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2014/11/29 | 593 | 2,501 | <issue_start>username_0: [Chiranjeevi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiranjeevi) was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Andhra University. He is an actor, so how did he earn an honorary degree if he has not contributed anything to education?<issue_comment>username_1: The "degree" part of "honorary degree" is largely irrelevant. Honorary degrees are simply honors bestowed by a university, and they are considered degrees just because degrees are what universities hand out: a degree is the one distinction not available elsewhere in society. Honorary degrees do not necessarily have anything to do with study or recognize any scholarly accomplishments, even in the loosest sense. (This is true both historically and today. There has never been any strong connection between honorary degrees and scholarship.) Scholars can be awarded honorary degrees, but so can anyone else.
In particular, politicians, donors, and celebrities are sometimes honored by universities for entirely non-academic reasons. For example, in the United States a university typically awards an honorary degree to the primary speaker at its graduation ceremony, who is chosen for fame and speaking skills. The speaker might be a distinguished scholar or might have no scholarly credentials whatsoever, but an honorary degree will be awarded either way.
There's nothing wrong with this, and there's no reason why universities should restrict their honors to scholars. The only strange part is calling the honor a degree, but in practice people who care about such things know it's not a real degree. Honorary degree recipients occasionally take the degree part too seriously (by bragging about it or insisting on being called "doctor"), but that just serves to make them look foolish.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: To explain it in a linguistic perspective, in the beginning there is only one meaning in the word "degree": an award for something you deserve. By calling the tribute to a non-scholar a degree as well, **the word has a different meaning**, and it becomes a polysemy. The difference between two meanings is large enough for the insiders to distinguish a honors degree with a real one, but small enough for the outsiders to be unable to make that distinction.
So by making a simple word become a polysemy, the university can gain more benefit without violating any ethic. In other word, this is a way to dance around what is right or wrong by applying knowledge in linguistics and psychology.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/11/29 | 1,590 | 6,631 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm doing a PhD in Economics, a 3-year program. I am required to do 4 coursework and receive a grade of B+. The thing is I didn't meet the grade requirement of all four courses, although I didn't fail the courses. I have a very good research proposal (in my opinion). I've got all the data on hand. I have discussed about this with my supervisor and he said I might get terminated; it depends on the research committee after I defend my proposal. I think it would be very unfair if I've got a justifiable proposal but still got terminated because I didn't meet the coursework requirement. The university regulation does not say clearly what would happen if someone fails the coursework requirement.
So, I was wondering if there is anyone out there who is/was in my position. Did you get terminated from the school?<issue_comment>username_1: *Story time!*
At one point in my past life, I was in a graduate program for a certain subject which has nothing to do with computers. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I was not cut out for such work. I ended up missing the cut severely on two courses, and was told I was withdrawn from that graduate program. So, that was it. Just one day, I stopped going to classes, and I was no longer a graduate student.
So, yes, if you don't meet grade requirements, you can get terminated in some programs. This is a very real outcome that you need to consider, if you've been told it is a possible outcome.
Depending on your grade layout, you may get by, you might not. If you needed a B+ in 4 classes and ended up getting a B or a B- in a single class, I don't think the research committee would be out to kick you out. If, however, your performance was sub-par based on their requirements repeatedly, such as a pair of Cs, they may be wary as to keeping you on board if their requirements were B+s.
That being said, **you should probably talk to your adviser about how to proceed.** If the research committee is willing to work on a case by case basis, you might be able to work something out. Either way, your end performance has to be stellar from now on, as anything you do poorly will make it harder to support your case.
Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that no one here can guarantee success. You should, at the very least, consider what will happen if you are terminated from the program, as a safety measure.
*Epilogue - I ended up getting a Master's in Computer Science and found a happy career.*
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, it happens. And it has to be this way.
We've had students who do not do sufficiently well in the coursework, but do so well in other regards that they are allowed to continue on to their Phd: the research committee is there to weigh up the positive and negative signs, within the regulations set out for them. Occasionally, we have students who pass the coursework and then struggle with self-guided research. So now we have two gateways: the coursework, and then a year later an upgrade report and seminar, which is their formal transition from an MPhil programme to a DPhil programme.
A department may not get many opportunities to formally remove a failing student. This will vary by institution and discipline, but it can be the case that there are not many opportunities within the trajectory of a single PhD to terminate cleanly and indisputably.
We never like to do it. It's the worst thing we can do. Apart from the alternative, when the alternative is letting a candidate go forwards into a drawn-out and ultimately unsuccessful attempt at completing the PhD. This is exacerbated if they might make increasing demands on staff, and/or might become increasingly disruptive to other students.
If the supply of good potential candidates is greater than the number of available places; or there are financial penalties when students fail later rather than earlier in the process; then the imperative to filter out weak candidates becomes stronger.
Coursework, research proposals, upgrade seminars and upgrade reports, are some of the small selection of tools we have to help us identify weak candidates. Writing a PhD thesis is indeed completely different to doing coursework. And there are candidates that excel at coursework, but could not write a doctoral thesis; and maybe there are candidates where the reverse is true. Nevertheless, the coursework gives us an opportunity to assess a candidate's skills and domain knowledge.
So that's why a justifiable proposal is not in and of itself sufficient (even when it's a self-funded candidate). If successful coursework is specified as a *requirement*, then the regulation doesn't need to say what happens if a student fails the coursework: if any requirement isn't met, then the candidacy doesn't have a right to proceed - that's the essence of a requirement. There might be alternatives to some requirements: these should be in the regulations somewhere. Your supervisors, or the faculty's graduate tutor, or the university's graduate school, should be able to advise.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Universities will impose some minimum course work (credit) requirement on the students. For example: in my institute I need to take 2 course work and a seminar with a CGPA of 6.0. This rule is strict. Suppose, a student gets CGPA less than 6, he/she should take an extra course and make up for the CGPA 6.0.
In my institute, course credits cannot be compensated by research proposal or a conference/Journal paper.
What I suggest you is, go to acad section of your university and meet Dean/registrar (acad). There will be a committee in every university to take care of all such type of problems. Explain your problem and I hope it gets solved.
All the very best.
Even if it doesn't get solved, don't worry. This is not the end of the road. PhD is not life.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I almost didn't compose an answer because others have covered almost all the ground, but I do have this to add:
>
> I think it would be very unfair...
>
>
>
If you whine complain about fairness, it will work against you. You presumably knew the requirements going in, and you didn't meet them.
>
> The university regulation does not say clearly what would happen
>
>
>
If you try to "lawyer" the regulations, it will work against you. Others have already explained that "requirement" means *requirement.*
Talk to your proposed supervisor, ask what, if anything, you can do to remedy the situation, and *do what the supervisor says.* They are giving you a chance to redeem yourself; don't blow it.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/11/29 | 701 | 3,192 | <issue_start>username_0: I am studying applied math. My bachelor's thesis is coming up next semester and I've got a dilemma.
I was originally planning to do a standard project (most of them seem very soft to be honest) and then take an extra course (I got permission to take a PHD level course in information theory) or two simultaneously.
But then a project involving a fairly novel part of control theory popped up, novel enough that it might be possible to get something interesting published from the project. It seemed like a fairly interesting problem and the possibility of co-authoring a paper at this stage is very appealing as I have an eye on a PHD after my masters degree.
Control theory itself doesn't interest me that much, but the tangential mathematical subjects do (optimization, algorithms, information theory, etc). The problem is that it's probably going to be a lot more time consuming than a normal project and I don't know if I'd benefit more from it than just taking another course in an area I'm actually interested in.
I'm nervous it's going to be a stressful spring without much to show for it if we don't manage to get any interesting results at all. On the other hand, I suppose any research experience is positive even if it's not in my main interest area.
So, the question is: for a PhD application, should I complete a research-based thesis tangentially related to areas of interest, or normal thesis focused on my areas of interest plus additional courses in my areas of interest?
(edit: I'd probably drop a PDE course in favor of this project)<issue_comment>username_1: As a senior phd student, I always recommend bachelor students to have some flavor of research in their thesis rather than doing a pure implementation work. Any research work requires some level of implementation and this gives the student good chance to find out which parts are more favorable and then he/she can easily decide to go to industry or continue academic carrier.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: If your plans to pursue a PhD eventually are serious, I would definitely recommend the research-based option. You'll see this advice in many other places, but acquiring a PhD is very much the process of learning how to do research and proving that you can indeed do it. Even if the project is not directly in an area that you're very interested in, you'll have the opportunity to start practicing your research skills. The prospect of a publication is also something to keep in mind; an entering PhD student who has already published is viewed as already having proved to some degree that they're capable of quality research, and I've never met a faculty member anywhere who didn't appreciate that.
You're exactly right in that the research experience will be valuable to you even if you do not end up with a publication. Why? Primarily, if you do good work you've given your faculty collaborators some very good material to put in the reference letters you're going to want them to write when you apply to PhD programs. In fact, in your position I'd probably be thinking more about coming out of the experience with a strong reference than a publication.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/11/30 | 2,384 | 10,029 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm sitting here with my friend, who is in the process of applying to graduate school. She's come across a prompt that looks like this:
>
> If you are a member of a community that has historically been underrepresented in higher education and would like to tell us how this particular perspective adds to the value you will contribute to the diverse learning community we strive to create, please do so here.
>
>
>
My friend is a female, Latin American, previously financially-burdened immigrant, so there is certainly some diversity to speak of, but she's having trouble coming up with how this can answer the prompt. To her, she's never really considered it a struggle, but more of a challenge. She's never let it get her down, so she sees no reason to complain about it in an essay. She believes you should be judged based on your past and present performance, not your national origin, ethnicity, financial status, etc.
How do you even respond to a prompt like that? Also, why do universities ask you to speak about your diversity in the first place? What are they looking for?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, indeed, there are many ways that this discussion could get off-track...
The specific, relevant point is that many universities have certain pots of money ear-marked for whatever-it-is that "diversity" refers to, and "traditionally under-represented groups"' members are the only eligible competitors for any part of that money.
(The discussion of the sense of this is of course the elephant-in-the-room, but is irrelevant to the already-earmarked funds.)
That is, at this point, being a woman in a STEM field (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math), or of ethnic origin other than northwestern European..., or... opens certain money-pots to both the department and to the individual.
It is true that one might easily find reason to not go down that path, ... but I note that many people will presume that one has done so if one had the chance, and all that that might entail.
Honestly, if I were in that situation, *and* did *not* have severe need, I'd skip it, just to be able I'd skipped it. But maybe nobody'd listen...
I can clarify further, if this is to-the-point for the questioner. I've been involved with such stuff for a long time...
Edit: to clarify, for example, my department did not create the literal "diversity statement" component of the application, it was created somewhere in the central administration. That is, although we have tried to avoid traditional biases (e.g., ideas how "how a mathematician *looks*", and such, often included male-gender-correlated attributes that, arguably, have nothing to do with mathematics), we did not *formalize* any part of such discussion. We've tried to be unbiased for far longer than this recent appearance of overt statements about "diversity", not for any immediate tangible reward from higher-ups, but for more idealistic reasons. Having central administration throw a little money at the situation doesn't really change much.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It seems to me that it would be prudent to start from the assumption that the words in the question have been chosen carefully, after some deliberation; and so she should answer the question put, as it is asked.
The quote you've given does not ask for complaints. It doesn't speak of judging her by national origin, ethnicity or financial status. It doesn't ask her to talk of struggle. So those things would only go in the answer if they give a particular perspective that adds to the value she would contribute to the diverse learning community they strive to create.
They want to know how her status as a member of a historically-under-represented community adds to the value she would contribute. In your answer, you've already given three aspects of that. I'll paraphrase slightly - I hope I haven't distorted your friend's intended meaning - and for each I'll frame it within the question as asked on the application form:
1. she's seen her being from a historically under-represented community as a challenge rather than a struggle; as a member of the department her very presence could provide a positive role model for others both internal and external to the deparment
2. she's maintained optimism and not let the status quo get her down; as a member of the department, she would bring a realistic optimism and determination.
3. she's sought to work towards a system that rewards merit for its own sake regardless of national origin, ethnicity, financial status, and so on; as a member of the department, she would contribute to the department's culture of meritocracy: academia of all places should strive to overcome conscious and unconscious biases, and work strive towards meritocracy.
That would seem to me to cover the question on the form as it has been asked.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: The reason for the question may well depend on the School and its own reasons. One popular case of this is the [University of Michigan](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/us/supreme-court-michigan-affirmative-action-ban.html?_r=0). While the school may feel diversity is important, and through affirmative action it can achieve it, the government or voters may not agree. In this case, Michigan created an essay section for contribution to diversity, in which they can more actively decide admissions based on diversity when affirmative action is not available.
Answering the question honestly is the best policy. Of course you would not want to lie, as an interview would probably create automatic rejection. If you do not want to come off as 'complaining', dont complain, it doesnt ask that. Answer how your background can contribute, and the simplest of answers is what your question mentions:
>
> As being a female immigrant from latin america, I have been considered
> a minority. However, I do not look at this like a struggle, I look at
> it as a challenge, and I think my mindset will help contribute to both
> diversity and academics at the University.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: There is an interesting brochure on [Benefits and Challenges of Diversity in Academic Settings](https://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/Benefits_Challenges.pdf) on the website of The Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI) that mentioned things like this:
* A controlled experimental study of performance during a brainstorming
session compared ideas generated by ethnically diverse groups
composed of Asians, blacks, whites, and Latinos to those generated by
ethnically homogenous groups composed of whites only. Evaluators who
were unaware of the source of the ideas found no significant
difference in the number of ideas generated by the two types of
groups. However, when applying measures of feasibility and
effectiveness, they rated the ideas generated by diverse groups as
being of higher quality.
* The level of critical analysis of decisions and alternatives was
higher in groups exposed to minority viewpoints than in groups that
were not. Minority viewpoints stimulated discussion of multiple
perspectives and previously unconsidered alternatives, whether or not
the minority opinion was correct or ultimately prevailed.
* A study of corporate innovation found that the most innovative
companies deliberately established diverse work teams.
* Data from the 1995 Faculty Survey conducted by UCLA’s Higher
Education Research Institute (HERI) demonstrated that scholars from
minority groups have expanded and enriched scholarship and teaching
in many academic disciplines by offering new perspectives and by
raising new questions, challenges, and concerns.
* Several investigators found that women and faculty of color more
frequently employed active learning in the classroom, encouraged
student input, and included perspectives of women and minorities in
their coursework.
I don't know whether this brochure would be helpful for those who are working on their statement of diversity but it is a pretty interesting reading.
And in this post on Writing the Personal Statement on the website of Berkeley Graduate Division there is a list of things they'd like to see in a [statement of diversity](http://www.diversitystatement.net/). Here are some of them:
* Demonstrated significant academic achievement by overcoming barriers
such as economic, social, or educational disadvantage;
* Potential to contribute to higher education through understanding the
barriers facing women, domestic minorities, students with
disabilities, and other members of groups underrepresented in higher
education careers, as evidenced by life experiences and educational
background. For example,, attendance at a minority serving
institution; ability to articulate the barriers facing women and
minorities in science and engineering fields; participation in higher
education pipeline programs such as, UC Leads, or McNair Scholars;
* Academic service advancing equitable access to higher education for
women and racial minorities in fields where they are
underrepresented;
* Leadership experience among students from groups that have been
historically underrepresented in higher education;
I hope this will help!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: This isn't very different from EnergyNumbers answer, but I want to emphasize that the question isn't asking "what bonus points can we give you for your background" but rather "how does your background make you more suited for the position you are applying for?". (Bearing in mind that graduate students are usually expected to teach and serve as mentors to undergraduates, so that is a relevant qualification.) I've seen a number of well received diversity statements along the lines of "I have always viewed my background as a challenge, and have risen to meet that challenge. Here are some of the strategies I have used to do that ... Here is how I can mentor students in a similar situation and show them how to excel as I have..."
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/11/30 | 309 | 1,170 | <issue_start>username_0: How would the dutch educational system be represented in a diagram? Or put differently, what are the different roads that lead to the academic world in the Netherlands?
PS. This question ("What are the different roads to get into academics in the Netherlands?") came up in chat awhile ago, so I drew a diagram and it was suggested I share it as a self answered post as well, because it's a neat resource. Didn't do it back then as some parts lacked, but somebody asked me the same question more generally again so looked up the diagram, finished it and wanted to share it publicly now after all.<issue_comment>username_1: [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kw23q.png)
PS. I have only been part of the Dutch system for the first 8 years, but I know it pretty well as I know a lot of Dutch people, still I might have made mistakes. If so: apologies.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There are similar diagrams and descriptions of educational systems for the Netherlands and other European countries here:
<http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/>
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/11/30 | 1,493 | 6,531 | <issue_start>username_0: My Master's thesis instructor has copied a chapter of my thesis draft into several publications, sometimes listing me as an author and sometimes not. They said it won't cause me any problems so I gave permission in one case but not the others, where I was just informed afterwards. As they were my boss and instructor, was in a hurry to submit the publication and insisted there will not be problems I didn't feel like having another choice.
After consulting with my supervisor I'm starting to feel doubtful, especially if any automatic plagiarism checking is involved because searching for various numeric results and phrases from my thesis in Google returns results with the exact same text and without my name in the list of authors.
I'm supposed to hand in the finished thesis this week and don't have time to rewrite the affected chapter. My supervisor said I should at least include a footnote explaining the situation. What should I write? I wouldn't want to cause trouble for the instructor either, they're a nice person in a difficult situation.
The other publications are all reports or conference proceedings available free of charge from government sources or the university's website so commercial publishers' copyright claims should not be an issue.<issue_comment>username_1: Your instructor has committed serious academic misconduct several times: if it is your words or your work being published, you should be one of the authors and your permission is *required* for publication. It's also not clear from your post whether the *same* material was published multiple times, which would also leave you vulnerable to accusations of self-plagiarism.
It sounds, at least, like you are no longer working with this instructor, which is a good thing. You should always look to separate yourself from seriously unethical people, lest you be tainted by association or involvement in their crimes.
Now you are faced with a problem of cleaning up a toxic mess, because your instructor has also lied to you about this "not being a problem" for you. There are three different aspects of the cleanup that I can see:
1. **What should you do in your thesis?** I think that your supervisor's suggestion here is good: put in a footnote at the beginning that explains where else the various pieces of the chapter have been published (both with and without you as an author), and note that due to misconduct on the part of the other author, you were not listed as an author. Note that I am assuming the instructor is not required to sign off: if they are, this may be a problem.
2. **What should be done about the papers?** Once you are safely graduated and are secure from retribution in another position, you can contact the publishers and request to have the record corrected. The note, signed off in your thesis by your supervisor, will be useful here. If material was inappropriately reused in multiple publications, you might instead ask for some of the publications to be retracted. Don't be surprised, however, if the publishers fail to take action, as many publishers are not very responsive when asked to correct the record.
3. **What should be done about your instructor?** It is very difficult for a student to accuse their instructor of misconduct. Fortunately, it sounds like you have informed a responsible senior individual (the tenured supervisor), and it would now be appropriate for you to pass the responsibility of deciding how to proceed to that person. Unfortunately, it sounds like this person may not actually take any action, so you may wish (again, once you are away and secure from retribution) to contact people who actually have authority over the instructor and may be willing to act.
Finally, be prepared to simply walk away if you need to: fortunately, this is happening only at the Masters' stage, and so all of this mess can likely be rendered irrelevant by your future work as long as you take precautions (like the note in your thesis) to avoid it coming back to bite you.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to [username_1's fine answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32502/53), I want to note that this problem would have been entirely avoided if your instructor had simply included you as an author, as virtually all publishers allow published journal material to be "recycled" in master's and doctoral theses, and vice versa. (It would make life exceedingly difficult for graduate students if they couldn't reuse material from work published during their careers in their thesis!)
The other issue is that you should maintain a paper trail of all of your correspondence with the instructor regarding the papers that were submitted (and I hope you *did* maintain such records!) Without them, all of the allegations will be much more difficult to sustain, as it will become an "X said, Y said" allegation.
One other thing to inquire about: will your university offer you an extension on turning in your thesis? Many universities allow students to petition for a short-term extension (usually a few weeks). If so, then this might give you time to revise the affected text to remove the plagiarism allegations. This might be the best option for you to avoid future problems.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Too long as a comment so I am submitting as an answer.
While I like the principles of [username_1's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32502/6450), I would like to advise against citing someone committing a misconduct in a permanently archived document without a proper investigation. I am sympathetic about your situation but to any future investigation committee you're simply another party of interest, and it's fully likely for you to accuse the other of misconduct. That's drawback number 1.
Drawback number 2 is that the world comes and goes around. Just because the instructor is no longer in a position to harm you does not mean he cannot do so in another occasion. If you've decided to use the footnote approach, I'd recommend saying a human error was made rather than a misconduct was committed.
This is not to say I would always cover for unethical people, this is to say that without a proper third party's investigation, I will not accuse anyone especially if I am involved in the issue.
And I also think rewriting, as suggested by [username_2](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32503/6450) is also a good approach if you don't feel like hurting the instructor in any way.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/11/30 | 596 | 2,585 | <issue_start>username_0: I am applying for admission to several CS PhD programs (in the US), and I am just wondering how common it is for schools to request interviews with the candidates. I will be out of the country for much of January which seems like a prime time for interviews to take place, so I am wondering if I should start making alternate plans. Thank you!<issue_comment>username_1: From what I've seen, some form of interview is not uncommon (and a good sign, since it means you've passed most of the initial filters and are being considered seriously). In such cases as there is an interview, however, it can often be conducted over the phone or internet. Thus, your travel is unlikely to be a major issue as long as you will have good connectivity and be able to receive messages sent to the contact information you provided.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Extremely uncommon
------------------
I understand that interviews are fairly common in other fields and in other countries, but they are rare in computer science in the US. In my experience (student, postdoc, or faculty at five different American CS departments; multiple years on graduate admissions committees; dozens of recommendation letters for CS undergraduates applying to graduate school), very few (if any) American computer science departments include interviews as a standard part of the PhD application process.
There are rare exceptions, though, usually involving prospective advisors calling up applicants directly. The most common reason for a phone interview in my department is to assess their English fluency, especially when the applicant's test scores are borderline, or there seems to be a discrepancy between their test scores and the fluency of their statements. I'd be surprised if this happens more than 10 times a year, and we get 2000 grad applications each year.
When I applied to Berkeley's PhD program, I was already a PhD student at UC Irvine. My future advisor and the director of grad admissions called me to ask why I wanted to move when I seemed to be succeeding in my current program (good advisor, good research progress, and so on). I suspect they also wanted to understand the discrepancy betwen my grad school grades (good) and my undergrad grades (terrible).
In short, as long as there's nothing borderline or non-standard in your application, it's unlikely that you'd need to be available for an interview. And even if someone does want to interview you, they're much more likely to want to do it by phone or skype than in person.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/11/30 | 1,717 | 6,973 | <issue_start>username_0: I am 25 years old, and in a few months' time I will have to decide whether to get a job in London or apply for a postdoc somewhere.
Apart from all of the usual pros and cons (eg. job security, salary, lifestyle) associated to each path, one thing that worries me most is my loneliness. I am worried that if I were to get a postdoc (say at some small university in some small city), that I would never meet someone to date and get married to eventually. Most math postdocs tend to be male (I believe) which is fine for me since I am gay. But it seems to me more likely that I will find true love taking a city job in a metropolitan environment where there are many more people. And I am really not sure that the "single life" is amenable for doing a postdoc in a foreign country (where I'll likely have to look to find a postdoc in my field).
I apologise if this thread is not suitable for this board, but it is an important consideration in a potential academic's life. I would truly appreciate your thoughts and experiences.
Edit: I guess I am asking whether I am right to be worried about the lack of potential for dating in a studious and bookish environment like academia, and whether anyone has any advices about how to deal with this.<issue_comment>username_1: How is Academia different that any other job? You work for a number of hours a day, and then you are free to use your time solving jigsaws at home or socialising with other people.
Perhaps the academic environment has the advantage of multiculturalism. In most industries, the large majority of the people are from the country; but at universities you can find much more diversity, and thus, easier to find people you feel more comfortable with.
Lastly, in large cities there are, statistically, more potential "suitable partners", but they will be more difficult to find. As a mathematician, you may want to model it as an Erdős–Rényi graph, for the fun of it.
In the end, I think either path will have comparable a priori chances of finding love, so this should not be your main criteria to decide what to do with your life. Being happy with what you do will make you a nicer person, and have a larger impact that the city you are in.
And, to put at ease your concerns, most professors I know are married, and they certainly went down the postdoc path.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: From the anecdotes that I am familiar with, there seem to be two key questions:
1. Is the community that you are going to dominated by the academic institution?
2. Would you prefer to avoid dating undergraduates or potential colleagues?
If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then you may have a difficult time finding romance. This is particularly true for some U.S. institutions that are not near anything else (e.g., [State College, Pennsylvania](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_College,_Pennsylvania)), because most of the potential matches that you will meet would be too "close" professionally. Likewise, if you have highly unusual tastes, your only option may be to go to a large city where the population of people you are interested in will be non-trivial. Otherwise, however, your dating prospects are likely to be dominated by constraints on your social life rather than the number of possible matches.
There is a further consideration that is not in your post, but which I think is also important to keep in mind. A postdoc is inherently a temporary position, so if you find a serious romantic partner, the two of you are likely to soon have to confront [the two-body problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-body_problem_%28career%29). This doesn't have to be a show-stopper, but it's probably worth thinking about the degree to which you might be willing to adjust your career goals to match with the goals of a partner...
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Great question! I would not worry about the lack of potential for dating. I was a postdoc for three years, and although it was quite a lonely life, I had a lot of friends, mostly **PhD students from outside my own department**. The reasons for this were (a) it is quite hard to befriend PhD students in your own department when you are a postdoc; it's like an officer trying to fraternise with privates and (b) younger academics with permanent positions tend to be married/have children and are not looking for social life.
So although I was shut in my office all day, the graduate community in general was a great way to meet people. However, I did not find anybody. I think key reasons for this were (a) uncertainty about my future (I was doing a postdoc in a foreign country and in an area in which I felt insecure and probably wasn't going to continue, and I think that women found this lack of confidence and future plans unattractive) and (b) incompetence.
Now I am working in industry, and I don't find that single life in industry is any better or worse than single life as a postdoc. It's actually harder to meet people because there is no campus, and the people I do meet tend to be less interesting.
Summary: ignoring the other pros and cons which you mentioned, there might be plenty of potential for dating graduate students from outside your field.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Unfortunately, based on my experiences, I am somewhat more pessimistic than other answerers to the question. As a postdoc I met a couple of interesting potential dating partners, but they weren't interested in getting involved with someone who had to move across the country in a couple of years.
I then began a tenure-track job in a rather small, quiet city. For some people this is exactly their cup of tea and they are quite happy. For me, it represented some compromises that I had to make if I wanted to continue my academic career. Among them, I've found it difficult to meet people with whom I have much in common.
There are many ways in which your situation could turn out well! And, I think most people that decided to go into academia are happy with their choice. You might get a job offer in an appealing big city. You might end up in a small town, meet someone there, and discover that you love it. And at no point, even once you are tenured, do you ever have to commit to any job for the rest of your life. You can always apply for other academic jobs or go into industry.
Nevertheless, I'm afraid that I believe that your worries are indeed reasonable. Best wishes to you, whatever you decide.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: How do you know that there isn't someone in this small institution that is thinking, "Damn, there are no dating prospects here."
And then when you meet said someone, well there isn't much competition.
But the fact is if you have a campus that will give you 10,000 choices vs another with 20 choices, it really comes down to there is only "1" and you don't know if that person is in the 10,000 or the 20.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/11/30 | 301 | 1,313 | <issue_start>username_0: I am applying for admission to the Master's program next fall. However I am in doubt about the source of reference. I have two options:
1. My mentor at a research institute who was pursuing his PhD. when I was a research intern. However, he did not complete his PhD.
2. Research Scientist(PhD) at my current organization where my role is that of a software developer. Therefore the recommendation is based on my work as a developer rather than on my research contributions.
Both are willing to write strong recommendations for me.
Who would be a better source of recommendation?<issue_comment>username_1: I would ask mentor #1 (with a master's degree) to write a letter to the PhD research scientist #2, and have the latter (#2) submit a letter for your application. Thus, the recommendation letter is received from a prestigious source, is based on current experience of your work habits and character, but can also incorporate quotes/details from the more junior person. This is not an unusual pattern in my experience.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I would use the first person because it is about your work in research. I think that their qualifications matter very little: What really matters is the nature of your work when you were under their supervision.
Upvotes: -1 |
2014/12/01 | 841 | 3,665 | <issue_start>username_0: So I was wondering. Most IP policies at Universities state that you must work on inventions, software, etc. on your own time in order to keep your rights to it. Most also say that you can't use University facilities in the process. But if you live in student housing, wouldn't this count as a "University facility." So wouldn't it technically be impossible to patent something while keeping your rights?<issue_comment>username_1: First of all, how should be defined "University facility" in this context? I don't think that housing would make part of the definition. They must consider labs, machines and so on.
Therefore, I believe that it is possible to patent something and still hold the intellectual property.
Anyhow, you should read carefully the IP policies at your university and find out what they actually call "university facility"
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: University IP policies generally have a separate category for intellectual property created using resources "usually and customarily provided" by the university. In every policy I've ever seen, even if the university generally retains ownership of IP created using university facilities, this excludes the above category (which would certainly include standard university housing).
For example, at the [University of Illinois](http://www.bot.uillinois.edu/general-rules):
>
> Traditional academic copyrightable works created using university resources usually and customarily provided are owned by the creators. Such works need not be licensed to the University.
>
>
> When determining ownership and license rights in copyrightable works, "University resources usually and customarily provided" includes office space, library facilities, ordinary access to computers and networks, or salary.
>
>
>
At the [University of Arkansas](http://ualr.edu/policy/home/admin/intellectual-property/):
>
> *Creator is entitled to copyright ownership and right to revenues subject to compliance with conflict of interest and commitment policies.*
>
>
> This category applies when the faculty or staff member constructs the materials using nothing more than university resources usually and customarily provided. These include but may not be limited to office space, library facilities, ordinary access to computers and networks, faculty development workshops, or salary.
>
>
> The author owns the copyright and is entitled to receive all revenues for commercialization, subject to the conflict of interest and commitment policies.
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>
An alternative terminology for the same concept is to distinguish between "substantial" and non-substantial use of resources. For example, at [Minnesota State](http://www.mnscu.edu/board/policy/326.html):
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> *Substantial Use of Resources.* Substantial use exists when resources are provided beyond the normal professional, technology, and technical support supplied by the college, university, and/or system office to an individual or individuals for development of a project or program.
>
>
>
Or at [CMU](http://www.cmu.edu/policies/documents/IntellProp.html):
>
> Substantial use of university facilities means extensive unreimbursed use of major university laboratory, studio or computational facilities, or human resources. The use of these facilities must be important to the creation of the intellectual property; merely incidental use of a facility does not constitute substantial use, nor does extensive use of a facility commonly available to all faculty or professional staff (such as libraries and offices), nor does extensive use of a specialized facility for routine tasks.
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>
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/01 | 1,888 | 8,053 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm currently a second-year undergraduate physics major, and I joined an experimental nuclear physics (astrophysics primarily) group a few months ago. I joined the group wanting to work extremely hard to learn new things, apply them (and my intuition and previous knowledge) to solve problems, and present my findings and progress on a weekly basis, reporting to the group head on a more frequent basis though. It started out like that at first - the head made me solve a problem, write a GUI/applet for it (just to show that I fully understood the problem), and then implement that into a particular framework that would be used for an actual experiment later on down the road. I noticed that the head also didn't like to be a mentor too much - that is, he only liked to tell me what I needed to know for my task and nothing else, leaving extra learning for myself.
The problem with this is I'm left mentally starved. I've been assisting this other person in my group (relatively new graduate) on preparations for that actual experiment that I mentioned earlier, and that feels good. I've learned more of what's going on behind the scenes (significance of the experiment, theoretical implications of the results obtained, detector and equipment [and setup]) through publications, other people within the university, and asking the group head, but all of this was essentially on my own. As a result, I feel that any average joe with minimal work-ethic and intuition could thrive in a group like this. I've learned a lot more about nuclear physics/astrophysics (hence, more about this universe we live in) through sources that I might have otherwise not come across had I not joined the group, so that's good.
Also, just quick side note, the experiment is coming up soon, and I'm sure I'll learn a whole bunch through that process, and sorting out and analyzing the data after the experiment will certainly put me to work.
I've been thinking about possibly trying to join another research group, just so I can quench my mental thirst. There is a nuclear theory group at my university, and even though I know nuclear theory is probably way over my head, I'm willing to put a lot of time into working hard.
**Here is my question:** Is attempting to join another group a bad idea? Should I instead tell the group head how I feel, and see where to go from there, or would that be far too disrespectful?
Please excuse any ignorance of mine.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is attempting to join another group a bad idea? Should I instead tell the group head how I feel, and see where to go from there, or would that be far too disrespectful?
>
>
>
These two options are not mutually exclusive. You can do either, both, or none of them.
