation (occurring not at pre-arranged times, but unplanned, yes), or evaluation by your director of undergrad studies in your department, is the closest to what hiring committees might care about. In particular, if you are doing what your peers or "boss" think you should, it doesn't matter whether the students love you or not... as long as they're not actually unhappy.
(Indeed, our goal surely isn't so much to make students "happy" in a superficial way, as to achieve certain pedagogical goals.)
The attributes relevant to undergrad teaching, especially lower-division, are essentially unrelated to seminar talks and even to graduate-level teaching, since the objectives (and the frame of mind of the audience) are invariably very different.
Edit: a "teaching letter" that merely reports that the student evaluations were positive, or that there were no complaints, is positive, but cannot count as a "strong" teaching letter, I think. This is a special case of the weakness of recommendation letters of any sort that merely repeat facts not known first-hand to the writer. First-hand information is better, and, further, *lack* of a first-hand-information letter-writer is not a good thing...
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/07 | 1,079 | 4,952 | <issue_start>username_0: When applying for academic jobs in the US, one is often asked for a recommendation letter from someone who can attest to your teaching abilities. Suppose someone has been involved in various workshops, programs, discussion groups, etc. about pedagogy through a Center for Teaching Excellence (or a comparable office) as a graduate student or postdoc; is it acceptable for a non-teaching staff member from this center, who has facilitated such activities, to write a teaching recommendation letter for academic jobs? In particular, how are such letters perceived by hiring committees?
Edited to clarify: I was envisioning that such a letter would be in addition to a teaching letter written by a faculty member in one's department.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes. You should ask someone who can provide detailed information about the quality of your teaching and who the hiring committee will view as qualified. I do not see how the letter writer's department is relevant. Consider that ability to work across disciplines is widely expected. If the letter writer is a teaching expert that could be beneficial.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: A typical case where non-teaching staff can write teaching recommendation letters for someone is when someone from the administration has the role to design and gather teaching evaluations. Such staff member can provide hard quantitative and qualitative evidence of the quality of teaching.
Of course, this kind of letter cannot give actual facts, except by citing what students have written in their evaluations.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: I think that such a letter would give a mixed impression, depending on the personalities of the people on the hiring committee and the priorities of the institution.
On the one hand, it could be viewed very favorably indeed. Being an active participant in such a workshops would signal your dedication to quality teaching, and perhaps this staff member could write a very moving and positive letter.
On the other hand, it could be viewed unfavorably. I think that some faculty members, especially at research-oriented schools, might have an instinctive distrust for this kind of organizationalism. Moreover, an active interest in pedagogy doesn't necessarily imply that you're actually a good teacher in the classroom.
Overall, I would recommend in favor of obtaining such a letter, especially if you are targeting jobs which prioritize teaching. However, you might consider getting a second teaching letter from someone in your department. If you don't get a second letter, I would recommend that you ask the staff member in question to observe your classroom teaching, and discuss that in his/her letter (and not just your interest in pedagogy).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I would view the letter favorably if the letter writer made it clear that they had observed the candidate's teaching.
I've seen some TA training programs where the TA's are observed in the classroom and get formal evaluations by someone involved in the training program. A letter of recommendation from such a person would be quite valuable from my point of view (and assuming that the letter was positive this would be helpful to the candidate.)
On the other hand, if the person that you're considering is just a faculty development specialist who runs workshops that you've attended and hasn't directly observed your teaching, then such a letter would be much less useful (read useless) to me.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: Another important factor to consider is whether the person in question understands the conventions of academic letter writing. The one time I have looked at a letter written by person in this situation, it was horrible. I'm sure that person was especially incompetent (there were an embarassing number of typos, they had obviously cut and pasted from other letters, they wrote a lot of things that made no sense, etc.), but it made me very wary of such letters in the future. I'll also say, from my experience in hiring at research universities that two teaching letters would look a little weird. I think mxmxmx overstates things a little: while a lot of professors at research universities are essentially indifferent to a candidate's teaching, most recognize that it will be good for the department to have better teachers. However, it is true that they're more concerned about avoiding disasters than separating good teachers from great, and most wouldn't seriously consider compromising on research quality in order to get a better teacher.
One thing you might consider: ask the non-academic staff member to write an more informal summary of their interaction with you, observing your teaching, etc., and have them send it to the faculty member writing your teaching letter. That way, they can quote from it or use it for material, without having a separate letter.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/08 | 4,457 | 18,201 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently submitting a paper for Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. I worked on this project for the last four years and was the only one working on this project. I had everything going very well. In order to get the crystallization, I gave the plasmid construct to another laboratory which has expertise in crystallization. Fortunately, they got the crystals.
After the crystallization got successful, one researcher (say, A) from their lab came to my lab and my professor told me to teach him all the methods. I happily agreed to do so. After A went back to his lab, I got the draft of the paper from my professor, where, my name appeared as first co-author! I almost fainted. There were 20 figures in the paper. 13 were contributed by me, 4 by A and rest by 2 other people. The paper was mostly about my work. But in the contribution section, my prof and the prof of A mentioned that I and A had equal contribution. In fact it is mentioned that A was solely contributor of crystals and he equally contributed in all other results.
I discussed this issue with my prof, but he tells that he is getting pressure from A's prof to make A the first author. And my prof does not want to estrange relationship with A's prof. I am heart-broken and I don't know what to do.
Please suggest me what to do.
Edit 2021: It has been quite some time since I posted this question. I accepted the authorship as recommended by my advisor. Now I feel mature and realize that maintaining a cordial relationship with one's advisor and colleagues is more important than anything else. If one is capable enough, s/he will get more opportunities to prove their worth.<issue_comment>username_1: First, try to calm down and don't react hastily.
Your situation is very frustrating, but it is not horrible. Let's say that the current author ordering would be the final one. You would be what's known as a *co-first author*. While it would be slightly more advantageous to be the sole first author, in my experience being co-first practically will not have a significant negative effect on your CV (BTW - are you a grad student or postdoc?). This is important for you to realize - **the worst-case scenario that you mention is upsetting, but definitely not a disaster**.
Some additional points:
1. You can try explaining your perspective to your professor. If you originally decided that you would be the sole first author, you should definitely remind him/her of that. Do this politely, of course, but show your professor this is a big deal for you. This could cause the professor to reconsider, depending on his/her personality.
2. Instead of being the sole first author, you can consider being co-first but listed first. This doesn't make a big difference, but people might associate you with the paper more easily (Whatshername et al.).
3. Consider that regardless of the number of figures, the other author might deserve being co-first. For example, in many papers an experimentalist produces the data and a computational person analyzes the data and produces most of the figures - and they would often be equal co-first authors (even though each of them could think of themselves doing "most of the work"). So I do not know all the details of who did what, but it does not sound completely implausible that the other person did work which justifies being co-first.
4. Regardless of what happens, I suggest you talk with your professor about how to get a more satisfactory outcome next time (if this is relevant for you). Discuss authorship in advance and what happens when things change.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The question is: who wrote the results down? Writing down the results in an appropriate form is taking much more time, and maybe even more knowledge, than doing the research and coming up with some figures.
Did you write your intermediate results down; and if so, why didn't you publish them? Did you really do four years of research without leaving the nuthouse called "university" once, heading for a conference?
If three years of intermediate results are all written down and published, A will have to take all the conference papers into the list of sources, so everyone can see who the researcher behind the paper really is.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Unfortunately I have seen this sort of thing actually happen - and have seen 1 paper withdrawn, and resubmitted, and another that was never published because of it.
Your professor is looking to get tenure - you are in a strong position.
Get your thesis defended 1st, then worry about this.
Id actually refuse to let the paper be published at all rather than this. If you are looking to stay in academia, the 1st coauthor will be a massive deal, unless you have multiple other papers. We are talking the difference between a sucessful academic and the eternal post doc. If you are looking outside academia, whether or not the paper is published will matter little.
If you have to write to the journal to request withdrawl, it will end your advisors chances of tenure, though get the thesis defended 1st, or he'll likely refuse to let you graduate.
If you can't get your thesis done first, go to the department chair now - do not wait. It's academic misconduct, though in my experience you will only make things worse by discussing with your advisor.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Disclaimer: My Ph.D. is in Theoretical Comp Sci, so I am speaking from a very different kind of experience.
### Some Meta suggestions and notes
* I'd say *don't* calm down - but still, don't react hastily. Especially since there are about a zillion different ways for you to act.
* The whole name ordering and who-contributed-more haggling and intrigues are quite unbecoming. In some fields, authors are listed in alphabetical order, period. Maybe one guy/girl did almost everything, maybe it was a real team effort, maybe someone was simply the higher-ranking person - it doesn't matter. Or rather, maybe it matters, but it doesn't matter to the promotion of science, so it's not part of the paper. It would be extremely rude for an article to include a sentence such as "person X contributed more than person Y".
* Unfortunately, academia is not living up to its ideals, and your Professor is playing politics too much at your expense. You need to consider whether it's more important to you to try and make a stand and try changing these norms of behavior - at least locally and to some extent - or rather endeavor not to cause a scene, maintain good working relations and move on to doing more actual science. I can't entirely fault the second alternative, and in fact it looks like the vast majority of people choose it, but I suggest the first. Of course, there's a third option...
* Maybe this is all dirty politics. Maybe your Professor is not really your friend. Maybe you're surrounded by frenemies. If you adopt this view, treat everything like a cut-throat market interaction and try to make the most of it personally without getting your heart broken. I don't recommend this approach but it's the basis for at least one suggestion below.
* Whatever you decide to do, try to run it confidentially by other people who know what's going on, or who know your Professor, etc. Of course, these people may then run to your Professor, or A's Professor, and mention your plans to them; this might be undesirable, but might also be desirable - getting a kind-of-a-response from one of them before actually acting in a way you can't go back on.
* From your description it seems that A made a significant contribution to the paper; and that he is not involved in trying to get his name as a first co-author. Keep that in mind; avoid antagonizing him and try to avoid courses of action which make him your antagonist on this matter - either because you want to be fair to him; or because you want to work with him in the future; or because you don't want him to try and get back at you.
* How do you know your Professor told you the exact truth? Maybe there are other reasons for making A co-first-author. Try to obtain more information, maybe from other people, maybe in A's lab.
* Many of the possible courses of actions are dangerous to you, some to your Professor, some to others.
* You're suggesting there's some sort of a quid-pro-quo between the Professors. Try to ascertain what your Professor is getting in exchange, specifically for this decision or in general. That is likely to help you decide how to handle the situation.
### So, what might you do?
These are mostly mutually exclusive alternatives, and each of them makes some assumptions regarding the above.
1. **Insist.** Tell your Professor that you're sorry for possibly putting a strain on his relationship with A's Professor, but you do not accept making A a co-first-author. Talk like he needs your permission to do this.
2. **Conspire with your Professor.** Suggest to your Professor that he should oblige you, and have you talk to A's Professor to explain your case, or arrange with your Professor for it to appear like you threw a fit, or would have none of it (suggestion 1) - while actually this was not the case.
3. **Appeal to A:** It is not inconceivable you could get A to support your position, in a group meeting or via email. If he's a person with some integrity, he should, and then the co-first-authorship becomes an untenable position, for both Professors.
4. **Peer pressure on A:** Tell your common acquaintances and friends about what they're trying to do to you, and how A is going along with it. Have some of them inadvertently or advertently talk to him about it.
5. **Collective action.** Get your Graduate Researchers Union (I do hope you're unionized!) involved. Then you can play the good cop, while your union rep comes see your Professor and tells him "Look, we cannot allow this to happen. If you promote certain graduate researchers at the expense of others, we may have to resort to denouncing your action publicly, with multiple people bringing it up in departmental or all-university fora." Your Professor will likely rethink his position then.
6. **Haggle.** Tell your Professor, or your Professor and relevant other people involved, that this they're hurting your feelings and your career, that they're demanding quite the sacrifice, and without being compensated somehow you're not willing to accept it (perhaps without naming the exact sanction you are thinking of). Maybe you could get a Post-Doc promise (in writing of course, otherwise it's useless)? Maybe A's lab can do some work for you which they usually don't have time for? Maybe they could promise reciprocation in a forthcoming paper?
7. **Accept your fate.** Maybe, like [@camelcc's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/29574/7319) suggests, A sort-of deserves it anyway. Maybe where you intend to go after the Ph.D. you can establish your merit without people counting positions in author lists. Maybe the price of antagonizing people / making a scene are too high, and you're about to finish and need some peace and quiet to write up your Ph.D. research thesis.