As you see it, you believe your choices are
1. **Talk to your current supervisor** - You should absolutely do this, regardless of what you decide to do with respect to the other group. Your mentor has no way of knowing what you're thinking unless you tell him; it's up to you to let him know if you need more from the supervisory relationship. Of course, you should do this in a respectful and adult way.
2. **Join a second research group** - You should consider doing this if you're interested in the research the second group is doing. As an undergraduate, it's to your benefit to experience different kinds of research, different advising styles, etc, to help you understand what you need when applying to graduate school. Note, however, that research is very time- and energy-consuming, and if you spread yourself too thin, you will experience "research" only on a superficial level and won't get much out of it. Only you can determine whether you *really* have enough free time and energy to participate in two research groups in a meaningful way.
Finally, I'd like to comment on your statement
>
> ... all of this was essentially on my own. As a result, I feel that any average joe with minimal work-ethic and intuition could thrive in a group like this.
>
>
>
You seem to think that because your mentor gives you a lot of independence and doesn't tell you exactly what to do, that standards and expectations in the group are pretty low. That's not necessarily the case.
The ability to work independently is a highly valued skill in supervisees, and it's **great** that your advisor has given you the chance to show your capabilities in that respect. This means that he'll be able to write strong recommendation letters for your graduate applications - much, much stronger than a supervisor who could only speak to your ability to follow focused, specific instructions.
Research is not like coursework. It's *supposed* to be highly self-directed. If somebody is telling you exactly what to do and what to learn next at every step, you're not doing research. If you feel like you're not sufficiently challenged by what you're doing now, *you* are supposed to take the initiative to speed things up.
In other words, don't confuse a hands-off mentoring style with low standards. If the group in general is productive, does good science, and writes solid papers, then standards are what they're supposed to be. From your description, you are learning a lot of new things, starting a new experiment, finding out how research works, and overall describing a pretty excellent research experience.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: To echo some of what username_1 has said, I think there could be some difference in your interpretation of what research should be, and what is mentally challenging for you.
Personally the few times I have felt like I was not learning enough, was not because my research was not challenging, but I was not actually doing research. If you are directly given menial tasks by your advisor, that you are not thinking for yourself and just repeating a motion, it may feel not challenging enough.
However, it sounds you are given a good amount of freedom. In that case, it could be that you are just not diving into the research itself.
>
> I noticed that the head also didn't like to be a mentor too much -
> that is, he only liked to tell me what I needed to know for my task
> and nothing else, leaving extra learning for myself.
>
>
> The problem with this is I'm left mentally starved.
>
>
>
To me, this sounds like you are looking for a challenging class, not research. You want someone to specify a problem and you work through it with them and studying the necessary topic until you can solve it. Otherwise, I do not see how self-learning/teaching and exploring how to solve a problem is not challenging enough.
My suggestion is to talk to your advisor after thinking about what your really looking for. Do you want self guided learning and research but your advisor is not allowing you to tackle challenging problems? If so, first prove you can do the easy ones she/he has given you, and then bring up your need to 'quench the mental thirst'. If you want a more detailed path, maybe think about taking more graduate level classes.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The process of becoming a good researcher is learning how to become an expert in a field you may know nothing about. At some point, *every* real research project becomes a "stab in the dark," as we have to do things that nobody has (or very few people have) tried before. So an advisor who doesn't tell you step by step what to do may be trying to encourage you to learn for yourself, and to take "ownership" for your project.
It may also be the case that, as your first time, you may be feeling bewildered and directionless. This sounds like a case where you need to talk with your advisor to better align your working styles: perhaps the advisor can suggest further directions to explore—and you could broaden your outlook to learning more about the field than just doing what you're told. (If you want to do a PhD, then there will come a point when your advisor *can't* tell you what to do—because you will be the expert!)
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/01 | 456 | 1,929 | <issue_start>username_0: My transcripts contain a mistake on the grade I took for a course. I applied before two months to change me the grade but the process is slow. Until now nothing has changed and I need to apply for graduate programs. What should I do? **How should I inform them that this grade is wrong and the official transcripts will contain the appropriate number.** What GPA should I write in the online form? This with the wrong grade or the right one (calculated by me).
---
More information:
This mistake was not my fault, it was the professor who accidentally wrote a "D" instead of an "A-". I have contacted him after I noticed it on the online system, but it is a long process to change a grade in my university. Two months have passed already and they told my that the grade will be changed before Christmas, but the deadlines are soon and I need to find a way to inform them. The case is that, in most courses, I have "A" and, in a few of them, "B". I am applying to very competitive courses and this might ruin my chances of getting admitted.<issue_comment>username_1: If you can't wait for the school, and the professor agrees that this was his error, ask him for a letter saying so (on school letterhead) which you can attach to the transcript. Ditto for the school itself. If employers have some evidence of the error, and have someone they can contact to confirm the correction, this should be manageable.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Personal experience at the infamous university of Zurich: Get as many people involved as possible. This is a shame for a university, they don't want people to know.
I had a mistake in my transcript (they misspelled a course which was substantial for my further studies). I went there, talked *a bit louder* than usual and suddenly had a bunch of other students supporting my cause. It took them less than an hour and I had a correct transcript.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/01 | 3,987 | 16,533 | <issue_start>username_0: This is a something I'm really concerned about. I am an undergraduate physics major, and I've been in the honors program at my university for a little while now, and that means certain things. I must take at least 1-2 honors courses (or do an honors-contract in a normal course) every semester, I must make a yearly update to a personal portfolio/e-portfolio, I must obtain a sufficient amount of research-group credit hours before I graduate, and I must defend an undergraduate thesis.
I do like all of this, but what starts to bother me is one other requirement, as well as a few things within the program. We must attend at least one 'Honors Student Council' event per semester (not a big deal, but these are ridiculous/stupid most of the time). Also, most of the other students in the program are snobs and stuck-up compared to other non-honors students. I do like the chance to learn a lot more about the material presented in my classes through honors and course-contracted classes, but I'm starting to think that I could just do that on my own - that is, set that up with professors on my own.
However, I don't really know how useful having an 'honors' distinction on a degree will be. Is it very useful? I've been thinking of quiting the honors program, but I wouldn't want to do it if it will drastically hurt me later on. For example, how much of an impact does having an honors distinction have on graduate school/job applications?<issue_comment>username_1: Being an Honors student is a prime example of [signaling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_%28economics%29): you could just as well learn the *content* by yourself, but having that distinction on your degree *signals* something to potential employers or grad school admission committees. And those people hope that this signal correlates with something useful, e.g., flexibility in thinking, openness to new ideas, conscientiousness etc. (Yes, being able to sit through boring meetings can be a survival skill in many bureaucratic settings.)
[It has been seriously suggested that much of higher education is explained by a signaling model.](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/the_magic_of_ed.html)
So you will need to weigh the current pain of boring meetings and uninteresting people against potential future benefits. Your trade-off will depend on what else you could be doing in the time you could free up by de-Honoring.
---
I personally have profited from being a member of a [similar German institution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studienstiftung). When I applied for a job in a (mature) startup, one of the founders, who happened to be a university professor, saw this in my CV, and he explicitly said that this helped me get an interview.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: ### It depends on your reasons for being in the Honors program.
Are you in it for the extra line or two you have on your CV or diploma, or the learning experience, or the potential opportunities that arise from your undergraduate institution?
Look carefully at how you've "sold" the Honors College to us. A list of requirements, a mention of a waste of time, and pointing out that you can do everything the HC provides to you without assistance. You come across as dissatisfied with the system.
I am going to try and be as objective as possible, given how I also feel dissatisfied with my time in the Honors program, and be as fair as I can about the situation's pro/cons.
### In it for the Learning Experience
If you're in for the learning experience, by all means, it is certainly a learning experience. One of my courses in my Honors program, I learned a significant amount about leadership, and drastically improved my writing skills. I certainly would still have been a terrible writer if not for that class, and that's a plus in my book for how Honors helped me. That being said, not all of the Honors courses are *that great*. I assume that your program may require you to take classes outside your major to fulfill *enrichment requirements*. I would recommend you find something that isn't only useful, but interesting. I took a class about the Beatles because it fit my schedule, and that probably could have been replaced with something much better.
### For the Resume/CV
If you're looking for stuff to put on your resume, there's probably far more time-efficient and cost-efficient methods. Assuming 1 hour a semester for 8 12-week semesters, plus perhaps 4 hours of other Honors-related stuff per semester, that's about 130 hours of time spent to just add the Honors distinction to your degree. May not seem like many hours, but that's equivalent to *10 credits* in a *120 credit degree*. Add in the possibility of unrelated Honors courses, and it starts turning into 15-20 credits that could have been spent on other courses. I do not believe you have to be in the Honors program to qualify for Honors-related work, and in fact, I would assume non-Honors students can take your classes anyways.
### Potential Opportunities in Research
The thesis/capstone projects provided by the Honors program do provide the ability to perform research projects at the undergraduate level *and are likely the most high-yield activities you can get as an Honors student.* If you capitalize on this, you should be able to do research in a lab at your university and write, present, and possibly even publish a paper. This is probably one of the few things you can benefit from. If you don't use this, it's a wasted opportunity for sure.
The question becomes whether or not the time spent in the Honors program is worth the additional benefits. After finishing the Honors program, no one asked me "Oh, did you go to the Honors program? Tell me about it." They did, however, ask me about stuff I learned through Honors courses. It's nice to see that I have a certificate for it, but apart from that, once you graduate, whether or not you attended the Honors College matters less than *how you capitalized on it*.
*In case it wasn't apparent, I attended an Honors program in college to completion.*
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I can speak at least for myself in saying that I wouldn't give any extra weight to a resume or graduate school application specifically for going through the Honors program. In an interview, I might learn that some of the specific things you did in your specific honors program do make you more qualified, but I can't really take that for granted just from seeing the line on your transcript or diploma. For example, if you took an interesting/challenging Honors class wherein you demonstrated an exceptionally deep level of understanding in some given concept or demonstrated other useful skills like writing, speaking, teamwork, leadership, etc., telling me about that during an interview would certainly benefit you toward me recommending that you get the position. However, this would be true if you took such a course regardless of whether you completed the whole Honors program or not. The same situation would be true with the undergraduate thesis if you were applying for graduate school. If I read about what you did in your thesis, that would certainly benefit you, but that would again be true regardless of whether you were in the Honors program.
I would also say that this probably varies by field. My field is Computer Science/Software Engineering. My experience in undergrad, at least, was that my university's Honors program was focused much more on humanities than on the sciences or engineering. The vast majority of the Honors courses past the Freshman level were in the liberal arts areas. As such, I imagine that such a program would have been much more useful to someone in those fields than it would have been to me. As far as those who were in engineering, my experience was that the vast majority of the top science and engineering students were not in the Honors program. Among the science and engineering majors, it seemed that being part of the Honors program was much more common among somewhat-above-average students than it was among exceptional students. I can generally tell whether you're above average just by looking at your transcript without regard for whether or not you were in the Honors program, so I don't really gain much information about you just from seeing that line.
You also mentioned that your impression of most of the people in the Honors program at your school were arrogant/stuck-up. This was generally my impression at my school, as well. Since that's obviously not a desirable trait for either an employee or a graduate student, having this on your resume or CV may actually hurt you a bit among those who have had such impressions of Honors programs. On the other hand, it could help you if the person reviewing the resume or CV had a positive impression of the Honors program at their school or of previous candidates who had completed such programs, as Stephan mentioned.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Let me add to other answers (this may be a little too long for a comment): depending on what you want to do, you can potentially do things a lot better for your career outside of the honors college. I was in a similar position, and got "kicked out" of my honors college my sophomore or junior year because I refused to take so many honors courses. Instead I spent my time taking a lot of advanced math/CS classes (many graduate level), and the honors college director wouldn't let them more than a couple count as honors credit. (I actually enjoyed most of my honors classes till then, and was friends with a lot of the honors college, including the director.)
I ended up finishing with a dual math/cs degree and a masters in math in 4 years, which I wouldn't have done if I had to spend more of my time taking honors classes. This was much better preparation for grad school (or many industry jobs). So I would say it depends on your situation (other answers mention pros of being in the honors college), but **if it prevents you from doing other things you want to do, it's not worth it**.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Noting your comments:
*We must attend at least one 'Honors Student Council' event per semester (not a big deal, but these are ridiculous/stupid most of the time). Also, most of the other students in the program are snobs and stuck-up compared to other non-honors students. I do like the chance to learn a lot more about the material presented in my classes through honors and course-contracted classes, but I'm starting to think that I could just do that on my own - that is, set that up with professors on my own.*
I can imagine this not fitting well with you but to be honest, 30 years on, I actually feel that learning to do the above will be of HUGE benefit to you because:
* you'll learn to deal with snobs just like in the working world.
* you'll learn patience at doing sub-optimal 'ridiculous' tasks. Real world training.
* you'll learn to to engage, agree, disagree and discuss subjects with other that don't share your opinions.
* you'll get to engage with others from widely different backgrounds bringing perspectives you may not have thought of.
Apply these lessons quickly now and save yourself a lot of years of learning them slowly. You may feel that these are not the important lessons to learn while in higher education but personally experience has taught me the opposite.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I think this has been answered better by the others already, but the Honor's program will open doors and provide opportunities that might not otherwise come your way. I wasn't in an honor's program but I did graduate with Math and Physics degrees, and unless you're already planning a career in academia, you will need those opportunities. Just my two cents. :)
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: >
> I must take at least 1-2 honors courses (or do an honors-contract in a normal course) every semester, I must make a yearly update to a personal portfolio/e-portfolio, I must obtain a sufficient amount of research-group credit hours before I graduate, and I must defend an undergraduate thesis.
>
>
>
An important consideration is that the definition of an Honors degree varies tremendously between institutions. Judging by what you have said, your institution requires quite a lot of its Honors students, but every institution is different. (For instance, the university I currently attend is happy to hand out Honors degrees like candy.)
So no one who is not from your institution is necessarily going to know what that phrase "with Honors" on your degree actually *means*. If their own experience with Honors degrees is from places that take them less seriously, they won't know all of the work you had to do to earn yours.
Is your advanced coursework, portfolio, and undergraduate research experience highly beneficial for your future in physics? Of course. But if you have done all those things, I'm not sure how much additional value the phrase "with Honors" on your diploma will add.
*If nothing else, don't expect anyone outside your university to know how much or how little work your Honors degree entailed.*
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: I've had my older son start in an Honors program only to be annoyed by frivolous and pedantic courses obviously feeding the egos a some Honor professors. It's these fluff classes that make me want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Students can and should take fluff classes of their choosing. Obviously, my older son got out of the honors program; he failed to see the return.
My younger son never entertained the idea - he would manage his own broadening. Choosing not to go the Honors route actually makes my younger son an unwelcome interloper when Honors students are paraded around as 'better'. He's taken advantage of all the research opportunities of the fine university he attends, found his set of advisers, and has been remarkably successful as an undergrad and will pursue his PHD at a world class institution - but no thanks to his Department which still sneers at this non-Honors punk ruining their party.
All the pluses for the Honors programs, the third place to grow mind and soul with peers that my son found in clubs and such to some extent but was really denied because he wasn't in the Honors program underscores why he didn't join the Honors program - the very real cronyism and elitism - is distasteful at best.
The fact that he's a student who should be celebrated but is at best tolerated because his success dampens the Honors parade vividly highlights the sense of entitlement of those RUNNING the Honors programs - they expect their students to get all the awards and such - deserving or not. This isn't a matter of sour grapes - my son landed a dream PHD opportunity where he's been picked up by one the premier scientists in the world in his field. I'm just pissed that he's had to bob and weave his way around these Honors obstacles.
Again I repeat - it is the Honors professors themselves who have the vested interest in their little golden gooses who foist their brand of elitism onto the unlucky 'rest'. People call the Honors programs meritocracies - hogwash. They may compete among themselves but at the end of the day they and their teachers expect that they'll walk to the front of the line - right past the 'rest'.
So, not a fan of your little Honors programs. Honors programs need to understand that they showcase some of the best students NOT all of the best students. Their hubris pisses me off to no end. If you'll note that it is implied by all Honors fans that the best of the best ARE there and if you're not then you're one of the 'rest'. That's not elitist? Until they understand that they're just some of the best or even many of the best, then I think the undermine their own core value of meritocracy.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_9: At my university the Honors college has a fair amount of money, which supports some additional classes intended for Honors students. In some cases these are only available to students in the Honors college; in others, non-Honors students can take these classes but there is some annoying bureaucracy involved.
If it were me, I would find dealing with this bureaucracy more annoying than sitting through the 'Honors Student Council'. You could always prepare a physics problem in advance and then try to solve it in your head during the meeting.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/01 | 3,056 | 13,288 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a MSc graduate student, still trying to get a PhD position, but with no success at all. During and after my graduation I struggle to publish some articles (right now I got 6, mostly published in IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus), but I do not feel happy at all.
The problem is that I see my publications as having a lack of public interest. I would like to publish more interesting, formal and mathematical stuff (I am in the field of Computer Science), but the problem that I have is that in my current place of work almost all my time is dedicated to lecturing. Also, and because I am working in a university of applied sciences; the research made here is highly applicable and less theoretical. All this things has put me in a state of deep depression.
What should I do to start looking to my research and my made publications with a different attitude? Should I seek for medical counselling?
Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: >
> What should I do to start looking to my research and my made publications with a different attitude?
>
>
>
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that your problem *isn't* that you are working in applied sciences vs. theory. Further, I am not sure if your problems are of medical nature (but this can of course not be ruled out from what you wrote). Let me recap some things you wrote and provide some interpretation. I am not sure to what extend this will answer your question, but I hope my ramblings will provide input and perspective anyways. Maybe somebody else will provide a more direct answer to the question.
**You are a master student who published 6 papers during his masters at a university of applied sciences. All of the papers have been in IEEE/Scopus venues. Yet you still can't get a PhD position.**
First of, *IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus* isn't the quality label you maybe hope it is. There are *terrible* venues for which both of these things are true. The fact that you say you have very little time for research, and still wrote 6 of those things indicates that the quality of your papers *may* be not all that super. If this is the case, the problem that prevents your papers from having impact isn't that they are applied, it is *that they may simply not be very good*.
This may also be the issue with your PhD applications. For me, and many others, papers below a certain (subjective) quality standard count for next to nothing. Really bad papers may actively work against you. Again, "IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus" does not rule out either of these cases, so try to evaluate your publications independently of these labels. For instance, pick a few PhD student papers from the group that you are applying to. Try to neutrally evaluate whether your papers play in the same league as those. If all papers of PhD students of the prof. or lab you are applying to are much better, and/or have appeared in much better venues than your papers, I am uncertain how much your publications will help your case.
**You worry that your papers do not have a strong impact.**
I think this point warrants some additional explanation. One of the sad realities of research is that *most papers in all but the very top venues of your field* (think ICSE or CHI for applied computer science) have very little to zero impact on the research community - and even the papers in the top venues often have close to zero impact on anybody *outside* your research community. Papers that really get the attention of your fellow researchers are few and far between. I have written papers that I personally consider good to great, which remain pretty much uncited (and, presumably, almost unread) to this day.
**You want to progress as a researcher, but you work almost exclusively as a lecturer.**
Try to see your situation as it is. Similarly to above, your problem isn't so much that you are working in a university of applied sciences - your problem is that your current position is incompatible with your career goals. You want to do research, but your job is teaching. Your situation would be none the better if you worked as a pure lecturer in a research institution (maybe this would in fact be even more frustrating for you). What you need to do is either (a) find a job or stipend that allows you to do what you want to do, or (b) accept that you are currently not on a research track.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: **Aim High, target top conferences and take your time when doing research.**
@username_1 gave a nice answer. I would speak from my experience here.
I was in a similar situation when I finished my Master degree. I published several papers with my advisor, all in ranked C conferences and two in unreputable journals. This was partially because I was new to research. I thought publishing *anything anywhere* is something good; obviously this was not true. I am now 2 years into my PhD and I have not published a single paper. The result: I am happy now that I have a manuscript that has a good chance to be accepted in a top conference.
I assume part of your feeling of depression is because you do not believe in your results. You do not see them as being as *good* as other (even uncited) related results. This might be true. And this is a good sign that you are in the right track of becoming expert in your field. **Take your time in doing research**. Instead of publishing every single small idea you have, try to combine them into one more solid paper. The bottom line: if you work on something, you have to believe in its merits and fight for it.
For theoretic versus applied research, I believe this is a personal preference and interest more than anything else. If you see yourself more as someone who is into the theoretic aspects of the problem, then do theoretic research. Either ways, the joy of research is that 1) you give crazy ideas a try 2) believe what you did is something really good 3) people (at least the reviewers) either admit it is good or provide a learning experience through constructive criticism.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think that to be happy in research, you have to be doing it for *you*. Not for external validation.
Are the papers that you published in your opinion good? Did it give you fulfillment completing them?
And ... most importantly ... are you looking forwards to doing more? Looking forwards purely because you like doing them, and it fulfills your academic curiosity?
If the answer to these is no, then you may have a problem of doing what you're doing for external validation (IE you want to feel good about yourself based on what others say about you).
As a comparatively senior (age) person I can tell you from life's experience that this is a recipe for depression. In order to have a fulfilling life, you need your validation to be coming from inside. If you are relying on others for your self-worth, you are always going to be let down.
This is true in any field of life, but especially so in academia, where lets face it no-one really cares about your little area, no matter what it is (unless you are one of the lucky lucky few ... do you want to base your happiness on that chance?).
This stuff sounds simple but can be hard to get your head around and mentally fix up. A good counsellor can help a lot: you don't need to go to them because you are "depressed", you can go even if you are basically healthy but need to have your self validation improved to enjoy life more. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is one good technique for this, if you are wondering what "kind" of help to look for.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I was always thinking about the visibility issues and finally I come up with a reasonable strategy, I also hope that these steps can improve the data dissemination of your research.
1. I may suggest using arXiv preprint server for your works and of course you should have a web page and googlescholar account.
2. If you developed a simulator for your work, try to improve it a bit and make it opensource (upload it to github or something similar).
3. Prepare a walk-through for your simulator and upload to youtube.
4. Prepare a presentation for your paper and prepare a video of your presentation and just the sound via a video editing tool. Uploading this presentation to youtube also improves the visibility and dissemination of your findings.
P.S. You should start with the work that you are most satisfied :)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: If you really want to write for the public, consider trying to write "popularizing" articles for magazines/newspapers/websites that the public reads. There's definitely a market for well-written articles that explain new discoveries -- or even old discoveries, interesting techniques, and basic principles -- on a level suitable to someone who is science-literate, generally curious, but not deeply steeped in your field.
Scientific American used to have magnificent examples of this kind of writing, though my perception is that they've gone downhill in recent years. Technology Review magazine often has good examples, though they're obviously biased toward articles contributed by the MIT community.
<NAME>'s extended series of essays in Natural History magazine were a great example of explaining fairly subtle aspects of science -- and of the history of science -- in near-layman's language. Anthologies exist covering just about the entire run -- including pieces where he corrected his own prior essays when new information became available.
As a much older example of the scientific essay form, <NAME> was just about synonymous with the "medical mystery" form, in which a puzzling (preferably real) case is presented in semi-story form, which is then used as a springboard to discussion of the biology, chemistry, history, diagnostic technique, or whatever else the essay is really about. Most of his pieces were originally published in a magazine (the New Yorker?) but subsequently collected into anthologies; it shouldn't be too hard to find them and they're fun reading if you're a scientific omnivore.
Of course those two were excellent writers as well as having scientific knowledge. I'm just suggesting that, if your focus is on the public, that's the kind of ideal you might aspire to. You'd need to be able to write well and clearly, have something to talk about which they'll find interesting (or that you can quickly convince them they should be interested in), and be able to discuss it in terms of things they're already likely to have at least some knowledge of (or be able to define your terms as you go without losing the reader along the way).
Of course as with any kind of writing, don't expect it to come quickly or easily. Popularizing articles are a craft of their own, the market isn't huge, expect to see lots of rejection letters unless you're "self-publishing" onto the web (fewer as you hone your craft)... all the usual platitudes and advice about writing for the public apply.
And as Gould demonstrated, this can be done alongside a productive research career producing results *not* immediately accessible to the public. Doing both simultaneously is a lot more work, but it's one way to reconcile the conflicting goals of advancing the field and advancing public knowledge about the field.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: **You are not alone**
I somewhat recently wrote a paper that makes multithreaded programming easier, guarantees that there are no data races and offers more optimization potential. Seeing how multithreading is one of the major topics at the moment and how much my system improves that I expected to get the Turing Award by now. I sent my paper to a couple of experts on the matter and only got one replay that said *sorry no time*. The conference I sent it to said *Sorry, this is off-topic this year*. I am not even convinced my professor actually read it. This is probably the greatest contribution to science of my life and nobody cares. It is indeed very frustrating.
**Medical help**
Seeking medical help will most likely not work out for you. I am no psychologist but the gist of it is that if you get sad because something bad happened that is normal and there is nothing to be done about it. If good things happen to you and you still get sad for no reason that is a depression that can be treated. Seeing that you are upset about a real problem, solving the problem will help whereas therapy will not.
**Solving the problem**
Send the paper and presentations or articles about it to conferences and journals. When they reject your paper (they will!) they will give you reasons. Some of those reasons actually make sense, so you can fix your paper. Find local meetups or study groups to present it and get feedback. Sometimes you just didn't word the point in a way that people understand it and in a live audience someone may ask the correct question. Keep improving the paper. Make real applications that solve real problems, don't just keep to theory and paper writing. This is a lot of work that we should not need to do and are not particularly good at, but I hope eventually someone will "discover" us and it will be worth it.
**TLDR**
Don't give up, keep at it.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/01 | 531 | 2,340 | <issue_start>username_0: I am applying for a PhD to top schools in engineering. Whenever I talk to my peers I hear the word 'connection' very often. I started thinking that it is almost impossible to be admitted to these schools without knowing a professor ! (I am an international applicant)
How important is having a connection when applying? What If I don't know one and I believe that my profile qualifies me for admission? Should I apply or just not bother?<issue_comment>username_1: At least for schools in the US, it is not necessary for you to have a direct "connection" or contact at a department to be admitted.
In general, where contacts can be useful is if one of the people who writes your letters of recommendations for you knows a particular person in the given department. If that "connection" is good, and you get a good letter of recommendation, that will carry more weight than a typical letter of the same quality, since you will be better "known" than someone who the department doesn't know at all.
That said, though, there is no expectation that you would directly know someone already at the school—although your research interests should align with the department as a whole.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: In my experience it differs from school to school, but since you specifically stated *"top schools in engineering"* I would totally agree with @username_1 that a "connection" is not needed, but might be helpful.
Also, I have come across the fact that it is common that PhD positions are "created" with a particular candidate in mind, ergo it is very hard to get a position at first try but an application will often get you to a meeting with the prof / research group representative for the department you are interested in, and will dramatically increase the chances that a position might be "created" for you.
>
> Should I apply or just not bother?
>
>
>
You should apply, worst case somebody at least had a look at your resume and you will be higher up on the list for the next PhD recruitment ;)
Do note that top universities have the same issues as many other top tier employers, how do you sift through thousands of applications in a responsible manner? The answer is that you don't; you pick the first and best one, which usually is someone known from previous relations.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/02 | 988 | 4,334 | <issue_start>username_0: I have a good memory, but some of the fields I'm working in (NLP, Semantic Web, Information Visualization, Machine Learning) are quickly expanding.
While I do have a good method of keeping track of good research (I only follow the best researchers and research groups on Twitter, Scholar, conferences, journals, etc), sometimes perhaps it's better to save all the interesting papers, add notes to them and put them in context and relationships with other papers (if a paper frequently cites another paper and is a sequel to that paper, perhaps it's better to read those 2 papers together, for example).
Essentially the things I want to do are these:
* keep records of the workshops, classes or tutorials I attended, but also
video recordings of presentations I have never seen in real life
* annotate PDFs, extract metadata from them and generate bibtex
bibliographies
* keep tutorials in pdf + video format synced (where possible)
* keep everything in context - organized in folders, tagged,
cross-referenced if possible (if an article is cited in a paper and I
already have it in my library, I want to be able to access it fast)
* I want to be able to search about various keywords/tags regardless of the location where the actual files are stored and OS.
I noticed most of these things are doable in the Apple ecosystem (iTunes, iBooks, etc), but not really on Windows and Linux. Does anyone has any idea about how to do this in Linux and Windows? I happen to absolutely need to use both operating systems (still have some work with SQL Server, Excel, etc), but most of my development work is in Linux (coding in Java, Python, JavaScript and others, but also writing papers in LaTeX).
I would preferably only sync a huge zotero (or similar) folder using Dropbox, and papers/tutorials should be in sub-folders named after their research field, but also tagged so that I can find them regardless of the folder.
EDIT:
I have paid Dropbox, but apparently finding free WebDAV is an issue (therefore that would mean an additional 5-10 euros per month). As far as code goes I use GitHub and GitLab.
After seeing your answers, it occured to me that I'm thinking about it too much. Perhaps the best idea is this: the whole workflow should be a webapp - this way it will perform almost similarly on all operating systems, as even if there are differences between browsers, they are not so big as the differences between OSes.<issue_comment>username_1: At least for schools in the US, it is not necessary for you to have a direct "connection" or contact at a department to be admitted.
In general, where contacts can be useful is if one of the people who writes your letters of recommendations for you knows a particular person in the given department. If that "connection" is good, and you get a good letter of recommendation, that will carry more weight than a typical letter of the same quality, since you will be better "known" than someone who the department doesn't know at all.
That said, though, there is no expectation that you would directly know someone already at the school—although your research interests should align with the department as a whole.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: In my experience it differs from school to school, but since you specifically stated *"top schools in engineering"* I would totally agree with @username_1 that a "connection" is not needed, but might be helpful.
Also, I have come across the fact that it is common that PhD positions are "created" with a particular candidate in mind, ergo it is very hard to get a position at first try but an application will often get you to a meeting with the prof / research group representative for the department you are interested in, and will dramatically increase the chances that a position might be "created" for you.
>
> Should I apply or just not bother?
>
>
>
You should apply, worst case somebody at least had a look at your resume and you will be higher up on the list for the next PhD recruitment ;)
Do note that top universities have the same issues as many other top tier employers, how do you sift through thousands of applications in a responsible manner? The answer is that you don't; you pick the first and best one, which usually is someone known from previous relations.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/02 | 326 | 1,330 | <issue_start>username_0: Let's say, I am writing a paper. I am reading paper A that cites results in Paper/Book B. I do not have access to Paper/Book B.
In the list of references, do I include only A? A and B?<issue_comment>username_1: You should add both. I assume you, in your text, refer to B as referred to by A in some way. The point is that everyone should be able to trace your information and knowing B is a book and is referenced by A, from which article you took the information.
That said, I would like to add a warning against doing this, it should only be done as a last resort. The problem of using a reference in a reference is that you have not actually seen the original work and you are therefore trusting that A, in this case, have cited B correctly. Many cases exist where misconceptions have been propagated by trusting the judgement of others and not checking the original source.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Be honest. You do not gain anything by pretending knowledge you have not, nor it helps the reader.
Write "According to A, in B it is shown that" or some variation on it. If you have made a good-faith effort to obtain a copy of B (that includes interlibrary loan), but had undue difficulty in doing so, you might want to mention it --- "We were unable to find a copy of B".
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/02 | 747 | 3,170 | <issue_start>username_0: I am in Computer Science and currently in my proposal phase. For my problem statement, I want to come up with good research questions. However, at the moment I am struggling with the definition of "good" research questions. My professor usually comments that my current questions are not "why" questions, but instead are "yes/no" questions.
Any recommendations what make good research questions good?<issue_comment>username_1: In my opinion, a good research problem has at least the following properties:
1. It is a small piece of a big problem. In other words, it needs to be both small enough so that you can reasonably make progress on it, yet connect to a larger problem.
2. It is possible to do a small "pilot" to sanity-check your approach and whether results are promising. Most research problems can take a lot of work to really tackle. It's good to have milestones along the way that can let you figure out if you are on the right track and whether the project is likely to be worth the full investment.
3. Something can be learned from the work, whether or not it comes out the way that you hope. A large fraction of interesting research projects don't work out the way it was hoped: either the driving hypothesis was wrong, or turns out to be too hard, or something else shifts and things end up obsolete. A well formulated project will still contribute knowledge, whether or not it actually ends up advancing you toward the original goal.
Let me illustrate further with nice example that I saw recently: [a group of undergrads at NCTU Formosa](http://2014.igem.org/Team:NCTU_Formosa) put together a project to modify E.coli to manufacture PBAN neuropeptides to stimulate pheromone production in the *Heliothis virescens* moth. This is a really specialized and esoteric-sounding goal, but relates to a much bigger idea: doing this could lead to a general approach to radically improved insect traps that could greatly reduce the need for industrial pesticide use. The narrowly scoped project they set for themselves thus connects to a much larger goal, but has a set of clearly delineated milestones along the way (e.g., create PBAN-expressing sequences, verify they work in E.coli, test the extract on female *Heliothis virescens* moths, verify the increase in trap efficacy, pilot tests with local organic farmers, etc.). Furthermore, even if it turns out the bigger vision can't be achieved, there still can be a lot of things learned about neuropeptide engineering, which may turn out to be relevant to a great many other questions, both foundational and applied.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: * Do you want to know the answer? Really?
* Do you realistically have a good shot at finding the answer, in a reasonable amount of time? Really?
* Will lots of other people be happy to learn the answer (even if the question had never occurred to them before)? Really?
* Are you sure nobody already knows the answer? Really?
If you can answer yes to all eight questions, it's a good research question.
(Unfortunately, some of these points may depend on what the actual answer is, which of course you don't know.)
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/02 | 517 | 2,075 | <issue_start>username_0: I regularly assign my undergraduate students papers with a range of expected page/word length (e.g. 10-12 pages or 2500-3000 words). Is there any sort of rule as to whether or not to count a works cited page(s0 (and its equivalent in the other citation styles) in determining if a paper meets this limit? I've discussed this with colleagues and heard varying answers.<issue_comment>username_1: Should not count.
A six-line main text can pack more convincing arguments compared to a one-line main text. That's why it's important to make sure all students have an equal share of area or real property to build upon.
A six-line citation does not necessarily bring any advantage compared to a one-line citation. For that reason, I don't see why we should penalize students who had identified some information with more authors or a longer title; that is not how we teach them to examine the credibility of a paper.
If you're concerned about them citing too many things or citing mindlessly, you may put a limit on the number of citations like some journals do. However, I wouldn't include them in the word count.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In the scientific world, whether citations count against length limits or not varies wildly by publication, including hybrid models like [AAAI](http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI/2015/aaai15call.php) which allows six pages text and up to one page of citations.
I think that which way you go depends on what you want the students to learn. Some examples that would push you one way or another:
* If you want them to focus on prose, don't count citations in the length.
* If you want them to learn to express complicated thoughts concisely, use a short page limit and count citations (e.g., the IEEE six-page format)
* If you want them to focus on referencing, count citations and text separately.
Either way it shouldn't matter too much, because you're using a range and probably have some flexibility in how you apply your rubric, so you can adjust for common sense.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2014/12/03 | 1,219 | 5,218 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently applying for a PhD in a very competitive top tier university, which requires three references. I have two referees (my tutor and my undergraduate research project supervisor) who I am quite sure would write very good references for me.
I am stuck with the choice of my third referee:
I am currently doing a masters, but my masters supervisor is overly precise and temperamental. Although he is the "ideal" choice as my referee as he can comment on my research capabilities and working in a laboratory environment, I am certain that his reference will be lukewarm or may even be negative as I am currently having difficulty getting along with him. **(ADDITION: I had only worked with this supervisor for 2-3 months. I also had an undergraduate research project supervisor who can also comment on my research abilities).**
Alternatively, I have asked one of my lecturers (who I get along with very well) in my undergraduate, and he is very happy and eager to write a reference for me. I am quite sure that he will write a positive reference in support of my application. But he is unable to comment on my research abilities (just my academic capability and personality). Additionally, wouldn't the admissions tutors suspect that something is going on if all my referees are undergraduate even when I am taking a master's course??
What should I do?
PS. The problem is that he initially offered me a PhD position despite the fact that I wanted to pursue and applied for a masters programme. I turned it down as I was not interested in the PhD project and when I told him about my applications to other, top tier universities, his attitude towards me has changed and became very impatient, frustrated and uninterested. This is the reason why I am quite certain he will not be writing a positive reference for me.<issue_comment>username_1: You are applying for PhD to a top school. This means intensive research skills and abilities are needed and not having a letter from your advisor is a big red flag. Your advisor is the one who is most qualified to comment on your research.
Although many universities don't state this directly, you MUST have a letter from your advisor.
If I were you, I would just go and ask him for a STRONG letter of recommendation. See what he says. Most professors give indications on how supportive their letters are going to be. If you feel that his letter will have a negative impact, then there is not much you can do.
Try to find someone willing to comment on your research and take his recommendation (Department head or maybe a professor who knows your work and research).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Can I apply for PhD without recommendation from my masters advisor?
>
>
>
Yes, you can *apply,* but you may experience great difficulty in getting accepted.
>
> Additionally, wouldn't the admissions tutors suspect that something is going on if all my referees are undergraduate even when I am taking a master's course??
>
>
>
Most likely, yes.
>
> I am certain that his reference will be lukewarm or may even be negative as I am currently having difficulty getting along with him.
>
>
>
As others have suggested, the very important first step is to *ask* your advisor for a strong recommendation letter. If he agrees, no problem. If not, and there is nobody else that can comment in a strong, positive way about your research capabilities/potential, you may need to take a break from your studies and come up with a plan about how to move forward. I have been in such a situation.
I had a falling out with my MS advisor. I *knew* that he wouldn't write me a strong letter (I was not on speaking terms with him and I can't say much more than that). I also knew that I would need several strong recommendation letters commenting on my research capabilities/potential to continue on with my goal of pursuing a PhD. To get strong recommendations, I decided to go back into industry for a few years. In my field, a good percentage of industry jobs that I qualified for are heavily R&D focused. A good couple of years back in that environment landed me some solid opportunities to work on some cool stuff and impress some people who were very willing to help me out with pursuing my long-term goals.
I'd like to point out that this is still not a fail-safe approach: several schools I applied to explicitly asked me to submit a recommendation from my MS advisor. I explained to them my circumstance (it's actually a pretty good story), but that did not matter to them. I was very fortunate that one of my industry-based references was considered a big shot by several top schools I applied to, and for those schools that did not ask for a reference from my MS advisor, that worked out well for me. While there was a lot of hard work that went into my plan, I also feel in some ways that I got *very lucky.*
So, if you cannot get a strong recommendation from your MS advisor, be prepared to take some relatively drastic measures to improve your chances of success. Also, if it is possible in your field of study, leverage the skills you have obtained to build up some strong research references.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/03 | 1,042 | 4,352 | <issue_start>username_0: I have heard that the range of grades in graduate school shrinks and grades mostly range from A to B-. What if an undergraduate student takes a graduate course, what is the grading policy for him/her?
The reason why I am asking is because he/she is in a graduate course so his/her grading can't be different from others, but getting B- for an undergraduate student does not mean he/she is failing, so his/her situation is different from graduate students.<issue_comment>username_1: In my experience, it's not that the grade range shrinks because the graduate students are graded differently, but instead because of the following three factors:
1. Graduate classes typically focus more on *illumination* than on *certification* in their grading policies (see [this answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31445/what-is-the-purpose-of-giving-grades/31448#31448) for more on the distinction)
2. Graduate admissions mostly filters down to a population of people who would have been getting pretty much only As and Bs in their undergraduate classes too.
3. Graduate students often have less classes or more closely related classes, enabling them to focus their energy more effectively.
Thus, the undergraduates are likely to be graded against exactly the same standards as the graduate students. If they're well-prepared, interested in the material and willing to put the work in, they'll probably earn the same A and B grades as well, and also will deserve them.
Why then, is a "failing" grade for a graduate student a "good" grade for an undergraduate? It's just that the expectations of graduate student performance are much higher, as also indicated by the previous point on filtering at admissions.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: When an undergraduate student takes one of my graduate courses, they're graded in exactly the same way as the graduate students in the class. Numerical grades are assigned for individual homework assignments, exams, and projects, and a weighted average is used to compute a percentage grade for the entire course. Letter grades are then assigned on a scale where 90-100 is an A, 80-90 is a B, etc. I reserve the right to ease that scale (e.g. at the end of the semester I might lower the cutoff for an A to 88% or even 85% if I feel that the cutoff was too high.)
Our university has no rule that explicitly prohibits undergraduates from taking graduate level courses (although the courses may have advanced undergraduate prerequisites that would keep out all but the most advanced undergraduates.) However, since the graduate courses won't satisfy requirements for the bachelor's degree there's little incentive to take a hard course that will only be useful as an elective. Most of the time when we see undergraduate students in graduate level classes it is because they're in our 5 year BS/MS program or they're committed to going on to graduate study somewhere else. These are highly motivated students who are generally well prepared.
It's certainly been my experience in teaching graduate courses that most of the grades that I assign are A's and B's, and that this is very different from undergraduate courses where I often assign lots of C's, D's, and F's.
However, this happens mostly because all of the students in the graduate program are students who consistently earned A's and B's as undergraduate students (they wouldn't have been admitted otherwise) and they typically continue to perform at the same level as graduate students. In those few cases where a graduate student does earn a grade of C, D, or F, it's often because of some significant non-academic problem (illness, depression, death in the family, etc.) rather than lack of ability or effort.
At the undergraduate level, the majority of low grades (D's and F's) are assigned to students who simply don't put in an effort to pass the course. A few undergraduate students try hard but genuinely lack the ability to do well.
When undergraduate students who are well prepared (with A grades in advanced undergraduate courses) take my graduate level courses they typically do almost as well as the graduate students in the class. When poorly prepared undergraduate students have attempted to take my graduate courses they've often ended up withdrawing from the course or failing.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/03 | 771 | 3,038 | <issue_start>username_0: I have been accused of plagiarism from my prof, since I have an answer from a Facebook page based on our course, and a lot of students got their answers from there. The Facebook page has previous labs and assignments from graduate students or senior students who have already done the course, thus there were around 14 students with the same mistake including me. But I went through my university web site and it states for the TEACHING ASSISTANT (TA) that:
>
> Academic Dishonesty in Laboratory Environments
>
>
> Academic dishonesty is a serious problem in undergraduate labs. This
> is partly because the culture of lab courses sometimes fosters
> plagiarism. Lab exercises may remain unchanged for years, making it
> relatively easy to obtain lab reports from previous students. Since
> students generally work in pairs, the distinction between acceptable
> and unacceptable collaboration can become blurred. And sometimes lab
> work is simply not taken as seriously as other scholarly work. The
> main forms of academic dishonesty in laboratory classes are:
>
>
> Plagiarism in laboratory assignments and reports
>
>
> Among some students there is an academic culture that accepts a
> certain degree of academic dishonesty in labs. Students buy and sell
> lab reports from the previous year and some try to "help" junior students
> by "handing down" lab material. When such conduct is common, it
> becomes acceptable, and many students may not realize the element of
> dishonesty involved. In addition, in most cases the entire class is
> writing up the same report, so there is bound to be an enormous
> exchange of information.
>
>
>
I think the paragraph above says that at this point this academic dishonesty becomes acceptable. Does that sort my issue at any point?<issue_comment>username_1: You are misreading that passage.
"It becomes acceptable" is intended to mean "acceptable *to the students*". To rephrase:
>
> When such conduct is common, students come to believe that it is acceptable.
>
>
>
But such students would be mistaken in that belief, from the institution's point of view. I think the clear meaning of the passage is that such conduct is *not* acceptable to the institution and is considered plagiarism and academic dishonesty.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: The text that you quote is written a bit confusingly: I think that it is trying to say that even if *students* view a behavior as acceptable "because everyone is doing it", that behavior is still not acceptable.
In the end, dishonesty is dishonesty. If you claim to have done a piece of work, but you did not do that work, then you are being dishonest. When that work is a creative effort, we call it plagiarism.
Even if somehow your institution had a policy that allowed such dishonesty, it would still be dishonest. When you progress further in academia or industry, if you continue to engage in such behavior, it can end your career in an instant when it is discovered.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/03 | 671 | 2,920 | <issue_start>username_0: I love German literature, but I am not interested in literary criticism/theory; just in close-reading, by which I mean, "reading while analyzing the grammar, syntax, usages of words, etc."
As my future goal as a researcher, I am thinking of compiling some sort of detailed guidebooks that will help the reader understand how the sentences parse in a systematic fashion; for no one has ever done that, at least not in a detailed, fool-proof kind of way, as far as I know after much research, both in the university library and on the Internet.
What sort of path should I set myself upon to pursue that kind of vision?
Is it even a legitimate research goal?
Thank you in advance.<issue_comment>username_1: As a rule of thumb, you cannot possibly know what has and has not been done in a scientific area if you are not part of this scientific area. @xLeitix offered his suggestion about linguistics and his suggestion is good. So, search there, ask specific people about this, read the accompanying textbooks first and then focus on recent papers. It is very hard for an amateur researcher to think of something that has not been done before. It might happen occasionally but it is not that common.
Also you need to consider, that if there is not a scientific area about what you want to research, it might mean (again it is not 100% sure) that what you are suggesting is not that interesting after all. Why e.g., focus on a specific book for example and not on all books written by the same author? What are you hoping to achieve and why does it matter? These are questions that need to be answered **before** starting the actual research.
So, initially I would try to identify and align my research agenda according to the greater scientific area most close to my scientific interests. Once, you get a good grasp and knowledge of this specific area, you could then try to form your individual research and find what differentiates your work from the rest of the bunch. Identifying the area is a very major step, because otherwise even if your work is seminal you still need to find a journal that would publish your work. And without knowing where to publish it would be very hard to disseminate any scientific work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> detailed guidebooks that will help the reader understand how the sentences parse in a systematic fashion
>
>
>
Detailed guidebooks may be hard to follow unless someone is really motivated to do so. So along with its accuracy and novelty it is good to know if there is anyone in actually interested in reading or using it.
Plus, the problem is general, it is unlikely that no-one have tackled a similar approach before (did you talk to local experts in this field?).
If it is a very systematic thing, you can try to write a computer program doing it - which may, or may not, be useful or insightful contribution.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/03 | 1,384 | 5,739 | <issue_start>username_0: Few months back I communicated a paper. I got the reviewer's report in a positive direction. But he asked us to add some results if we wish and in the end he wrote:
*"I leave it to the decision of the editor for further process."*
Now I got a mail regarding this from the editor:
*If you wish you may send a revised version according to the suggestion of the referee.*
My question is will they reject our manuscript if we are not interested in updating our work as it will long time to finish. I am in dilemma. As the editor started his words with *"if you wish"*. What could be the possible consequences if we are not interested in sending revised work.<issue_comment>username_1: First, a reviewer can only make recommendations for revisions. The editor should make clear what changes should be made but it is still up to you if you see fit to do so. Of course, if an editor says you should make certain revisions and you do not, particularly without indicating any good reasons for not doing so, the risk is that rejection decisions may follow. From this point, you may see that providing good arguments why such revisions cannot be made are necessary.
The fact that revisions take time is not by itself a good argument since it may mean your manuscript is currently sub-par but that is up to you to convince the editor when you submit your revisions. The revision process is in this case a sort of give and take process where any revision not made has to be clearly argued from a scientific point (not from a point of time constraints or other irrelevant aspect).
The comment you quote seems a bit lazy on the part of the editor because I think there should be additional qualifying statements indicating if any comments are more important than others and set the review(s) in perspective. How you should decide to respond is therefore hard to judge since the editor has, at least seemingly, not provided any guidance on what needs to be done. This, unfortunately, opens for decisions in any direction. Your experience with your field, should, however, provide some guidance for what should be expected of a study such as yours and also checking the standards of the journal should add some pieces to decipher what must be done. In the end, you will need to provide feedback on the reviewers comments that allows the editor to understand the scientific reasons and ramifications of your revisions (or lack thereof).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It is always a good thing to imagine that at the next conference you will be having a dinner with the reviewer without knowing it.
An alternative to running the experiments is to add a paragraph discussion about the suggested results. If they are related to the paper, it can go to the paper. If it is not, that a reasonable explanation why the certain property is not interesting to the paper should come in the rebuttal letter, along with clarification of the paper's focus.
For example, in your paper you are examining how green the alligators are (to gather empirical evidence that [all alligators are squared bodied](http://books.google.com/books?id=5mUdokpAV3UC&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=All%20alligators%20have%20square-shaped%20bodies&source=bl&ots=kRA0mE4w3p&sig=YXTvta2CsTa2mGdYrgzt02VzKAc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rGt_VP3WG8qtogT92YKADg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=All%20alligators%20have%20square-shaped%20bodies&f=false)). Your paper measures the greenness level, and the reviewer suggests you need to measure the redness as well. Now, that requires hunting down the same alligators and recollecting the data.
You update your paper to emphasize that you examine the level of the green hue irregardless of other hues, and add possible future research direction to examine how different colors mix. In your rebuttal letter, you thank the reviewer for the suggestion for an interesting future research. State you updated paper to clarify the focus on greenness only. The redness effect is out of scope for this paper, but would make a nice extension in the future work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: When you submit a paper to a journal, you are implicitly agreeing to make a reasonable effort to publish the paper in that journal. But you are not signing a contract that requires you will make absolutely *every* change that the referees suggest. In the end, it's your name on the paper.
If the editor has actually *rejected* the draft (e.g. "revise and resubmit"), and you are not interested in sending revised work, there are few direct consequences. You only need to write an email to the editor saying that you have carefully considered the referee's reports, and that you would like to retract your submission. It is polite to acknowledge the referees at the same time, since they have spent time on your paper. But see the note of caution below!
If the editor has *accepted* your paper (e.g. "accepted with minor revisions") then I would recommend making a good faith effort to revise the paper. This is what you implicitly agreed to by submitting to the journal. Of course, you do not have to make all the changes, or make them exactly how the referee wants. But you want to make a good-faith effort to address them in your own way. You don't want to cultivate a reputation as someone who is not willing to make even reasonable changes to a submitted paper.
**One word of caution:** it is not entirely "safe" to retract a paper and then submit it in the same form elsewhere. The new journal might end up picking the same referee! [Here is a different answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/7203/16122) on this site about this exact issue. I recommend reading that entire Q & A thread, actually.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/12/03 | 1,342 | 5,548 | <issue_start>username_0: So, I get this page's link: [User Interface Usability Evaluation with Web-Based Questionnaires](http://hcibib.org/perlman/question.html) from my friend. I want to make one of them as Questionnaire for the design I made for Academic Research. But I'm confused, is that only an example, a guideline, or can I use the Questionnaire as it is? Is there any license for those questionnaire? I've tried to read the page, but don't really know if there's something like that.<issue_comment>username_1: First, a reviewer can only make recommendations for revisions. The editor should make clear what changes should be made but it is still up to you if you see fit to do so. Of course, if an editor says you should make certain revisions and you do not, particularly without indicating any good reasons for not doing so, the risk is that rejection decisions may follow. From this point, you may see that providing good arguments why such revisions cannot be made are necessary.
The fact that revisions take time is not by itself a good argument since it may mean your manuscript is currently sub-par but that is up to you to convince the editor when you submit your revisions. The revision process is in this case a sort of give and take process where any revision not made has to be clearly argued from a scientific point (not from a point of time constraints or other irrelevant aspect).
The comment you quote seems a bit lazy on the part of the editor because I think there should be additional qualifying statements indicating if any comments are more important than others and set the review(s) in perspective. How you should decide to respond is therefore hard to judge since the editor has, at least seemingly, not provided any guidance on what needs to be done. This, unfortunately, opens for decisions in any direction. Your experience with your field, should, however, provide some guidance for what should be expected of a study such as yours and also checking the standards of the journal should add some pieces to decipher what must be done. In the end, you will need to provide feedback on the reviewers comments that allows the editor to understand the scientific reasons and ramifications of your revisions (or lack thereof).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It is always a good thing to imagine that at the next conference you will be having a dinner with the reviewer without knowing it.
An alternative to running the experiments is to add a paragraph discussion about the suggested results. If they are related to the paper, it can go to the paper. If it is not, that a reasonable explanation why the certain property is not interesting to the paper should come in the rebuttal letter, along with clarification of the paper's focus.
For example, in your paper you are examining how green the alligators are (to gather empirical evidence that [all alligators are squared bodied](http://books.google.com/books?id=5mUdokpAV3UC&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=All%20alligators%20have%20square-shaped%20bodies&source=bl&ots=kRA0mE4w3p&sig=YXTvta2CsTa2mGdYrgzt02VzKAc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rGt_VP3WG8qtogT92YKADg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=All%20alligators%20have%20square-shaped%20bodies&f=false)). Your paper measures the greenness level, and the reviewer suggests you need to measure the redness as well. Now, that requires hunting down the same alligators and recollecting the data.
You update your paper to emphasize that you examine the level of the green hue irregardless of other hues, and add possible future research direction to examine how different colors mix. In your rebuttal letter, you thank the reviewer for the suggestion for an interesting future research. State you updated paper to clarify the focus on greenness only. The redness effect is out of scope for this paper, but would make a nice extension in the future work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: When you submit a paper to a journal, you are implicitly agreeing to make a reasonable effort to publish the paper in that journal. But you are not signing a contract that requires you will make absolutely *every* change that the referees suggest. In the end, it's your name on the paper.
If the editor has actually *rejected* the draft (e.g. "revise and resubmit"), and you are not interested in sending revised work, there are few direct consequences. You only need to write an email to the editor saying that you have carefully considered the referee's reports, and that you would like to retract your submission. It is polite to acknowledge the referees at the same time, since they have spent time on your paper. But see the note of caution below!
If the editor has *accepted* your paper (e.g. "accepted with minor revisions") then I would recommend making a good faith effort to revise the paper. This is what you implicitly agreed to by submitting to the journal. Of course, you do not have to make all the changes, or make them exactly how the referee wants. But you want to make a good-faith effort to address them in your own way. You don't want to cultivate a reputation as someone who is not willing to make even reasonable changes to a submitted paper.
**One word of caution:** it is not entirely "safe" to retract a paper and then submit it in the same form elsewhere. The new journal might end up picking the same referee! [Here is a different answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/7203/16122) on this site about this exact issue. I recommend reading that entire Q & A thread, actually.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/12/03 | 1,396 | 5,669 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a recent Ph.D. graduate in computer science.
In the last few months, I wrote a paper about an aspect of my thesis, with the collaboration of my former supervisor. We found a call for papers for a "special section" of an important journal, that is a section focused on the data set we are exploiting. The submission deadline was set to the end of November 2014, but surprisingly we just discovered that it has been post-poned to the end of March 2015, a four month delay.
I did not know if it was better to send this paper to this "special section" or to the "normal track" of the journal, so I asked here on [Academia](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32274/is-it-better-to-submit-a-paper-to-a-journal-normal-issue-or-wait-4-months-and).
User <NAME> suggested to me to contact the editorial board and ask them if I could have all the original time schedules. That means to have all the notification and re-submission dates as they were not post-poned, except the final publication date.
It seemed reasonable to me, so I wrote to my former supervisor (who is also the co-author of the paper, even if his contribution to the project and the paper is only around ~5%).
He replied to me in a very **ill-mannered, thwarted and angry way**, stating that "writing this request to the editors may cause a lot of problems", that I am "not able to understand how lucky we are for the existence of this special section", "having the paper accepted in this special section may be the best thing that could ever happen to our our paper", that I "should focus on how to improve the paper, instead of inventing new ways to create problems", and I should "**understand that the paper isn't worth much**".
**What to reply back to this *"gentleman"*?**
The paper is mine, comes from the doctoral thesis of mine, from an idea that I had, and was written entirely by me. My former supervisor just reviewed and corrected it.
I am not going tolerate this disrespectful behavior, and cannot stand having a co-author that considers my paper "not worth much".
**[EDIT]**: Thanks to all for your contributions. I'm asking to you all some suggestions on how to manage this situation: should I trust someone that is the co-author of my paper and thinks that the paper "isn't worth much"? In my opinion, this statement is in contrast with actually being a co-author of the paper.
How to let him know that I did not like his ill-mannered way to reply back to me, without damaging my perspective paper submission?<issue_comment>username_1: It's hard to tell what your former supervisor is thinking from just the few out-of-context fragments you give. I think, however, that they may have some good points and that you may be reading it as much more disrespectful and confrontational than it actually is.
From what you have written, it sounds like what's really gotten you angry is the "isn't worth much" statement. The unfortunate truth, however, is that with extremely rare exceptions, most individual scientific papers aren't worth much on their own. Since you are quite early in your career, each paper may seem very important to you---and a few high-impact papers can make a big difference in getting postings. In many cases, however, both impact and career are built more cumulatively from a collection of good but not world-shaking publications.
It's not possible to judge for certain without knowing your particular research, but your former supervisor may simply be giving you an honest assessment of the likely impact of this particular piece of work. This likely doesn't say anything bad about you or the work, but is just [pulling back from the hyper-focus of a dissertation towards the bigger picture](http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/). The same goes for the other comments you highlight.
If it were me in your shoes, I would not be likely to read this as a set of insults to a former disciple, but rather as your former supervisor beginning to talk to you more as a peer and collaborator.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> In the last months, I wrote a paper about an aspect of my thesis, with
> the collaboration of my former supervisor.
>
>
>
That means that the paper is not 100% yours. Do not add or remove co-authors on the basis if you like them or hate their guts.
>
> Having the paper accepted in this special section may be the best
> thing that could ever happen to our our paper
>
>
>
Sounds like excellent advice. Special issues are more focused, have shorter response rates and usually easier acceptance for more focused papers.
>
> Writing this request to the editors may cause a lot of problems"
>
>
>
Also excellent advice. You want to contact the editors to do the review of your paper sooner just for you? This is simply stupid.
>
> should focus on how to improve the paper, instead of inventing new
> ways to create problems
>
>
>
You have four months to improve the paper. Are you sure that it cannot be improved? Are you afraid that your competitors might publish sooner? If yes, submitting to the journal now, will not save you anyway. Could you not upload on arxiv? You should also discuss this with your advisor.
Conclusively, cool down. As a PHD graduate and not a student anymore, you must behave always as a professional. Perhaps your paper is not that great (perhaps it is). That is not an insult - it is the sincere scientific opinion of one of your more senior peers (who contributed to your success). Do not burn bridges with your supervisor, just because he expressed his honest opinion (even if you do not agree with that).
Upvotes: 5 |
2014/12/03 | 728 | 3,201 | <issue_start>username_0: So here is my situation.
I'm an undergraduate physics major right now (second-year) at a moderately-good university. I've experienced a bit of analysis and algebra (and almost nothing in topology, which I should change), and I like it (I do study maths on my own time - I like [complex] analysis best). However, my style and preference gears me more towards physics than anything. I've experienced working under an experimental nuclear physics group for some time now, and I love it, but it has shown me that I'm probably better suited with theoretical physics. I'm not saying that because I've proven to some people to be a genius at mathematical physics [maybe I could become one :-) ], but rather because that's where my interests seem to lie.
But I've noticed something. A lot of smart students here and theoretical physics professors at various universities come from a double math & physics backgrounds (a few just from math), and I was wondering whether I should go down that same path. I've avoided it so far because I felt that with the topics I've learned on my own, I've gone more in depth and personal as compared with my classmates, and so I feel that it is in my best interest to continue to do so with my math courses. Also, I feel that getting the math degree will only take up time and my full-attention from my normally planned physics track.
On the other hand, I feel that I could probably learn quite a few things from my math classes that I wouldn't learn otherwise. Professors already know the material they're teaching, so they typically know **what** to teach you. On top of that, if I wanted to enter a theoretical physics program for graduate school, I might have more of a chance of being considered with that extra degree.
**Does getting a double degree in mathematics and physics better increase your chances of being admitted to a graduate program in theoretical/mathematical physics?**<issue_comment>username_1: Obtaining a double major is helpful but not necessary. In making your decision, consider what you would do instead of obtaining the double major. Research experience will count for more than a double major.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yeah, you probably need to know a lot of serious math to succeed in theoretical physics.
I wouldn't belabor the question of completing the *major*. If you know the stuff and complete the coursework it doesn't matter if you get the major or not.
I'd suggest talking with your physics advisors about what math they think you should take and know, and combine this with what you can learn from math professors about the curriculum. You will probably want to be in the most challenging math courses (e.g. if there's an honors class or track, or a graduate version of an undergraduate course, you probably want the more advanced one.) But your physics advisor might suggest you take a subset of the rigorous math courses needed for a major, and whether you'd be better off completing the major or taking more physics courses is up to you.
If there's a thesis requirement for a math major, that is probably less valuable to you than more research in physics.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/03 | 919 | 4,057 | <issue_start>username_0: After sending an unsolicited email to a potential postdoc advisor, and receiving no response for a while, what is a very polite way to follow up?
Based on past experience lack of immediate response does not necessarily mean a lack of interest, they might just have been too busy at the time. This question is about how to best phrase the followup email to be as polite as possible, and not to seem pushy.<issue_comment>username_1: I've encountered this situation recently. My personal strategy has worked well on multiple occasion.
Send back the first e-mail with a beginning similar to this (I suggest you adapt it):
Dear Dr Smith,
I'm afraid my precedent e-mail arrived in your junk mail. Just in case, here it is again.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Edit: I don't resend an e-mail after only a week. I usually wait 2-3 weeks...even more !
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: First, perhaps consider your timing. It's the end of the semester on the day you posted your question. The faculty focus is on finishing up, grading and grant reporting, etc. Next are the holidays. Then, the first two weeks of the semester are about committees, budget issues and helping students set up. There are sweet spots before midterms, mid semester, and a few weeks before finals when faculty exhale. I suggest, if you have time, week 3 of the new semester. I realize for students this sounds odd; however, when there are a lot of students/classes as professor/teacher it's important for us to finish well and it's amazing how many letters come in on everything from car problems to job offers to health issues.
If you don't have time, here's a second strategy. I often receive reference requests that are so general/vague I have no idea where to start. When students send an "outline" of what they're looking for I can respond much quicker. For example, perhaps note the request, purpose, a reminder of particular projects, dates, assignments or papers in your follow up email. This sounds crass but sometimes a request comes a year or two after a class and I remember the student but not enough detail to support a recommendation. I don't need the letter written for me, I need something akin to a mind map to bring the student and course to mind in a way that adds value to the recommendation. Also, bluntly, from your course experience you probably know if the professor/teacher is organized to the level that you can count on him/her for a recommendation.
Lastly, a few ideas for students. A couple of days before most college applications are due is less than an ideal time for ask for recommendations due to the numbers of last minute requests received. Select faculty you worked with beyond attending class who will have something to say; I often receive requests from students who chose to remain somewhat anonymous in class and I don't know them well enough to offer something insightful. Faculty have posted office hours. An ideal reference situation is when a student comes in with a single page paper noting the dates, a few details of the course and reintroduces him/herself. Then we have a chance to chat for a few minutes. In that time I "travel" to our work and am excited to hear about the student's potential opportunity. This lends an enthusiasm to the reference.
I don't want this to sound like it's all about the faculty, I'm trying to nicely say you would never believe the requests that come in, I could write a post only on funny/sad/shocking email I receive every semester. There is great joy in seeing students transition to their next level of education and we're happy to write recommendations when we have the information to do so. Student consideration of timing, ideas/details provided and a referential conversation create a better opportunity for meaningful reference letters.
This advice goes beyond post grad; however, when I advised post grad students, up until last year, many of the issues were the same and I think the approach crosses education levels.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/03 | 503 | 2,314 | <issue_start>username_0: I defended my thesis last year and was granted MS degree. After that my advisor pressurized me to work more with him and write papers. I refused after some time and my relationship with him became sour. Can this cause any problem in the future such as thesis being taken away. Note that there is no dishonesty in my thesis at all, but there are some weak areas.<issue_comment>username_1: Once a degree has been conferred, it is exceedingly difficult to retract at without clear evidence of misconduct. Having a souring of relations with your advisor definitely does not rise to the level where you should have to worry about your degree being revoked. It is definitely worth mending your relationship with your former advisor just on professional grounds, but the "safety" of your degree shouldn't be one of them.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: As Aeismail already said, you would have to have commited some serious misconduct for your degree to be revoked (at least in any reasonable academic and legal system). And even then, the proceedings for doing so will cost your supervisor quite some time and effort.
Most importantly, however, it’s almost impossible for your supervisor to revoke your thesis without shooting himself in the foot:
* If there is any lack of quality in your thesis, the reviewers should have noticed. And the main reviewer usually is your supervisor.
* Misconducts that are not directly obvious from the finished thesis such as plagiarism, rigged data or employing a ghostwriter are much more difficult to perform under proper supervision. Thus making a corresponding accusation against you will almost certainly lead to allegations of improper supervision against your supervisor.
* Revoking your thesis causes some noise that also reaches potential future students of your supervisor, moreover if you stir that noise up and have good arguments against the revocation. These students will think twice about choosing your supervisor as a supervisor, which will almost certainly not make up for the damage of a few papers not written by you. It may very well destroy his workgroup.
Finally, these points would also apply to a second reviewer to some extent, which gives that person good reasons to work against allegations against your thesis.
Upvotes: 5 |
2014/12/03 | 789 | 3,212 | <issue_start>username_0: I frequently receive brief, usually confirmatory e-mails (such as *"Can do. Best"* in response to a request for a letter of recommendation) from academics with considerably less time than myself.
Each time this happens, I am very indecisive about whether the nuisance caused by responding -- and adding an e-mail with essentially no information, such as *"Many thanks; this means a lot to me! All the best"* to their inbox -- really weighs more heavily than the risk of being perceived as ungrateful.