8. **Cry bloody murder.** If your Professor insists, and you can't influence any of him, A's Professor or A, publish an open letter to both Professors of them, with copies to the Dean/Provost/Rector/whatever it is you got, and send it also the faculty Ph.D. candidate mailing list, put it up on the bulletin board etc. Be super-polite, super-reverential, as non-accusative as possible, say things like "I believe it is inappropriate to misrepresent" rather than "You are lying in claiming" etc. This is a weaker and more dangerous variant of options 5. and 9.
9. **File a disciplinary/ethical complaint.** Of course, it may be difficult to make anything stick, plus, it very much depends on the regulations and the norms in your university and in your more immediate surroundings. I'm guessing this is considered a highly unusual course of action and is at least frowned up if not worse... also, note you need to make an official demand of all authors to correct the listing, since if you don't have that rejected you can't really complain about anything.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: This is a "political" situation, and must be treated as one. You have two alternatives, "go along," or fight.
Your professor clearly wants to go along. Clearly, the other professor has "called" a favor and put your professor in a tight spot. On the other and, the other professor now owes your professor (and you) a favor. Speak candidly to your professor, without being too blunt, and ask what will be in it for you in the future. Hopefully. someone will return the "favor," eventually. And, of course, be more careful in the future. (I made a similar mistake myself.)
Your second alternative is to fight. Start by going to the dean, and if necessary, go to court. Hire a lawyer to advise you of your rights. Make sure that you have logs, diaries, etc. establishing the fact that you did research on this topic before anyone else.
Be aware that if you choose to fight a powerful professor, "no one" in your department and probably not in your university will have anything to do with you again, and they may even "blackball" you to the rest of the academic community, meaning that you may have to change fields. If you are really that talented, it may be worth it. Otherwise, consider the "go along" alternative.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Your professor is being bullied, and he's telling you to go along with it because he doesn't have the guts to defend his student.
Treat it as a bullying situation. Why should you, your work & your career be victimised because your professor is being bullied?
And further, why do they all think you can be the ultimate pawn? You've to stand up and fight back but in a way that you can win. No point rocking the boat and losing. Do it quietly and hit hard in unseen places that hurt but they can't cry out. They have to smile and grin in public and back away from you.
My advise to you is to become a b\*stard that they did not see coming:
1. Gather some facts, know the weaknesses and pasts of the other professor and Mr A.
2. Do not talk directly with the other professor. Be very nice to him if you meet him.
3. Go and talk to A, face to face. Demonstrate that you have his weak spot in your hand, and you are going to squeeze if he doesn't back out. Give a deadline. Send him messages at odd hours that make him lose sleep. Keep the pressure up. When you have someone's weak spot in your control, they will find it extremely hard to think rationally.
4. He might react according to stages of trauma/grief: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Be cold, know what he's going through and it's according to your plan. Be merciless, be relentless, force him to get to acceptance. Do not accept bargains.
He's got to be sure you're serious.
5. Once your deadline is up, squeeze hard but not all at once. Act more than your threat. Don't show your ultimate cards though, promise further pain. Give another deadline, shorter this time. Keep the pressure on.
Be absolutely cold and logical. This is your 4 years of work. They want to play you out and profit from it? Well find their pressure points, weak spot. How can you hurt them without hurting yourself? Let Mr. A run to his professor and cry. If the other professor wants to meet you etc, avoid as much as possible, say all the right non-commital things and make him feel at ease, but behind his back, squeeze Mr A with righteous vengence.
Second, don't trust or turn to the system to help you. The professors are the system and they will burn you.
**Third, don't expect the story to end here. Stories like this will be whispered behind your back and impact your reputation and career further on. Make a stand, win quietly or spend your career walking with your tail between your back, wondering "what if..".**
Source: I've been successful when I was bullied at workplace by a boss, by doing something similar.
Good luck, I hope you win and report back. Cheers!
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: **Agree to co-first author, but demand your name is listed first**
* On the paper, there will be an asterisk on both your names noting you contributed equally (despite the fact that you disagree) but you can still ask that your name comes first in this list. This is a compromise, but it is beneficial to be the first name on the list when someone quickly reads your CV.
* On a CV you just list the publication with the author order as is, with no asterisk explaining author order, or with a small asterisk explaining the contribution of all authors, and let folks correctly assume you had the greatest contribution.
**Correct author description to say you also contributed crystals**
Your professor is less likely to fight back on these suggestions than demanding sole first authorship. It's a good compromise for all parties involved.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: >
> I discussed this issue with my prof, but he tells that he is getting
> pressure from A's prof to make A the first author.
>
>
>
If you want sole first authorship then tell your adviser to push back on said pressure. This doesn't mean you need to be rude or go behind your adviser's back.
Explain to your advisor you find it unfair to you (and your future career) that A, whose contribution you feel doesn't merit first authorship, is getting co-authorship when you're the one who spent the past 4 years working on these results. That this diminishes your contribution as first author.
There is an open communication line with your advisor, use it. What's the worst that can happen? Maybe you'll get what you want, or maybe he'll say no. But at least you gave it a shot.
---
>
> In fact it is mentioned that A was solely contributor of crystals and
> he equally contributed in all other results.
>
>
>
If this is not true, then I think you should ask for it to be corrected. Otherwise *the lie* will forever be imprinted on that paper and no one other than you will remember it.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/08 | 3,559 | 15,429 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a graduate student in engineering whose work includes a lot of programming and implementation of the developed theories. I am not a computer scientist, but I am a fairly skilled programmer, at least when compared to other people in the field.
In the recent months I went to a few conferences and to meetings with partners participating in my research project. In most cases my supervisor attends these events as well. We do not have the same background, and while I get a lot of support from him, there are some gaps where he is not proficient and does not have a good overview, especially about the amount of work required to get something implemented. In such tasks we have a relation that is based on trust that I am doing a correct job, which gets disrupted when other researchers are involved, as described in the continuation.
At such events I have encountered the problem that some people boldly enquire why I did not research or develop a particular (usually irrelevant) feature, and give suggestions for the extension of the work which are far beyond the scope of my project and time. This is especially the case about programming, and it comes from people who have never implemented anything. For some of the suggestions, I would need my own research team and a few years of funding. And sometimes the people asking such questions try to show-off in front of others by trivialising my research. This is annoying. And this situation gets worse when I give a simplified presentation of my work in order to make it more understandable to a wider audience. On conferences I see that other young researchers experience the same problem.
Indeed I am a young researcher and it may look like I am overestimating my work, but I have a good overview of the field and I have no issues with suggestions that require an additional but reasonable amount of work. My papers so far all got good reviews, and at my department I am one of the most productive graduate students, which makes me confident that I am on the right path and do more than enough work.
While I tend to ignore such demands, this puts me in a difficult position when it is about a topic where my supervisor does not have expertise. My supervisor gets a wrong impression that I am not doing a right job, and that my work is basic touching only the tip of the iceberg. Other people in the audience instantly get such opinion as well. This escalated today when I have received a very good review of a paper that I have submitted with my supervisor. From the beginning I was very confident about the work, however, when presenting it around, I run into issues described above. So the comment of my supervisor on the review was “I am happy to see that you have improved your work after the initial hiccups and confusion. You did not research what others told you to do, so we have been lucky here.” This was really annoying because my work was never in question, and from day one I have followed the same path and did not encounter any difficulty. So this gives you an idea how much such comments on conference may influence one’s opinion about a work.
Is there a general way how to deal with such situations at conferences and meetings? Luckily I have not encountered this behaviour during peer-reviews, but if I had, it'd be easier because it doesn't require an instant reaction.
I have some generic answers such as:
* “Thanks for your suggestion. I have been thinking about this, but it requires too much work, and that is outside the scope of my project. Further, it would not significantly contribute to the value of the work.”
* “I have considered it, but I don’t find it of interest, so I have decided not to do it. If you are interested in this topic, I invite you to collaborate.”
* “That seems to be an interesting point. We can discuss this at the break in further details.”
but sometimes they do not give the desired outcome because people can be persistent.<issue_comment>username_1: It is important to recognize that this is *not* happening to you because you are a junior researcher. At *every* point in your career, somebody will feel (and, distressingly often, openly state) that your work is not good enough, goes into the wrong direction, is not "real" science, tackles the wrong problems, uses the wrong tools, or is in some other way flawed. Learning how to react to criticism regarding your work, even and especially if said criticism is coming from more senior researchers, is a crucial skill that every PhD student needs to learn. I feel it is best to stop relying on your advisor to justify your contribution as soon as possible.
In that vein, I think you should see these situations at conferences and meetings as *opportunities to learn* rather than ugly situations that you need to weasle out of as fast as possible. I do not mean that you should get into nasty fights with the audience during the Q&A part of a presentation, but I am certain you *do* have good reasons why you did some things and did *not* do other things. Do not try to evade (*"Let's discuss this in the break, ok?"*), but try to explain calmly why you did what you did. Yes, maybe that person asking the question will disagree, but so what? The fact that your actual peer reviews are good shows that there are a non-trivial amount of researchers that actually agree with you. The person asking the question is not your supervisor, you don't need to agree with him/her specifically on your research agenda or approaches.
Let me go over your proposed blanket statements one by one:
>
> “Thanks for your suggestion. I have been thinking about this, but it requires too much work, and that is outside the scope of my project. Further, it would not significantly contribute to the value of the work.”
>
>
>
That's ok, but I would leave away the part about "not significantly contributing to the value of the work". That sounds a bit too confrontational to me. Better just leave it at "that's really interesting, but we currently do not have the resources to tackle this complex problem".
>
> “I have considered it, but I don’t find it of interest, so I have decided not to do it. If you are interested in this topic, I invite you to collaborate.”
>
>
>
Stay clear from passive-aggressiveness.
>
> “That seems to be an interesting point. We can discuss this at the break in further details.”
>
>
>
Ok, but can come across as too defensive. I use the "ok, let's discuss this one-on-one" phrase usually only when somebody is asking variations of the same question over and over again, and it seems likely to me that the rest of the audience is already zoomed out of the conversation. However, in that case, a good session chair has already stepped in anyway.
How you could react is the following:
*"Thank you for your interesting suggestion. We have indeed discussed a variation of this before, but implementing it in practice would require us to first do [complex thing A] and [complex thing B], which have been shown to be non-trivial efforts in the first place in [optimally you have some reference why this is indeed hard]. This would certainly improve the quality of our solution, but we are currently more looking towards extending our work into [more feasible other direction]. Of course, if you are interested in this, I would be very happy to discuss potential collaborations over [hot beverage of your choice]."*
(a variation of your first suggestion, but a bit more formal and respectful while still making it abundantly clear that you are not actually going to do the thing that has been asked for)
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: I have found that the best way to deal with such questions is to know what you are talking about, preferably much better than whoever is asking you.
As a junior researcher you may (won't) be an expert in everything in your field but should still know your particular project really well.
If you know your project you have probably thought about most of these questions already. Therefore, you can give an actual reason why something is a bad idea/won't work. For example when asked, "Why didn't you use method X, which is known to be more stable?", you could reply, "While method X is more stable, unfortunately in this case it produces an incorrect result because of Y."
For your particular answers:
>
> “Thanks for your suggestion. I have been thinking about this, but it requires too much work, and that is outside the scope of my project. Further, it would not significantly contribute to the value of the work.”
>
>
>
I think these are two separate answers and it should either be "I have been thinking about doing this but haven't got around to it yet/don't have enough time/need more money." or its "No, that wouldn't be useful as its not relevant/wouldn't work/generally a stupid idea (give a proper reason though).
>
> “I have considered it, but I don’t find it of interest, so I have decided not to do it. If you are interested in this topic, I invite you to collaborate.”
>
>
>
Personally, I wouldn't say something is not interesting, as that implies it boring but would say its not my priority right now or similar. Alternatively, you can say why you think your work is more interesting/important to do. For example, "Interesting point, but I think it is important to finish my work on X as it will have Y implications to your suggestion".
>
> “That seems to be an interesting point. We can discuss this at the break in further details.”
>
>
>
I would keep this answer for where someone has actually made an interesting point that you are either not sure about or think is valid and would like to discuss further.
Final points: Whatever you do keep it civil and don't dismiss people opinions out of hand. That will only make it appear you don't know what you are talking about, and every so often someone might say something of real value.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think the underlying problem is that **people you work with don't value the same thing as you**. In your comments, you are talking about your code to be 'robust' and 'mature', which is a great thing if you're developing a commercial product but might not be given much credit in an academic environment.
Look at this thread for the many reasons why it is so: [Why do many talented scientists write horrible software?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17781/why-do-many-talented-scientists-write-horrible-software)
As for 'open source' it starts to be valued more and more because people understand the arguments of reproducibility and the need for more scrutiny in the evaluation of methods. But it's only a nice additional feature, not a necessary criterion.
You can look for ways to change their mind, but it might be a useless struggle. Your situation is frequent with people who are doing a lot of programing in engineering or biology labs. Other people don't necessarily value the amount of work put into programming, they are happy when it works but would rather buy a commercial solution if they could.
What they value is when your work *answers fundamental questions in the field*, that could be the case even when your code is ill-structured, suboptimal, badly-documented, slow, has variables named `aaaaa` and requires users to copy-paste folder paths frequently.
You might want to consider steering your efforts towards something less code-y. Because ultimately you will need to satisfy your thesis committee, not your fellow githubbers.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Good answer, in the comments of the question, thank you. I was going to reply with a comment, but this is becoming too long.
I think the problem you mention is common to any work that cannot be simply quantified. Formal proofs and even papers are also examples of this and I'm sure people will find many other examples. In short, making some destructive criticism is easy, specially if it completely ignores or overlooks crucial aspects of the work. For people that don't have some knowledge to have their own criteria or opinion this criticism may seem legit, and there is very little to do wrt to that because explaining why it isn't legit may require educating these people on something they don't care enough about to be educated and they are going to perceive it as poor excuses.
So what to do?
First of all, the answer by @username_1 is perfectly fine. I have another answer to replace all of the three you both comment (it's a variable template so you can change it):
Thank you for [your suggestion|pointing that out|that nice reminder], we actually [considered|evaluated|thought about] that [proposal|approach|option|alternative] and it is [certainly|definitively|quite|fairly] [interesting|relevant|promising], however we have [focused on|prioritised|addressed first] the presented work and we will consider that for future lines.
You will consider it and discard it, because it's stupid, but you don't need to say that in their face. That is a general answer that can be useful for many people. If you (specifically) want to slap them I have a different proposal.
I infer you have a good expertise in making questions, proving theories and programming, you seem to be in the right track for data science, stick that buzzword to everything and reply to any criticism with something like:
"I get your criticism on the triviality of the current work and of course that is something that can be perceived when the work is considered superficially. Upon closer inspection you may notice that being rigorous from scientific and engineering points of view and ensuring the quality of the process and results requires a work that is not trivial at all, so we may wonder what is the value of non-trivial conclusions that are reached through non-trustworthy processes".
(please change non-trivial and non-trustworthy with proper words, it's getting late for me)
You may as well physically slap them or spit them in their face, but don't expect to make many friends that way, use only with absolute jerks when you are absolutely certain that everybody else is thinking the same thing but keeping their tongue for politeness. With this I mean: never, because absolute certainty is never available.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Late answer...
Q: "why didn't you implement XYZ feature?"
A: "Well...in any project of this nature, we can easily see that there are many extension points where additional features and/or functionality seem plausible and even desirable. In the scope of this project, we decided that proving a baseline implementation of the core concept was the boundary we would stay within given our resources and timeframe, though it's certainly valuable to note that extensions, for example the one you've quickly identified, are ripe territory for further study."
Q: "why didn't you use language/tool/library/system XYZ for this instead of what you did use?"
A: "first of all, language XYZ, though generally known within the CS discipline, doesn't enjoy widespread commercial support. Whether or not it's an ideal tool for this job is certainly a valid topic for discussion, but the goal for the researchers was to solve the problem at hand, not to learn and become fluent in a then-unknown language. I'm sure a more efficient implementation will emerge, should this project become commercialized."
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/08 | 1,061 | 4,247 | <issue_start>username_0: I am an international student, and now pursuing my Ph.D in pure Math in a not very good (ranking 70+) and relatively small state university in U.S.
As usual, I am a supported TA, and I am wondering whether the teaching load here is too heavy.
The department supports about 50 TAs in total. There are two types of TA here. For those who have not passed the Speak Test (which is another awful thing), they can only serve as graders, and are expected to work 12 hours in grading hws per week. For those who passed the Speak Test, they have to teach 3 or 4 sessions of recitation every semester.
Based on my experience, I feel so tired after a whole week's work as TA that I have little time or energy to do research. And I once heard that in some (private) universities, a typical TA job consists only teaching two recitations per academic year...
My questions are the following. (To be precise, I only care about a TA duty in math major.)
1. What does a typical TA duty (especially the working hours) look like in a state university and in a private university? Especially, is it true that a TA in a state university usually works longer in his/her TA duty than the one in the private university?
2. Is the TA duty here reasonable compared with other state universities?<issue_comment>username_1: Not sure if this data point is really deserving of being an answer, but:
I graduated from a top-25 math department at a fairly large state university 5 years ago. The standard TA assignment was 4 lower-division recitations (e.g. calculus) per semester. Our contract permitted us to be assigned up to 20 hours of teaching duties per week, though most weeks the assigned duties took significantly fewer hours. Students working as TAs for advanced courses (upper-division or graduate) were usually assigned 2 recitations, but were also expected to grade homework, etc.
So what you describe doesn't sound totally out of line, unless you are spending considerably more hours per recitation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Yet another solitary data point: I'm a graduate teaching assistant at a state university. In our first year, we were tasked with 15 hours a week, either all working in our math learning center, or part in the MLC and part as a TA for a professor.
After the first year, once we've gotten credentials to teach, we shift to teaching 1 course a semester, 3 hours of mandatory office hours, and 4 hours in the MLC on general tutoring duty.
I haven't found either schedule to be particularly onerous. I'm not doing research yet, but the grad students who are doing research don't seem to have a problem with their duties that I've seen.
I have absolutely no idea how this compares to other public or private universities, but...there you are.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm at a small R1 university right now. For first year grad students, work may not be more than 5 hours a week. In the first year, we are expected to focus mostly on passing our prelims and getting used to grad school. The work consists of a calculus study hall and a few hours of one-on-one tutoring to students who are struggling with basic calculus.
From the second year onwards, we are assigned as TAs for a class. Here scheduled hours may not be more than 5 every week. Scheduled hours include recitations, office hours and mandatory attendance in the class. On top of that, we have grading and preparing for recitations. This cannot be more than 15 hours a week, and should be more like 8-12. If the total workload is more than 15 hours on average, and more than 20 hours on special occasions (midterms, finals etc) the instructor has to ease up on their demands on the TA or ask for a second one.
In our fourth or fifth year, we can choose to be the instructor for a class for one semester, to better prepare for future postdocs, and it is generally understood that during this semester the workload will be considerably higher (~30 hours).
My university is very strict when it comes to not letting professors take advantage of their TAs by overworking them, and an instructor continuing to demand more work than this from their TA has lead to them not being assigned classes with TAs anymore.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/08 | 600 | 2,531 | <issue_start>username_0: I submitted my paper on mathematics to a journal 8 months ago but I have no received any reports or comments yet. I sent an email to the editor asking him about the manuscript, he just replied that it is still under review. What shall I do?<issue_comment>username_1: Mathematics tends to have a long refereeing process. It's nice when it can be completed in a few months, but eight months is not especially worrisome. The editor should be sending the referee(s) periodic messages to make sure they aren't just forgetting, and you can send status inquiries to the editor every once in a while if you'd like (it shouldn't be necessary, but it can't hurt and could conceivably help). I tend to ask for a status update every six months or so.
One reason it takes so long is that refereeing a mathematics paper is difficult. The referee has to read and understand the proofs, which is one of the slowest and most painstaking forms of reading. Another issue is that there is no expectation that it should be done quickly: a referee who takes eight months isn't generally considered problematic by the journal or the community at large.
In practice, the lengthy refereeing times are not a problem. Mathematics papers are typically circulated publicly (for example, on www.arXiv.org) long before they are accepted for publication, so the publication process isn't holding up progress in the field. And the mathematics community is well aware of how long it takes to get papers officially published and takes this into account in career evaluation (hiring, tenure, etc.). For example, if you're applying for a job, nobody will expect your papers from the last year or two to be published yet. If they are at least on the arXiv and submitted for publication, then everything is as it should be.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: To reiterate the other good answer and comments... do nothing. It is unfortunate, yes, and frustrating, yes, and inconvenient, yes, that refereeing takes so long... but it is both understandable and inevitable.
Ironically, but understandably, the more original your work is, the more effort will be required of referees... who are paid nothing, and will acquire no status/raises/funding/whatever from their efforts to appraise or improve your writing.
As in other answer/comments, hiring committees and funding agencies are aware of the time-lags... although, yes, true, it's better to have gotten *through* this gauntlet than have to explain that one is enduring it.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/10/08 | 1,227 | 5,305 | <issue_start>username_0: I have submitted a paper on mathematics to a journal and it was there for more than one year. I asked the editor many times about the reason of the review delay. At the end the paper was rejected with trivial comments. Some experts told me the reason of the rejection is that: I had asked the editor many times about the paper, which make him insist that the reviewers make their decision fast, and thus they gave trivial comments which led to the rejection. Can this really be a reason for rejection?<issue_comment>username_1: To some degree politics play a role in the final decision an editor makes. For a manuscript that has reviews that make it a borderline decision between major revisions and reject, if the editor finds you problematic, that could make an outright rejection more likely. Except in extreme circumstances, politics will not result in a manuscript that has stellar reviews being outright rejected (or vice versa). There are many reasons beyond an editor's personal opinion of you that can cause a manuscript with trivial comments to be rejected. Reviewers can generally submit confidential comments to the editor which can include serious criticisms, the scope of the work is often grounds for rejection as is how the manuscript fits into the scope of the journal. For some manuscripts and journals, the absence of negative comments is not enough to warrant publication, but rather you need a reviewer to champion the paper and make positive comments.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It really *should not* be a reason for rejection. But the world of journals (even restricted to mathematics, which is my field as well) is vast and variable, and no one person gets to see more than a small part of it, so *could* it happen that repeated messages to the editor are a proximate cause of a paper's rejection? Unfortunately it could and probably has at least once...but all kinds of crazy things have probably happened at least once.
What I want to convey to you is that you are perfectly within your rights to check in with the status of a paper at appropriate intervals. In fact it is often wise (or even necessary) to do so, because a lot of processing jobs get done slowly on the part of the referees without specific reminders. (I am speaking in particular *both* about my experiences as an author and as a referee.)
There are better and worse ways to deal with editors -- as a quick example, when I submit a paper I like to suggest that **I will inquire** about the paper after N months (I fill in a value of N, never less than 4) and see what kind of response I get. I have never been told not to do this; at worst, I get a "contact us whenever you like, but don't expect expedited service because of this" type of response. As ever, being polite and professional catches more flies. But fundamentally: no, it is completely unprofessional to reject a paper because an author wants it to be processed in a timely manner. Reputable journals and editors should take it as a point of honor not to do this.
It would be different if you gave the editor an ultimatum: e.g. "I need a report within three weeks or I will withdraw the paper". Many editors will respond to that by cheerfully accepting your withdrawal. But that does not seem to be the situation you describe.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: The question seems to be conflating two different possibilities. It sounds like the "experts" you consulted suggested that referees feeling pressured about time may do a superficial job of reviewing the paper, and superficial reviews aren't good for the paper's chances of publication. But your wording (especially in the title) suggests that the editor actively decided to reject the paper as a direct result of your messages.
As Pete says, the second scenario *really shouldn't* occur, but in a big world, lots of things happen at least once in a long while. The first scenario also shouldn't occur, but in a system run by imperfect, busy human beings, it's possible and probably happens rarely but regularly.
In any case, I agree with Pete's bottom line: it is perfectly reasonable and appropriate for you to make polite, professional inquiries every couple months.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: This advice is only for mathematics; other subjects have different cultures.
I think it really depends on the tone you use and how often you make inquiries. Getting rejections for seemingly trivial reasons by people who don't appear to understand your paper is par for the course, and you should try to develop a thick skin about it (it happens to us all; the common wisdom is that if you are not getting rejected 50% of the time, then you are not sending your papers to good enough journals).
I usually inquire at 9 months, at 1 year, at 15 months, and then every two months. My emails are very low-key and non-pushy; here is an example:
"Dear Prof. {last\_name},
I'm writing to check to see if there has been any progress in the refereeing process for my paper "{title}", which is currently under consideration at {journal\_name}. Thank you very much for your consideration.
best,
<NAME>"
If I know the editor, I might be a little more casual, but the above is a good template if you are just starting out.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/10/08 | 420 | 1,905 | <issue_start>username_0: Is there a consensus as to whether or not conference papers are counted as publications?