Any thoughts, ideally from the referee's perspective are greatly appreciated!<issue_comment>username_1: My own busy-person email triage has three tiers:
1. No response needed = near-zero cost
2. Minimal response needed = minimal cost
3. Response with significant thought and care needed = significant context-switching cost
A brief "thank you" email would go into category #1: no bother or burden, but noticed and appreciated all the same. In other words, send the email: it's not a significant nuisance, and it's nice to be appreciated.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: To me, *any* email takes some amount of time to process. If I were to send something so short as "Can do. Best" (NB I wouldn't, but if I did) then I wouldn't be expecting a response, and in fact if I got one, to be honest, I would consider it a waste of time. Don't get me wrong, I'd appreciate the sentiment, and I wouldn't be *offended*, but I'd consider such an email wholly unnecessary and more distracting than it's worth. After all, what's the alternative - that you're *not* thankful? I think I can safely assume that, unless you're actually an all-around horrible person, that is not the case.
Contrasting this with username_1's answer, I think the only *general* conclusion you can draw is that depending on the person you're emailing, a "thanks" email in response to a short message of acknowledgement may be appreciated at best and somewhat inconvenient at worst, but it's unlikely to *seriously* bother anyone.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: To me it depends on how well I know you.
1. **If I know you very well**, then we are probably exchanging e-mails frequently. In this case, the continuous streams of gratitude are a distraction and may even seem sycophantic.
2. **If I know you somewhat well**, and have already formed an opinion of you (presumably a good one, if I'm willing to do something for which you are thankful), then either way is fine, and everyone's preference will be different. Personally, I'd rather receive the "thanks!" mail only for really significant favors and omit them otherwise.
3. **If I do not know you well**, especially if our only contact was for you to request the favor, then I'd probably appreciate the "thanks!" mail, as I would have no other way of knowing that you appreciated the effort.
Given that you're requesting a LoR, you are probably in the second group, which is maybe why the answers are so mixed. In this case, my personal strategy would be to send a detailed "thank you" mail (or even a small gift) after all the letters are submitted, but I would not continuously thank them after every correspondence.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/04 | 2,444 | 9,893 | <issue_start>username_0: I am preparing a paper in the field of Computer Science.
In order to report test results, we usually run a number of tests and report the average of those tests.
For each test, we generate random data.
Because of the randomness, at some points, the results may come out not as expected.
For instance, a graph may be like:
Usually, one should explain why on points 8, 11 and 12 there is a decrease on the plot.
Probably, it is because of that randomness.
Not hand-crafting all the graph, but just manipulating a few points makes the graph acceptable:
Since three weeks or so, I work my ass off and try to figure out why my resulting graph looks like the first one. Sometimes I feel like yielding to temptation and just modify the raw data before I go crazy.
I believe, at this point the title became misleading, so let me make it clear:
I am not seeking an advice on data manipulation. I will not manipulate my data. However, I ask to myself "how the hell this can be detected?"
And now, I don't only ask to myself, but to whole community. How is this detected? For editors, referees out there, have you ever detected something like this?<issue_comment>username_1: The image manipulations reported on Retraction Watch are most of the time naive collages of gel photographs or spectrograms. They get caught, among other things, because repeating patterns in the noise appear on closer inspection, or linear disruption of the noise are visible, see [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/27345/10643).
For 1D data, the case you mention, there is the [Benford's law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law) and other statistical tests that can indicate potential manipulation of data. It usually relies on human beings preferring certain digits over others, even unconsciously, thus generating data that has a non-random variability.
Also, many journals ask for graphs to be submitted in vector format, which means you are actually sending the data points, and not just a rendered figure. Things like editing out a few data points to smooth a curve will be apparent.
Now, to the best of my knowledge publishers and, even less so, reviewers don't systematically screen for these things, they only do so if they have suspicions, because the scientific publishing process is based on good faith. But if the paper gets any sort of attention it will get caught by post publication review.
**Don't fabricate/manipulate data.** It's adding unwanted noise to an already noisy signal, it's dishonest towards your coworkers, the people who fund you, the publisher and the readership, and it will ruin your career.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: First of all, don't do it.
You probably wouldn't be detected, because peer review isn't generally hunting for subtle data manipulation. Methods like those the answer by CapeCode could be applied, but even then a small number of data points like you are showing would not likely produce a terribly conclusive indication of dishonesty. But it will be in the literature forever, and you never know...
But really, that doesn't matter. Whether or not you get detected, *you* will certainly still know you that you lied. You'll be voluntarily throwing out the one thing that nobody can take from you: your integrity. Will it stop there, or will you do it again, the next time something's not quite perfect? How much of your work will be tainted? Pretty much all of us researchers struggle with [impostor syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome), but if you go down this path, you'll know it's true. Do you really want to live that way?
Not only that, but you will have lied and compromised yourself over something really stupid, just to make a graph a little bit prettier. If you have real results, they will stand, even with noise. If the noise is big enough to actually be a problem, then that's not a problem, that's an opportunity. As the quote attributed to Asimov goes:
>
> The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka” but “That’s funny...”
>
>
>
A lot of important emergent phenomena in computer science get discovered that way as well. If you lie, not only are you compromising your integrity and risking total damnation if it ever gets discovered, but you are also cutting off the possibility that you might stumble over something more important than what you were doing at first.
In short: don't do it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Why not run the experiment enough times so that you can produce your plot with error bars on the points? This will make it possible for the reader to understand how much random variation there is in the measurements.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: username_1 [pointed out](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32687/11365) that in fields that involve use of gel photographs or spectrograms, sloppy image manipulation can be detected by experienced readers.
In other fields, data can be flagged as possibly fraudulent for being "too perfect." For example, here is the [abstract of a report](http://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-store/) that led to the investigation of a social psychology researcher:
>
> Here we analyze results from three recent papers (2009, 2011, 2012) by Dr. <NAME> from the Psychology Department of the University of Amsterdam. These papers report 40 experiments involving a total of 2284 participants (2242 of which were undergraduates). We apply an F test based on descriptive statistics to test for linearity of means across three levels of the experimental design. Results show that in the vast majority of the 42 independent samples so analyzed, means are unusually close to a linear trend. Combined left-tailed probabilities are 0.000000008, 0.0000004, and 0.000000006, for the three papers, respectively. The combined left-tailed p-value of the entire set is p= 1.96 \* 10-21, which corresponds to finding such consistent results (or more consistent results) in one out of 508 trillion (508,000,000,000,000,000,000). Such a level of linearity is extremely unlikely to have arisen from standard sampling. We also found overly consistent results across independent replications in two of the papers. As a control group, we analyze the linearity of results in 10 papers by other authors in the same area. These papers differ strongly from those by <NAME> in terms of linearity of effects and the effect sizes. We also note that none of the 2284 participants showed any missing data, dropped out during data collection, or expressed awareness of the deceit used in the experiment, which is atypical for psychological experiments.
>
>
>
This report is obviously the result of some non-trivial effort. But some of the symptoms described (exceptionally good fit, no experiment participants dropping out, atypically large effect sizes) can raise alarms for any experienced, diligent reviewer, possibly leading to a more formal investigation.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Others have provided useful input but I am not sure they completely addressed the “How can editors and reviewers detect data manipulation?” question.
The simple answer is that mostly, **they can't and they don't**, certainly not in fields where researchers don't routinely share code, raw data, photographs and the like but only statistical tests or basic plots. If you are really sloppy, you might end up with incoherent numbers that could not possibly have been produced by the analysis you claim to have done (I have seen things like that) but more subtle manipulation is not so easy to detect.
There are a few fascinating techniques to detect bogus data (including but not limited to Benford's law) but very few people actually have the expertise required and reviewers do not routinely check for that. In most cases, such an analysis can give you a strong presumption but no solid proof. Some famous data sets have been thoroughly analyzed without reaching a consensus (e.g. <NAME>'s work on intelligence and heredity).
If you look at some of the high profile cases of fraud exposed in recent years (<NAME> but also <NAME> or <NAME>), they were mostly found out after many many fraudulent publications and not always because there was anything suspicious about these publications. The more “greedy” the fraudster is, the clearer the pattern becomes and some people might have had private misgivings at some stage but the fraud is only exposed later, usually after someone blew the whistle and not because a reviewer noticed it.
You can look at this as a glass half full (fraud is eventually detected) or half empty (How could it go on for so long? How many others are out there?) but the fact is that it's only in the aggregate that the results look suspicious, not at the level of a single graph or article.
Not that I advocate doing that, of course. Ethically, it's clearly wrong and the cases I just mentioned show that you can get found out in other ways and face very serious consequences. But reviewers and editors usually can't detect fraud directly, that's not how the systems works.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: At the point at which you only have the figure, or the underlying processed data, you cannot detect "well crafted" manipulation. One aspect of reproducible research, which is becoming more popular, requires that others be able to reproduce the data. This means making code available, describing hardware in sufficient detail, and also proving things like seeds and states of random number generators. This allows reviewers to recreate your data and then test how sensitive they are to slight perturbations.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/04 | 5,541 | 23,151 | <issue_start>username_0: Many of the professors and lecturers I come across are very critical of Wikipedia, but they never give proper support for their claims of "Wikipedia is bullshit!". And they threaten "Do not use Wikipedia if you want to pass!", and they mean it seriously.
It is true that "any Tom, Dick and Harry can edit it", but it is also true that Wikipedia takes a lot of effort to add in citations.
I do understand why we should not cite Wikipedia directly, instead go for the primary sources, but many do not even allow Wikipedia as a introduction to a subject matter. If I tell them "I read from Wikipedia that..." I get dismissed immediately, yet in online forums we use it like a Bible.
What is the real reason Wikipedia is perceived negatively among many professors, even for informal use (e.g. as an introduction to a subject)?<issue_comment>username_1: [A little googling](https://www.google.com/search?q=wikipedia+inaccuracies+examples) turns up [this list of reasons](http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/education/2010/march/The-Top-10-Reasons-Students-Cannot-Cite-or-Rely-on-Wikipedia.html). I think you don’t need to agree with the author’s obvious agenda to take it seriously. A selective citation of a couple of points I personally think are most valid:
>
> 9. You especially can’t rely on something when you don’t even know who wrote it.
>
>
>
>
>
> 8. The contributor with an agenda often prevails.
>
>
> ...
>
>
> In March 2009, Irish student <NAME>, who was conducting
> research on the Internet and globalization of information, posted a
> fake quotation on the Wikipedia article about recently deceased French
> composer <NAME>. Due to the fact that the quote was not
> attributed to a reliable source, it was removed several times by
> editors, but Fitzgerald continued re-posting it until it was allowed
> to remain.
>
>
> Fitzgerald was startled to learn that several major newspapers picked
> up the quote and published it in obituaries...
>
>
> 6. Sometimes “vandals” create malicious entries that go uncorrected for months.
>
>
> ...
>
>
> For example, <NAME>, a former assistant to <NAME>,
> was falsely implicated in the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers
> on his Wikipedia biography for a period of more than 100 days without
> his knowledge.
>
>
> And finally, the number one reason you can't cite or rely on
> Wikipedia:
>
>
> 1. It says so on Wikipedia.
>
>
> Wikipedia says, [“We do not expect you to trust
> us.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ten_things_you_may_not_know_about_Wikipedia)
>
>
>
Given the composition of academe, I wouldn’t say their point 5 (“There is little diversity among editors”) really is an argument against Wikipedia in a contest with “standard” academia.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the primary reason professors don't want students to use Wikipedia is because *a lot* of students only quote Wikipedia instead of actually researching a topic.
The great thing about Wikipedia is it can give you a general idea about a topic and offer a starting point to dig in deeper. However, students can be lazy and instead of digging in themselves, they take the easy route and just reference Wikipedia. This is obviously not the point of Wikipedia and research, and I can understand the need to announce on day one to *not* reference Wikipedia.
However, the reference and bibliography sections of Wikipedia is the real gold mine and could be a great starting point for any research topic. This is what I see as a pure advantage of Wikipedia and what professors should also say on day one.
For example, suppose I'm interested in Financial Economies, so I do a quick google search. First hit : <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_economics>
Great discussion of the discipline, vague descriptions of risk, graphs, and financial pricing theory. But the real gold mine is in the reference and bibliographic section. There are references for financial economics, asset pricing, and corporate finance, which a great starting point for looking further into topics. The links point me further into a direction I'm interested in from very famous authors.
I can understand the question as a student and I think it's the professors responsibility to explain how *not* to use Wikipedia and how *to* use Wikipedia.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: A small sidenote to start things off:
>
> If I tell them "I read from Wikipedia that..." I get dismissed immediately, yet in online forums we use it like a Bible.
>
>
>
Well, one of the reasons for that is that "I read in Wikipedia" is almost synonymous with "I have exactly 5 minutes worth of knowledge on the topic". The problem here really isn't the fact that you read Wikipedia, but that citing from it implies that you have read *nothing else* on the topic. If I am an expert in whatever field, I would probably not take a concern from somebody who implies that all his knowledge comes from a few-minute Internet recherché very seriously, either (no matter what source (s)he actually found). Also, which online forums "use it like a Bible"? Most that I hang around at are *very* critical of Wikipedia quotes, mostly for the reason I stated above - arguing based on a Wikipedia entry does not exactly establish creds as a person knowledgeable about the subject.
Now, let's discuss the real question here:
>
> What is the real reason Wikipedia is perceived negatively among many professors, even for informal use (e.g. as an introduction to a subject)?
>
>
>
*(note that the question is specifically about using Wikipedia as an introduction to a subject, not as a primary, citable source)*
Honestly? It is probably a combination of feeling threatened, reluctance to embrace change, and lack of knowledge how Wikipedia articles *actually* evolve over time.
"Feeling threatened" in the sense that Wikipedia is kind of decentralising knowledge compilation, which is of course not necessarily something that makes academics (the people that used to be more or less the definition of "compiled knowledge" in pre-internet times) very comfortable.
"Reluctance to embrace change" in the sense that Wikipedia is (in comparison to text books or lectures) a very new (and radically different) way to get an introduction to a topic, and most humans tend to be sceptical of this kind of disruptive technology.
"Lack of knowledge" in the sense that many critical academics simply have not taken the time to study how (especially popular) Wikipedia articles actually evolve over time. I am convinced many would be positively surprised if they knew how well quality control in Wikipedia actually works in practice. I remember that in 2004, c't (a well-known German magazine widely read by IT professionals) ran [an experiment](https://www.heise.de/artikel-archiv/ct/2004/21/132_Wissenswettstreit) where they took random articles out of various encyclopaedias, anonymised them so that one could not tell the source anymore, and had domain experts compare them to anonymised Wikipedia articles for quality and technical errors. Wikipedia was consistently rated higher-quality than even well-respected standard encyclopaedias. That being said, I assume that the average quality of Wikipedia articles degrades a lot for entries on more esoteric topics, so I actually agree that for deeply scientific topics, one should be somewhat skeptical of Wikipedia, just as one would be about any other single source.
Finally, I have to say that I know *many* professors that don't have a problem with using Wikipedia as a starting point for your review of a subject. However, if you write, for instance, an seminar paper, *you are expected to read the primary sources* (and I fully agree with this).
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: To be frank, I think that people who take that sort of hard-line stance against ever learning anything from Wikipedia have simply lost their heads. I don't mean that they are crazy, just that they are making an irrational decision (although there may be understandable reasons why they make it).
In some cases it is a desperate, overcompensating attempt to get people to not use *only* Wikipedia (which, as you acknowledge, is a problematic practice). Like a jilted lover who, to protect his fragile heart, vows never to date another artist no matter what, a weary professor may adopt a blanket anti-Wikipedia stance simply due to having their heart broken too many times by papers that are based solely on Wikipedia.
In some cases it stems from an ivory-tower mentality that rejects anything that is not a product of the academic in-crowd. In some cases this is augmented by a generalized fear that things like Wikipedia will make original research (or perhaps highly paid tenure-track jobs) obsolete. In some cases, perhaps related, it stems from an out-of-touch ignorance of what is actually available on Wikipedia; some people may have heard that Wikipedia has issues, and not want to put in the effort to actually check how accurate its information is in their field, so they just proscribe it altogether.
Whatever the reason, though, the solution is the same: keep reading Wikipedia, and learning what you can, and remaining alert enough to not accept it as gospel, because nothing is. If your professor doesn't like it, just don't tell him you read it on Wikipedia. (You can follow up on the sources in a Wikipedia article and then mention those instead.) Academic journal articles are not unsullied by speculations, skewed viewpoints, and logical gaps. Getting information anywhere is fine as long as you know the limitations of the source. You can *begin* to learn great things from the back of a cereal box, if it happens to clue you into something you had no previous knowledge of.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: This kind of attitude match quite well the behaviour when a disruptive technology enters the scene and challenges old institutions: The role of the new technology is not completely clear, there is insecurity in how to handle it, it's misused and some people get defensive and aggressive while others have a more positive view, embrace the changing environment and tries to make things fit together.
It will gradually be resolved when a better understanding of the role of the new technology emerges: Exactly what its benefits and disadvantages are and how it can complement the current system.
In the case of academics and wikipedia, I place my money on a wider appreciation of the fact that there are several methods to acquire information, with their own benefits and disadvantages, and that wikipedia in reality has a high reliability for most topics on a basic level and that it's a very efficient way to traverse different subjects and to gain a good but basic birds-eye view of a subject.
And to clarify, of course wikipedia is not for original research (well, obviously except research about wikipedia itself). It's *generally* a good way (efficient: Time is capital) to traverse the crude domain of a subject (see the references to research about this in the other answers here), but less suitable for more in-depth research. Right tool for the right job.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: Being a Wikipedia contributor myself I would not like to see my students cite wikipedia, though I would not say that such citations should be forbidden. Here are a few reasons for this:
* Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it does not contain original research and topics are not covered with great depth (for example in Wikipedia proofs for mathematical statements are not relevant in most cases). I would find it equally bizarre if students would cite the Encyclopedia Britannica.
* Wikipedia article contain more errors than an average textbook. Especially articles of not so popular topics contain wrong statements. I discover this often (more on the German Wikipedia than on the English). Of course you might say that this is just my personal impression, but I would guess that the professors you mention had similar experiences.
* At the university you should learn how to write about academic research. Honestly, I haven't seen a single scientific paper citing Wikipedia as a source.
* Although everything that is written on Wikipedia should have a source - let's face it - many statements are just claims without a citation.
* Wikipedia is dynamic - even more than other online sources. Pages can change dramatically over time, so if you cite you better add the *access time*.
Let me add that I think that Wikipedia is a great source of information for scientists. I just don't think it's the best source for citations.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: The very fact that you need to ask this question, in a way, provides its own answer.
One of the primary functions of academia is to teach the skills of research. There are two aspects to this, both critical; first, being able to find what work has been done by others and, second, to do new work yourself. Without the ability to effectively do the former you risk wasting time repeating pre-existing work when it comes to the latter.
Now, for non-academics, Wikipedia has rapidly become a catch-all, sole source, and generally fantastic one-stop shop for information. While this is well and good for casual use, it nevertheless provides an enormous disincentive to acquiring and practicing those critical skills of research that **you will need** if you intend to continue to pursue a career in academia.
My feeling is that most professors are, even if subconsciously, objecting to Wikipedia for this reason above all others. It feels wrong to them because it is a shortcut -- a cheat that puts a stop to a student's research effort before it even begins. In their own careers they have a deep appreciation for the need of strong research skills and, likewise, an appreciation for the need to teach those skills to students.
If Wikipedia ceased to exist at this very moment, ask yourself the question - *"Where would I find information, and how would I go about doing it?"*
In the world of academic research, this is the situation you find yourself in - beyond a certain level, Wikipedia will **not** have the answers you are looking for and you will need to have developed more advanced research skills to find them.
By artificially outlawing Wikipedia, professors are attempting to simulate what the real academic world is like - one where the answers are not already known and easily accessed; one where you, the researcher, are tasked with needing to know how to effectively dig deeper to answer questions for yourself.
The critical thing to realize is that higher education is not like primary school anymore. The error you are making is in thinking that an assignment about topic-X is chiefly intended to populate your brain with information about topic-X and that the most effective means of getting information about topic-X into your brain is the best solution to the problem.
**This is wrong.**
Topic-X is largely irrelevant. The real task is to teach you *the skills you require to find information about any topic*. Topic-X is simply a convenient and concrete sample of a topic on which to learn and practice those skills. That the information on Topic-X is readily available on Wikipedia is merely a reflection of the fact that, as a junior academic and undergrad, you simply (at the moment) lack the technical education necessary to be given a more advanced "practice" topic to research - one that would not be so readily found on Wikipedia.
Nevertheless, the professor's objection to Wikipedia is for a very clear reason - it is entirely counterproductive to their primary (and probably unstated) objective of getting you to exercise and develop *real* research skills.
**Consider the broader context.**
From a slightly different perspective, in a lot of ways Wikipedia has really raised the bar. If you are a university student and you are working towards a degree in a subject then it bears considering what that means. If any joe public can look something up on Wikipedia with the most minimal amount of effort then what does that mean for you?
Surely an academic degree needs to be something much more than a certificate proving that you know how to type *"X"* into a wikipedia search box. A child of 6 can do that these days - if you're looking to gain a serious academic qualification then you really need to be going above and beyond what has become this most basic level of ability to research information.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_8: The question notes the difference between on-line use of Wikipedia and academic use. I think the two situations can be very different.
I do use Wikipedia links in answering questions on StackOverflow, but would not use it as a reference in an academic paper, even a coursework paper. I see two major differences:
When writing an academic paper I can assume my readers have just as good library access as I have, and have at least as good paper-reading skills. If I can access and understand a paper, they can also access and understand it. I don't make that assumption for people asking e.g. basic algorithm questions on SO.
A Wikipedia link in an SO answer is just background information that I could write out in the answer at the cost of making it too long. A reference in an academic paper may be general background, but is often intended to demonstrate peer-reviewed support for some statement.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: As an adjunct professor teaching a classroom-based introductory statistics course, I'm not critical of wikipedia at all. You have to be careful, of course, and check the information on wikipedia against information in the textbook or other reliable sources. But having said that, wikipedia can be very useful to clarify something that may be causing confusion, or provide a slightly different perspective that might help to increase understanding. I'm in favor of anything that helps students learn the subject, and wikipedia can definitely be useful in that respect.
It would be different if I were teaching a graduate-level course that requires research and access to original work. But for an introductory course, there's nothing wrong with wikipedia.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_10: On the one hand, Wikipedia is one of the greatest accomplishments of human civilization. Never before has so much knowledge been so easily accessible to so many people. It is one of the wonders of our world. On the other hand, this means that if you want to do anything yourself you need to add value beyond what's in wikipedia which everyone else has access to anyway. Wikipedia is the new bare minimum of common knowledge, and so you should assume your reader already has access to wikipedia and anything you write needs to say something that's not already available on wikipedia or else it is worthless (not because wikipedia is worthless, but because you haven't added any value beyond wikipedia so the reader might as well just read wikipedia instead).
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_11: I, as a lecturer, use Wikipedia often when I need a quick introduction to a certain topic. Mostly when I decide on which texts my students shall read for a seminar, I start on Wikipedia. There you have great summaries of many important works. A wiki research can, of course, also turn out to be completely useless - but in most cases I still saved time: Reading through hundreds of books and magazines again to find out that a certain text doesn't fit my needs, costs me much more time.
Anyway, I never would cite from there and neither would I let cite my students from there. But that also has to do with me generally being against online-citation. It's simply not reliable. Websites can disappear or be changed at any time without leaving a trace of the old state. Not so books and magazines: Older editions are still available when newer ones are printed, so you can always go back and, if the information was wrong, figure out how the mistake could have happened.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_12: Wikipedia is really crowd sourced knowledge. I learned much from looking things up on Wikipedia but it would be imprudent to rely on Wikipedia as THE sole source of knowledge, just as in centuries past, it was imprudent to rely on the Bible as THE source of knowledge - You just don't want to depend upon a single source of information.
Professors may love references but these references may be biased themselves. I wouldn't be surprised that some of the emperors who have been recorded as evil may actually have been good people, and vice versa.
The blunt fact is that every source of information has its limitations and using it comes with its own liabilities.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: Good professors just don't want you to be lazy. They'd like to see you push your 'research muscles' beyond the first google result.
Pre-wikipedia this was true as well. Rarely could you get away with citing Encyclopedia Britannica as your primary source--or citing Cliff's Notes in your english paper.
These days, if you treat wikipedia as your 'card catalog' you'll be better off. Use it as a jumping off point for your research.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_14: Encyclopedia of any kind is not an appropriate learning material for a student as it is way too shallow.
Specialized literature (textbooks, review articles) usually contains much more information that may not be essential for minimal understanding but is supposed to be known by professionals.
This is not a criticism of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is actually very good. Good as it is, it is not sufficient to get a professional knowledge. There is probably no obvious harm from reading it, just not enough.
There is a certain type of the scientific literature - "scientific popular", educational material published in popular non-scientific journals, etc, to read by wide range of people, for entertainment. While such texts are generally correct (also professors frequently write them), they are not used in student education and also never cited in any serious scientific work. Too shallow.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_15: "Casual use" of Wikipedia can mean any number of different things, for instance:
* [Scaffolding](http://wikistrategies.net/tying-it-all-together%20%22%22) your understanding of a topic, while forming an idea of what authoritative sources to seek out
* Correcting a typo
* Creating & submitting a graphic to augment an article, as practice in creating graphics for academic texts
* Seeking to remind oneself about a concept one already knows but has forgotten
* etc. etc.
Some of those might be illegitimate (just as some uses of citations in highly respected peer reviewed journals can be illegitimate), but some are perfectly reasonable, and well-vetted in the academic world.
To be blunt, any professor who decries any casual use of Wikipedia is telling you more about their own biases, than they are telling you about Wikipedia.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/04 | 825 | 3,451 | <issue_start>username_0: Of course it is not a good idea, preferably one would meet up with the professor to make the agreement.
In my case, I've talked to the prof for a year, and then went off work for a year, now I need a recommendation letter. In September I emailed him my situation WITH the invitation for a meet up at his office. He told me he is willing to provide a reference, but did not address the meeting up issue.
Now it is close to application deadline and I've yet to received the letter from him despite a few follow ups. I'm worried it is the reason is that I did not meet up with him so he might have forgotten who I was (which is understandable). I will attempt to email him once more with a more urgent tone, perhaps he will respond this time, but should I also invite him again to a meet up or is it too late?
Any profs care to share their ideas?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is it possible to acquire a LOR without having a face to face meet up/agreement?
>
>
>
Yes, of course. It happens all the time. People are not always geographically co-located with their letter writers.
If you are worried your professor might not remember who you are without a face-to-face meeting, then the major concern is whether he will be able to write a strong letter for someone he barely remembers without a visual reminder - not whether you have met to discuss the letter in person.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: If you are within driving distance, I would suggest trying to meet the professor at their office hours and show up with a resume and a letter explaining your purpose for whatever you are planning on pursuing. By doing this, you can get in front of them and show urgency in the letter. This is a very common tale, and you are certainly not alone. Be appreciative of the LOR, but also be firm in the need for it. Offering coffee is always an option too.
Hope this helps.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I write letters all the time for students I've taught, but whom I haven't seen for a long period. I do ask for specific information:
* **Tell me what the deadline is!**
* Include your student number.
* Remind me which of my classes you have taken, and when.
* How did you distinguish yourself in those classes?
* How would you describe yourself? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? I am going to have to answer those questions when I write your reference, so the more details the better. I have to have personal knowledge of anything I write, so remind me of those things I may have forgotten.
* What are some of your academic and nonacademic accomplishments that I may not know about?
* Tell why you're particularly qualified for the job, educational program, or award you're applying for.
* What makes *me* particularly qualified to write a letter for you? That is, why should the recipient of the letter value it over a letter from someone else?
* Include a copy of your application essay.
Put that stuff together, write the professor a note saying, "As the deadline of [whenever it is] is approaching, I thought the following material might help you. Thank you again for agreeing to write a recommendation."
The professor who has that material to hand can complete a letter in a much shorter time than if it all had to be looked up and remembered. People (that would be me) tend to do the easy things before the hard things. Make this one an easy thing!
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/12/04 | 1,257 | 5,523 | <issue_start>username_0: I submitted my research paper in journal X on 7th July, 2014. Journal sent me one thanks email immediately. After that I waited for one month for any response from editor but nothing came from editor side.
Than I submitted my paper in other journal Y. My paper was accepted in that Journal and sent for review from editor side.
At 30 August, 2014 I received one acceptance email from the editor or journal X that my paper has accepted and I was asked to submit publication fee of 90$. But I could not reply this email due to busy schedule and I was also not interested to publish my paper in journal X. After that I could not receive any email or revision or anything from this journal X.
I continued to work with journal Y, modify paper according to reviewer comments, sign copyright agreement and now paper is in publication phase.
Yesterday, by chance I open my Google scholar account and find paper that was published in journal X to whom I was not interested and who was demanding 90$. When I checked the online paper, I was astonished that the journal published my paper in its July issue and date of publication was 1st July, even I send this paper on 7th July and journal X notify me about acceptance and fee payment on 30th August.
How its happened that Journal X published my paper without my consent and published it in back dates. Now what I should do because the same paper is in final publication phase in journal Y to whom I have signed copyright agreement also. Please guide me tell me any forum to raise voice against that journal X. Because I send many emails to editor of journal X but receiving no reply from editor side. Any penalty or any other thing which I can do.<issue_comment>username_1: The fault here is **yours.**
You should **never** have the same paper be submitted in two different journals at the same time. This is an absolute rule that protects both you as an author and the journal as the publisher from duplication of effort, as well as avoiding situations like this.
If you had wanted to stop the publication in journal X, then you should have sent them a letter **clearly retracting** your submission. This would have ended the process at journal X, and allowed you to submit the paper to journal Y with a clear conscience.
Now, however, since the paper has been published by journal X, you are stuck. If journal Y publishes your paper, you will have the same article published in two different journals, which is also a violation of ethical standards, and could lead to *both* copies being retracted by the publisher. So, unfortunately, you are stuck paying the fees to the journal X, and the work you've done to improve the paper with journal Y is now "lost" to the literature.
As has also been pointed out, journal X appears to be quite sketchy, and I would avoid any future contact or involvement with them. But for now, consider this a lesson learned for the future.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: I am sorry to say that you have ended up in a tricky situation totally on your own, and apparent lack of understanding of publishing. What you need to do? On the face of it the paper is accepted for publication in X and you need to withdraw the paper from Y.
Your description contains so many twists where you have seemingly dug yourself deeper that your best outcome is to learn from the mistakes and go on.
Some pointers:
* You should never send papers to a journal where you really do not want to publish, or, I do not see the point of sending papers to a journal where you do not wish to publish
* You should never send papers to more than one journal at a time. If the first choice rejects your paper, it is ok to pass it onto another
* If you send a paper to a journal that charges for publication, there is no excuse not to follow up on those charges. Yo have essentially agreed to paying by submitting.
* Your own time crunches is solely your problem. If you cannot answer E-mails or other correspondence in time, the world will not stop and wait for you.
So regardless of how you dislike journal X you have put yourself in a situation where you may have to accept the fact that the paper is with X and because of that Y should not be able to publish it.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: I can't believe how everyone is blaming the OP.
Since you clearly did not sign an agreement with the journal X, I think you should talk to the lawyer and sue them. Laws may change from country to country regarding this, however it seems quite illegal to me that they demand $90 from you for something you did not agree for.
Does your university have a legal department to deal with such cases?
EDIT: I clearly understand that it's OP's fault to submit into 2 journals. However I clearly see 2 distinct issues here: 1. The OP unethically submitted to 2 journals. 2. Unethical Journal X supposedly published without the OP's agreement, as OP himself stated.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: You ask what to do with journal X, but I think it is more important to do the correct thing with journal Y first.
You should reread the copyright agreement that you signed for journal Y and see if you misrepresented the status of your work. (Typically when one signs these agreements one is representing that the work in question has not been published before and is not under submission at any other journal.) If so, you should immediately inform journal Y of your mistake and of the true publication status of your work!
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/04 | 470 | 2,000 | <issue_start>username_0: I would be interested to know the differences between peer reviewed journals and refereed journals in these aspects:
1. Conditions for the acceptance of papers for publications.
2. The time length of paper stage after submission.
3. Amount payable by authors.<issue_comment>username_1: To expand on <NAME>'s comment, "peer review" and "refereeing" are exact synonyms, and no differences at all are implied by the names. For historical reasons, some fields are more likely to use one term than the other (for example, mathematicians talk more often about refereeing than peer review). Publishing practices also differ between fields in other ways, such as the length of the reviewing process. There might be a weak correlation with the use of terms like peer review and refereeing, since both issues are heavily influenced by which field you are looking at. However, I'd bet that any correlations are small, and in any case this is not a productive way to investigate journal differences (since knowing the field would tell you enormously more than just knowing which term the journal uses for peer review).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I could be mistaken, but the correlation that I believed to exist was that refereeing was common in fields where works where fully self contained. E.g. with mathematics you do not need to additional research to (in)validate a work, as long as the steps are correct the conclusion is correct. Contrast this to a field like medicine where you would need to redo all the experiments as well to truly 'referee' a result, whilst peer review 'simply' means somebody went over your work and gauged it's reliability.
Now, I could well be mistaken and it's *definitely* not a clear cut line, but that seemed to be the general trend I observed. Then again, I don't know that great a number of fields that use the term 'refereed' over 'peer-reviewed' in the first place, so I could well be mistaken.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/04 | 1,055 | 4,643 | <issue_start>username_0: There is an effort at my university to promote "research integrated teaching" [[Barnett, 2005](http://books.google.com/books/about/Reshaping_the_University.html); [Robertson, 2006](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07294360600792889)] which got me thinking about the topic. I generally make an effort to discuss research problems and recent results when they fit with the material we're covering in a course, but it occurs to me that this is a very passive approach.
I'm interested in developing more active or creative ways that research work and teaching efforts can be combined to benefit the quality of teaching without negatively impacting research. Are there any approaches that have shown to be particularly effective?<issue_comment>username_1: An experience that worked out well in my past: in grad school as a TA, I helped to create an "intensive" section of the main introductory artificial intelligence course. Students who opted into the intensive section did two projects and got 25% more units of course credit.
For each project, the students had two options, an "applied" option and a "research" option, each on something highly topical. The research options were always restricted-scope versions of academic research problems that the professor and/or TAs were actually involved in. This was a nice motivator for students, since they could see how what they were doing related to a real scientific problem.
The applied option was similarly relevant to industrial R&D. For example, the machine learning project's applied option was typically to build a spam filter against whatever turned up in that year's "wild-harvested" corpus. Students met with their TAs multiple times got guidance while working on the project, and were coached on how to produce a good technical report at the end.
These projects also gave a nice path to getting talented and interested students involved in research as undergraduates. We made a point of reaching out to students whose projects were particularly good and offering to help get them connected with undergraduate research opportunities. Many ended up working joining the professor's research group, and many others joined research groups of other professors where we helped make introductions. A large fraction of those went on to grad school, and at least some to faculty positions (though I don't think anybody ever did a proper quantitative assessment). In effect, doing a "trial run" of working on research-style projects in class both helped students discover interest in research that they might not have realized, and also helped reduce the risk for professors to take them on afterwards.
The main challenges in doing this were:
1. selecting appropriately scoped projects, complex and interesting enough to give the students a taste of research, but not requiring deep background or more than a few dozen hours of work, and
2. making sure TAs were sufficiently advanced as grad students to be able to coach the students well.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In my field (chemistry, Germany) the Master courses usually include research practica. The topics are usually posted by PhD students and postdocs and are side-issues of their research. These practica are actually part of the regular schedule for the studies, they lead up to the research work for the final thesis.
The **big advantage** of this is that the students learn how to do research. Actually, I don't see how they should be able to their final thesis (which is always research) without ever having done this before.
In my experience the **most dangerous pitfall** here is to expect that the student will be productive in the sense that after the student worked a few months, they have more scientific output than their supervisor would have produced in the time they invested in teaching/supervising the student. This almost never happens\*. It helps to recall that the practicum is part of the *teaching* to the practicum supervising PhD student/postdoc, the PhD student's supervisor and to the head of the practicum (who'd often argue that the students help their supervisors as there's usually rather a surplus of students than a surplus of projects).
As @username_1 says, the **advantage for the supervisor/TA (or their group)** is that this is a great way to find good and motivated students. And **for the students** it is a great way of finding a group they want to join for their final thesis and also a possibility to find a sub-field they are interested in.
\* unless the student is assigned slave work instead of learning how to do research.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/04 | 1,410 | 6,110 | <issue_start>username_0: So I am completing the application for UCSB, and they ask me to write a Personal Achievements/Contributions Statement, however, I feel I have nothing to say, since I have never experienced anything like examples they give. So what should be talked about in this kind of essay except examples they give?
Here is what on their application:
>
> ### Personal Achievements/Contributions Statement
>
>
> UC Santa Barbara is interested in a diverse and inclusive graduate student population. Please describe any aspects of your personal background, accomplishments, or achievements that you feel are important in evaluating your application for graduate study.
>
>
> For example, please describe if you have experienced economic challenges in achieving higher education, such as being financially responsible for family members or dependents, having to work significant hours during undergraduate schooling or coming from a family background of limited income.
>
>
> Please describe if you have any unusual or varied life experiences that might contribute to the diversity of the graduate group, such as fluency in other languages, experience living in bicultural communities, academic research interests focusing on cultural, societal, or educational problems as they affect underserved segments of society, or evidence of an intention to use the graduate degree toward serving disadvantaged individuals or populations.
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: It's pretty likely you've experienced a lot more diversity than you realize. Consider:
* Have you always been surrounded by people sharing the same ethnic majority as you?
* Have you ever experienced another culture beyond simply eating at taco bell and panda express?
* Have you ever spent time learning about a friend's culture? This includes European cultures like Irish, French, Italian, German, Polish, etc. (I only named the major ones for condensation.)
* Have you ever helped with social justice causes beyond being a follower in slacktivism?
* Have you ever stood up for someone who was being treated unfairly due to being different be it a disabled person, a minority person or a LBGT person?
Let me give an example of four things I would identify with myself that could be mentioned in this section:
1. I am half Lithuanian and keep many of the traditions in question, especially regarding food, which is valued in my culture, alive.
2. I have Autism and have both suffered discrimination myself, and have fought to end discrimination.
3. I have friends who are trans and/or gay and fight for their rights. I have strong empathy for this particular group due to the fact that they too are expected to hide who they are.
4. I am a strong believer on solidarity political theory and have strongly pushed to assert it over convention Identity Politics.
Depending on what I would feel the place in question would expect, depends which of these I would include.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with the other answerer in that some self-examination will probably yield many ways in which you have overcome adversity or worked to support others from diverse backgrounds.
But here's another angle that's worth considering: **Why does the university require a diversity statement in the first place?** You'll encounter many forms of diversity at a large, public university like UCSB, where there is a substantial population of international students, federal student aid recipients, students with family/work obligations, and so on, and the school wants to know **how you expect to integrate into the diverse community at the target university** and **how you believe interacting with a diverse student population will help you grow** in your career and as a person.
Therefore, you don't have to "be" diverse (how can any individual be diverse?) to help foster a diverse, inclusive campus climate. I found this [diversity statement from a faculty application](http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~ewu/files/job/diversity.pdf) written by an Asian American to be very successful, even though the author makes no mention of his personal background, focusing instead on the things he has done to support diverse students and explaining why he thinks diversity is a good thing:
>
> I believe that diversity is fundamentally the relationship between a community’s distribution along a multitude of dimensions (e.g., physical traits, interests, cultures) and that of of the general population. I am strongly in favor of a diverse community that samples broadly from the general population. From a selfish perspective, it lets me learn from a variety of different, strange, and interesting people. From a larger perspective, it creates a robust community that is immune to "jumping on the band-wagon", and, as the UC diversity statement notes, it is "the source of innovative ideas and creative accomplishments".
>
>
>
In a case like yours, I would recommend **being honest about your blind spots and expressing your interest in learning more** about people from other backgrounds. What was it like to grow up and attend college within a homogeneous community? What challenges do you expect to face as you transition to the target university, and how will you overcome them? What are the characteristics of the university's community that attract you to studying there? Bonus points if you can name specific student organizations, courses, or other features of the university that align with these goals.
---
On the flip side, it's worth pointing out that writing a diversity statement isn't necessarily any easier for those who are from "diverse" backgrounds. A diversity statement that simply enumerates one's demographic characteristics without reflecting on the meaning and importance of diversity can ring hollow. And there is a danger in invoking [false parallels](https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2016/06/10/how-write-effective-diversity-statement-essay), i.e. assuming "Because I am from marginalized community X, I understand the challenges faced by those from marginalized community Y."
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/04 | 972 | 4,151 | <issue_start>username_0: I am reading a paper which discussing the change in a specific idea in a field of science over time. I would like to basically summarize the points in the paper but in a smaller fashion by taking some quotes and explaining how they relate to my situation.
For instance, in the paper I am reading the author said "in 2002, Stanley and Miikkulainen [SM02b] argued that the topology of a neural network also affects their functionality" where the tag [SM02b] is a reference to a entry in the author's bibliography.
Is it sufficient to only cite the author of the paper, or do I need to cite both the author of the paper and the author of the paper the author cited in the paper?<issue_comment>username_1: This will all become much clearer if you shift your perspective away from paraphrasing and towards giving a context for your own work. Start by pretending that the other paper doesn't exist, and asking: "What does the reader of *my* work need to know about this concept?"
When you know that, and you know what level of detail you want to go into, then you can look to the other paper (and other things as well, I hope!) as a source of information to help you build your discussion of the context of your work.
A useful phrase at this point is: "A thorough discussion of [subject] can be found in [review paper]." Then you can explain your view of the material, which the reader will understand is heavily influenced by the nice review paper you've just cited. In digesting the review to produce your own explanation, you will need to choose what *you* think are the important points for understanding the context of your work, and the key references supporting those points will be the ones that you should cite: as these references are the ones that were important for *your* understanding, so too should they be for your readers.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: While username_1's answer is a fine answer, I wanted to add that there is actual accepted format in some referencing system. For example, in Harvard Reverencing, your paper would contain (here is where you would actually shorten it down as you desire):
>
> <NAME> Miikkulainen (2002, cited in Smith, 2014) argued that the topology of a neural network also affects their functionality
>
>
>
This way you are saying that you did not read the paper by Stanley and Miikkulainen but you are giving the original authors credit, while still providing a source for your understanding, which the reader might want to check.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The suggestions by username_2 and username_1 are sound advice. I want to add, risking to provide an answer that actually is not answering the question that there is a caveat to citing material without checking the sources. When you do not check the original source you run the risk of propagating errors. You do not know if the way in which a particular source is correctly made and you may find that your take home from a paper is not the same as the source from where you were thinking of citing it. You should therefore, as much as possible, avoid to cite sources that involve also taking other author's interpretation of the original results or conclusions.
This may see like a minor point but errors that are propagated this way can become very destructive. In some cases errors like this may become"truths" that are very hard to correct. So while you can cite a source by as *ref1 cited in ref2* you should make every effort to avoid it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: This is an answer by Electricman in the comments.
I remember that my professor had told me not to use the citation of one paper in separate to increase your references. Also, he told me this is a plagiarism if I do so. So what I did was so simple, I read those citations and wrote the literature review based on my understating.
But I guess you want to know if you can cite only the main paper, so the answer is: of course you can. Even it is better add, you should only cite the main paper. But be aware that the main paper should be in a famous peer reviewed journal.
Upvotes: -1 |
2014/12/04 | 1,174 | 4,842 | <issue_start>username_0: I have recently started as a postdoc at a well-regarded foreign university. I like the place and I have no particular problems with my professor (even though his style isn't exactly to my taste, but I could live with that and take the difference as a learning opportunity).
However, I have a major problem with my fellow postdocs and other junior colleagues. I get the feeling they're just too full of themselves -- but whatever the reason, the situation is that I simply want nothing to do with them. Given that our research group is the only group at the department whose research I could plausibly participate in at the moment, this leaves me with practically no opportunities for fruitful daily scientific interaction.
I'd like to return to my home country after a couple of years of postdoc positions abroad, so I'm feeling some pressure to get the most of my time. I have often heard that the most valuable thing you get out of postdoc positions is the contacts you make. If this is the case, I'm probably wasting my time at my current job. On the other hand, my current institution has much more resources, scientific activities and opportunities to meet distinguished visiting researchers than pretty much any place else I might get to.
So the question is: what should I prioritize when deciding whether to continue at my current job? Is it worth tolerating intolerable colleagues for the opportunity of working at a prestigious and well-endowed university?
I'm sure a recommendation from my current professor would weigh a lot when looking for the next job, but I'm also quite sure I haven't been able to prove myself to him yet.
---
*(Copied from an answer posted below by the original poster:)*
I was deliberately vague about the nature of my issues with my colleagues, but I do understand it's relevant.
Of course, it might be just culture shock, as someone suggested. On the other hand, I do feel there's a very unpleasant group dynamic in my research group.
We're conducting research on the beetles of Borneo. I used to be in a group that studies the beetles of New Guinea, and we often have guests who study the beetles of Java or even some other island. But the general atmosphere among my colleagues is that only Borneoan beetles are worth studying. My earlier work is considered definitely useless and irrelevant - and this was also told me explicitly, right after I had presented my work.
The professor seems to share the attitude in some respects, but he's old and experienced enough to understand that even though he might himself care only about the beetles of Borneo, others might still care more about beetles elsewhere. My junior colleagues just think that if it isn't Borneo, it's bullshit.
If I isolate myself, I will have problems learning about Borneo. If I try to learn about Borneo from my colleagues, I'll have to endure constant putdowns of my own interests and earlier work.
(To anyone who actually studies beetles: I'm sorry for using you as an example.)<issue_comment>username_1: Even if you have a good postdoc, you should keep an eye out for one that is even better. However, if you stay in your current position less than a year you may be viewed as unreliable by future employers. (US perspective)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I have often heard that the most valuable thing you get out of postdoc positions is the contacts you make.
>
>
>
I always thought the most valuable thing you get out of postdoc positions is the research experience and the research papers. The contacts/connections would be the by-products after you conduct quality research.
You said *"I'm also quite sure I haven't been able to prove myself to him yet."*. If you leave now, you wasted all the efforts you spent to apply for your current postdoc job and the time you spent on the job so far **only** because you don't like your colleagues?
I understand you are at a well-regarded **foreign** university. My guess is that many of your colleagues came from different cultures/locations than yours. That's probably why you feel that they are intolerable.
My advice: **concentrate** on your research (which is your job). Work with your professor and those colleagues if needed. Do your best.
**Edit** after the OP put in some more details:
Your example sounds like you are in the wrong group in the sense of research direction. I don't quite understand why you went there in the first place. But, you are there now. I would try to stay there for a while if I were you. I would **collaborate** with my colleagues. I would learn beetles of Borneo from them. I would show them why beetles of New Guinea are also worth studying. I'll do my best. If it still doesn't work out after a while, then I'll quit and find another postdoc job, the right one this time.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/05 | 849 | 3,197 | <issue_start>username_0: I was doing a PhD in a different subject and that was going nowhere and I lost interest in everything that I was doing. But I always loved mathematics and during the dark days of my 3rd of my (former) PhD. I happened to meet some exceptional theoretical CS people who encouraged me a lot. One of them got me as a TA and I am starting afresh in this new field.
How optimistic should I be about a career ahead?
I want to be a researcher/faculty.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> How much do my career prospects suffer if I start a mathematics/CS PhD. at the age of 27?
>
>
>
Not at all. 27 is not considered "old" by any stretch of the imagination.
Also see [this answer on MathOverflow](https://mathoverflow.net/a/60004) and [this question here on Academia about a PhD student who is *actually* unusually old](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24577/i-want-to-do-research-but-im-too-old-for-a-phd).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: You're not alone and you're not old. I started my PhD when I was 25, hated it after 1.5 years, actually found out what I fancy doing, applied for a PhD in that field and I'm starting that PhD next month. Losing 1-2 years is way better than spending 3+ years in a field that you don't like (moreover, you're likely to perform below your potential since, well, you don't like that first field. Imagine what you can accomplish in a field you actually feel excited about).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: As some people have stated before, 27 is not really that old to be in continuing education. I work with a colleague at GTRI who is just starting a Math PhD at 27 so its not as unusual as you would think. I think it would really depend on which industry you are involved in or plan on being involved in.
If you like/want to run in startup scene than the time you spend earning a PhD may not serve you as well as trying to get involved with an incubator program.
If you are in industry, but not doing R&D, than you may not need a PhD either. Most CS is not at the PhD level, even when technically advanced.
If you are working for a research lab affiliated with a university, or working with a company that does/funds PhD level research programs in Computer Science, than go for it. Especially if you are going to be working while you are enrolled, many people roll their career work into their research project.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Suffered compared to what? What is the alternative?
If the alternative is completing your current program that appears to be going noowhere, how long will it take you to complete that? And, given that in your words you have no passion for it, how good that research would be?
If the alternative is dropping out of PhD program? Well, your odds of becoming a faculty with no PhD are zero.
Take what you can from your current field, and go where your passion is. It is 30 years career ahead of you. By already working on a PhD, you learned basics how to do research, write papers, etc... The fields will be different, but you still have a head start. And whatever your other field was, you will bring a new, fresh perspective to your new field.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/05 | 307 | 961 | <issue_start>username_0: How long is the expiration date of GRE? For example, if I am going to sit for the GRE in January 2015, how long can I use the score for my graduate application?<issue_comment>username_1: Your GRE score is valid for (approximately) 5 years since the [taking of the test](http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/faq).
>
> **How long are GRE scores valid?**
>
>
> For tests taken on or after July 1, 2016, scores are reportable for five years following your test date. For example, scores for a test taken on July 3, 2018, are reportable through July 2, 2023.
>
>
> For tests taken prior to July 1, 2016, scores are reportable for five years following the testing year in which you tested (July 1–June 30). For example, scores for a test taken on May 15, 2016, are reportable through June 30, 2021.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It's valid for 5 years, as stated on their official website.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/05 | 756 | 3,275 | <issue_start>username_0: Should I attach my soon-to-be-published manuscript when submitting my CV?
I've just recently submitted my first paper to a scientific journal and want to apply for an internship at a certain institution. I'm pretty confident that my paper will be accepted but I know the review process is long. Should add it to my CV and write "under review" and attach the manuscript along with it? I feel as if them reading the manuscript will better my chances at my getting it.<issue_comment>username_1: As others have said, it depends on the culture of the discipline you are in.
I also think it is important where you are in your career. If you are an undergraduate, for example, with a manuscript on which you are an author, I would be impressed even without the acceptance yet. Most undergraduates in my field (biology) have not done much (or any) hands-on research so this would be a big CV booster! Since you say this is your first manuscript, I assume you are early in your career so it may help you stand out from your peers. I have seen graduate students and even professors include submitted manuscripts on CVs and personally have not found it tacky.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Post it on a preprint site such as arXiv for the physics / maths / Comp Sci folk or in Research Gate for us other mortals or even an institutional repository. Then list it is "in review", "submitted", "in-press" or whatever stage it is as in your CV. Link the item in your CV to the preprint at arXiv, RG, institution. This way you give them the choice. Visit the link or not. When published just change the link to the DOI in your CV.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: When you submit an application, you will usually be told what to include. Follow those rules first. If there is room to submit other materials then, providing your manuscript seems like a good idea. The usefulness of providing the manuscript will of course vary depending on the role of the position you seek. Posting the manuscript somewhere can be useful for several reasons but when applying for a post, people evaluating an application (one of probably many) will not want to have to spend time gathering the materials themselves, they want it provided with the application (unless clearly stated otherwise).
What you need to ask yourself if the manuscript will reflect well on you? From your answer, apparently so, but a poor manuscript should probably be avoided. An assessment of the future publishing of the manuscript is not something I generally would rely on.
The person or committee evaluating applications will chose to judge your manuscript as they see fit. Usually, a written thesis or manuscript can help to assess important aspects of a person's capability. A person evaluating the application will of course also try to judge if you are the sole originator or if others have a large imprint on the work. It is therefore important to provide a good account for what is truly yours and what can be attribute to others, i.e. list the contributorship to the work. If you want to see discussions on such issues, please search the tag [authorship](/questions/tagged/authorship "show questions tagged 'authorship'") on on *contributorship* here on academia.sx.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/05 | 2,117 | 9,074 | <issue_start>username_0: I am asking this question because I've always had the impression that manuscripts submitted to a journal in my field (theoretical linguistics) take an *insanely long time* to get published, and sometimes I get the impression that this is because, most of the time, nobody other than the author cares about getting things done within a reasonable amount of time. Some examples from personal experience follow.
* For the last paper I submitted before getting my PhD, I had to wait nine months from the submission date to get reviews back from the referees.
* Last week I got a review request from a journal I had never reviewed for previously. The review deadline is March 15 (almost four months).
* In early October, I submitted a manuscript to a journal that I know asks reviewers to return reviews within 6 weeks. I checked the status of the manuscript online and it still says "with editor".
* Earlier this year, I was about to start writing a review when my wife went into labor. By the time we came back from the hospital, I had forgotten about the review, so I missed the deadline. The editor didn't contact me to ask about the review until two months after the deadline.
* Late in 2013, I was asked to write a survey chapter for a handbook. The expected publication date of the handbook is summer 2016.
All of this is not me being unlucky with editors and referees. In private conversations through the years, many colleagues have confirmed that it is virtually unheard of to get reviews back within 3 months of submission; 5 or 6 months seems to be a good average, but in some cases it can take longer (see my first point above). In general, everybody seems to have accepted that the submission-to-printed-journal process is going to take a bare minimum of one year, and that's assuming that the manuscript is accepted without revisions. If revisions are required, two years is not out of the question. Also, it's not like our papers are ridiculously long. I've reviewed about 100 papers so far, and the longest one was about 50 single-space pages; 30-35 single-spaced pages is closer to average.
I remember that, when I was a postdoc, my astrophysics housemate mentioned that in his field the entire submission-to-printed-journal process took only three or four months. I really can't see a good reason why theoretical linguistics shouldn't operate on similar timeframes, other than the fact that everybody seems to have grown used to things taking way longer than they really need to. What are the wait times in other fields? How do you manage to get things done quickly?<issue_comment>username_1: For mathematics, here's the latest survey done by American Mathematical Society:
<http://www.ams.org/notices/201410/rnoti-p1268.pdf>
You can find median times from submission/acceptance to acceptance/print/electronic print for various math journals as well as other statistics like the current estimate of waiting time for each journal. Not surprisingly, the median time from submission to acceptance in 2013 varies greatly; some take only a few months and others nearly a year and a half.
They do this survey every year. For instance, here's the one published 2 years ago:
<http://www.ams.org/notices/201210/rtx121001473p.pdf>
The worst offender that took the longest between submission and acceptance that year was Annals of Mathematics (which happens to be among the most prestigious math journals), and the median was 24 months.
I don't know if there is data for other fields. But American Physical Society occasionally makes statistics for their journals available, e.g., pages 14-17 of this PDF slides:
<http://www.phys.nthu.edu.tw/~colloquium/2009F/T2.pdf>
From my own experience as an author and reviewer as well as from what I hear, it appears that math journals typically take longer than physics journals. But probably things are drastically different across subfields even within one discipline (e.g., theoretical vs. experimental).
In any case, as the fact that they publish statistics indicates, both disciplines seem to take turnaround time very seriously. But for some reason, it appears that review tends to take more time if a journal publishes more mathematical papers. This seems to hold true for electrical engineering, too; the journal I have published in most frequently belongs to electrical engineering but is known for being heavily mathematical, and, lo and be hold, it's notorious for its slow, slow, slooow review...
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In biology, things are much faster (although it can vary for different journals). From my experience, reviewers usually get a deadline of 2-3 weeks to submit their review, although many reviewers fail to meet this deadline. So the typical time of getting back the first review is around 1-2 months, depending on the journal.
Since speed is often an important factor, some journals make a point of advertising their typical review/decision times. For example the journal *Genome Research* [states](http://genome.cshlp.org/site/misc/ifora_overview.xhtml) their average turnaround time for review is 30 days. The journal *eLife* [gives](http://elifesciences.org/about#process) the following median times: 3 days for initial decision (editorial decision whether to send the paper to review), 29 days to post-review decision, 90 days submission to acceptance.
How this affects the quality of reviews, especially those of interdisciplinary work (e.g. combining math and biology), is a completely different matter...
However, one way to explain the difference in speed from a theoretical field like math, is since biology is an experiment-based discipline, the reviewers basically evaluate what the authors report about their experiment - they cannot, and are not expected to, reproduce these experiments on their own. Once the paper is published, other labs will eventually try to reproduce its results.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I guess an important consideration here is how quickly a field evolves.
My field is condensed matter, and usually the paper stays with the editor one week or less, with reviewers one month and depending on recommendation this will be cycled until acceptance, although subsequent reviews tend to be faster. Then you get proofs/the paper appears online in overall a month or less.
I say that how fast the field evolves is important because for a hot topic many people will be working on the same problems simultaneously (think graphene a few years ago) and getting publication delayed by even as little of a couple of months might mean being the second, rather than first, to report a result.
I would imagine fields like History, literature and so on evolve much slower than say molecular biology or materials science. Then fast publication of research is not equally critical in every field. This doesn't mean of course that times couldn't ideally be reduced across disciplines.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Contrary to what RanG reports in a comment, I have the feeling that (applied) CS is comparatively fast in terms of turnaround times. Reviewers typically get ~ 1 month of time for review (+ a few weeks of slack, realistically), and most journals aim to come back to authors for revisions in a time frame of 4 to 6 months.
That being said, the time from initial submission to when a paper actually appears is usually still multiple years. A big contributor is that, at least in my community, there is a pattern that most (including very good!) submissions go through a lifecycle of Submission -> Major Revision -> [Major Revision] -> Minor Revision -> Accept -> Publication, with each step taking about half a year. That is, even very strong papers are often forced to "go through the motions" of some iterations of pseudo-revisions that don't really add anything substantial to the papers.
Of course, in CS, we primarily publish in conferences anyway, so most people don't really mind so much.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: As a linguist and former editor, I would say that your problems are on the outer edges of experience, which may have something to do with the journals you are submitting to, but not beyond belief. No names, but there are a couple of well-regarded theory journals that are known to have this problem. The main explanation is that reviewers take forever, and editors only have a limited power and willingness to nag: they are willing to wait another 4 months rather than drop the reviewer and get someone else. This problem is somewhat ameloriated by submission software which is now popular that automatically nags reviewers. The ultimate solution, I'm afraid, is that authors need to email the editor with a status query with a week after the supposed deadline (if the journal says when they expect to return a decision). A significant contributing problem, IMO, is that there is nearly no infrastructural support for the editor.
Handbooks and the like are another story. Expect a 4 year delay from invitation to appearance.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/05 | 299 | 1,409 | <issue_start>username_0: Does anyone know the restrictions one might face if they are a graduate student in a computer science program (let's say doing theory) and they become interested in taking a course from the mathematics department or become interested in working on mathematics problems? Is this something where you need to full on change departments or is it generally more acceptable?<issue_comment>username_1: This is frequently very easy: the boundary between mathematics and computer science is pretty blurry, especially for the more theoretical side of computer science. In many universities, you will even find classes that are shared between math and computer science departments.
I suppose that If you are a masters' student, you might run into problems fitting in the classes that you want to take if there are a lot of other program requirements. For Ph.D. students, however, there are typically less constraints.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It depends somewhat on your advisor, and less on departmental policies. If you can convince your advisor that you need to take some math courses to be more comfortable in your research, its unlikely you would be prevented from doing so by the dept.
Of course, if your advisor wants you to focus on research and not take any additional courses, that may be an issue - but you can still take the class informally (non-credit).
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/06 | 1,409 | 6,278 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm sort of foggy in general about how this works. If you are, say a a computer science graduate student, what kind of freedom do you have to pick a research topic that focuses more on something like cellular biology, swarms, or string theory? Do you need to change departments? Do you need to illustrate some connection back to CS techniques? Do you just have to pursuade your advisor to issue a blessing?<issue_comment>username_1: This will vary based on your adviser, your level of study (i.e. what degree you're going for), your committee and your department. In almost all cases for computer science, you will be required to demonstrate mastery of the subject. Incorporating outside knowledge from another subject area, say, cell biology, where you re-implemented or improved a gene matching algorithm, for example, would probably be allowed.
Simply doing an experiment from cell-biology with no tie-in to CS would almost certainly not be approved--but, this is where your adviser, et. al. come in. If you've got a smashing idea, a good adviser/committee will help you try and find a way to tie it into your degree and PhD students are typically given more leeway here than Masters students.
Though, be prepared, in some cases, an adviser will play a big role in determining what your thesis will be. Also, if you are being funded by a particular grant under a PI (principal investigator--typically a research professor), it is traditional (at least at my University) to pursue research related to what the PI is doing. Though it's definitely easy just to ask to be exempt from this tradition.
So, basically, the answer to your question is it depends. Almost certainly you will be required to do something Computer Science-y for a CS degree, but there can be a lot of leeway in determining what Computer Science-y means.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: There are a lot of factors. Generally, your research topic is whatever you and your advisor agree on. In principle, you often have a dissertation committee that must also agree, but typically that is mostly a formality unless someone is totally off the rails.
So if you want to do something unusual, the hard part would be getting your advisor to agree. In deciding whether a topic is appropriate for a PhD dissertation, they should generally consider:
* **Is it significant?** Is this a project that will be a genuine contribution to the field? Is it in an area that is generally recognized as important? Is it difficult enough to be worth a PhD? A project in a fringe area, or one that would advance the state of the art only infinitesimally even if successful, or one that is at too low a level, would likely not fly.
* **Is it original?** The project should not primarily duplicate something that has already been done (unless you are trying to reproduce previous results, which in some situations would be considered valuable). Your advisor will have to be convinced that your literature search is thorough enough that you fully understand the context of your project and how it will extend previous work.
* **Is it feasible?** Your advisor needs to be convinced that you have the necessary knowledge, expertise, resources, and funding, and that the project is of an appropriate difficulty and scale that you have a good chance of completing it within a reasonable period of time (some departments have firm limits on how long you can take to finish a PhD).
* **Are they qualified to advise you?** Does the advisor have the necessary expertise to accurately evaluate the significance, originality and feasibility of the proposed project? Will they be able to help teach you some of the things you need to learn? Will they be able to judge your progress along the way? Will they be able to provide you with, or help you acquire, resources you may need?
So in most cases, if you have a particular area in mind, in order to pass the fourth test you will need to choose an advisor who is an expert in that area or something closely related. If nobody in the department qualifies, or none of them are willing to be your advisor, then you probably cannot work on that project in that department. Sometimes it is possible to take on a co-advisor from another department who does have the appropriate expertise. Otherwise, you either need to change departments (often tantamount to reapplying), change institutions (which means actually reapplying) or work on something else.
In many cases, the easiest way to meet all four criteria is to work on a project suggested by your advisor, even if it is something that you hadn't previously been interested in. This is particularly true in fields that are highly specialized, and where a beginning graduate student would not be expected to easily recognize interesting problems to study.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: For students in the physical sciences and engineering, a major issue is getting funding to pay for required research equipment and supplies. This nearly always comes from a grant that has been awarded to the academic advisor. Thus students working in these disciplines are very constrained in their choice of projects- it has to be something that fits with the available funding.
Even if the student's research doesn't require expensive equipment and supplies, if the student is working on a research assistantship then the student will normally be expected to do a thesis or disseration that is part of the research project that funds the assistantship.
Some students work in areas where there isn't any need for expensive equipment or supplies and some students also have funding (a fellowship or a teaching assistantship) that isn't tied to a particular research grant. In such cases students can have a much greater say in what their thesis project will be. However, the project still must be acceptable to the advisor and the thesis or dissertation committee. It is not uncommon for advisors to simply say "no" to a student request to supervise a project that the advisor doesn't think is worthwhile. Even if the advisor says "yes", there are often other levels at which the project must be approved (e.g. by the thesis or dissertation committee, the department chair, or even a graduate dean.)
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/06 | 2,349 | 10,454 | <issue_start>username_0: I wonder if there exists, at least in plans, a centralized system that examines editors' decisions in journals, a kind of "appellate court" in peer-review publishing.
Recently I have been trying to publish a paper which tends to support a hypothesis heavily counter to the prevailing view in the field. I had to try eight journals before it was accepted. In most of those trials the paper was rejected without going to peer-review, but editors didn't point out specific flaws. Instead, they used general statements like "your paper is certainly interesting, but we get so many even more interesting papers, so unfortunately we cannot publish yours". In one journal the editor simply replied that the paper is out of the journal's scope, which is plain-out false (the paper deals exactly with one of the major topics of the journal). In another journal the editor passed the paper to peer review. In two months it was rejected "in view of reviewers' comments". But - amazingly! - all reviewers recommended publication, with certain revisions. I tried to contact the editor, but he did not respond. Clearly, this is utterly unethical, with respect both to the author and reviewers (at least, the editors could reject it right away, why stealing two months?).
Now I am going to submit a follow-up paper, but I am sure I will face the same difficulties and lose a lot of time. Could anyone give any recommendations as to how to safeguard oneself against unethical situations like those described above?
UPD: I do not mean here any complaints or rants. If in one of those journals my paper had been rejected after peer-review in which reviewers did actually recommend rejection, there would be no this topic here.<issue_comment>username_1: You got your paper published and I am sure many others have had similar experiences with much more mundane topics (whatever your is) so I do not see the fact that your paper was rejected in journals a major issue as such. In fact, one could interpret your view as your paper should have been accepted by default, unfortunately that is not how things work.
It is true that some papers may be unfairly treated by an individual journal or editor but that is the result of the fact that humans are involved and publishing is not a black and white yes or no business. You provide several different types of responses and judge them from your point of view, which may be correct but will be difficult for others to assess.
So as a whole, I think your question is bordering on what is sometimes referred to as a rant on this site.
Having said this, one can respond to the general issues you raise.
Coming up with science indicating paradigm shifts (which is how I interpret your description) will always be met by scepticism. This is normal. If the process was such that everyone switched direction for every new idea that appeared chaos would ensue since no direction would be disseminated in detail. The back side of it is that ideas becomes so engrained that they approach a dogma. To add to this, many researchers may have put all their effort into developing an idea and having to change all thus is daunting, to say the least, and so the eagerness to accept and change is weak. This is human. Thus publishing something that goes against the stream will meet scepticism for both scientific and personal reasons and sometimes the latter are the most difficult to break through.