I know that if something is a journal paper then that thing is tacitly understood as a publication, but is the converse true?<issue_comment>username_1: If the conference paper was refereed before been accepted for the conference, that counts as a refereed publication. If it was not, it is a non-refereed publication, and should be counted as such.
Different fields have different rules for how publications are accounted for, specially in how multi-author publications are handled, so you should at least state which field you are talking about.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: To elaborate a little on <NAME>'s excellent comment, if your paper appeared in publicly available conference proceedings, then it is a publication. How valued or respected this form of publication is depends on the customs in your field, whether the paper was refereed, etc. Computer scientists may be more impressed by prestigious conference papers than journal papers, while mathematicians often view conference proceedings as an inferior publication venue. Still, the question isn't whether it's a publication in the first place, but rather how significant or worthwhile a publication it is.
On the other hand, some people use the term "conference paper" to refer to a paper they presented at a conference, which may not even have had published proceedings. If there aren't proceedings or the proceedings don't contain the paper, then it isn't published.
And of course there are borderline cases. If there were only a few copies of the proceedings, and they are not available in major libraries (even by interlibrary loan) or online, then the paper is at best just barely published. But this shouldn't occur for a conference sponsored by a reputable organization.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/08 | 2,762 | 11,803 | <issue_start>username_0: I want to know about **appropriate actions to take when not receiving an e-mail reply from professors after 2 to 3 weeks of sending an e-mail**.
When writing my e-mails, I try to highlight questions and important points leaving other details in normal style to make the reader quickly understand what am I asking for. Additionally, I start the e-mail with Dear Professor , I conclude with a respectful salutation form and I proof read the text of the e-mails multiple times. I am sending e-mails to professors **asking them for a graduation project proposal**.
E-mails are sent to professors responsible for European or North American funded research projects.
Professors to whom I sent e-mails are from various institutions and countries (USA, Canada, Switzerland).
The **same problem is faced in previous occasions** when I needed to send e-mails for various purposes but I don't receive replies except for one or two times.
I tried twice sending reminders after a reasonable time (one to two weeks) of sending the first e-mail but no response is received!
**N.B:** if it's helpful to mention, my field is not covered by any research lab and not taught in any university in my country.
And this is what makes the problem more complicated!<issue_comment>username_1: Professors directly teaching might have some obligation to answer your email (some university have quality of service policies, ensuring that students receive feedback within a given number of working days), if it's related to their teaching.
Professors from partner universities might fall under the same obligations, if there is a mutual agreement. However, professors from other university have **no obligation whatsoever to answer you.**
Professors are usually very busy, among other things dealing with their own students, they might not have the time to deal with other students. If you are asking about a proposal and you do not receive an answer, you should assume by default that they are not interested. There is no much you can do, apart from contacting other professors, or asking your own professors to contact them.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: It sounds like you are e-mailing strangers and asking them to tell you what to do. This seems almost certain to fail.
Also, I don't know what a "graduation project proposal" is -- keep in mind that these professors don't know and don't care what the requirements of your university are. They *might* be willing to help you with their scientific expertise, but you should not ask them for help with anything that doesn't *directly* relate to what their expertise is in, or where it's not clear what exactly you are asking for.
Here is an e-mail that *might* get a reply.
>
> Dear Prof. X,
>
>
> I am a student at University Y where I am interested in bioinformatics. I have to complete a senior research project [... brief details]
>
>
> One topic I was considering was XYZ. In particular, I was thinking I might try to investigate the effect of ABC on DEF under conditions GHI. [Note: **do your own homework here, this should be something intelligent** and then they might be willing to provide helpful input] I hope I can ask you two questions: In the first place, do you believe that such an approach is feasible?
>
>
> If so, since University Y doesn't have much in the way of resources, do you know where I might seek guidance as I work on this?
>
>
> Thank you very much.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Too long for comments: both the earlier answers are very apt.
The original poster's comment to the later answer reveals a misapprehension about how things work, and the relative work-load to accomplish certain things.
First, cold-calling is a bad start on anything... unless it is extremely polite, is clearly completely specific to the individual addressed E.g., I respond badly, or, simply, not at all to emails with no "greeting" whatsoever, or do not address me (politely) by name, and/or that give no indication of anything specific to *me* or my actual work, etc. My reasoning is that I should spend no more effort on a response than is visible in the initial email... especially if I'm being asked to do someone a favor.
Second, asking to participate in a project whose existence is unknown makes the inquiry sound very spam-y, so will invariably get a bad reaction. Already it'd be an uphill battle to get a spot on a project whose existence was known and relevant... since most likely there are more people wanting such spots than there are spots available. Again, you should "do your homework" about existing projects, and their specifics.
Third, asking for a "proposal" is asking for quite a lot, in fact. That is, a coherent, viable, state-of-the-art proposal is something that takes quite a while to craft, and has considerable value of various sorts. In many subjects, the writing-up of such is a major activity. Such things would not be donated to *anyone*, much less cold-callers, much less cold-callers who send "reminders".
... and this isn't "ungenerousness", it's that many academic research situations are very competitive, especially for funding, and people work full-bore to get that funding, ... leaving not a lot of energy left over to donate to unknown people.
Even if you're cold-calling, giving no or scant information about yourself (except that you're looking for participation in a project in subject X) gives the responder little ground to respond *reasonably*... and I, for one, am disinclined to go through several emails to extract information that should have been available up-front, etc.
In summary, there simply isn't any powerful way for you to induce responses of the sort that'd directly help you in the way you wish, understandable though your wishes are, and as unfortunate as your local situation may be. Some different path will most likely have to be taken.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I get emails like this all the time and never reply. I can't imagine that anyone would give you a positive response, and I don't think there is anything you can do that will result in you getting what you want.
I think that my policies for responding to email are pretty typical.
Aside from "professional business stuff" (e.g. invitations to speak, referee requests, inquiries from the media, etc), I generally only respond to emails from strangers in the following situations.
1. Technical questions about my papers (or related things, e.g. my answers on math overflow). These always get a response, though sometimes I can take a little while if I'm particularly busy (e.g. when traveling).
2. Mathematical questions. I'll always answer these if they are close to my research interests and are at a high level, and otherwise it depends on my mood. The speed is similar to questions of type 1.
3. Questions from students at Rice. These always get some kind of response, usually very quickly (sometimes that response is a request that they come to my office and chat). I'll also usually respond to questions from students who have some kind of indirect connection with me (e.g. I'll respond to questions from students of my collaborators).
4. Inquiries about our graduate program. For specific question, I'll usually quickly respond. For things that seem more like requests to work with me, if they sound serious then they get a very short reply with a link to the webpage saying how to apply to our PhD program (and a sentence about how I don't take students until they have been accepted and passed their quals). Sometimes they sound ridiculous (e.g. someone who has an engineering background and is clearly emailing everyone they can find on the internet), and they get no response.
Other than that, I just don't have the time. I have enormous amounts of stuff that I have to do that is directly related to teaching (at Rice; I'm not paid to teach anyone else) and research. I'm sorry that you can't get help from your own university, but sadly there just isn't anything that I can do about that.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: As the other answers already tell you, asking for a project proposal is asking for a very big favor, such that cold calling isn't likely to work.
The following piece of information is missing from the discussion as of now, however: many established researchers receive many cold-call requests for doing an internship with them. It is common practice in some countries to have them included in the students' curricula, and thus, it is not uncommon for students to aim high and try to get one at good schools abroad. Quite often, these mails are not very well targeted and researchers getting many of them are quite quick at pressing the "delete" key here.
Your request for a thesis topic/proposal may very easily be **seen** to fall into this category, even if it does not! Because such a request is so uncommon, people may expect that you would be asking for a (possibly paid) internship or (paid) PhD position in the second mail, and thus may not want to risk to be embarrased that they invested time on the matter if it turns out later that their suspicion was correct. So hitting the delete button quickly is a safe course of action for them.
I second the commenter's suggestion to ask your institution to build the necessary bridges for you. Does your institution already have a scheme for spending a semester abroad? Perhaps you can consider actually doing that?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: I agree with other respondents that you cannot expect unknown professors to respond to your emails.
Could you join an online community (email list) for your area of research interest? After lurking long enough to understand its culture, could you send a post explaining your situation (being interested in the topic and having nobody to discuss it with in your country) and ask if someone would be willing to comment on your proposal? Alternately, you could send your proposal to the list (although be prepared for it to be torn to shreds). The administrator of the list may be able to advise you on what is appropriate.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: One additional factor which I think may be useful at least as secondary background information: This sounds a lot like you are trying to bypass the regular admission process. You should start by finding out what it takes to become a student at their Department and follow the same enrollment process as everybody else. If your background and skills are a good fit, you could find yourself in a project even as a junior student (but this is arguably a very optimistic outlook).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: I try to be responsive as much as possible, even if I cannot help. However, if I see that the person clearly has no idea what I am working on, tags on some keywords that seem to fit my profile or similar, and I am under time pressure, I won't respond. They haven't spent the effort finding out who they are addressing, and cannot expect effort of politeness in return.
Sometimes, I get what is effectively advice request from students from another university. If they work on something I am interested in, have done good work and bring something to the table, I consider this a collaboration across institutions, and I am happy to engage in it to some extent. However, if it is clearly a supervision request with no benefit to research that I am able to productively carry out, I am not prepared to invest my department's resources (i.e. my time) for this. Supervising my local students, for which I am paid, takes precedence.
I do give, however, brief advice where I can help with a little effort. This should not be extended into a back-and-forth discussion, to not abuse the time of the responder.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/08 | 689 | 2,938 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently working under a post-PhD (postdoc) scholarship. In my country (Argentina) I am usually considered still a *student* (although it's kind of a gray area).
In other countries, would I qualify as a *student* or as a *researcher*?<issue_comment>username_1: In general, if you are not enrolled in any course and also are not enrolled in a program in which you may eventually earn a degree, you are not a "student."
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think postdocs are assumed to be employees as research staff (not students) of each university , as far as they have contracts with universities and may receive salaries. They do not take courses in the university. They conduct some researches in a research group in collaboration with professor(s) there. Their research topic may be something very close to their PhD project, something near to their PhD research in other concept (such as interdisciplinary projects), or something very different.
PS: Some PhD students also have research contracts with universities and are assumed to be employees of those universities, but I think their difference with a postdoc is that they receive a degree but postdocs are not receiving any degrees.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: It's also relatively common in the USA for post-docs to have non-university appointments. There are many government and private labs that hire post-docs to do research as employees. These positions have various levels within their respective companies/labs.
For instance, I am a postdoc at a USA national laboratory. Here, postdocs are considered long-term temporary employees (with some reduced benefits and a reduced salary compared to a full staff member as you would expect). We aren't considered students or under any particular education program, though there are development programs offered to help in the transition between a full-time student position and a full-time research position.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Just to further show the range of possibilities, in the US in mathematics, postdocs are usually considered **faculty**. (In particular, they are university employees, and not students.) They usually have (light to moderate) teaching duties, and often have official titles involving words like "[lecturer](https://wumath.wustl.edu/node/679)", "[instructor](https://math.mit.edu/about/employment.php)" or "[assistant professor](http://www.math.cornell.edu/m/Positions/faculty/hcwang)". Of course, they are still temporary positions of 1-4 years or so, and are not tenure track.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: In Australia, postdocs at universities are academic research staff with fixed-term contracts. They have the same salary and working conditions as permanent academic research staff at the same level (typically level A or B), though permanent staff would usually be hired at level B or above.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/09 | 1,088 | 4,492 | <issue_start>username_0: At the age of 21 I entered an (UK) M.Sc./Postgraduate Diploma Programme in Software Engineering.
I entered without an Undergraduate degree based upon modules I undertook in a distance learning Masters Programme from a reputable UK University that required no formal entrance requirements (very unusual situation that I took advantage of).
Out of a cohort of 40 students on the new M.Sc. course I was the only one without an Undergraduate degree although I had Postgraduate credits as mentioned. Again this was unusual.
I graduated with a UK Postgraduate Diploma (but not an M.Sc. as I could not fund the remaining twelve week/3 month project), however my marks were excellent.
Here I am twenty years later with no degree. *I wish to undertake further study in Software Engineering* and am at a loss to effectively know where to start. I am way too late to go back and do the three month research project to get my M.Sc.
[For those outside the UK a Postgraduate Diploma is effectively the taught/exam component of an M.S/M.Sc. and usually compromises 75% of the course. It is an M.Sc. in all but the three month research project. Most students complete the project but some do not, usually due to funding or academic reasons. My reason was purely funding.]