The responses you have received all seem poor on the face of it but since we do not know the details at least some of them may be correct judgements from the side of the editor in view of what they perceive is publishable in their journal.
Going completely against reviewer recommendations definitely seems like a step too far and too soon. Granted we do not know how good the reviews were but in the worst case of two really poor reviews an editor should try to get more opinions in. Yes, it appears to be a waste of time for all concerned which could have been avoided. But "stealing" and "unethical"? Not really. Unfortunate and perhaps unnecessary? Yes.
Editors have the right to deem a manuscript unsuitable for a journal and reject it without review. If you think it is suitable, it is your opinion but the editor's opinion differs from yours.
So you got your paper published and now you expect the same problem again. Probably yes, if you decide to go to the same journals. But, since you now have your basic publication out, the next paper has something peer reviewed to stand on. I am sure there will be continued resistance to change and this will only diminish with growing number of studies supporting your claim being published over time. How quickly this happens, if it happens, is beyond my possibility to judge.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I wonder if there exists, at least in plans, a centralized system that examines editors' decisions in journals, a kind of "appellate court" in peer-review publishing.
>
>
>
In cases of unethical behavior, professional societies can investigate a journal, but your description includes nothing that appears unethical.
>
> In most of those trials the paper was rejected without going to peer-review, but editors didn't point out specific flaws. Instead, they used general statements like "your paper is certainly interesting, but we get so many even more interesting papers, so unfortunately we cannot publish yours".
>
>
>
This may be frustrating and reflect genuine bias against your ideas, but it's a reasonable and standard way to run a journal. Some sorts of bias are unethical (for example, discrimination based on the author's race, ethnicity, gender, etc.), but intellectual bias is almost unavoidable. There are a few journals, like [PLOS ONE](http://www.plosone.org/), with the mission of publishing anything that's new and not clearly defective, but most journals try to filter based on interest and importance. That necessarily involves judgment calls by the editors regarding what is likely to be satisfy these criteria. In particular, part of running a prestigious journal is favoring some topics and approaches over others, and the community judges the editors based on how well they manage to select interesting and important papers. To reject a paper without review, there's no need to identify a flaw. Instead, the editors can simply decide that it's not interesting or promising enough to justify the effort of formal reviewing, or that the chances of acceptance are low enough that sending it out for review would just waste the reviewers' and authors' time.
>
> In one journal the editor simply replied that the paper is out of the journal's scope, which is plain-out false (the paper deals exactly with one of the major topics of the journal).
>
>
>
Scope can include both subject matter and approach. Some journals like to publish controversial papers that may well turn out to be wrong or misleading but will at least lead to interesting discussion and follow-up work. Other journals are more conservative and have no interest in going out on a limb with a risky theory that reexamines what the editors consider to be well-settled science. I don't think the editor in your case was lying to you about the subject matter scope, but rather indicating that your paper is outside the scope of the type of work they want to publish.
>
> In another journal the editor passed the paper to peer review. In two months it was rejected "in view of reviewers' comments". But - amazingly! - all reviewers recommended publication, with certain revisions.
>
>
>
This is an awkward issue, and it would have been helpful if the editor had clarified. (E.g., "While the reviewers' comments were largely positive, the editorial board felt that they did not make a strong enough case for publication in comparison with other recent submissions.") But I can appreciate the editor's position. Sometimes you get a submission that is unusual and unconventional, one you know a lot of the community won't like. Who do you choose as reviewers? You can predict many people's opinions in advance, which introduces an intrinsically political aspect (if you want to kill the paper, it's easy to choose conservative reviewers, and vice versa). One approach is to ask sympathetic, open-minded reviewers but hold them to a high standard by seeing whether they can convince you to accept. The question isn't whether they recommend acceptance, and in fact the editor may know in advance that they have a soft spot for this topic. Instead, the question is how compelling and forceful a case they are able to make for this specific paper.
Of course I have no proof that this is what was going on here, but I'd bet it was. If the editors were determined to kill the submission, they would have rejected it without review or deliberately assigned unsympathetic reviewers. Instead, I think this journal gave you more of a chance than any of the other six.
>
> Could anyone give any recommendations as to how to safeguard oneself against unethical situations like those described above?
>
>
>
As I explained above, I don't think these situations are unethical, but they are still worth avoiding. One factor to consider is how often a journal publishes unorthodox or unconventional work (even if it's not on your exact topic). If they sometimes do, then they are likely to give your paper a fair hearing. If they rarely or never do, then that's probably because they are reluctant to do so.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: To add to the other answers already given: another approach that can be useful is to begin by publishing your work in a venue such as [PLoS ONE](http://www.plosone.org/) that is credible but aims to select for only for validity and not "significance" or "topic." Since it seems the main problem you've had is editors deciding that the paper is not of interest for their journal, this would nullify that problem.
PLoS ONE is an entirely respectable place to publish, though not high prestige. It is thus a fine place to get a fair review for the early papers of an unconventional topic, and to build reputation of the work that will make it easier to get accepted in more community-specific venues later. If you have problems publishing in PLoS ONE, however, it is likely that your work has serious flaws in either substance or presentation that you are not aware of.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/06 | 2,034 | 9,002 | <issue_start>username_0: When adding a reference to an image that is a screenshot, what is the proper way to cite in APA style?
Also, who is considered the artist in this case? The person who took the screenshot, the website where I've found the image or the creator of the software?<issue_comment>username_1: You got your paper published and I am sure many others have had similar experiences with much more mundane topics (whatever your is) so I do not see the fact that your paper was rejected in journals a major issue as such. In fact, one could interpret your view as your paper should have been accepted by default, unfortunately that is not how things work.
It is true that some papers may be unfairly treated by an individual journal or editor but that is the result of the fact that humans are involved and publishing is not a black and white yes or no business. You provide several different types of responses and judge them from your point of view, which may be correct but will be difficult for others to assess.
So as a whole, I think your question is bordering on what is sometimes referred to as a rant on this site.
Having said this, one can respond to the general issues you raise.
Coming up with science indicating paradigm shifts (which is how I interpret your description) will always be met by scepticism. This is normal. If the process was such that everyone switched direction for every new idea that appeared chaos would ensue since no direction would be disseminated in detail. The back side of it is that ideas becomes so engrained that they approach a dogma. To add to this, many researchers may have put all their effort into developing an idea and having to change all thus is daunting, to say the least, and so the eagerness to accept and change is weak. This is human. Thus publishing something that goes against the stream will meet scepticism for both scientific and personal reasons and sometimes the latter are the most difficult to break through.
The responses you have received all seem poor on the face of it but since we do not know the details at least some of them may be correct judgements from the side of the editor in view of what they perceive is publishable in their journal.
Going completely against reviewer recommendations definitely seems like a step too far and too soon. Granted we do not know how good the reviews were but in the worst case of two really poor reviews an editor should try to get more opinions in. Yes, it appears to be a waste of time for all concerned which could have been avoided. But "stealing" and "unethical"? Not really. Unfortunate and perhaps unnecessary? Yes.
Editors have the right to deem a manuscript unsuitable for a journal and reject it without review. If you think it is suitable, it is your opinion but the editor's opinion differs from yours.
So you got your paper published and now you expect the same problem again. Probably yes, if you decide to go to the same journals. But, since you now have your basic publication out, the next paper has something peer reviewed to stand on. I am sure there will be continued resistance to change and this will only diminish with growing number of studies supporting your claim being published over time. How quickly this happens, if it happens, is beyond my possibility to judge.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I wonder if there exists, at least in plans, a centralized system that examines editors' decisions in journals, a kind of "appellate court" in peer-review publishing.
>
>
>
In cases of unethical behavior, professional societies can investigate a journal, but your description includes nothing that appears unethical.
>
> In most of those trials the paper was rejected without going to peer-review, but editors didn't point out specific flaws. Instead, they used general statements like "your paper is certainly interesting, but we get so many even more interesting papers, so unfortunately we cannot publish yours".
>
>
>
This may be frustrating and reflect genuine bias against your ideas, but it's a reasonable and standard way to run a journal. Some sorts of bias are unethical (for example, discrimination based on the author's race, ethnicity, gender, etc.), but intellectual bias is almost unavoidable. There are a few journals, like [PLOS ONE](http://www.plosone.org/), with the mission of publishing anything that's new and not clearly defective, but most journals try to filter based on interest and importance. That necessarily involves judgment calls by the editors regarding what is likely to be satisfy these criteria. In particular, part of running a prestigious journal is favoring some topics and approaches over others, and the community judges the editors based on how well they manage to select interesting and important papers. To reject a paper without review, there's no need to identify a flaw. Instead, the editors can simply decide that it's not interesting or promising enough to justify the effort of formal reviewing, or that the chances of acceptance are low enough that sending it out for review would just waste the reviewers' and authors' time.
>
> In one journal the editor simply replied that the paper is out of the journal's scope, which is plain-out false (the paper deals exactly with one of the major topics of the journal).
>
>
>
Scope can include both subject matter and approach. Some journals like to publish controversial papers that may well turn out to be wrong or misleading but will at least lead to interesting discussion and follow-up work. Other journals are more conservative and have no interest in going out on a limb with a risky theory that reexamines what the editors consider to be well-settled science. I don't think the editor in your case was lying to you about the subject matter scope, but rather indicating that your paper is outside the scope of the type of work they want to publish.
>
> In another journal the editor passed the paper to peer review. In two months it was rejected "in view of reviewers' comments". But - amazingly! - all reviewers recommended publication, with certain revisions.
>
>
>
This is an awkward issue, and it would have been helpful if the editor had clarified. (E.g., "While the reviewers' comments were largely positive, the editorial board felt that they did not make a strong enough case for publication in comparison with other recent submissions.") But I can appreciate the editor's position. Sometimes you get a submission that is unusual and unconventional, one you know a lot of the community won't like. Who do you choose as reviewers? You can predict many people's opinions in advance, which introduces an intrinsically political aspect (if you want to kill the paper, it's easy to choose conservative reviewers, and vice versa). One approach is to ask sympathetic, open-minded reviewers but hold them to a high standard by seeing whether they can convince you to accept. The question isn't whether they recommend acceptance, and in fact the editor may know in advance that they have a soft spot for this topic. Instead, the question is how compelling and forceful a case they are able to make for this specific paper.
Of course I have no proof that this is what was going on here, but I'd bet it was. If the editors were determined to kill the submission, they would have rejected it without review or deliberately assigned unsympathetic reviewers. Instead, I think this journal gave you more of a chance than any of the other six.
>
> Could anyone give any recommendations as to how to safeguard oneself against unethical situations like those described above?
>
>
>
As I explained above, I don't think these situations are unethical, but they are still worth avoiding. One factor to consider is how often a journal publishes unorthodox or unconventional work (even if it's not on your exact topic). If they sometimes do, then they are likely to give your paper a fair hearing. If they rarely or never do, then that's probably because they are reluctant to do so.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: To add to the other answers already given: another approach that can be useful is to begin by publishing your work in a venue such as [PLoS ONE](http://www.plosone.org/) that is credible but aims to select for only for validity and not "significance" or "topic." Since it seems the main problem you've had is editors deciding that the paper is not of interest for their journal, this would nullify that problem.
PLoS ONE is an entirely respectable place to publish, though not high prestige. It is thus a fine place to get a fair review for the early papers of an unconventional topic, and to build reputation of the work that will make it easier to get accepted in more community-specific venues later. If you have problems publishing in PLoS ONE, however, it is likely that your work has serious flaws in either substance or presentation that you are not aware of.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/06 | 1,035 | 4,402 | <issue_start>username_0: A couple of cover letter use:
* I believe that I could ..
* I am confident
* I am very interested
What do you think about them? Should they be mentioned with evidences or avoid since they are feelings and may indicate uncertainty?<issue_comment>username_1: There is nothing inherently wrong with expressing your feelings in a cover letter. Your feelings, however, are not generally useful information for the reader of your letter: they don't know you, and so what basis to they have for evaluating how your feelings relate to your likelihood of making a good addition to the department?
As such, statements about feelings are generally low-value at best, and can be problematic if they are expressed in a way that causes people to have doubts about you. You *don't* have to pretend that you're a robot: it's fine to say something like "I find the interdisciplinary opportunities of this position exciting." Just know that it's an inherently low-content statement, and that more value will come from the places where you show more concrete evidence of your connections and value for the position that you are applying for.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The listed phrases don't necessarily convey uncertainty. Infact, if supported with evidence, they can become strong leading points into reading about your experiences and skills.
For example, consider the following statements in your cover letter:
1. **I believe that I can** give the a different dimension with my skill set because I have been awarded .
This interests the recruiter as (s)he would be interested in knowing how you can bring new dimension to the job and what special skills you possess that makes you stand out from the crowd.
2. **I am confident** that I have which I believe is essential for the role as I have had (say) over 5 years of experience in this field with honours.
This would again intrigue the recruiter to believe your confidence (if it is ofcourse supported with solid evidence!)
3. **I am very interested** in the because I believe that having already done , this role can help me develop my career in the field in the following ways and in turn I can help the organisation grow .
The recruiter would be interested in your past experience and look to understand how you can grow and make the business grow.
I hope that the examples are adequately clear.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Personally, I think your sentence fragments all suggest both a lack of evidence and a lack of confidence. But more importantly, I think you're simply asking the wrong question.
Instead of focusing on the detailed language of your cover letter, focus on the **content**. Who are you? What have you done? What makes you an asset to your target departments? Instead of expressing your interests, demonstrate your accomplishments and your vision. Instead of stating your beliefs or your confidence, show the reader clear evidence of your expertise and your impact. **Show, don't tell.**
The advice that I give my own students and colleagues when they apply for graduate school or for jobs or for tenure is to **aim for the next target**.
* Graduate applications should not say "Please admit me" but rather "I will become an independent researcher. Let me get on with it."
* Thesis proposals should not say "Please let me pass" but rather "I will have a strong PhD thesis. Let me get on with it."
* Thesis defenses should not say "Please let me graduate" but rather "I will get an academic job. Let me get on with it."
* Job talks should not say "Please hire me" but rather "I will get tenure. Let me get on with it."
* Tenure packages should not say "Please give me tenure" but rather "I will be a full professor. Let me get on with it."
And the way each application should "say" its message is not by stating your *interest* or *belief* or *intention* or *confidence* that you'll pass the next stage, but by presenting clear and compelling **evidence** that you'll pass the next stage. And of course you never want to actually suggest the impatience implicit in the phrase "Let me get on with it"; rather, you want to convince your audience to let you get on with it.
Don't try to convince that reader that *you* believe that you'll be successful. Make the *reader* believe that you'll be successful. Show the reader that you will be successful.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/12/06 | 1,938 | 8,258 | <issue_start>username_0: Do you suggest adding these to an academic CV?
* **Review** journals/conferences. Can adding such information creates negative issues or it would only have positive impression?
* **Non-academic service**: example, Unesco volunteer
* **Hobbies**. Many sites suggest to remove them <http://www.academiccareer.manchester.ac.uk/applications/cvs/content/> , but isn't it important to show that the applicant is not a robot? Some suggest to include them wisely <http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/03/30/how-to-get-tenure-at-a-major-research-university>
* **Languages**. Can knowing a certain language be used as a discriminate against an applicant?!<issue_comment>username_1: An academic CV is not intended to describe you as a whole person, but rather to describe your qualifications and accomplishments as an academic. The assumption is that of course you lead an ordinary human life (with hobbies, friends, family, religious beliefs or the lack thereof, etc.), but the people reading your CV are not trying to evaluate you as a human being and aren't interested in reading about the rest of your life.
Anything academic is fair game for an academic CV, including reviewing. How much to emphasize it depends on how many more important things you have to list.
Language skills are relevant to academia because they can assist with research, teaching, and public communication. You are right that this information could be used to discriminate, but I doubt this particular form of discrimination occurs often enough to be worth much worry.
Hobbies and non-academic service are generally not relevant (although there could be exceptions). It's not necessary to discuss them at all, and nobody will assume you have no hobbies or service activities if you don't mention any. It's OK to mention them in a very short section at the end of the CV if you feel it's important, but you should definitely not emphasize them. There are at least two reasons for this:
1. It could come across as cluelessness, like you think they are an important factor in hiring/tenure decisions. This certainly won't ruin your chances, but it could look silly.
2. It could be viewed as a defiant statement, along the lines of "I'm letting you know that my hobbies are particularly important to me and I intend to spend more time on them than you would like." If your CV is great otherwise you might be able to get away with this, but it will work against you. (I've seen this happen with graduate admissions, where someone devoted part of their personal statement to a favorite hobby and the committee worried that this hobby could be a distraction from research.)
Hiring committees do care about hiring reasonable colleagues who aren't going to be jerks, so human qualities are relevant (and not just academic accomplishments). Interviews shed light on this issue, as do letters of recommendation, and the CV is not so relevant.
Note that academic evaluation criteria are entirely different from undergraduate admissions in the United States. In that case, colleges are trying to assemble a self-contained community, and they really care about breadth, well-roundedness, leadership, personality, etc. Showing something about yourself as a human being is absolutely crucial. However, this is an anomaly of U.S. undergraduate admissions, and graduate admissions, faculty hiring, etc. are done completely differently. [I know your question never mentioned this comparison, but I decided to mention it for completeness since it's a common cause of confusion.]
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It probably varies with countries and institutions, but according to the [standard CV recommended/requested by the Harvard Medical School](http://cv.hms.harvard.edu/index.php?page=templates):
* Reviews: **Yes.** Reviewing grants, list of journals for which you are *ad hoc* reviewer, editorial board memberships, etc.
* Non-academic service: **Yes (to some extent).** List services that have a tie to your area of expertise (if your field is medicine, list *pro bono* work for a medical NGO, etc.)
* Hobbies: **No.**
* Languages: **No (with some exceptions)**. However, *if your mother language is neither English nor the local language*, indicate your proficiency in both, possibly with standard test scores. Excellent written English proficiency is obviously a major asset in academia, and a good knowledge of the local language can make you stand out.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes, I want to see more than your publications and academic record. In particular hobbies, languages, clubs, sports and community involvement are important to mention. Were you on the chess team, the debating team, the school paper? Have you worked commercially, managed people, run a business?
These days everything is interconnected - technology has applications, sport and art make use of technology, science studies both the inner world of mind/brain and society (social/life sciences) as well as the external world of physical entities and devices (physical/biological sciences) and the way everything relates to everything else (information/cognitive sciences).
From your community/commercial involvement I might get insight into your aims in life, you leadership ability, your willingness to work alongside other people and health. Applications of mathematics, the sciences and the arts are now strongly driven to be commercially viable. World-wide universities are driven to non-traditional research and non-traditional funding, and to hire people with appropriate experience.
I'm not interested in a statement of purpose or some other hype that sounds more like something out of a fortune cookie than the kind of evidential data that belongs in formal curriculum vitae.
From your interest in languages or writing, your experience in debating or the school paper, I will gain ideas about how you'll go writing/reviewing/marking/examining a thesis or a paper or a grant, how you will approach/understand the literature, whether you can work on particular interdisciplinary or application-oriented parts of the research.
From your interest in music or dance, sports or photography, I might find connections that relate to (say) projects in computer science or engineering, in signal processing, image processing, speech processing - or extend them in new directions to song recognition or music transcription.
When people are indistinguishable on paper in terms of formal criteria, it is often these extras that will tip the balance and tell me who is best for the job.
The people who say to remove these things are the kind of people who want to fit other people neatly into boxes. I wouldn't employ any of them!
I'm not exactly sure what OP means by "review conferences/journals", but published reviews and indeed all papers you have written should be included, and reviewing for conferences, journals and funding bodies is something that is worth mentioning for someone who is applying for a job early in their academic career. Later in your career, I'd be looking for membership of program committees and editorial boards, and there should be so many venues you've reviewed for it wouldn't be worth the dozen extra pages to list them all. I review dozens of papers a year for countless conferences and journals...
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: I'm adding here an answer for the "languages" part of the question.
* **Languages**: **Mandatory in some fields**
First, you have fields where knowing some languages is mandatory *per se*, this is mostly the case for ancient languages (akkadian, egyptian, ancient greek, etc.) and for history (you have to be able to read at least English, German and French if you want to do a great job at studying WW2 history).
Second, in some fields, such as Egyptology for instance (I know that first hand, my wife being one them ;)), research papers can be written indifferently in English, French, German or Italian. If you know all four languages you can read the complete bibliography, otherwise you cannot, and not all scholars in the field can read or speak all four languages so this can be a huge advantage to have that in your CV if this is the case.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/07 | 626 | 2,726 | <issue_start>username_0: I spent a year at a community college working in industry straight out of high school. I recently got into a top cs program and will be attending starting spring 2015. However, the school only gave me until spring 2017 to finish my degree, which means I will be at the 4-year university for 5 semesters. Will I be at a disadvantage when applying to top graduate schools in comparison to my peers, who have been at their university for 4 years? I am a CS major who will attend a top cs program.
Also, due to my transfer situation, I feel that I am severely disadvantaged in terms of research opportunities. This is because for most of the labs at my school, professors have formal requirements which often entail good grades in high-level electives specific to the research. Unfortunately, I probably won't have time to complete many of these electives, and even if I do, it will most likely be during my last year. I want to get started in research as soon as possible, but I also know that I don't have much specific experience for my fields of interest (which include AI, NLP, machine learning, and data mining). How should I reconcile these gaps, and what tips do you have for a new student getting engaged in research?<issue_comment>username_1: Some things you might consider:
1) Doing a master's degree at a good CS program before applying for a PhD. This will give you an extra year or two to participate in research.
2) Contacting professors outside your university for research opportunities.
3) Doing unpaid independent studies with professors and later graduating to paid, formal research opportunities. (Many professors won't have time for this, but it's worth a try I think.)
The usual advice for contacting professors holds (be enthusiastic and demonstrate a sincere interest in their work).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Simply having attended a community college earlier in your academic career is not going to hurt you if you have a degree, good grades, good letters of recommendation, etc. from a top program as well as all the other stuff that matters like good tests scores and research experience. Having attended a lower status school is not a permanent black mark and simply will not matter if your subsequent work proves that you are top-notch student and researcher.
Having less research experience than your peers who are applying for the same graduate positions will put you at a disadvantage. username_1's answer on how you might go about getting that given your relatively shorter period of time at a research university is good as are the answers to many other related questions on this site about getting research experience as an undergraduate.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/07 | 1,569 | 6,631 | <issue_start>username_0: You would think that profs are living the high life when lectures are over and all they have to do is to hand out the exam (in a couple weeks) and grade them. But when I tried to get a hold of the profs, they seem to be busier than ever. One prof even stopped holding office hours all together and handed those duties to the TAs.
What do profs usually do after all lectures has stopped, and in general, when are profs most free in terms of their faculty duties during a semester?<issue_comment>username_1: The end of the semester particularly the period between the end of lectures and when students finally leave campus (which may be well after you've submitted grades) can be the busiest part of the semester because that's when you spend a lot of time dealing individually with students that have questions, complaints, or problems. The reason that this is so time consuming is that there are typically lots of these students, and each complaining student can easily take an hour out of your day.
Meanwhile you may also be grading a lot of term papers or student projects and you're also busy writing, proctoring, and grading final exams.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It varies from university to university and from academic to academic, but here are some of the things that can keep professors/lecturers busy, apart from lectures and exams:
* Doing research
* Serving on committees
* Preparing for the next course/semester
* Advising/supervising students
* Catching up on missed work
Moreover, grading exams can be very time consuming in itself.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Oh, they are busy... Let me give you an insight to my professor's and my own schedule (I'm lecturer, not yet regular professor as I am still lacking the habilitation thesis).
We have a short meeting every working day at 7.30 to organise the daily business and schedule big meetings for big issues.
After that there is always enough to do: Those who lecture always have something to prepare: Writing or correcting scripts, correcting theseis and exams, preparing slides, organising participants for congresses (or participate themselves) and prepare talks for such events. Many professors and lecturers also hold talks outside of university, so there's also this stuff to prepare.
Then there are commitees. Mine has to organise a major congress in March 2015, we are already very busy now: Contacting possible participants, reading through all the literature the participants wrote on the topic, preparing our own papers and talks in response to it, etc.
My working day starts at 7.30 and normally doesn't end before 7 to 8PM. Just yesterday I attended a congress from another commitee and including the dinner (where you also keep discussing) I spend my saturday at university from 7 in the morning until 11pm...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Last year, <NAME> published an essay in Inside Higher Ed titled ["How I spent Summer 'Vacation'"](https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2013/10/02/essay-documenting-what-faculty-member-does-summer) that provides a nearly comprehensive account of what professors do during their non-teaching time.
A very incomplete list of things that Professor Hargittai mentions that she did over a single summer "vacation" include:
**Teaching and Mentoring**: syllabus design; assignment and exam preparation; reading recently published materials in an area to be covered by a class; advising students on independent work; reading and commenting on drafts of papers, dissertations, etc; converting student from incomplete; discussing graduate school with potential applications; designing and conducting general examinations; conducting dissertation proposal defenses; conducting dissertation defenses; preparing for any/all of the above.
**Research**: IRB proposal creation and revision; catching up on the literature in one's field; collecting data; analyzing data; writing up papers; responding to reviews; writing book proposals; courting editors at presses; recommending reviewers; traveling to and attending conferences; organizing logistics for travel to conferences; preparing presentations for conferences; designing and writing grant proposals; reviewing grant proposals; interviewing and hiring research staff.
**Service**: researching or writing letters of recommendation; writing tenure letters; preparing tenure/promotion files; writing reviews; acting as an editor or associate editor for a journal or conference; miscellaneous work on committees including reading graduate applications, designing department wide curriculum, creating job descriptions for new faculty positions.
All of these things are much harder, or even impossible, to do when classes are in session.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: * Not before the exams, because they will be busy preparing exam questions.
* Not during the exams, because they will be dealing with exam logistics such as finding an exam room and students who ask last minute questions.
* Not after the exams, because they will need to grade the exams.
* Not after grades are announced, because many students will be trying to complain about their grade.
* Not before the end of the semester, since they will be assigning letter grades and responding to students who want to get a better grade.
* Not at the beginning of the school year or other times when prospective graduate students are looking for an advisor.
* Not on holiday breaks, since they will likely be busy with the holiday.
* Not in the middle of summer, since they may have decided to use the free time to get a lot of traveling to conferences done.
* Not in fall since that's when a lot of grant deadlines are due.
* Not in late spring/early summer/late summer, since that's the most common time thesis defenses are done.
Generally, I don't think you can expect to find any specific time that professors are reliably found to be more available. There are usually many, many people competing for a professor's time, and together they comprise a very efficient market. If it is ever noticed that a given professor tends to be free around a certain time, everyone will immediately prioritize that time, hoping to catch the professor free, and thereby destroying the availability.
Many professors have brief, transient periods of being less busy than usual, but these are chaotically distributed in time and impossible to easily predict without careful analysis of the professor in question. Unless you regularly interact with a professor, your best bet is to just ask them when they are free.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/07 | 167 | 754 | <issue_start>username_0: My supervisor has already invited formally the professor to be my examiner.
Do I need to invite the professor personally as he may learn more about my work?
Is there any conflict of interest to do so?<issue_comment>username_1: The way in which doctoral examiners are selected will differ between countries, between universities within countries, and within schools. Ask your supervisor for advice on what you should do here and follow their instructions.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Ask your supervisor but I've never heard of PhD students being expected to invite people to examine them. You're right to worry about conflicts of interest and appearing to try to influence your examiner by contacting them.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/07 | 850 | 3,231 | <issue_start>username_0: I've recently typed up a mathematics research paper, but I would like to make it appear more formal when I submit it to be peer-reviewed.
Also, how would I be able to incorporate LATEX into my paper?
Are there any templates out there that follow formats similar (maybe even exact) to examples such as [this](http://www.math.umbc.edu/~gobbert/latex/template.pdf) and [this one](http://www.ams.jhu.edu/~ers/learn-latex/paper.pdf).<issue_comment>username_1: I would recommend using the amsart LaTeX format: <http://www.ctan.org/pkg/amsart>
If you would like an intro to LaTeX itself, consider going through the wikibook: <http://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Often, the journal you want to submit to will provide a LaTeX template. Look at its "Guide for Authors" section.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: You can download the latex sources of the vast majority of (actually almost all) math preprints posted to arXiv. Just go to the abstract page of your favorite math paper and click on "Other formats" under "Download." There you can find the link to the source file in latex as long as the author(s) uploaded it and complied by arXiv's latex engine (which pretty much everyone does).
I think reading the actual sources of nicely typeset papers you like is a very effective way to learn how to latex.
For example, here's the abstract page of my latest preprint:
<http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.2559>
and its source is here:
<http://arxiv.org/format/1409.2559v4>
To get the latex file I submitted, click "Download source" near the bottom right.
The file is in compressed format. But as the arXiv page says, your browser may uncompress the file. My Google Chrome for Mac does this, so what I actually get by clicking the download link is a latex file, which is named "1409.2559v4" with no extension. If your browser behaves the same way, you can simply rename the file to attach ".tex" at the end if the extension is important.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: The question is based on something of a misunderstanding. On Stack Exchange, it is possible to incorporate LaTeX into a post by using dollar signs. However, when you're writing a stand-alone document, you don't "incorporate" LaTeX: rather, you write the whole document in LaTeX. (An analogy would be asking "How do I incorporate MS Word into a document?" You dont – you write the whole document that way.)
As such, you'll have to re-typeset the whole document using LaTeX, if that's the route you want to go down. The good news is that a LaTeX document looks a lot like a Stack Exchange post when you're editing it. It's mostly just a text file, with ordinary text as text and mathematics in dollar signs. (Plus a "preamble" of initialization commands at the top, and a few commands within the document, such as to start a new section.) So you can mostly copy-paste from your Word document (or whatever it is you used for the first version), put dollar signs around short pieces of maths that appear in the main text (e.g., `Pythagoras proved that $a^2+b^2=c^2$.`) You will have to re-work the displayed equations and any more complex pieces of inline mathematics.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/07 | 714 | 3,244 | <issue_start>username_0: My supervisor encouraged me to apply for a conference presentation, as he had funding for me to go. The problem was that I had no results at the time, since the conference date was six months after the abstract deadline. At the time I thought I would have results in time so I wrote an abstract (stating what I plan to do and why it is important, but posted no results) and got accepted for a poster presentation.
Now it is 1 week before the conference and I have very poor results. I was able to complete the experiment, but the the results are much too poor to present. Unfortunately I have no time to redo anything and do not have any previous research (am a masters student). Which one of these is worse?:
1. Presenting meaningless results just so you can present
2. Presenting a vague poster (show the theory, methodology, importance, but no tangible results) to get around poor data.
3. Not showing up to the conference and get a partial refund.<issue_comment>username_1: I would recommend another option: present the current truth of your work and results. You can get feedback on the methods and approach and somebody may even be able to point out adjustments to your approach that may help the work. Even just talking to people outside of your lab can be an important part of developing as a researcher. Don't try to hide the state of your work or pretend you have more than you have: people will be able to tell and it will not help you. Instead present yourself as you are: an early student looking for interaction around these ideas.
Note, of course, that this is all subject to your professor's approval: they know your community better than random strangers on the internet.
Finally: let this be a lesson for the future. Don't give in to pressure to claim results that you may not get. It is always better to say "And here are some new results not mentioned in the abstract..." than to explain why you can't deliver what you promised.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: As so often, this may be field-specific, so I'm giving a CS perspective:
Posters are not full papers. Often, it is totally acceptable that a poster presents work in progress, or preliminary results. While a paper adds some vague hints to separate future steps in continuing the research after presenting a finished contribution, on a poster, that can well be the other way round.
Therefore: Use the opportunity to show what you have done so far and where you want to go from there on your poster. Reconsider what the gist of the poster is - you may have to give up the plan that the poster is about your results, and switch the focus of your poster to talking about your research process. That way, you can present the goal of your poster to collect comments and suggestions on how to retrieve some meaningful results in the direction you're interested in.
Like this, you are not presenting just so you can present, you are presenting because it is the best way to get concrete comments by other researchers.
Of course, it depends on what exactly you have written in your poster abstract. If you explicitly said there that the poster will focus on results, the situation may be more problematic.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/12/07 | 2,537 | 10,357 | <issue_start>username_0: Currently, in my CV, the first section is the *About me* section. It goes like this (I'll reserve the format of the text):
>
> **Broad knowledge,** is why my friends are proud of me.
>
> **Never stops asking questions,** is what my advisor values in me.
>
>
>
I wonder if writing like this gives makes me look bad. Will the recruiters see me as a confident person, get a better picture of me (which is the impression I want to convey), or will they see me as just arrogant, lacking self-esteem and paranoid?
Next sections are *Education*, *Research Experience* and *Activities*. They are about one page and a half long.
What do you think? Please be frank. Thank you so much.
---
Thanks to the many people who answered my question, I get that I should save it for the SOP. However, there are some occasions where I'm only asked to send my CV and not a cover letter with it. Should I still keep the "About me" section as a mini SOP in such cases? If it sounds like "platitudes, clichés, and self-compliments" (thanks for being frank, I do need it), how about this idea I just came up with?
>
> I chose science because I want to know everything. I chose physics because I think it is the buttress of other disciplines.
>
>
>
I can make it better later.<issue_comment>username_1: My sense is that broad platitudes, clichés, and self-compliments like the ones you've included are not going to be particularly helpful. I would skip them.
Stick to the basics. There are many websites and templates online that will help give you a sense for what is appropriate and expected. In general, the risk of trying to be creative, especially when you don't have a good sense of your audience or what is expecting, will probably outweigh the potential benefits. If the problem is that your CV is short and weak, there are other questions like [this one](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/19099/5962) that might be of some help.
Most importantly, make sure that you have your CV carefully proofread by a native speaker. *Both of your two examples sentences are written in poor English*. If you put those sentences at the top of your CV, you're going to be sending a message that you probably would rather not.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: In a résumé, you want to list facts and what you achieved.
I do not think anybody cares about what your friends think of you.
Those sentences look extremely cheesy because of their structure, in addition to being grammatically wrong. If you write that, you WILL scare whoever reads your CV.
They are also useless as they do not mean anything specific and are not verifiable, they do not contain any HR-drone buzzwords either.
I would skip the About Me section, you can list any meaningful hobbies you have under Activities or whatever that means.
If you want to, you can add a "Profile" section at the top, but just do a brief sum up of your professional profile.
Remember that you can write about yourself and how your characteristics would make you a good fit in the cover letter.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: 1) This is nonstandard, so people are likely to view you as odd, or at the very least unfamiliar with academic norms.
2) On a CV, you should prioritize specific, tangible achievements over things that literally anyone could say about themselves. You say you have broad knowledge, but will anyone believe you? It doesn't do anything to differentiate you from people who could also claim to have broad knowledge. Save that for your letters of reference.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: When I read a CV, I'm looking for why I should hire you. In particular, I'm looking for two things - how useful you're going to be in the first 90 days (how relevant is your experience right now!) and how easy you will learn things for the next 3 years (how broad is your experience, implying you can learn things as this field changes). I'm in computer programming, but I've found this holds for most fields.
I don't care about what your friends say about you. I care about what you have done. So, skills, experience, then education/other (in that order).
Remember - this is a sales pitch. You are marketing and selling yourself. Anyone who tells you a CV is anything else is wrong.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: This answer will be somewhat U.S. centric. In the U.S., almost everyone *except* academics makes something they call a "résumé". But people applying for academic jobs make something else that they call a "vita" (a curriculum vitae). There is a significant distinction between the two documents, so if you speak with people in the U.S. you have to be clear which one you mean. And, if someone asks for a vita, you need to get a sense of what they are looking for.
Quoting briefly from Wikipedia's article "[curriculum vitae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curriculum_vitae)":
>
> "In the United Kingdom, most Commonwealth countries, and Ireland, a C.V. is short (usually a maximum of two sides of A4 paper), and therefore contains only a summary of the job seeker's employment history, qualifications, education, and some personal information. ... In the United States a C.V. is used in academic circles and medical careers as a "replacement" for a résumé and is far more comprehensive; the term résumé (a French word which literally means "summary") is used for most recruitment campaigns. "
>
>
>
A U.S. academic vita is essentially just an objective list of the things you have done in your career. For example, here are vitas for [Terence Tao](http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/preprints/cv.html) (math) and [<NAME>](https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~jclee/cv/julia_cv.pdf) (physics). There is no direct "sell", and the vita is not customized much (if at all) for specific applications. It's just a summary of your life. Sometimes, well-established people make a "summary" vita, which is just a shorter vita that omits less important information. There is very little "personal opinion", and very little to no commentary. "Just the facts."
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: You should not have just one CV, but you should tailor your CV based on the recipient. The distinction Veblen makes [in his answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32896/24914) between resume and vitae is useful to bear in mind (although I do not make this distinction in what follows), and it is also important to bear in mind that expectations about what should appear in a CV vary between countries and industries. For example, CVs in Germany tend to be very long (e.g., I have just edited a German CV that is nine dense pages long), exhaustively documenting every post held, with every committee you served on at each post, every professional society attended, every journal for whom you have refereed, etc; and furthermore there is a strong expectation in Germany that the CV contains only objective information. In the UK, by contrast, CVs are expected to be short, most typically two pages, and it is quite acceptable to list only your most significant places of employment, and to add subjective information, such as what you consider to be your biggest achievement during the period you held a post.
In general, testimonials may be valuable in some applications, but they should be attributed, it should be clear why the testimonial is credible, and they are probably better in your cover letter than a CV, and if you do put them in your CV, I recommend that you have a testimonial section in your CV. They are more acceptable in the US than in Europe.
You ask about *occasions where I'm only asked to send my CV and not a cover letter with it* - this is a place where putting more and more subjective information into a CV may be useful. It is common for recruiters to want just your CV: be aware that the standard of ethics in the recruiting business is not high and you should not be too dependent on their services.
If in doubt, *contact the human resources department* of the institution to whom you apply before sending anything. Doing so demonstrates initiative, often will yield useful tips on an unofficial basis, might give you insight into what and how many applications there are for the post, and may help you avoid what the intitution regards as mistakes in a CV.
It is possible to provide supplementary information about your career if you have a page on a website, and provide the URL to this page at the top of your CV. It's common to link to Linked In pages, although bespoke pages offer more flexibility for you to tailor your presentation, include more subjective information, and probably will have higher information density and attractiveness than these networking websites can offer. I do not recommend putting exhaustive information about your career online: this material can be abused.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: To me, it seems you are trying to include in your CV the content that belongs to your **cover letter**.
As previous answers highlighted, a CV is mainly to present **actual past achievements**. This should be a document that looks as **objective, removed of feelings and subjective opinions** as possible.
That's why the **cover letter** is a natural complement to the CV: this is where you present your achievements and yourself in a more **human aspect**: you describe not only your achievements, but also **why and how** you did them, how do you work in a team, etc. However, you still have to be, or at least sound like, as **factual and professional** as possible: the interviewer is not your pal, he/she doesn't want to know what your friends think of you, but how you will handle your work and **how you will fit in the professional setting**.
This is not to say that you cannot put a bit of subjective info in your CV, for example some people put at the head of the first page (just below the name and contact details) a short description of their academic education and their short-term and long-term goals (eg, "I have a PhD from the Amazing University, and I intend to work in the field of subquantic fields for panoptic pathologies." -- this is total gibberish, but you see the point).
So the bottom line is that **if you want to give some insight about you, you should provide a cover letter, do not add this info inside your CV**.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/07 | 737 | 3,124 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm interested in going to grad school for a master's in computer science (I'm also applying to a MS/MBA program at a few schools). I have a 3.8 GPA from a highly regarded school, 99th percentile GRE scores, and not much else. I have no publications or research, minimal connections with professors, and my references will likely be only average. I do have some internship experience though. Should I bother?<issue_comment>username_1: First of all, you should know that GPA is mostly used as a negative factor. This means good GPA does not guarantee your spot in graduate school but bad GPA will definitely hurt your chance. GRE is the same but it has lower weight than GPA. In order to be accepted to top schools in US for PhD program you must have strong letter of recommendation and at least some quarters/semesters of research experiences.
You mentioned you GPA but you did not specify what GPA you mean? is that your overall GPA or major GPA?
regarding the question"Should I bother"? Yes. you should apply and you might have a good chance of being accepted to top schools in US for MS program since MS admission is handled different from PhD admission.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I'm interested in going to grad school for a master's in computer science
>
>
>
There are two distinct types of masters degrees in computer science, at least in the US.
One is the professional masters degree, which is entirely course-based. Professional masters are considered terminal degrees; by pursuing such a degree you are cutting off (or at least drastically reducing) any future opportunity to join a PhD program. Also, professional masters students are rarely funded. You pay tuition, you take classes, you get your degree, and you leave, with a higher salary. High grades and test scores can *definitely* get you into these programs, even in top departments.
The other is the research masters degree, which requires some courses, but also includes a research component ending in a thesis. Research masters programs are often used as preparation for, or even soft entry into, PhD programs. Thanks to an explosion of undegraduate CS majors, it's become much more common for research masters students to be funded. Gaining admission to such a program, at least in top departments, usually requires more than just high grades and high test scores. You also need some evidence of research potential (which doesn't necessarily mean actual research experience).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: It is not clear what you want to do - research or industry. If the former, then you have no research experience in your degree program, which is a concern. You don't know if you like it, the grad school doesn't know if you like it or are at all good at it.. Maybe take a year and get a 'real job' while sorting this out. You can hire on at your school maybe as a tech, or as a saleried position for research programming type positions.
I am not sure you really need a MS to get into IT though, maybe you want to try the working world for a while before you change your mind?
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/07 | 452 | 1,944 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently writing my statement of purpose (SOP) for top graduate schools in engineering majors in US. I am wondering should I include name of my potential advisor on my SOP (Is it a good idea to do that)? The problem is I am thinking if I do not include name of advisor it might be the sign I did not look at his/her research page and I am not very specific about my plan. On the other side, if I include name of potential advisor and my application is not competitive or he/she is not accepting any graduate student this might cause others not to look at my application since they might think I am not interested in their research.<issue_comment>username_1: Faculty at a top-10 school in aerospace engineering gave a former student of mine the advice of indicating *several* professors whose research he was interested in, for exactly the reasons you suggest: by showing too narrow a scope, it makes it harder for other researchers to gain interest, and by just submitting a "generic" SOP, you run the risk of looking like you're not doing your homework. Showing an interest in several faculty makes it easier for *someone* to advocate for you in the admissions committee.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think it's standard to list some potential advisors. It shows you know what you want and you have a good reason to be interested in the school. And if none of the advisors you want are taking students, do you really want to attend the school in the first place?
(In the long run I think it's better to get rejected from a school than to go there and realize there's no one there who wants to work with you who you would also be willing to work with.)
I would also go into some detail about the area of research you are interested in. This is a good chance to display your familiarity with the topic/maturity as a researcher, and it will help them assess whether they have spots for you.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/07 | 203 | 862 | <issue_start>username_0: I have some questions regarding graduate admission (PHD) in us university. The guidelines stated on the maximum university websites are that they require academic transcripts. My question is that, are the Bachelor of Science (BSc) and Masters of Science (MSc ) transcripts only?
or I will have to send all the academic records(verified) from the childhoods?<issue_comment>username_1: It refers only to BSc and MSc scores.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Most of the time—and definitely in the United States and Canada—it refers to only the transcripts from post-secondary schools. In some European countries (such as Germany), they may want to see the secondary school transcripts (or at least proof of graduation from a secondary school). However, in such cases, they will usually state so explicitly.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/07 | 1,782 | 7,601 | <issue_start>username_0: On the one hand, I'd like to produce a few graphs every week so my project can move forward. Taking a month off to learn a new programming language, do a literature review, or work through a relevant textbook would hurt the pace of my research, and my advisor would wonder why I haven't done anything for a month.
On the other hand, if I take time off to learn a new skill, it may make my research faster and more efficient in the future.
What is the best way to balance these competing demands?<issue_comment>username_1: I think this is an instance of a more general problem, of trading off short-term efforts to hit particular milestones vs. longer-term investments. Those longer-term investments might be learning a new skill, but might as easily be organizing your thoughts, refactoring a code base, improving your work environment, hunting through the literature, etc.
When you can do both at once, it's ideal, but often that's not the case. If you focus on the short term, you end up in danger of neglecting the forest for the trees. If you go for the long term, you might end up engaged in some serious [yak shaving](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving).
I personally struggle with this quite a bit, especially when you also consider the additional responsibilities of writing papers and pursuing grants. The best solution that I have found so far is essentially duty cycling. On any given day, I will decide which task is my primary goal for the day, and just keep switching to make sure that neither short-term nor long-term is getting unduly neglected.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: A common fallacy I observe in students I supervise is that they think they need to spend some time "learning X" *before* they can use X productively in their research.
If you are doing research, the most efficient way to "learn X" (where X is a programming language, methodology, or subject area, that may be of use in your research) is almost always to learn it by immediately applying it directly to your research.
In other words, I tell my students that if they are "taking time off" to learn something before starting to use it in their work, they are doing it wrong.
I would give the same advice to you: instead of taking time off to learn a new skill, start applying it to your research *right now*. You might be a little slower than usual for a couple of weeks (because you aren't comfortable with the new skill yet), but you'll still be making forward progress on your research, while learning the new thing.
Edit: This applies even *more* if the thing you are learning is a fundamental skill, and not an "extra" technique. Fundamental skills include things like writing readable code, scientific writing, keeping good notes, etc. The best way to learn these things is to actively and consciously work on them *as you do research.* It's not generally effective to take "time off" to read some books, *then* go back to doing research and start practicing the things you read about.
If it's a new skill that can't be directly applied to your research, then you definitely shouldn't take time off to learn it. But you might consider spending time on it [during intervals of downtime](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28336/what-productive-academic-work-can-you-do-with-minimal-attention-in-a-small-30). You can't spend 100% of your working time on your primary research anyways (mental fatigue sets in at some point), so spend time learning the new skill when you need a break.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: This is something I think about a lot as well. Even if you learn new things while doing research, you will still be slower and there are always things you want to learn that aren't directly connected to your ongoing projects.
I asked my advisor about this trade-off once and his recommendation was to do enough work to get to the next stage (ie do enough as a grad student to get a good post-doc, enough as a post-doc to get a faculty job) and then spend the rest of your time learning and thinking about new things. I'm actually quite fond of that answer, but the key is in knowing how much is enough!
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Have other people review what you produce.
Learn by doing is wonderful when it works but if you don't show your work to others you're trusting the judgment of someone who actually doesn't know what they're doing aren't you? :)
In the agile world of software development the typical time box is two weeks. Produce something (in your case a graph) in two weeks then subject it to review by other people. If it fails you go back and fix it. Otherwise move on to the next graph. Learn what you need to know to make each thing as you go. Sure, your first few graphs will suck compared to your later ones but worry about that when you're sure you can do better AND you have time.
You can fiddle with the two week time box but keep in mind that the more time you have between reviews the more rope you've got to hang yourself with. It really stinks to spend two months making something only to be told its worthless or already exists. You can try to make the time box smaller. The risk there is that your reviewer will get sick of helping you if you ask for reviews to often.
Neat trick here is that almost everyone can be effective as a reviewer even when they aren't an expert in what you are doing. So you can take your work before many people to get feedback so long as you can get them interested.
This way you get results and learn as you go. You will learn mostly what you need to know to finish that project. If you are feeling the need to take time off to learn new skills then what you're really asking for isn't time off. It's another project. One that needs those skills.
Sometimes a project runs you into an area where your skill set is weak. That's bound to happen eventually. You can respond by panicking and putting everything on hold while you fill in your skill set or you can get some help from someone and create a plan to learn and create just what you need to get back to your project.
If, say, you want to learn something (that helps you make graphs) then great, what are you going to make while you learn it? If you can't produce a graph in two weeks what can you produce? Break the problem down until the first chunk is something you're confident you can do in two weeks. Whatever it is you should also find a way to test it. If it's a language, and you've made something that works, you can get it peer reviewed at <https://codereview.stackexchange.com/>. So yeah, you're right back into that two week time box. When times up you darn well should have made something to show someone.
Sometimes you just need some more freedom to explore. A long demanding project can become a tyrant in your life. It will force you to learn what it needs, not necessarily what you find interesting. Taking time away from it and working on something related can be good to help you refresh but don't fool yourself into thinking you're accomplishing something while doing this. At most you're just learning something.
I've been programming professionally in Java for about 4 years now. You might think I'd be done learning it by now, but no, I haven't. I've been programming in some language or another for decades. You might think there is some language that I'm done learning, but no, there isn't.
I'd hate to think what would have happened if I waited to be done learning a language before producing something in it. Probably not a career.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/08 | 861 | 3,180 | <issue_start>username_0: When I was doing literature review, I came across a [paper](https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CBwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaxwellsci.com%2Fprint%2Frjaset%2Fv5-3015-3020.pdf&ei=7X6FVM3wDImIuATrooBQ&usg=AFQjCNFojANCyhn4EZAL_SkL5ljblDhtPA&bvm=bv.80642063,d.c2E) published in a journal [Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology](http://maxwellsci.com/jp/j2p.php?jid=RJASET).
Now, I can't find this paper anywhere else, no citations, or anything. Just the pdf that I linked above. Also, the journal website looks shady as links don't work and it just does not have the make or look of an academic journal. Additionally, I couldn't even find anything about the authors.
What should be done in such cases? Should the paper be completely ignored or put in the review section?<issue_comment>username_1: The reasons these journals are called predatory is because they prey on unwary researchers looking for places to publish their work, tricking them into publishing with them rather than in legitimate places. So just because a paper is in a predatory journal does not mean that it is necessarily bad work.
However, this paper still needs to be treated with greatly heightened suspicion: it should be assumed that it has not had any peer review, and that the authors are unfamiliar enough with the area and with the normal practices of science that they could be tricked by a predatory journal. Alternately, they may have sent the work to the journal intentionally because they needed another line on their CV and knew the paper was not going to survive real peer review.
Thus, although such a paper *might* be legitimate, it is also very likely to be of low quality and may well even be fraudulent or [simply nonsense](http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/11/20/bogus-journal-accepts-profanity-laced-anti-spam-paper/). It can also cause trouble for *you* if you cite it, as readers may think that you are not informed enough to tell the difference between real research and predatory crap.
I would thus suggest treating the paper like a random PDF found on the web: it might be usable as a primary source (e.g., like a newspaper opinion piece or a personal essay), or to point you for looking for similar information elsewhere. If this information has only ever been published in this one paper in a fake journal, however, it should be considered to effectively not be published at all: the context in which it has been found casts so much doubt on its likelihood of being legitimate, and anything substantive will likely develop multiple real publications over time.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The question of whether to cite should be based on whether the work provides relevant context, whether you have been informed by the work, or if you have built off of the work.
The question of whether the work appears in a fraudulent journal is a red herring.
Was the work useful to you? If yes, cite it.
Did you build off of this work? If yes, cite it.
Does it provide useful context related to the problem that you're trying to solve? If yes, cite it.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/08 | 556 | 2,378 | <issue_start>username_0: I have received a letter of recommendation which clearly has been written by my referee's assistant, rather than himself. That in itself wouldn't be a problem if it didn't contain phrases such as *what's more...* and *like event study etc*.
What should I do about this? Do I just forget about the reference? Do I very carefully suggest to the assistant to make some minor changes (this letter is based on a previous draft I was asked to submit)?
It may also be worth noting that the referee is the first supervisor for my thesis and I do not want to seem ungrateful by requesting changes to my letter of recommendation.
It seems to me that the use of the phrase *what's more* in a letter of recommendation is per se unacceptable, but my native language is German, so any comments by native speakers of English in this regard is appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: I would certainly request a corrected version. Like you said, in a careful measure, I would keep the tone of the message somewhere along the lines "some minor mistakes, happens to all of us, but these little changes go a long way in credibility of the letter". In other words, don't criticize, put together a list of things you want corrected and send them to the referee. I deduce from your question that the letter was proxy-written, i.e. you haven't been told that it was the assistant who wrote it. That's why I'm recommending to contact the referee and not the assistant. However, if that is not the case, include both of them.
I can't see why someone other than an extreme ego-maniac would choose not to correct their own grammar mistakes. Even it they for whatever reason do, it's still better than just to "forget about the reference".
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Start in an e-mail to the referencer "Dear Dr. X, Thank-you ever so much for the reference letter." If there was something nice brought up in it like "Constantin was an excellent student", thank them for the kind words while citing the letter. Then, after you say your thanks, bring up the minor errors (don't list them exhaustively) asking if they could correct them, please. Thank them for their time in reading your e-mail.
If they can't correct it, say thanks. If they can correct it, say thanks and that you really appreciate them taking time out of their busy day.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/08 | 1,454 | 6,178 | <issue_start>username_0: When writing a PhD thesis on mathematics one needs to quote many results by others, such as
>
> The following theorem was proved by ABC in [1].
>
>
> **Theorem**. Bla, bla, bla...
>
>
>
My question is when should one include a proof of the result in his/her PhD thesis, if it is basically the same as in the reference? I do not quite see the point of copy-pasting the proof by others. Of course if one has a completely different proof of the same result, it is probably suitable to include it.<issue_comment>username_1: Generally, you should only need to reproduce the proof verbatim in cases where you need to dissect it, call out one part of the proof in particular, or you intend to extend it directly using similar arguments, otherwise, stating the theorem and citing a work where it is proved should be sufficient.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As a general rule, you can cite other people's theorems without explaining their proofs, and omitting a proof is a good idea if it would be a lengthy distraction. However, there are several reasons why including such a proof could be helpful:
1. Including it may be convenient for the reader if the proof is short. It's annoying to look up another paper and discover that you only needed a short argument that could easily have been explained in the original paper. Extracting information from a reference can be cumbersome (you have to locate exactly what you're looking for, figure out what it depends on, sort out the notation, etc.), while giving your own explanation can help readers avoid some of these difficulties.
2. Even if the proof is not particularly short, it may serve as a warm-up for new applications of the same techniques. Reminding the reader how they work may make your paper much easier to read than if you just dive into the newest and most complicated case.
Ph.D. dissertations are something of a special case, because your advisor may encourage you to include extra details in the background sections (beyond what you might include in a published paper). This is partly a matter of demonstrating your mastery of the area and partly a matter of writing a useful survey for others. Advisors differ in how they approach this: some think it's a waste of time and it's best just to focus on writing a published paper, while others think writing a more extensive dissertation is a valuable learning exercise. This is an issue you should discuss with your advisor.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I don't see any reason to copy a proof found somewhere else. I think its fine to say that this result and its proof can be found on this article. In my opinion, the proofs in a dissertation should be your own.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: This is a good question, and as username_2 indicates, it is well worth discussing with your advisor.
Essentially what you are asking is whether and when to include *exposition* in your PhD thesis. The answer is that it is rarely strictly required, but it is often expected, in many cases encouraged, and in some cases not necessary. There are a lot of nuances here and I don't foresee a comprehensive general answer being possible. (username_2's answer is excellent, and I am essentially corroborating it.)
Mathematics has a proud tradition of PhD theses having significant expository content. (In [my thesis](http://alpha.math.uga.edu/%7Epete/thesis.pdf), Chapter 0 is expository. It occupies about half of the thesis. This is a bit on the lengthy side, but not so unusual.)
One reason that this is done is because a PhD thesis is usually the last chance that your mentors get to lean on you and require that you show your mastery of highly difficult, technical concepts. When I am a committee member on a math PhD thesis, I generally want to see at least enough exposition to convince me that the writer has mastered the concepts, definitions and objects used in the thesis. Especially, I want to see key definitions in a lot of detail, even if they are long and taken from other sources.
Another reason this is done is that the cultural standard in mathematics is that PhD theses can be significantly more discursive than published papers. When a PhD thesis gets converted to a paper, often there is a compression of 2:1 or more in terms of the page count, and often the results that appear in the paper are stronger than what appear in the thesis. (In mathematics, I gather unlike some other fields, one most often publishes the lion's share of one's thesis work *after* completing the thesis, not before.) Something's gotta give, and often math papers published in the strongest journals are written so that every single page contains an important new idea or truly difficult calculation. This density of content is a point of pride of the top journals, but it can make the papers awfully difficult to read. A lot of theses are famous for being the best sources of exposition for the topics they contain.
Having said all this, it seems clear that little value is added by "copy-pasting". Taken literally: copying lengthy proofs verbatim from other sources would be plagiarism if carried too far. Most exposition in a PhD thesis is filling a gap in the literature, not reproducing it. Good exposition synthesizes several sources, offers new perspectives (including a bridge to the novel results, as **AM** mentions), chooses notation and hypotheses in a globally appropriate way, and so forth.
Finally: formal proof is often the least important part of good mathematical exposition. Getting the definitions and statements just right and putting them in context is more important. Most contemporary math PhD theses build on significant technical foundations, *not all of which the username_3 is expected to be personally conversant with*. A PhD thesis is not supposed to be "logically self-contained" in any formal sense, only to demonstrate mastery in the eyes of the committee members and to be a useful document for the reader in the eyes of the advisor and (most importantly) the writer. If you are thinking of more or less copying a proof "for completeness", that may not be the way to go.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/12/08 | 2,104 | 8,621 | <issue_start>username_0: The phobia of flying is discouraging me to travel for conferences, although quite a number of them are very good opportunities for me to "market" the researches of our lab and of mine. Apparently, I can't overcome this phobia even with the help of therapists. I almost passed out due to panic attacks on the airplanes, and after the flights, I always felt too exhausted to do anything for an entire week.
I think it's time to let my supervisor know that I can't to go to any conferences that I have to fly there. How can I do it in the most professional way?
Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: Since it doesn't sound like it's likely that you will be able able to work around it in the immediate future, I think you should schedule a meeting and just have the conversation. Explain your phobia, explain the effects, and explain that you have worked with therapists and that the problem is unresolved.
Treat it like any other health or mental health disability that will affect your ability to carry out the tasks graduate students normally do and make it clear that you will attend conferences by train or bus where possible. There are many questions about health and disability on this site and the consensus generally is that if it will impact your performance, you should bring it up with your supervisor and colleagues as soon as possible. Since this has already become an issue, you should do that now.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: If you live in Europe or the United States, a severe phobia of flying should not invalidate an academic career. Some conferences will be excluded. You won't attend that conference in Hawaii, do field work in the (Ant)arctic, or visit the institute on the other continent (although moving there for a longer time is still possible — search Travel Stack Exchange for "freighter travel"). When you talk to your supervisor, I would bring up the alternative.
It is possible to travel overland to conferences on the same continent. That has two issues:
* It might take 48 hours or longer to get there. You might have to leave Friday night for a conference that starts on Monday. Europe (still) has excellent intercity trains and one can get from northern Sweden to southern Italy in 48 hours. American trains are much less developed, but even if you are one one coast and need to get to the other, you can get there. Maybe 3 days on trains and buses. Are you willing to spend that time? Is your supervisor willing to let you spend that time?
* The cost. Even if the time is fine, it might cost significantly more to take train and bus, in particular if you request a bed on the train, so you can sleep. It doesn't have to cost more, but sometimes it does.
During my PhD and postdoc, I've attended conferences regularly, but I've only flown twice — once for a California conference when I was based in Sweden, and once for a Korea conference when I was based in Canada. All other times, I've taken the train. Longest was 48 hours each way, for a 2-week conference. For me, it was not the fear of flying. I prefer the train, want to limit my impact on the environment, and found a line in my university's travel policy that sustainable transportation solutions should be preferred. My supervisor bought that and let me take the train.
I don't know where you are. If you're in Australia, New Zealand, or another relatively remote corner, it's going to be a lot more difficult. If you're in Europe and in the future want to go to North America for a post-doc, or vice versa, you can *still* get there through [freighter travel](https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Freighter_travel) — although you probably don't want to do that for any visit shorter than six months. Even east Asia might work. Be creative — a life without flying is possible, and in fact, some people choose such a life for a variety of reasons. And yes, some are in academia too.
---
P.S. If your circumstances allows it, you might want to try to be at a relatively central university. For example, Germany or France if you're in Europe, Chicago area if you're in the USA.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Do you need to be the one to present papers at conferences, or could it be done by those co-authors who actually enjoy airline travel?
I'm in a somewhat similar circumstance: I don't fly commercial, not because of a phobia (I have my own light plane), but because I'm not willing to put up with TSA BS and the discomfort of economy class, and have other life circumstances that make travel difficult. But there are other people in the lab who do like travelling, so they do the presenting of papers. Though for some reason, the lab director always manages to do the ones in Hawaii :-)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Just simply tell your supervisor that you are scared of flying and you don't fly for this reason. Most people are sympathetic and will understand.
On a different note, let me offer a helpful suggestion. Of all the types of psychological problems, phobias are actually the easiest to cure. The best treatment for phobia is "exposure therapy". If you haven't already, seek out a "cognitive behavior therapist" and they will know what to do to help you.
Additionally, things like Valium and Xanax are excellent ways to help you deal with panic situations. In fact, the exposure therapy combined with Xanax is a very good way to help you learn to deal with panic, so that eventually over time you are retrained not to panic in those situations and you no longer need any medicine to help you get through it. In addition to a small dose of Xanax you can add a small dose of a beta-blocker. Beta-blockers prevent adrenaline. As the "adrenaline feedback loop" is one of the defining characteristics of a panic attack, the beta-blocker can help mitigate it as well.
If you end up using medication, you need to combine it with the cognitive behavior therapy because you don't want to get *dependent* on medication to deal with panic. Instead, your goal is to use the medication only as a temporary way of helping you analyze yourself and deal rationally with the panic situation, so that eventually you realize you don't actually need the medication.
If you want to talk more about this, message me privately, I'll be happy to discuss what I know.
Another thing to think about: a panic attack is a "fight or flight" response, which is your evolutionary response to *protect yourself*. Think about this. It's your body's own way of helping itself. Although, it happens to be misdirected at an inappropriate target (a plane, or whatever situation causes you to panic.) Everybody who has a panic attack thinks they're going to go crazy, pass out, die, etc., but it never happens. Nobody has died from a panic attack. How are you going to die from something that is actually your body's attempt to protect itself? You don't. What happens is you get into an adrenaline cycle: the adrenaline peaks, it tapers off, it peaks again 10-15 minutes later, tapers off again.... These are natural things designed to get you out of danger.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: I'm going to take a different tract to the other answers and tell you that you need to address your fear of flying because it *will* continue to impact your work.
Conferences are excellent ways to network, learn from your peers formally and informally, learn of new opportunities and advertise your work.
By not flying, you are limiting your exposure dramatically and this may make your career much more difficult or fragmented, as you will be limited to geographically close events, regardless of topic, or alternatively just only attend topic-applicable events when (or if) they come near to you.
---
As for how to talk with your supervisor, I'd suggest speaking with them about it formally as it is a major limitation with your work, but only *after you've determined how you are going to resolve the situation*. **Coming to your supervisor with a potential solution will be much more well received than coming to them with just a problem.**
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_6: Joined just to post this answer:
<NAME> had a fear of travelling over sea; so he sent messages to his colleagues telling them that he had solved the Riemann Hypothesis.
[Who was the mathematician who thought “god” was out to get him?](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/37494/who-was-the-mathematician-who-thought-god-was-out-to-get-him)
So maybe tell your supervisor that you have solved a big problem in your field and God won't let anything bad happen to you.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/09 | 518 | 2,260 | <issue_start>username_0: Does posting papers on websites such as Academia.edu or ResearchGate count as "publishing" for the sake of future journal submission? That is, if I have uploaded my paper to Academia.edu, can I later submit it to a journal that wants only "previously unpublished" work?<issue_comment>username_1: I wouldn't publish my papers on a website that everyone can see before it is actually published in a journal or a conference. Someone else may claim ownership and there is nothing you can do about it
In any case, assuming you did publish it on either website, you can still publish it in any journal or conference as long as you honor any copyright rules or guidelines.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Since nobody wrote it in an answer, I'll do it: the answer to your question depends on the journal, but in each field most journal would have about the same policy.
In some fields (e.g. mathematics, high energy physics), the answer is 'no': posting a preprint in Academia.edu, the arXiv, or on your web page does not prevent you to have your work published by a journal. Many publishers will even allow you to update your public preprint according to the referee's comments, only keeping the publisher-formated version behind a paywall (not all of them though: Oxford University Press has a very damaging policy in this regard).
In other fields (e.g. some humanities at least in some countries, chemistry) the answer is often 'yes': many journal would reject your paper right away on the ground that it already has been "published" in the sense of being made public. Even if they don't check, they may ask you to pledge that you did not published the material previously in that broad sense, and lying on these kind of issue may be devastating to a career.
In other circumstances, the answer may be more subtle. Some very prestigious magazines as Nature, Science, PNAS may ask for some publications that the authors keep them secret until the journals communicates about the work. This is to ensure maximum media coverage, but of course it concerns only the very small portion of academic works that is considered both as very important for the field, and of great interest of a general audience.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/12/09 | 2,004 | 8,221 | <issue_start>username_0: Given how many college courses are taught every academic semester in the world (or even just in the U.S.), it simply must be the case that some portion of the instructors badly goof up their courses, to the point where it is not really able to be recovered from--in essence, the course is ruined. This could be things like:
* Provably unfair or wildly too strict (or too lenient?) grading.
* Losing exam scores (this has to be particularly common) for some or all of the students/exams.
* Missing a large number of class sessions, or somehow leaving mid-course.
* Etc.
I taught for a while and luckily never had such a catastrophe, nor did I know of any from my colleagues. But what typically happens when this sort of thing does occur?<issue_comment>username_1: I have a personal story, where something like this happened in one of my classes. I was taking CS at a Canadian university in my third year and I have a course on Databases. Its our prof's first year at the school and even in the first class I remember some weirdness like how much cared about people being late. This goes on until the first assignment which was literally just the practice problems from the book, then instead of getting us to hand them in she goes through the answers in class except she cannot complete even a single question without help from the students. The midterm rolls around soon enough after this and the exam is questions from the book printed out, and half the class fails badly and the other half does rather well depending on how much of the book you memorized. After this most of the people in the class complained because she didn't know her material and apparently this happened in her other classes as well. She ended up being fired halfway through a semester and was replaced with the chair of my program, as he was the only one who could teach the class. I'm not sure how common of a response this is but it is the only time I've ever seen a professor get fired.