I am not qualified for an Undergraduate Degree in Software Engineering (effectively a waste of time as I'm somewhat beyond that syllabus) as I do not hold School level University entrance qualifications and I'm not qualified for an M.S/M.Sc. ironically (even though I previously were on an M.Sc!) as I have no first/Undergraduate degree.
If I had finished the extra 12 weeks I'd be qualified to enter a Ph.D. programme but the failure to do the twelve weeks (wholly due to the fees at the time which were huge for the Project) makes me qualified for nothing even though I hold a formal Postgraduate level qualification.
What to do?<issue_comment>username_1: I'm going out on a limb here, but if you would like to get into academic research, perhaps you could manage to get a paper or two published on your own. My understanding is that if these are well-received, they could make up for any missing formal qualifications.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I can't vouch for the UK, but here on the other side of the puddle, once you've been out in the Real World (TM) for some number of years, your classes start mattering less and what you've done with them starts mattering more. A school's concern, if you're coming back for an advanced degree, is whether you have enough knowledge to cover the prerequisites and enough aptitude to complete the degree in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable grade. (In other words, whether you'll be a student whom they're good for and who makes them look good.)
For PhD there may be some bias toward folks who are already researchers, but "research" comes in many flavors, not all academic.
(I could have gotten into Columbia in NY for a MS simply on the basis of "you can't be an idiot or IBM wouldn't have hired you" -- plus having aced a few of their extension classes. Can't imagine things are very different there.)
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: It is very unfortunate that you miss your project, especially since you do not have an undergraduate diploma either. A project is very important, not only for your ability to do research, but also for your ability to write a long coherent document arguing your research questions. I tend to ask for any thesis from prospective students to verify their abilities.
Lacking a project, you should endeavour to compensate. You should have some long-form written document that may compensate and demonstrate your abilities. This could take the form of a research paper (even unpublished). Your best bet of getting in (assuming you're good enough - a PhD is not for everyone) is to do a thorough review to identify your research group and possible supervisors. Then try to contact them personally, and convince them you're worth their effort. They should be able to guide you through the rest of the process.
Be aware though that academics tend to get lots of unsolicited emails from "prospective PhD students" of varying quality. These tend to be especially from the middle east due to government sponsored scholarships without entry requirements on the sponsoring side (if students get accepted they get the scholarship - if they fail, they often have to pay back the scholarship).
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/10/09 | 639 | 2,575 | <issue_start>username_0: I noticed in the book "A Beautiful Mind", by <NAME>, that a recommendation letter, for PhD applications, written for <NAME> runs as follows: *This man is a genius.*
Then, out of curiosity, I wonder that if such reference letters for PhD applications work in the present days?
Image taken from the [Graduate Alumni Records](http://findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/AC105/c3) of Princeton University:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/p7gtk.jpg)<issue_comment>username_1: Even though the event that inspired this questions may or may not have actually happened, the question is still a valid one.
I suspect it greatly depends on who wrote the recommendation. If the person writing that recommendation is a great authority in this field and is known for not giving praise easily, then such a recommendation letter might help. On the other hand, if I were to write such a letter...
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: A letter that simply states "This man is a genius" is not helpful for judging the likelihood of a PhD applicant being successful since it takes a lot more than genius to succeed at a PhD and genius is not a requirement for success. Further, the skills required to become "academically famous" do not necessarily make you better at judging the abilities of others. Academically famous people many see more good students than others, but that is not enough for me to take their word at face value, I want to see evidence of why the recommender thinks the person is a genius. Finally, if the student is so good that nothing more needs to be said about, I would be worried about why an academically famous person would be unable to convince his department to accept the genius and convince the genius to attend.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: In my experience, most communities of high achieving people don't openly value intelligence. Generally they dismiss it and say that hard work and luck is what's really important. And they would laugh at you if you wrote your IQ score on your resume.
If someone said "Person X is very smart" and didn't write anything else, I would see it as a backhanded compliment. Like "X is smart, but he doesn't have the traits that are *actually* valuable in academia."
In fact, if I don't like a professor, and someone asks me what it's like to work with them, I usually say something like "this guy is brilliant." Which is true for pretty much every professor at a good university.
Upvotes: -1 |
2014/10/09 | 929 | 3,948 | <issue_start>username_0: Can I have a PhD in mathematics or physics after having a bachelor degree in medicine provided that I score high in GRE physics or math?
I have had zero coursework in math or physics but I am not sure if I could greatly increase my chances into grad school by taking GRE and scoring highly in the test.
I'm not trying to show that I'm smart or anything but I think that mathematics is my cup of tea for I'm very passionate about it and I have studied analysis and algebra and quantum mechanics other things from standard textbooks getting help from resources such as MIT OCW.<issue_comment>username_1: The hard answer is a straight no.
Doing research level Mathematics or Physics requires a broad set of knowledge and maturity that takes years to achieve. GRE exams are quite crappy, they just ask a lot of questions on basic knowledge and arithmetic; but you won't see an integration by parts (first year maths).
But not everything is lost. There are fields where medicine and maths overlap, and definitely your expertise on one field and interest in learning the other can definitely help. Look at Biomathematics, Bioinformatics, and perhaps, Biophysics. I myself am a Physicist working in Bioinformatics. I do pure analysis of the data, but in the group we also have a wet lab, where my colleagues are trying (among other things) to come up with new creative ways to gather data more suited for our purposes.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In the U.S., this idea is fraught with difficulties, but is not impossible, in part because the usual undergraduate math curriculum in the U.S. is pretty thin and slow in any case, so that the typical first year or two (or more) of graduate work in mathematics is still coursework, getting-up-to-speed. Despite rumors of "undergrad research" in the U.S., genuine such is quite unusual, although "research experiences for undergrads" do give a positive experience showing that "classroom math" is not what mathematics is eventually about.
But there are intangibles acquired by doing that undergrad coursework, including "being on the same wavelength" as one's potential cohort, and having practice understanding what the instructors expect. While it is true that some of this is not particularly constructive pure convention, it does affect communication in both directions. If you're missing this experience, this will be an added catch-up project.
Beyond conventions and standards for communication, there is also the potential issue of accidental self-deceit about the degree or depth of one's understanding, if one has not interacted with other people. It's *not* that the typical U.S. undergrad curriculum is terribly substantial, but in a way this makes it all the worse, insofar as the truly important points can be lost or misinterpreted in a context of vast ocean of seemingly uniform technical details. Or, from another side, a too-physics-y attitude about mathematics may generate lots of trouble for you in a "strict" mathematics context.
After these cautions, I guess the point is that it is nevertheless *possible*, if one really wants it, to pursue mathematics (e.g, in the U.S.) despite not having the corresponding undergrad degree. Your issues would be primarily two: (1) getting letters of recommendation from *mathematicians* with PhD's, (2) demonstrating some self-study knowledge/awareness despite lack of transcripts showing such. Prepping for the GRE subject test in math might be feasible, and getting a good number is plausible without the undergrad degree, but this wouldn't be sufficient.
Probably taking at least one, probably two or more, upper-division or intro grad level math classes at a serious university would help you generate letters and also demonstrate that you can do the work at that level. At many places in the U.S., it is possible to register for such courses as "non-degree student", paying a lower tuition.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/09 | 760 | 3,321 | <issue_start>username_0: I have been offered a 2-year postdoc position in a good Dutch university. What they sent me so far is an email stating that they would like to offer me the position, and whether I would like to take up this position. I then replied with a yes instantly. Does this exchange of emails constitute a formal appointment decision (and acceptance)? I heard from others that it will take some time for them to formulate an employment contract. So what I shall do in the meantime is to wait and not to push them?
Also the PT's preferred start date is 1st February. What does 'start date' mean exactly? Is this the date that I will start getting paid? the date that I actually start working? If this is the case, does a starting date of 1st Feb imply that I should arrive earlier, say, in January to look for accommodation and sort everything out before 1st Feb?
Thanks in advance!<issue_comment>username_1: Having done a post-doc in The Netherlands, I think I can answer your questions.
1. Your "yes" is an acceptance, though probably not legally binding. They will take it in good faith that you have accepted. The contract may arrive in the mail for you to sign, but you may just sign on your first day.
2. The starting date is the date you will start and get paid from. You will probably need to go to The Netherlands earlier to find accommodation, though you could easily start everything on February 1 without causing any problems. They will understand that in your first few weeks you'll need to vanish to register yourself with the city, to get bank accounts, etc etc.
I would ask them if the have an accommodation service, even if it only provides short term accommodation. Finding accommodation in The Netherlands can be difficult.
In fact, I would simply ask them what their expectations are, essentially sending them the questions you've posted above. Unless it is the first time they've hired a post-doc, these questions will be unsurprising and they should have answers for them. The Dutch are good at dealing with direct questions (and you'll need to get used to receiving them ;-) ).
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If the email offer is unconditional (for instance, doesn't depend on obtaining a visa or other), then you can consider it as an appointment decision (in the sense that it would be unethical for either side to come back on that decision). However, for some purposes, such as administrative ones, you might need to wait for the actual contract.
The start date usually corresponds to the date where you *start working*, in many places, you receive your first salary only around the end of the first calendar month (sometimes later, if you start late in the month). In your example, you might receive your salary around the 28th of February.
Whether you come earlier or not depends on you and the institution. They could offer you some temporary accommodation, to give you enough time to find a place on your own. But if you come earlier, you won't be paid for the period of time between the moment you arrive and the start date.
In any case, your new institution should be able to answer all these questions for you, you should be very welcome to contact them (you won't be the first person in that situation, nor the last one!).
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/09 | 785 | 3,603 | <issue_start>username_0: I have attended many presentation where the presenter will show a graph/table in one of his/her slides, but they struggle to explain the semantics of the graph/table/results.
I think there is much more hidden in graphs/tables than young scientists can tell. Is there a way to improve this skill.
My adviser is also very strict on this, so I would like to know how to form sentences which really explain well what is being presented in the slide.
I believe a good point to start is explaining the axis and what they represent, and then comment on results. But how to improve this.<issue_comment>username_1: One problem people often have when presenting data in graphs and tables is that they often include data that is not relevant. For talks (formal or informal) I really like the process of starting with an empty graph of just the axes and explaining what the axes are and the limits and what they mean. Sometimes I then like to show idealized data from competing hypotheses so people can know what to expect without the added difficulties associated with understanding real, and potentially noisy, data.
Once people understand what the axes mean, I add data to the plot. Ideally, I start with a single data point and explain exactly what the data point means. I then add additional data points from the same "condition", possibly one at a time if they are discrete or all at once if there is some meaningful function that describes them. Once the first set of data is presented, I add on the second set. Sometimes it is helpful to remove or grey out the first set of data while you are introducing the second set of data so people can focus on just what is new. Once the second set of data is explained, bring back the first set and talk about the relationship between the two sets. This should ideally be moved to a new figure or panel to highlight the differences and similarities you want the listener to focus on.
If there is more "hidden" in figures and tables, that means it is too complicated for a talk. In manuscripts space is at a premium and you often have to have figures that tell multiple stories. In these cases the text still needs to walk you through the figure step-by-step and introduce each piece of information in the order in which you want the reader to look at it.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This is a very important skill to master, and a pertinent question. You are correct to first start with the description of the axes (also ensure that axis labels are legible on the slide!); this orientates the audience and will help them understand the results.
To follow on from this, I could share a couple of tips from my experience. First, make sure you understand how the slide fits in to the context of the whole presentation - what is the story you are telling? Then, ask yourself what the key point is you would like the audience to take from this slide (you can maybe get away with 2-3 points). This will guide the formatting of the figure itself, and the animation surrounding on the slides - for instance I find it useful to annotate the figure on the slide as I describe the result (for example putting a red circle around an interesting feature of the plot).
My last tip would be that the importance of practising the presentation by **actually speaking it out** loud (not just in your head!) cannot be understated. This is a sure way to identify areas where you are not entirely sure what to say, then you can make some more notes or write down key phrases to help you in the actual presentation.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/09 | 1,312 | 5,286 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently applying for tenure-track assistant professor jobs.
One of the positions requires me to submit a cover letter,
in addition to a CV, research statement, and teaching statement.
(The application is online)
I am thinking of writing the following:
>
> October 1, 2014
>
>
> Dear faculty committee
>
>
> I wish to apply for the faculty position
> in the Department of Mathematics
> at Stanford University.
> Currently, I am a postdoctoral fellow at
> the University of California at Berkeley
> in the Department of Mathematics
> under the supervision of Dr. <NAME>.
>
>
> Enclosed are my curriculum vitae, teaching and research statements,
> and two research papers.
> Please do not hesitate to contact me if further information is needed.
>
>
> Yours truly,
>
> <NAME>
>
> Department of Mathematics
>
> University of California at Berkeley
>
> 123 4th Street, Box 5678
>
> Berkeley, CA 12345-6789
>
> (123) 456-7890
>
>
>
* What is the purpose of the cover letter?
Is it just to indicate what are the documents included in the application?
I ask this because most of the other positions for which I am applying
don't require a cover letter.
* Should I include a brief summary of my research interests and teaching experience, one paragraph each, in the cover letter?
**Edit:**
In reality, I am not in the field of mathematics,
nor am I a postdoctoral fellow at Berkeley.
The details in my cover letter are fictitious
and meant only to illustrate the structure of the cover letter
which I will write.<issue_comment>username_1: In my field, which is not mathematics, a cover letter is a critical component of the job application. I feel like I have seen questions/answers on AC.SE that suggest in some fields the cover letter is less important. In general, in my field research statements, while specific in what the research goals are, are generally not tailored to an individual department. The same goes for teaching statements. My field is interdisciplinary and if you are applying for a position in a medical school you may use a different research/teaching statement than if you are applying for a position in an engineering school or a science school, but for any given type of department/school you would likely use the same research and teaching statements. You might tailor a small portion of them to demonstrate how you would fit into a specific department and the university as a whole, but you would not write new statements for each department. The cover letter on the other hand is where you explain how you fit into the department and university and is essentially rewritten for every application.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm a mathematician, and I was at Berkeley. I wrote a cover letter similar to yours and got exactly one interview that year (it was 2010, but still). The only reason I got that interview was because a member of the committee thought very highly of one of my letter writers.
I would suggest you write brief paragraphs regarding teaching and research, and order these paragraphs depending on how you gauge the focus of the department.
I would take this as a basic template for the cover letter you are going to write. As you get ready to apply to a school, you should try to learn as much as you can about the department. Is there someone there you would like to collaborate with? Do they offer any courses you would really like to teach? Do they offer an REU that you could contribute to? You might also morph your research paragraph into a "student research" paragraph if that is what they are looking for.
Many of these departments won't look at the letter at all, but you don't know which. For the ones that do value it, you want to show them that you understand what they are doing and want to be a part of it.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I'll be honest about when I read packages (in chemistry). The first thing I look at is the CV. I also skim the cover letter. Then I read the recommendation letters and the research and teaching statements. Depending on the CV and recommendation letters, I may take more or less time on the research/teaching statements - if the candidate seems promising, I'm more thorough.
But if the cover letter is short, not tailored at least *some* to our department, contains obvious typos, etc. I'll get a bad impression.
Look, anyone applying to a tenure-track position has taken a ***lot*** of time to get to this point. You've secured a PhD, possibly gone through a postdoc position, and prepared the whole application.
Why spoil it with a lousy cover letter. Take some time, think up a paragraph or two about a particular department, consider what you might add, and let us know.
This tells me that the candidate is not just blindly sending out a gazillion applications.
I doubt everyone completely rewrites their cover letters for each application (I didn't). But I **do** want to see that someone has taken the time to carefully craft a paragraph or three about us and how they might fit.
Will we interview someone who seems stellar with a poor cover letter? Probably. But we also get ~100 applications for every opening, so why would you risk it?
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/10/09 | 782 | 3,242 | <issue_start>username_0: Just curious about how professors feel about having to write recommendation letters? Is it a chore for them? Or do they actually enjoy writing them? Or is it more of neutral.
I am in a situation of applying to various graduate schools. Last year I only applied to one school and was rejected. This year I am thinking of applying to more schools so as to increase the chance of being accepted. I feel a bit "guilty" about having to ask my supervisor to write 5 separate letter of recommendations. Would it take up too much of their time?
That said, I don't really have any other choice since the recommendation letters are pretty much compulsory.<issue_comment>username_1: Writing recommendations is a lot of work, but I take pleasure in doing it. To control the work, I decline recommendations from students who earned grades of less than B in any of my classes. When I get a second request from the same student, I tell them my limit is four letters. I also ask for material from the student that eases the workload a bit.
Here is what I tell my students: <https://facultyweb.kennesaw.edu/rbrow211/help/recommendations.php>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Although I'm not a professor, my position has a lot of similarity and I have often been asked to write recommendation letters. My reaction has been a mixture, depending on who is asking for me to write the letter:
* Students who I like and respect: "Sure, I'll be happy to. What are the aspects of your work that you'd most like to have emphasized?"
* Students who I haven't got a strong opinion on: "I'm not sure that I know your work well enough to write a strong letter. If you really need me to, I can, but I think you'd be better served by getting somebody who knows you better."
* Students who I have been disappointed in: "I'm sorry, but I don't think that I would be a good person to write the type of letter that you need."
You only want letters from the first type, who will happily sing your praises. And for a student like that, it's no burden at all: I'm going to want to push your career forward, because I'm hoping I'll get to see somebody who I like prosper, and maybe even return to work with me as a colleague in the future.
As for the multiple letters question: don't worry about it unless you're applying to like 20 schools. If the programs you're applying to are similar, they're probably just going to be writing just one template letter about their experiences and filling in a couple of blanks to customize for the institution. Now certain institutions have terrible forms that will make it a pain to send that letter, but that's hardly your fault, and your recommender will be used to it...
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I am a professor. It's part of our job. I generally only write one letter per student, and send that letter to all of the programs they have applied to. The exception is if they are applying to different programs (e.g. some neuroscience and some cognitive science) I would tailor the letter for the program. It is work. Just like teaching, reviewing papers, writing grants, mentoring, etc. If I like the student, I will enjoy sharing my enthusiasm for that student.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/10/09 | 2,288 | 8,296 | <issue_start>username_0: My internal model of academia is that (1) as a group we are one of the most tolerant of biological and philosophical differences (e.g., gender, sexual orientation, and religion) and (2) that we are likely to take extreme views on issues related to our research. I have no evidence for either of these and they seem potentially at odds in that it seems strange that people would be so passionate about their research and be blase about their religion (or any other philosophy). Is there any work that characterizes the level of tolerance of academics on various issues?<issue_comment>username_1: There is [a recent study](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2063742) which generated quite a bit of noise and seems to indicate that racial and gender biases do indeed exist in academia (at least in the U.S.). The researchers sent e-mails to professors pretending to be a prospective graduate student, and response rates varied widely depending on the ethnic- and gender- markers in the purported student's name.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As a matter of fact, academics tend to be quite left-leaning, especially in fields like sociology. ([Here](http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2006/07/23/why-do-sociologists-lean-left-really-left/ "Here's")'s an article about this, with links to multiple studies.) Sadly, they're not abnormally likely to be tolerant of conservative viewpoints.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: <NAME> is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a nonpartisan group that monitors free speech on campus. In [a 2005 interview with ABC News](https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=461497&page=1), French argued that "the universities have been so captured by the left point of view, that you're going to get more political and intellectual diversity at your average suburban mega-church than you are at an elite university." The cause, he believed, was the systematic suppression and censorship of conservatives.
That same year, <NAME> and Lichter published [a paper](http://www.conservativecriminology.com/uploads/5/6/1/7/56173731/rothman_et_al.pdf) using data based on a telephone survey in 1999 of approximately 4000 faculty, administrators, and students. The purpose of this study was to test if professional advancement is influenced by ideological orientation. What they found out, was that conservatives and Republicans taught at lower quality schools, compared with liberals and Democrats. This suggested, they argued, "that conservative complaints of the presence and effects
of liberal homogeneity in academia deserve to be taken seriously".
A [2014 study](https://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2015/iyengar-ajps-group-polarization.pdf) by Iyengar and Westwood underscored how powerful political bias can be. In an experiment, Democrats and Republicans were asked to choose a scholarship winner from among fictitious finalists, with the experiment tweaked so that applicants sometimes included the president of the Democratic or Republican club. Four-fifths of Democrats and Republicans alike chose a student of their own party to win a scholarship, and discrimination against people of the other party was much greater than discrimination based on race.
For [a 2016 study](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0199863059), Shields and Dunn surveyed 153 conservative professors. “As two conservative professors,” they wrote in The Washington Post, “we agree that right-wing faculty members and ideas are not always treated fairly on college campuses. But we also know that right-wing hand-wringing about higher education is overblown.” Nevertheless, about one-third of the professors professors admit to using "coping strategies that gays and lesbians have used in the military and other inhospitable work environments", ie they "closeted" themselves by passing as liberals. Some also said they were badly mistreated on account of their politics.
In [a 2017 speech](https://news.stanford.edu/2017/02/21/the-threat-from-within/) before the Stanford Board of Trustees, former Provost <NAME> argued that he "watched a growing intolerance", "a political one-sidedness, that is the antithesis of what universities should stand for". "It manifests itself", he argued "in the intellectual monocultures that have taken over certain disciplines; in the demands to disinvite speakers and outlaw groups whose views we find offensive; in constant calls for the university itself to take political stands".
In 2009, world–renowned political scientist <NAME> was denied tenure at DePaul University [for his criticisms of Israel's human rights violations against the Palestinian people](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/16/us/penn-removes-professor-for-racial-remarks-trnd/index.html). In 2014, co-discoverer or DNA <NAME> was forced to sell his Nobel prize after losing most of his income [for stating that people of African descent are less intelligent than white people](https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2017/11/24/the-problematic-case-of-the-wilfrid-laurier-ta-who-dared-to-air-a-debate-on-grammar.html). In 2017, graduate student <NAME> was hauled before a three-person panel at Wilfrid Laurier University, which interrogated her for more than 40 minutes [for showing a first-year communications class a video snippet from TV Ontario of <NAME> debating another professor on the use of gender pronouns](http://www.worksanddays.net/2008-9/File14.Klein_011309_FINAL.pdf). In 2018, University of Pennsylvania Law School professor <NAME> was removed from teaching mandatory first-year courses [for saying in an interview that she didn't think she'd ever seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the class](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11261872/James-Watson-selling-Nobel-prize-because-no-one-wants-to-admit-I-exist.html).
These are some of many examples where academics / scholars have been reprimanded for making statements deemed too "politically incorrect" by their employers. While such cases are obviously but annectodal evidence at best, they do suggest Etchemendy may have had a point when he said he watched a growing intolerance "that is the antithesis of what universities should stand for". They do suggest it may indeed be safer for conservative professors to pass as liberals. They do suggest that French may have had a point when he argued there was systematic suppression and censorship of conservatives. And they do suggest that Rothman, Nevitte and Lichter may have been right to conclude that that conservative complaints of the presence and effects of liberal homogeneity in academia deserve to be taken seriously.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I think it might depend on the field. For example, if you are in a Biology department, you're likely to be labeled as "ignorant", "dumb", or "coward" if you are Christian (or Jewish, or Muslim or any religion that believes in a God who creates), regardless of whether you believe in evolution or not, and regardless of what your actual religious beliefs are. Generally, in natural sciences that's a pretty common trend I think. One could argue that this is more related to the second point you mentioned, rather than the first one, but given that this intolerance, as I said, is regardless of the opinion of the religious person about the origin of life and rules of physics, one could also argue that having this opinion that "any religious person is incapable of appreciating science" as an assumption, is a form of intolerance.
(There is a documentary about Christian professors in science (or biology) departments who were not tolerated by their colleagues and were discriminated against, but I couldn't find it now)
When it comes to ethnic and racial tolerance, in my experience, a level of racism and orientalism that would face condemnation in the US (but not necessarily in Europe) is not uncommon in academic communities in Europe. That being said, my impression is that they're still considerably more tolerant than an average person (or at least an average conservative) in that society.
But overall, I perceive academics to be more tolerant than the median member of the society.
Upvotes: -1 |
2014/10/10 | 607 | 2,855 | <issue_start>username_0: My paper is rejected with this comment from editor:
>
> Unfortunately, the reviewers generally agree this paper should not be
> considered for publish in....
>
>
>
My question is do all the reviewers reject the paper?
While, I read the reviewers's comment, some of them suggest some notations in order to improve my paper.<issue_comment>username_1: You can't really tell, unless it's explicit in the referee reports you receive. A referee could well give suggestions for improvements even if they advise rejecting the paper - they don't assume that just because the paper wouldn't appear in this journal it won't appear anywhere. It also doesn't matter whether all the referees recommended rejection - it is the editors that make the call, and that is what stands.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: A serious editor makes a decision based on the reports from the reviewers along with their own critical view of both the manuscript and the reviews. This means that both reviewers may not have made the official recommendation of reject, it sometimes happens reviewers give a "major revision" officially while in their confidential comment to the editor they provide their reasoning for providing that recommendation instead of a reject, which they think would be equally appropriate. Hence there is communication "behind the scenes" that is not visible to the author(s). It is also possible that an editor makes a decision for a reject based on reviews that recommend otherwise. In such cases the grounds may, for example, be that the editor sees that the revisions will be too complex to fit the time frame of a regular "major revision". Or, that there is some formal issue that reviewers will be unable to detect. The latter should, however, not be very common since such issues, including suitability to the journal, should be weeded out at the time of submission, not after review (thereby wasting reviewers valuable time).
In the quote you provide, it seems as if both reviewers have found grounds for rejecting the paper. It is probably not very common that an editor changes such overwhelming recommendations (although it can happen). The fact that reviewers provide comments is not in any way unusual. Any serious reviewer knows that part of reviewing is to provide feedback on what is thought should be revised. Hence there is normally no major difference between reviews resulting in a *recommendation* for "reject" than those resulting in, say, "major revision". Any first round review that is returned without any comments and providing either an "accept" or a "reject" will, in my opinion as editor, be signalling a reviewer not willing to do the job and in fact useless for the process (manuscripts so good that they can be accepted without any action are very rare indeed).
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/10 | 3,380 | 13,900 | <issue_start>username_0: I have checked the originality of my PhD thesis in mathematics using [Turnitin](http://turnitin.com/). The similarity was 31%. Is this percentage acceptable by most committees?<issue_comment>username_1: TurnItIn uses a complicated algorithm to determine whether a piece of text within a larger body of work matches something in its database. The TurnItIn is limited to open access sources and therefore has huge gaps in its ability to detect things. Further, while TurnItIn can in some cases exclude things like references and quotes from the similarity index, it sometimes fails. Overall, when my department's academic misconduct committee looks at TurnItIn reports we essentially ignore the overall similarity index. We do not completely ignore it in that it guides how we are going to further examine the document.
We employ 4 different strategies based on whether the similarity index is 0, between 1 and 20 percent, between 20 and 40 percent, and over 40+ percent. A piece of work with a similarity index of 0 is pretty rare and generally means that students have manipulated the document in a way that TurnItIn cannot process it (e.g., if a paper is converted to an image file and then converted to a pdf, there is no text for TurnItIn to analyse). A similarity index less than 20 percent can arise from work that contains no plagiarism with the similarity being quotes and references and small meaningless sentences. The key here is "meaningless". For example, there are only so many ways of saying "we did a t-test between the two groups" and it is reasonable to assume that someone else has used exactly the same wording. A piece of work with a similarity index less than 20 percent can also, however, include a huge amount of plagiarised material. A similarity index between 20-40 percent generally means there is a problem unless a large portion of text that should have been skipped was not (e.g., block quotes, reference lists, or appendices of common tables). A similarity index in excess of 40 percent is almost always problematic.
You really should not depend on the overall similarity index. First and foremost you should depend on your own following of good academic practices. If you have followed good academic practices, there really is no need for TurnItIn. If you want to use the TurnItIn report, you should look at what is being match and ask yourself why it is matching. If it found something your "accidentally" cut and paste, or "inadvertently" did not reword appropriately, fix it and use that as a wake up call to improve your academic practice. If everything it is finding are properly attributed quotes or common tables (or questionnaires, etc) and references then there is no problem.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I have some familiarity with Turnitin, though that was way back in undergrad. The thing about similarity engines is that they aren't perfect.
It's important to consider exactly how [Turnitin describes itself on its FAQ](https://turnitin.com/static/resources/documentation/turnitin/sales/Answers_to_Questions_Students_Ask.pdf).
### What does TurnItIn actually do?
>
> Turnitin determines if text in a paper matches text in any of the Turnitin databases. By itself, Turnitin does not detect or determine plagiarism
> —
> it just detects matching text to help instructors determine if plagiarism
> has occurred. Indeed, the text in the student’s paper that is found to match a source may be properly cited and attributed.
>
>
>
When we were testing Turnitin in high school (probably a decade ago) with a short writing prompt (~page or two) with a single source, the entire class ended up getting 15 to 20% similarity score, because not only did our sources match, but our quotes matched. No surprise there, really.
Now, consider how large Turnitin's database has grown. If this FAQ is to be trusted, you're comparing your paper to more than 80 thousand journals.
>
> Turnitin’s proprietary software then compares the paper’s text to a vast
> database of 12+ billion pages of digital content (including archived internet content that is no longer
> available on the live web) as well as over 110 million papers in the student paper archive, and 80,000+
> professional, academic and commercial journals and publications. We’re adding new content through new partnerships all the time. For example, our partner CrossRef boasts 500-plus members that include publishers such as Elsevier and the IEEE, and has already added hundreds of millions of pages of new content to our database.
>
>
>
If I recall correctly, you can see exactly where your paper has similarity with others, so you can pull that up.
### Sources of Similarity
My bet is that your paper cites papers almost identically to how another paper cites theirs. The great benefit of commonplace citing techniques like APA and MLA is that they're consistent.
If you cite, for example, the general APA format from Purdue, and someone else cites it, they're going to match at almost 100%.
>
> <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., & <NAME>. (2010, May 5). General format. Retrieved from <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/>
>
>
>
The chances of you citing a paper that has never been cited before when compared to the world of science is, let's face it, probably 0%. Someone out there has cited your sources at some point. With sources being at times up to 10% of the paper's length, that's an easy portion we can knock out.
The other portion likely has to do with the vernacular that is used to describe a situation. Let's go with the following statement, written entirely off the top of my head.
>
> Java is an object-oriented programming language.
>
>
>
Pretty simple statement, and true enough that [it has been mentioned 260,000 times already, in that exact wording.](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Java%20is%20an%20object-oriented%20programming%20language.%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb)
Similarity for that statement is 100% if it were to check for that. But when you make it loosely checked for similarity (i.e. remove the quotes from the search), you get [several million hits.](https://www.google.com/search?q=Java%20is%20an%20object-oriented%20programming%20language.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb)
Does that mean I plagiarized? Nope. Would TurnItIn flag it? Definitely. Consider how likely everyday people great each other with "How was your weekend?" Are we plagiarizing each other's greetings? Nope. We pick up similarities in how we control language to understand each other, and that shows in papers, where we describe confidence intervals, methodologies, and processes the same way.
Perhaps even more terrifying in considering the similarity score, is that it will likely evaluate the two following statements similar:
Statement 1
>
> The double helix of DNA was first discovered by the combined efforts of Watson and Crick. Watson and Crick would later get a Nobel Prize for their efforts.
>
>
>
Statement 2
>
> The double helix of DNA was not first discovered by the combined efforts of Watson and Crick, but by Franklin. Watson and Crick would later get a Nobel Prize for her efforts.
>
>
>
Two very similar sentences. 80-90% similarity word-wise. Meaning-wise? Completely different. That's why the human element is required. We can tell those two statements tell an entirely different story when read. These small similar sets of wording add up quite quickly, and a 30% similarity in your case, given the level of research probably done in whatever your field is, and the amount of sources you have probably cited (100+?) is unlikely to be anything to fret about in this day and age.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Is this percentage acceptable by most committees?
>
>
>
This is the wrong question to be asking, since academic decisions are not made based on a numerical measure of similarity from a computer program. The purpose of this software is to flag suspicious cases for humans to examine more carefully. It will identify passages that appear similar to other writings, but it can't decide whether that constitutes plagiarism.
For example, part of your thesis might be based on previous papers you have written. In some circumstances, it may be reasonable to copy text from these papers. (You need to check that your advisor approves and that it doesn't conflict with any university regulations or the publishing agreement with the publisher.) Of course you would need to cite the papers and clearly indicate the overlap. It's not plagiarism if you do that, but Turnitin doesn't understand what you've written well enough to distinguish it from plagiarism. So it's possible that Turnitin would flag lots of suspicious sections, but that your committee would look at them and see that everything is cited appropriately.
If you haven't committed any plagiarism, then you don't need to worry about this at all. If you genuinely write everything yourself (or carefully quote and cite anything you didn't write), then there's no way you could accidentally write something that looks like proof of plagiarism. There's just too much possible variation, and the probability of matching someone else's words by chance is negligible. The worst case scenario is that Turnitin flags something due to algorithmic limitations or a poor underlying model, but human review shows that it is not actually worrisome. (Nobody trusts Turnitin more than they trust their own judgment.)
I'll assume you don't know you've committed plagiarism, but it is possible that you honestly wouldn't know? Unfortunately, the answer is yes if you have certain bad writing habits. For example, it's dangerous to write while having another reference open in front of you to compare with. Even if you don't copy anything verbatim, it's easy to write something that's just an adaptation of the original source (maybe rewording sentences or rearranging things slightly, but clearly based on the original).
If that's what worries you, then you should take a look at the most suspicious passages found by Turnitin. If they look like an adaptation of another source, then it's worth rewriting them. If they don't, then maybe Turnitin is worrying you unnecessarily.
But in any case a plagiarism finding won't just come down to a percentage of similarity. Any percentage greater than 0 is too much for actual plagiarism, and no percentage is too high if it reflects limitations of the software rather than actual plagiarism.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I have used websites in the past to help with similar content, they will give you a report of what was found online and help remove/reword the similar content so you don't have to worry about your document being marked as plagiarism.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: From my experience with Ithenticate (the version of turnitin for journals and conference proceedings), I'd say that 30% similarity most likely indicates significant plagiarism or self-plagiarism (recycling of text.) I would certainly investigate further to understand exactly where the similar text was coming from.
If the similar text is taken from sources written by other authors, then I would investigate further by reading the text carefully and comparing it with the sources. There are certainly false alarms raised by this type of software. For example, common phrases like "Without loss of generality, we can assume that..." and "Partial differential equation boundary value problem" will be flagged. Standard definitions are also commonly flagged.
However, if I see long narrative paragraphs with significant copying, that's clearly plagiarism.
It's traditional at many universities to staple together a bunch of papers and call it a dissertation. Conversely, it's also very common to slightly rewrite chapters of a dissertation and turn them into papers. Either way, this is "text recycling."
Now that text recycling can be easily detected, commercial publishers are cracking down on it for a variety of reasons. First, the publisher might get sued for copyright violation if the holder of the copyright on the previously published text objects. A different objection is that the material shouldn't be published because it isn't original.
As a result, text recycling between two published papers (in conference proceedings or journal articles) is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. This has upset many academics who have made a habit of reusing text from one paper to the next. Some feel that if the reused text is from a methods section or literature review, than the copying is harmless. Publishers typically take a harder line.
The situation with dissertations is somewhat different. In one direction journals have always been willing to accept papers that are substantially based on dissertation chapters with minimal rewriting. Since the student usually retains copyright on the thesis itself, there's no particular problem with copyright violation. Since dissertations traditionally weren't widely distributed, publishers didn't care that the material had been "previously published." I don't really expect this to change much in the near future.
In the other direction, there are two issues: First, will the publisher of journal articles object to reuse of the text in the dissertation as a copyright violation? You'd need to check with the publisher. Second, will the university be willing to accept a dissertation (and perhaps publish it through Proquest or its own online dissertation web site) that contains material that has been separately published? That really depends on the policy of your university and the particular opinions of your advisor and committee.
Upvotes: -1 |
2014/10/10 | 1,089 | 4,745 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm not an academic (sorry!), but at various points over my career I have been interested in working with professors on a variety of projects. I never found an easy way to find a professor who might be a good fit (e.g. is in the right field and interested in consulting work) and I'm wondering if there is one? I suppose that part of my question is whether professors in general are interested in consulting work - I know they are extremely busy, so I'm not sure if this type of work is even attractive.<issue_comment>username_1: This type of work can be very attractive. Some universities even encourage it. I'm entitled to spend up to 20% of my time on consulting projects.
It does get tricky. The prof involved should really be using ZERO university resources for consulting work. While it may never come to it, this should be verifiable through an audit if that's ever demanded. My own Univ Policy is "Faculty members may not use facilities, equipment, materials, funds, personnel or
similar resources of the University in the consulting activities. They may use
University telephones, email accounts, computers and software programs that are
generally available to the University community, and library resources (but not library personnel), so long as the use is reasonable in duration and frequency, does not compromise the security or integrity of University property, information or software, and does not violate any other University policy". Such policies may vary by university or country, but if I were hiring a consultant, I'd pay ample attention to making sure the university involved did not get hooks into any of my IP.
This can go the other way, as well. There was a recent court decision (perhaps someone can help me point to it) where a faculty consultant accidentally signed away university rights!! In response, my own school requests that faculty run consultancy contracts through Univ. counsel. They can't *make* us do that, but in return they will keep an eye out for the best interests of their faculty as they review the contract.
Finding the right consultant can be tricky. You don't mention what sort of consultant you're looking for, but I'd suggest looking at web pages of local universities to see if any faculty research interests line up with the work you need to have done. Start with the departments that produce the types of students that you'd consider hiring to do that sort of work. If you can't find a match, an email to the chair might help. In fact, the chair would know which faculty members would benefit from expanding their portfolio in this way.
As with any consulting arrangement, spend some real time on the contract. Make sure the consultant understands what the deliverables will be. A good consultant will not take on a poorly defined job, and should be able to help the costumer define the job. If the job is vague, consultancy may not be the best way to go, and you might consider sponsoring a small research project.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I am one of the founders of a company that does exactly what you are asking. It matches professors and businesses together for consulting and executive education. The company is called LIFTPhD.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: While it is often a little bit challenging to set up - how consulting works will vary by institution, position, etc. professors are often greatly interested in doing consulting work. Just like industry experts, it allows them to make more money than they otherwise would, work on some interesting projects, etc. It's also, if you don't necessarily need "Professor So-and-so" but merely a highly trained expert in the field, a good way to help supplement grad student and postdoc income.
The best way to get in touch with them is to find someone who seems appropriate, and ask them. There are a couple ways to potentially find someone:
1. Look at your local university. Physical proximity can be helpful, and even if they don't/can't work on a project at the moment, they may be able to point you in the right direction - they know the field better than you do.
2. Try to find academics who clearly do work in your field. Are there papers you've read, either in the mainstream press or journals, that are relevant to your problem? Is there a particular university you hire a lot of graduates from? etc. Again, this may not prove immediately fruitful, but could help get you oriented.
3. Professional organizations may be able to help. They often have job boards, membership directories, etc. At least one I've encountered also actually has it's own consulting service - it essentially collects interested members, and matches them with projects as needed.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/10 | 566 | 2,385 | <issue_start>username_0: I am aware that being funded by a grant greatly improves your chances of receiving a master's degree, however, hypothetically what would be the potential consequences of offering to fund your own? If the negative consequences are minimal, how does one go about offering this to a potential supervisor without under-selling themselves?
I'm applying to programs in Canada.<issue_comment>username_1: Getting funding usually stipulates that you have a project that is related to the fund that you have applied to. That being said, it is not always the case. Whether you are self-funded or funded does not necessarily mean that a particular supervisor will work with you. If your research interests are not aligned with the professor's, then it is likely that he/she will reject working with you, even if you are funded. It does not really matter if you are funded or not. It looks better on your CV, however, if you do get funding.
Furthermore, being funded does not guarantee that you will receive a master's degree. Hard work and dedication do. It is the same in any academic program.
If you want to work with a certain professor, I would suggest that you email him/her with a research proposal. That way he/she is able to 1) know that you exist and are keen to work with him/her, 2) that you have a project in mind, and 3) you are open to criticism concerning your research proposal.
Professors like working with students who want to work with them, usually, and they also like students who have similar research interests, or have stimulating proposals for new avenues of research.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: One potential problem is what I'll refer to as "Lack of Responsibility", and I experienced a little bit of it when part of my degree was funded by a university fund not tied to any particular project.
While it gives you a tremendous amount of freedom, it means that you're not tied to any mentor/group/project/grant. Your work product doesn't need to go in the annual report, or be written up to make the lab look good for a renewal, etc. There's no pressure to settle down and get to work - which means the freedom to explore, but also the freedom to drift aimlessly.
Basically, it removes "Because someone needs to keep the lights on" as a motivating factor behind getting work done, and that is a *powerful* motivator.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/10 | 1,041 | 4,014 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm looking for a suggestion, for a medical journal counter part to the [arxiv](http://arxiv.org/). A minimal frill, open access online repository
to time stamp articles with some visibility.<issue_comment>username_1: The closest would be [bioRxiv](http://biorxiv.org).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I am not aware of a "pre-print" (I don't mean this term in a derogatory manner) repository for medical research similar to arXiv. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is that my understanding is that the peer review process in medical fields often takes less than a month and rarely more than a year where as in Physics and Maths I think the pattern is reversed. The second reason, and I believe the most important reason, is that medical research studies should be preregistered. The [2013 Declaration of Helsinki](http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html) states:
>
> Every research study involving human subjects must be registered in a publicly accessible database before recruitment of the first subject.
>
>
>
This requirement has lead to initiatives (or possible vice versa) of trial repositories like [bioMed Central](http://www.biomedcentral.com/authors/protocols) where protocols can be peer reviewed and published. While this is very different from arXiv which archives complete studies, it may provide the type of "time stamping" you are looking for.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: To elaborate on the answer by username_1: [bioRxiv](http://biorxiv.org/) has been deliberately designed to fill the same sort of role for life sciences that arXiv does for physics, math, and computer science. A key reason for this is the growing recognition amongst some practitioners in these fields that scientific communication is being inhibited by the long time to publication and pre-publication secrecy that is typical in life science fields---it is not uncommon to be hearing privately about work for years before one is able to read the details or cite it. Overall, this is a very good thing: it improves communication, it reduces the chance of being "scooped," and it reduces the "all-or-nothing" pressure associated with targeting super-high-impact journals.
That said, bioRxiv is still fairly new, and the conventions for its relationship with journals are still evolving. Some journals are very supportive and encourage authors to deposit in bioRxiv. Others still tightly embrace the prior publication culture and consider deposit in a preprint repository a prior publication that precludes submission. Check carefully what the policy of the journals that you are targeting with before you make a decision about whether to deposit.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: How about [PeerJ Preprints](https://peerj.com/about/publications/#PeerJ-Preprints)? It was [launched](https://peerj.com/blog/post/47030855181/peerj-preprints-a-new-preprint-server-for-the-biological-and-medical-sciences/) in 2013.
>
> PeerJ Preprints is the 'pre-print' area of PeerJ. Similar to pre-print servers that already exist (for example arXiv.org), authors can submit draft, incomplete, or final versions of articles they are working on.
> ...
> PeerJ Preprints will only accept submissions in the same subject areas as PeerJ (Biological and Medical Sciences) and PeerJ Computer Science.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Researchgate.net
================
A lot of academic medical professionals are uploading pre- and post-publication manuscripts to <https://www.researchgate.net/>
**EDIT:** Above answer was all there was at the end of 2017. However, since June 2019, [medRxiv.org](https://www.medrxiv.org/) fully serves the needs of the medical science community.
[](https://www.medrxiv.org/)
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: **medRxiv**: a preprint server for health sciences.
<https://www.medrxiv.org/>
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/10/10 | 893 | 3,438 | <issue_start>username_0: I am citing in Harvard style, so my entries end up something like this:
>
> <NAME>. (1975). Asymptotic inversion of convolution operators, *Publ. Math. Inst. Hautes Études Sci.* **44**: 191–240.
>
>
>
With the above entry, I noticed that the same author cited the year as 1975 from his later papers, but the publisher's website says volume 44 is from 1974. I looked at the actual journal volume and sure enough it has 1974 in big letters on the title page, but the small copyright notice says 1975. It seems that this is the journal volume *for* 1974, but was actually published in 1975. (According to the stamp on it, my university's library received its copy at the start of April 1975, so my speculation is that they only narrowly missed a deadline to pubish in 1974.)
My question is: how should I cite this? Should I mention both years? If so, how should I fit them in to the citation, and if not, which should I use?<issue_comment>username_1: Since the purpose of the citation is to enable others to find the work in question, use whatever number serves this purpose best.
Most likely this will be 1974, as this is the number required by people who want to find the printed journal. People searching online will probably find the paper equally well with either number and even if there is a difference, it will be negligible in comparison to the annoyance experienced by somebody searching for the printed article.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: With the advent of "online first" and "just accepted" publication streams, this dilemma is becoming even more common. It is now frequently the case that a publication will become available and begin gathering citations well before its "official" publication date.
As noted in the answer by username_1 and <NAME>, publication dates serve two purposes:
1. Extra meta-data to help with a search for the reference
2. Establishing priority between competing researchers
The citation that you write only needs to do the first. Thus, my practice when dealing with multiple publication dates is to write whichever is the "most persistent". For example, I have had citations like "published online June 2012" doi:XXX", then in another later work cited the same paper as something like "34(4), pp 1-10, January 2013, doi:XXX" once it's progressed in the publication queue to actually receive a final volume/issue/date.
Regarding the question of priority: that's not really your job in a mere citation. If order of precedence is actually important to your discussion, you should be discussing it in the text, and not just leaving it to the reader to infer from citation dates, because the real story is often more complicated. That's why in the actual text of many publications, you will see multiple dates in addition to the final publication date. In the most extreme cases, you will see a long string like: "Submitted Date1, Revised Date2, Accepted Date 3, Published Online Date 4."
In short: don't sweat the precedence issue. In the citation, use the date that will be most useful in obtaining the full publication, and let precedence questions be handled separately.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: One way to cite a journal issue with 1974 printed on it but actually published in 1975 is to say that the year is `1974 (1975)`. (For an example, see the answers to [this question](https://hsm.stackexchange.com/q/1853/72).)
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/10/10 | 1,066 | 4,838 | <issue_start>username_0: Out of curiosity, I am wondering if a PhD application decision letter gives the reasons for the decision?
If yes, why? If not, why?<issue_comment>username_1: In my experience in the US, I have never seen any sort of decision letter for an application (whether for Ph.D. or any position) that gives reasons for the decision. It may be different in other countries, but in the US at least, there are many good reasons to never give such information formally.
The actual decision-making process is never as clean and clear-cut as anybody wants it to be, and with the limited information available in applications and even interviews, there are going to be cases where people make mistakes or make good decisions for unclear or hard to state reasons. Lots of good people may get turned down for reasons having nothing to do with them, such as just having too many good candidates in the same area.
If an institution gives real reasons in an official statement (as opposed to something meaningless and bland like "not an appropriate fit at this time"), then it is opening up the door for all sorts of potential problems and disputes, not to mention potential legal liability if something could be construed as relating to a protected category such as gender, age, religion, or ethnicity. They also have to worry about seriously unbalanced people who may take it as a personal insult and begin some sort of stalking or harassment campaign (it happens!). Not giving reasons may feel unsatisfying and cowardly, but it is an easy and safe path for an institution, and as such is generally official policy.
Now, if you have an informal trusted relationship with somebody who was involved in the decision process, then it is sometimes possible to get a strictly unofficial take on what may have happened. You might learn things you didn't want to know about how sausage is made, however.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: At my UK institution it is now required that all applications have a reason for the decision, which is communicated to the applicant. This is meant to ensure and document a clear decision making process for quality assurance purposes.
However, these officially documented reasons are often bland, boilerplate and uninformative. The useful information usually requires direct comparison with other candidates (for the *relative* ranking), which is exactly the information the institution can't release by law.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Here are the only sorts of "reasons" I've ever seen in US decision letters.
Acceptance: "We were impressed by your qualifications."
Rejection: "We had many more qualified applicants than seats."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: No, there is usually no specific reason given.
What would even constitute such a reason for rejecting someone from grad school? People sometimes imagine that there might be a clear-cut explanation, perhaps numerical. "The applicant pool was strong enough this year that we were able to set a GRE verbal cutoff of 165" or "We prefer applicants who have taken eleven courses in their major, but you've taken only eight" or "You lost out to someone who published one more paper than you did" or "We accept applicants from Yale only when we run out of applicants from Harvard." That's generally not how admissions decisions work. Instead, the judgment is holistic, based on the entire application, including intangible aspects like how compelling the letters of recommendation are. There's not much to say beyond "We got many strong applications and managed to fill the incoming class with applicants who impressed us even more than you did", and there's nothing to be gained by spelling that out.
Of course, there's occasionally a simple reason, when you really can refuse to admit someone because of something specific. However, that reason is sometimes insulting, and it would be dangerous to give the impression that the applicant could be admitted in the future if they just fixed this one thing. (It's rare to see an otherwise wonderful application with one utterly unacceptable aspect. Instead, if you're unacceptable in one respect you're likely to be at least questionable in others.) It would just be adding insult to injury to say "Well, your application probably wasn't good enough overall in any case, but here's one aspect we found particularly appalling."
I think what applicants often want isn't an explanation of the decision so much as constructive advice. Should they give up on the idea of attending graduate school? Do they need additional preparation? Are they not presenting themselves in the best light? It's completely reasonable to seek this sort of advice, but preferably from a mentor. Brief comments from admissions committees are unlikely to be useful.
Upvotes: 3 |
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