Normally I'd but I don't have enough points yet and I know this isn't a real answer as I have no data.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I can't explain for all of these answers, having never been an instructor, nor experienced them. However, one of my professors in college **lost my exam**. Neither of us know where it went, and both of us knew I took the exam and submitted it. We had tests every 2 weeks, and this was towards the end of the semester. In addition, I showed up to class all the time, so it would have been really out of character for me to pull a fast one anyways.
So, this being a calculus course, and neither of us wanting to have to sit through another hour of me re-taking an exam, came up with a compromise:
She'd assign me a grade. I would get a floored borderline grade of my test average.
My test average ended up being an A, so I was assigned a borderline A (90%) as the score for that exam.
In the end, it was also my lowest test grade for the semester, so both me and the professor were satisfied with the outcome.
However, the benefit of the outcome, at the very least, should be favorable to the student if it is not the student's fault. Not automatic 100% benefit, but the student should not leave at a disadvantage as a result of a mistake outside his control.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: By and large, ff524 as usual has it right: if there is a problem (even a serious one), the responsible people deal with the problem and its immediate consequences, and then life goes on. Smart people will learn from their goof-up, and it will not happen again. Less smart people do the same crap all over again until a higher-up steps in (in the worst case, this may mean getting fired). I am not sure if there is anything much more general to say about this topic.
Some examples from my personal experience:
>
> Losing exam scores
>
>
>
In the university where I did my PhD, a young professor once lost track of 400 final lab exams in a programming course (that means multiple large stacks of paper - not exactly easy to lose). Apparently, he locked them in for the weekend, and on Monday they were nowhere to be found. As there were no traces of a break-in, the theory was that the cleaning lady has thrown them out for whatever reason (as she was the only one with access to the room besides the prof). Following, an entire lab was digging through garbage for one morning, without success.
The prof. sent out a very embarrassing apology, announced a make-up test, and gave students the chance to just get their mid-term grades if they could not / did not want to participate in the make-up test. Following, all people in this lab were extremely paranoid with ungraded test sheets.
>
> Missing a large number of class sessions, or somehow leaving mid-course.
>
>
>
In another course in my old alma mater, an external lecturer apparently entirely lost interest in his course and basically stopped going to his own lecture after the second or third week. He was kicked out fast and unceremoniously. As nobody was available who could teach this course in his stead (it was very specialised), the course was cancelled mid-flight with the promise of a make-up course in the next term, leaving behind a number of understandably pissed students. A policy was put into place that external lecturers should not be allowed to give classes for which no replacement person was available, should something similar happen again.
>
> Provably unfair or wildly too strict grading.
>
>
>
Sadly, the common way to deal with this problem is "better luck next time". That is, in my university, the best one can hope for in case of a very difficult or unfair exam is that the dean talks to the lecturer in private and asks him to make the test easier next time.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I fully agree with username_3, especially with
>
> [...] if there is a problem (even a serious one), the responsible people deal with the problem and its immediate consequences, and then life goes on.
>
>
>
However, I would like to add that it might help to take such a situation with a bit of humor. I once took an exam (together with 400 other students) where the exam questions were on a doubly-sided print out. Unfortunately, the assistant responsible for copying the exam sheets messed up and copied only one side, which was only discovered when the exam was handed out. So the professor had to find a photo-copier (the exam was taken in a room quite far away from her office) and make 400 copies. In the meantime, so that the students did not get bored, some assistant provided the current standings of a world championship soccer game to us by writing noteworthy events onto the blackboard.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Since a number of up-voted answers are just personal experiences, I can share one of my own (though it's not really a goof, it's a similar situation).
In undergrad I was in an intro to ethics course. About halfway through the semester the professor was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive cancer, and the oncologist told him his only hope was to drop everything and hop a plane to Johns Hopkins. He finished that week of classes, and his last day he explained what had happened, apologizing profusely. The department had found a medical ethicist from the local hospital to come in and take over. He was a nice guy, but unfortunately not nearly as good as the first guy who had been a cornerstone of the department.
The students complained that, although the grading was fair by both people, the course style and expectations had totally changed mid-way through. Technically they had a point- the original syllabus was not followed too closely, and we didn't cover all the material we had been promised. Those who complained were told that we were all expected to cope with the unforeseen and truly exceptional circumstances.
Nobody I talked to had actually argued themselves into a higher grade. However, myself and a few compatriots suspected we were graded extremely leniently. I remember being very dissapointed because the grading outline in the syllabus said I should get a middle-B, but I ended up with an A minus.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/09 | 603 | 2,377 | <issue_start>username_0: I am defending my PhD thesis soon and have been told to practice some questions that I should expect, one of which is:
What are the ethical implications of your work?
How should I go about answering this?
My field is ocean physics, and my thesis has focused on investigating the causes of high temporal resolution variability in ocean temperature. How could I tackle this question in the defense?<issue_comment>username_1: My knowledge of Oceanography stops at "there is an awful lot of water", so I don't know for sure, but if I was asked this question, I will flatly say there are none. Maybe you would like to justify it a bit, but don't get lost; if asked, it is a mean question.
On a related note, I do have an answer in case someone, specially when talking to a general audience, tries to make political comments.
>
> Stars [or proteins, oceans, particles...] don't care about politics.
>
>
>
And move on. I only had to use it once during a class, but having it in the reserve did gave me peace of mind when I was interviewed by a politically loaded radio station.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm not an ocean physicist, or anywhere qualified in oceanography, nor do I have a slight idea of what your topic is on.
That being said, research involving water, and any political ramifications that may impact it, typically will impact commerce related to the oceans.
In this case, theoretical commercial impacts:
1. Fishing. Your research may potentially result in a ban on fishing, or make it harder to obtain fishing licenses.
2. Trade commerce. Ships are still used to transport goods around the world, including oil. As above, any sort of research that indicates that the oceans may be unsafe or bars certain trade routes will result in economical impacts down the line.
3. National borders. Traditionally, countries own a specific amount of shoreline before international waters. A shifting shoreline may result in a changing border and or possible border disputes.
4. Tourism. Obviously, effects of the water, even perceived, may impact tourism.
5. Insurance. Rising tides = rising premiums.
Whether or not these apply to your topic, I can't really tell, but it's better to start with a list of things and then check them off as irrelevant gives the *no ethical impact* argument more weight.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2014/12/09 | 772 | 2,957 | <issue_start>username_0: In one of [<NAME>'s comment](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32855/should-i-start-my-cv-by-telling-about-myself/32859?noredirect=1#comment73910_32859), he confirms that quoting famous scientists in the SOP is generally bad. But I don't know why. Isn't SOP the place to tell our stories, our inspirations, our motivations, our goals, etc? We scientists, who incur ourselves to solve the hardest problems of the world, are inspired by giant scientists, don't we? So I don't know why...
---
Thank you for answering my question. I get that a SOP "is forward-looking, not about your childhood". But the quote is not necessary to be something like: "The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.". I hereby have two questions:
1. Does that mean we should definitely get rid all things from our past? Not even a paragraph? I have read some samples, many of them start with ["I remember the day as if it were yesterday..."](http://www.statementofpurpose.com/essayuncq_compsci.html).
2. Also, what if the quote I'm about to use is **not** relevant to any specific field, for example when I want to write down this quote because I want to change field? "Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change". (I can say that I'm not intelligent, but I really want to change the field - this is just an example). This kind of quote is the results of real scientific activities, it applies for every aspect of life, not an inspiration from pop science books.
---
I know what makes me confuse now. I was mistaken the SOP to the applicant essay. When I search for the sample SOP in my native language, someone has put the 50 best Harvard applicant essays with the title 50 best SOP. After searching it again by English, I acknowledge where I'm wrong. Thank you so much for helping me.<issue_comment>username_1: A statement of purpose is **forward-looking.** It is not meant to be, [to paraphrase Wordsworth](http://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html), "recollections of early childhood." I don't really care why you decided to study mathematics when you were seven years old, nor do I care about some generic quote from a scientist that inspired you. I want to know what you might want to study as a PhD student, and why you are motivated to study *that specific project.*
If a famous scientist said something relevant about *your proposed project*, that's a different story, because it's actually significant to what you want to do in the future. Otherwise, leave it out—it just annoys most of the referees who will eventually read it.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Because the people who worship famous scientists usually aren't the ones who've done actual science. Generally their main scientific experience comes from books marketed to a general audience. You do not want to be lumped with that crowd, because it shows you don't know what you're getting into.
Upvotes: 5 |
2014/12/09 | 3,728 | 14,490 | <issue_start>username_0: I worked in the industry for a few years before starting my PhD and learned many do's and don'ts in the workplace for how you guide subordinates to attend meetings and do things you want them to do. I'm having trouble finding the right mix of transparency/professionalism/availability that I can expect to have with my advisor. Some examples that seem to be ok with my advisor related to availability include:
* Advisor tells me I should work and come in over academic breaks
* When I'm late for a meeting, sends me an email that says "you're late, get here". Advisor is often late for their own meetings.
* On a flight back from a conference, holds a research meeting.
* When scheduling a meeting, advisor asks for conflicts, then judges the importance of my conflict vs the meeting. Tells me the meeting is more important.
* Advisor schedules recurring meeting over the time I have to eat lunch, tells me I should eat during the meeting
* Urges that I come to weekend/post-5pm informal meetups, if I say I cannot attend, asks why my conflict is more important?
Other oddities include:
* During research meeting with 15 students, the meeting table is crowded. I grab a chair 5 feet away. Advisor tells me to stand for the meeting (with a laptop).
* Advisor tells me I must share a room with another student at the conference hotel
I can't help but feel demeaned by items on this list. I'm a bit older than other students and have a family, so my conflicts are more frequent. Is this advisor-advisee treatment common in academia? I'm trying to seek out the norms of this community.<issue_comment>username_1: You're a grad student. This means you're a slave to your advisor. I was a grad student once and I found the conceit that grad students are human beings and that they are to be treated with dignity beyond comical. Don't talk about professionalism as a grad student - this is not the time and the place, you are off-topic and unfortunately, you are making yourself look ridiculous. If your advisor pulls your chain, you go along quietly, with your tail wagging.
My little brother and I found a preventive cure for this kind of treatment: get a full-time job and go for your graduate degree in the evening. Your adviser is a lot less likely to give you lip if he knows that you, as a grad student, are also a senior engineer at Google :) As they used to say on 42nd Street in New York City in the 1970's: "Money talks and b.s. walks" :)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Right now, there are 3 close votes, one "unclear what you're asking", two "too broad". I'd lean more towards "opinion-based".
In some academic groups, this is the normal *modus operandi*, and people are routinely expected to be available at ungodly times. The one other environment where I have observed this ("let's discuss this over lunch, since we both will likely be working until 10pm, and the presentation needs to be done today") is management consultancies. One element that is common to both environments is that most people working there are young, and that it's an up-or-out culture. In academia, you'll either leave with your degree and go into industry, or you end up as a professor - and in management consultancies, you either again leave, or end up at the top of the pile as a partner.
In both environments, there is much less emphasis on work-life balance, and much more emphasis on getting the job done. Young people are inherently more resilient than middle-aged ones, and of course it helps that the typical junior consultant or Ph.D. student does not have a spouse and family - that makes 60 hour-weeks over extended periods of time much more feasible.
Now, all this is very much opinion-based, and I'm sure there are working groups where professors actually respect your outside commitments. However, you seem to have entered a group where the professor has been conditioned by Ph.D. students who don't, like you, have family to attend to. [This older answer of mine may be helpful in understanding what I mean.](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/27638/is-a-phd-right-for-you-if-you-hate-doing-research-in-your-free-time-but-love-doi/27643#27643)
Right now, I'd suggest you sit down with your professor and have an open discussion with him. Explain that you understand that many of your colleagues can bring youthful energy and few outside commitments to the table - but that *you* offer more life experience, and that your current situation with a family means that you have commitments you simply can't cancel on short notice, since you may need to pick your kids up at daycare.
Then again, you will likely need to accept a few things that may jar with your previous workplace experiences, like working through lunch, which really isn't all that bad, or working with your professor in judging whether conflicts in scheduling can't sometimes be resolved in favor of the professor's meeting.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: As with most things, tone matters. All the items on your list don't scream terrible unprofessionalism to me, if done in the right tone and in moderation (ok, the "tells me to stand" one is a bit weird). For instance, I would not force a student to blow off their anniversary dinner for a standard meeting, but I have certainly asked them to cancel some other weekend appointments because of an important deadline on Monday. Further, you mention meetings after 5PM - given that much of my research is done in international cooperation, Skype calls at terrible times are unfortunately not unheard of in my group as well.
I can't help but notice that (as ff524 already mentions), the majority of your items are not so much about professionalism than about time planning. Indeed, in academia, you may need to get used to the fact that most professors require students to be flexible, maybe more so than in larger corporations (but not unlike startup companies, for instance). Nine-to-five workers are typically not popular in academic environments.
You added:
>
> Advisor tells me I must share a room with another student at the conference hotel
>
>
>
The exact same thing happened to me as an employee of a large, international company. Not usual, but yeah - happens if funds for travel are low for some reason.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: An answer to your 'question' (?) will depend on what you want.
Taken explicitly, the only really idiotic thing is the table. I have trouble imagining a situation where in a 15-people discussion everybody *can* cluster within 5 ft.
The other stuff: mostly harmless, you should consider that the Prof's time is more valuable than yours -- at least to him; and the Prof. probably needs to juggle more things than you have to. The conference room-sharing thing is actually *really usual*, conferences cost money, hence it makes sense to reduce costs by sharing [assuming, of course, the usual boundaries].
A better question might be how to handle expectations from your Prof. that you are not willing to say yes to. That depends on how willing the Prof. is to accomodate you. Especially since you have not said what happens if you do not, say, show up for meeting that doesn't fit in your schedule.
None of this means that you are a slave of some kind, but you have to accept that you are subordinate in certain matters. If you can't come to meeting I schedule at 5pm your excuse should be 'Doctors appointment', not 'I want to go home and watch TV'; I probably *only* have time at 5pm.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Here are my thoughts on each of the scenarios in the question. Most of these things are pretty normal and common in academia. For the scheduling things, they shouldn't become *habit*, but everyone is generally expected to be flexible, especially when deadlines are coming up.
>
> During research meeting with 15 students, the meeting table is
> crowded. I grab a chair 5 feet away. Advisor tells me to stand for the
> meeting (with a laptop).
>
>
>
That's weird. Crowded meetings happen. But I can't see anything wrong with sitting in a chair away from the table.
>
> Advisor tells me I must share a room with another student at the
> conference hotel.
>
>
>
That's normal. Is sharing a room that bad, really? It saves money, so I'm happy to oblige. If you have a legitimate reason to have your own room, it shouldn't be an unreasonable request. Though when there are limited travel funds, you might have to pay the extra yourself or forego a future opportunity.
A fun thing to do when travelling is to rent a short-stay apartment, rather than a hotel. It's usually cheaper (so maybe you can afford your own room), and you have a lounge and cooking facilities for dinner parties.
>
> When I'm late for a meeting, sends me an email that says "you're late,
> get here".
>
>
>
Fair enough. Don't be late.
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> Advisor is often late for their own meetings.
>
>
>
That *can be* normal. Meetings between my supervisor and myself are scheduled "after the coffee break" - we have an understanding that that time is pretty flexible. Chronic lateness to rigidly scheduled group meetings really is an inconvenience, and I don't think that is acceptable.
If your advisor is late, you can always send him or her an email asking *"we have a meeting now, where are you?"*.
>
> On a flight back from a conference, holds a research meeting.
>
>
>
I'd say that's a useful use of downtime.
>
> When scheduling a meeting, advisor asks for conflicts, then judges the
> importance of my conflict vs the meeting. Tells me the meeting is more
> important.
>
>
>
I don't think it's reasonable to ask for such details. You should (politely!) say that you dislike re-arranging your schedule and ask to find a mutually agreeable time. Try scheduling meetings with your advisor further in advance -- he or she will have more gaps in their schedule.
>
> Advisor schedules meetings over the time I have to eat lunch, tells me
> I should eat during the meeting
>
>
>
I think this is a cultural thing. If it's the culture of the department where everyone actually has a proper lunch break, then you can insist on keeping your lunch break. If everyone tends to work over lunch and eat at their desk, that insistence is less likely to go down well (though you should by all means still have the *right* to said lunch break).
If your advisor is unusually busy, or there is a looming deadline, just roll with it.
>
> Urges that I come to weekend/post-5pm informal meetups, if I say I
> cannot attend, asks why my conflict is more important?
>
>
>
Post-5pm? Maybe that's a reasonable request, especially if you don't keep regular 9-5 hours. Weekends should be off limits, though, unless something important is coming up.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Some of the concerns that you have are reasonable, some are not.
However, I think the basic issue is that your advisor probably has not had practice and training in being a competent manager. He may be a brilliant researcher, but that doesn't mean he's a good advisor and mentor. It sounds like he may also be following what I've dubbed the *academic golden rule*: "Do unto others as you had done unto you."
My general advice to you is the following:
>
> **Where possible, take an active role in your relationship with your advisor.**
>
>
>
What I mean by this is that where you see conflicts arising, head them off by trying to be the one to deal with them first. For instance, if you don't like the way your advisor is scheduling your appointments, try to schedule a regular meeting time with him so that there isn't a reason to schedule appointments at odd times.
>
> Advisor tells me I should work and come in over academic breaks
>
>
>
This may be entirely reasonable depending upon which breaks your advisor is referring to, and the vacation policy at your institution. The typical standard in US schools is only two or three weeks of leave per year. Given that there is typically substantially more academic leave than personal vacation time, your advisor can expect that you be at work.
>
> When I'm late for a meeting, sends me an email that says "you're late, get here". Advisor is often late for their own meetings.
>
>
>
This is a simple matter of brusqueness.
>
> On a flight back from a conference, holds a research meeting.
>
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>
This is unusual—but I would chalk this up to the eccentricity of the advisor. My undergraduate advisor once did that with a colleague on a plane—nearly got himself into trouble over it!
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> When scheduling a meeting, advisor asks for conflicts, then judges the importance of my conflict vs the meeting. Tells me the meeting is more important.
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This is baffling, but I think reinforces the notion I've laid out above.
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> Advisor schedules meetings over the time I have to eat lunch, tells me I should eat during the meeting
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This confuses me—I would think this would be somewhat flexible. Advisors don't normally assign lunch hours for their graduate students! If there's some specific reason that you need to eat lunch at a certain time, that's something you should discuss with your advisor (and perhaps the graduate officer of your department).
>
> Urges that I come to weekend/post-5pm informal meetups, if I say I cannot attend, asks why my conflict is more important?
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Except in unusual circumstances, **this is unacceptable.** Your advisor should not expect that you come into work during the weekend. If you personally feel the need to work to meet a deadline, that's a different issue. If the advisor is willing to give you a few days off in exchange for working over the weekend, that might be an acceptable tradeoff. But the pressure should not come directly from the advisor.
>
> During research meeting with 15 students, the meeting table is crowded. I grab a chair 5 feet away. Advisor tells me to stand for the meeting (with a laptop).
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This is rather ridiculous on your advisor's part.
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> Advisor tells me I must share a room with another student at the conference hotel
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As a graduate student, unless you have your own budget and resources for travel (e.g., you're on a fellowship that provides a travel allowance), then you probably should not expect to have your own room at a hotel. It's fairly standard practice for advisors to ask their students to "double up" at a hotel.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/09 | 444 | 2,011 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm writing my master thesis. I need to quote a cited quote from another paper. So the scenario is that I'm reading a paper and this paper has a quote which is cited from another paper. Now I want to quote this quote, how should I cite this?
Is it correct to just write the text of the quote and then cite the paper I'm reading? Or should I cite the original paper? The thing is that if I cite the original paper then I will be considered that I read that paper, however i don't want to read that paper. So what is the correct thing to do here?<issue_comment>username_1: Unless it is the fact that paper A quotes paper B that you intend to highlight in your thesis and not the content of the quote from paper B itself, you need to read paper B. If you reproduce the quote by itself, you should cite the original. If you need to refer to paper A's reference to B, then you need to cite both.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There is a potentially serious problem with taking quotes or interpretations of other's work from an intermediate source. You have no control over the correctness of what you are quoting or referencing. There are many examples where errors propagate through scientific literature just because someone actually did not check the original source. This does not mean that everything is wrong or that most people are careless but it is your responsibility to check the information you use. You therefore need to make a serious effort to locate the original before you resort to quoting a quote made by someone else or citing a citation in another publication.
In the event you have to resort to using an indirect source you should clearly state that the quote is not from the original. You can do this by adding, for example, "stated by Y (yyyy) as quoted by X (yyyy)" (or whatever format of citation you need to use). At least in this way the reader will clearly see that the quote is not taken directly from the original source.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/10 | 1,736 | 7,043 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a math PhD student in my last year, and I've been on mathjobs.org looking for jobs.
I see a lot of jobs for instructor positions, or jobs titled "assistant professor", where the main work load seems to be teaching undergraduates and no research.
It seems that the main qualifications are a PhD. I am confused on what kind of applicant is qualified to apply. It seems that I am qualified enough to apply, assuming I receive my PhD by the time the job starts, but I am worried I am being naive. I do realize that someone that has already had an instructing position, or "assistant professor" position previously, or experience as a postdoc, would look better than a fresh PhD.
Are these jobs typically given to PhD's that have been through a few postdocs, or do PhDs straight out of grad school have a fair enough chance at getting the job?
To be blunt, am I wasting my time applying for these positions?<issue_comment>username_1: No, you are not wasting your time. For assistant professorships at colleges with little or no research component, you should feel free to apply in your last year of a PhD program.
>
> I do realize that someone that has already had an instructing position, or "assistant professor" position previously, or experience as a postdoc, would look better than a fresh PhD.
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>
>
In my experience that is not necessarily the case. In my PhD program, probably more graduates go on to this type of job than any other career trajectory. Many of our graduates do get tenure track jobs straight out of graduate school. Getting such jobs later after doing a temporary position is still possible, but it seems to me that the chance goes down. Even top twenty liberal arts colleges still hire many assistant professors straight out of grad school. Obviously they could select candidates with postdoctoral / visiting faculty experience. They often choose not to. I would go so far as to say that in many teaching jobs, **postdoctoral experience** could be viewed as a bit of a mismatch.
(An old friend of mine has written [an article](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ams.org%2Fnotices%2F200911%2Frtx091101451p.pdf&ei=TOOHVN78O4qnNsnogIgL&usg=AFQjCNFPcsFroWicdj1BYUPXfUgtxWETRw&sig2=MYDxWtvUBtvKNSMh2Aa_Yw&bvm=bv.81456516,d.eXY) about the pleasures of being a visiting faculty member. To a certain degree it contradicts what I said above. But I think he is more looking on the bright side of taking multiple visiting positions than suggesting that they are necessary.)
Three more comments:
* You should know that an "instructor" position is typically very different from an "assistant professor" position. Suffice it to say that if you want an assistant professor position, you probably do not want an instructor position. In many math departments, there are recently hired instructors with PhDs teaching alongside of instructors without PhDs who have had the job for a longer period of time. This is not saying good things about the current job market. In my opinion, having a PhD makes you **overqualified** (and certainly, underpaid) for most instructorships, but of course it's up to you to decide on what's worth your while.
* Rather than further academic training, what you want to have in order to get these jobs are a strong teaching record and excellent teaching abilities in an interview / model classroom situation. Many PhD programs nowadays provide opportunities for their students to display these credentials. If you are looking for a primarily teaching job post-PhD, I hope you have been doing everything in your power to acquire these credentials during your graduate career: in many cases, this provides the best opportunity to do so. (If you are not sure where you want to go on the teaching/research perspective, I hope that you have erred on the side of acquiring more of these credentials than you will necessarily need.)
* When it comes to individual departments, <NAME> made a good suggestion: you can look through CVs of recent (and less recent) hires to see what their credentials are. However, a small department may have a small sample size. Nowadays many (most?) people on the academic job market apply to on the order of a hundred jobs; necessarily this includes many jobs for whom the goodness of fit is unknown to them. Not applying to jobs because you are worried that you might not be competitive does not seem like a good strategy when so many other strong candidates are applying for everything in sight. You don't have to stuff envelopes anymore (like I did when I was applying for jobs less than ten years ago!), so the differential amount of work in applying to some positions that you fear might be a stretch but don't know is small. When in doubt, apply. I say this as someone who reads through hundreds of applications a year. If we're not interested, then we're not interested, but it's no problem.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: From my perspective at a regional university: most of our hires in math are new PhDs or have just a few years after PhD. But **the application you need to be competitive for teaching-focused schools and positions is quite different than what you need for research-first positions.**
For postdocs and tenure-track jobs at R-1 schools, you want to emphasize your research, while showing that your teaching is decent and not likely to cause complaints among the students. Bland teaching, to some degree, is a good thing - if you focus "too much" about teaching, it may cause people to worry about your research productivity.
For tenure-track jobs at teaching-oriented schools, you want to demonstrate that you will be **excellent** at teaching, not just unobjectionable. As much as possible, you want to demonstrate a history of teaching excellence as a graduate student (and after graduation, if applicable). If you focus "too much" on research, it may cause people to worry about your teaching quality.
Many schools "in the middle", including mine, are looking to increase their research profile, so we require much more in the area of research than we did 20 years ago. But we still look for teaching excellence, not just competence.
One common mistake (particularly among people who are sending out hundreds of applications) is sending the same application everywhere. If you send a research-focused application to a school where teaching is the primary criterion, you are not likely to make it past the first round of cuts. With hundreds of applications for the position, there will almost certainly be other candidates who have similar research accomplishments *and* demonstrated teaching excellence.
My advice for graduate students in general is to keep in mind the type of position you'd like to have 10 years after getting your PhD, and begin to groom your vita during graduate school to be competitive for that type of position. This may be easier said than done, of course.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/10 | 1,578 | 6,412 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm an undergrad studying mathematics right now. I have a very big interest in mathematical applications of physics, and I have been debating whether or not I should change my degree to a dual major (math/physics), because of this annoying little fear that only the math degree won't prepare me for a career in physics research later down the road, at the graduate level. However, the Mathematics is the degree I want (I believe there are more opportunities - I'd also enjoy going into a [bandwagon?] research field like Artificial Intelligence)..
Would a BS (and of course grad school) in Mathematics alone be enough to prepare me for a decent graduate school future, if I decided to pursue research in theoretical/mathematical physics? Or would it be better for me to tack on the dual major in physics? I would rather not stay in school an extra year and a half (it's already taking long enough after the A.S. in computer science!), but if it's necessary, I could do that.
I found [another thread on ASE about this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7733/math-majors-into-physics), with someone recommending that of course a mathematics major take physics courses - and I have.
**My specific question is if it would behoove me to pursue a *dual* major as opposed to just taking extra physics courses (or a minor).**
[This is essentially the bare minimum](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dkEb3.png) I have to do for just the mathematics major.
[These would be the physics courses](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FuMsA.png) I could tack on. The darker colors are required for the dual major, the lighter ones are electives.
The grad program I'm looking at, by the way, has a Master's program in Math that offers courses like Riemannian Geometry, Riemann surfaces, Group Theory, etc, which I think are useful in theoretical/mathematical physics at the graduate research level. Here's a picture
Thanks!<issue_comment>username_1: My answer is specific to the course lists you have linked to, and written from a US point of view.
I recommend taking
* Modern
* Electromagnetism (at least a whole year)
* Quantum (also whole year)
* Mechanics
* Some kind of statistical mechanics. 2311 may or may not be sufficient.
Electronics lab is for experimentalists. Since you say you want to do mathematical physics, I don't see any point in that (unless it causes you to change your goals). Take those electives that interest you.
Also, check the admissions requirements of graduate programs you are interested in.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: *(Speaking from the perspective of a US grad student who did double major, but who has no direct experience working on a grad admissions committee.)*
>
> if it would behoove me to pursue a dual major as opposed to just taking extra physics courses
>
>
>
In general, the extra degree itself probably isn't much added value for what you want to do. You have your statement of purpose and the rest of your application to show what specific knowledge, skills, and interest you have. Grad schools will look at your transcript, seeing every course you took anyway. **If you take enough physics courses, it shouldn't really matter what your diploma says.** And by the time you finish grad school, your undergrad major will be even less important to people.
The question is **how much is enough physics?** I don't have any course descriptions to work with, but "Principles of Physics" *sounds* like a survey course for non-physicists, the kind of thing you won't learn anything useful from. If you want to do research in physics, you'll need a graduate-level understanding of physics, and for that you'll need plenty of undergraduate-level physics. You should have *at least* a core foundation of
* special relativity,
* classical mechanics (Lagrangians and Hamiltonians),
* electromagnetism,
* statistical mechanics, and
* quantum mechanics
by the time you finish undergrad. Now since you are planning to do primarily math for the PhD there might be some flexibility in that you can hold off on some of this until grad school, but note you will still need even more physics knowledge to do research. If you don't know any physics discovered in the last 100 years, there's no way you can discover anything new, and all the subjects I listed are at least 100 years old.
To be sure, *some* math is very useful for physics. But just knowing differential geometry doesn't mean you know general relativity, and particle physics is more than just the pure group theory you'll see in a math course.
**On the topic of labs:** I've met a fair number of student mathematicians-interested-in-physics who say labs aren't important for what they want to do. That *might* be true for what [I would call a mathematical physicist](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/56293/difference-between-theoretical-physics-and-mathematical-physics/56309#56309), but I don't believe it for theoretical physics. *Some* exposure to a laboratory setting is important for knowing what physics really is. This is based on my own experiences, as well as advice I got from my (Nobel-prize-winning, theoretical physicist) undergrad adviser. The thing is, undergrad physics courses are unfortunately largely doable with blind symbol manipulation. Those who are good at it (and mathematicians usually are) often end up thinking physics is just easier, less abstract math. But physics is an *empirical science*, which math most certainly isn't. A (well-organized) lab will show you how much more there is to *thinking like a physicist* than solving the Schrödinger equation with yet another potential. And if it turns out thinking like a physicist isn't your cup of tea, it's better to find that out earlier.
**In summary:** Decide what classes you want to take, keeping in mind that you'll need a number of actual physics courses, taught by physicists, if you want to do *physics* proper (rather than, say, prove pure math theorems deemed important by those with more of a connection to physics). If that list of classes is a superset of the physics requirements, sure, do the extra major -- if nothing else it might impress an industry recruiter should your career go in that direction. If it isn't a superset, just take the physics courses of interest and skip the extra major.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/10 | 563 | 2,571 | <issue_start>username_0: I noticed that some professors and instructors have their teaching statement available on their webpages, and others don't.
I thought teaching statements were used mainly for applying for jobs, so since these professors and instructors have jobs, what is the purpose of having their teaching statement available to the public?
**Is there an advantage to posting the teaching statement publicly?**<issue_comment>username_1: It can be advantageous to post your application materials publicly while you are searching for a job (because it alerts a broader audience to your job search and lets them quickly find out more). Once your search is over, I see no career advantage to keeping these materials on the web. I think the main reason to do so is as a service to others. It's useful for graduate students to see a wide range of research and teaching statements, so that they have a clearer idea of what they typically look like. This if possible only if some people make theirs available.
There are also several other reasons someone's teaching statement may remain available. One is that they forgot to take it down, and another is that they feel it provides students with useful information about their approach to teaching. However, I'd bet that keeping it online as a public service is the most common reason.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think posting a teaching statement that details your own pedagogical goals and insights as well as your teaching experience is an excellent way to:
1. help students and colleagues get to know you.
2. challenge yourself to improve and work towards your teaching goals.
3. challenge yourself to reflect on your teaching.
4. get feedback on your approaches to teaching and relating to students.
In short, I think there are plenty of real advantages in clearly expressing your teaching philosophy and sharing your views with others that aren't directly related to securing a position or "getting ahead" in terms of career advancement.
Everyone can be cynical once in awhile, especially when they're being put through the wringer by the frustrating and very competitive application process.
However, most people working in academia take pride in their work and a teaching statement is generally a lot more than a bit of puffery for a job application.
In my own experience as an undergraduate student, many of the best instructors I encountered in my coursework had public teaching statements and were very open about how and why they did things in their classes.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/10 | 1,775 | 7,056 | <issue_start>username_0: There are many situations in academia where an entity is entrusted with confidential data belonging to a researcher. A very obvious one is the publication process: the journals are required to keep submitted papers confidential until they are published. But there are also other situations. For example, biologists can submit newly discovered nucleotide sequences to the EMBL database, and they have the option to request the new sequences to be kept confidential until publication. I guess that other disciplines can have similar arrangements.
In these cases, the entity has the responsibility of keeping the data confidential, and a leak can have highly negative consequences for the scientist who entrusted them with their not-yet-published results.
My question is: are there known cases of such leaks? I don't mean just a reviewer mentioning to his colleagues "I have a very interesting paper by X, if the results are confirmed, we may be looking at a cure for [type of cancer]" without further details. I mean high-profile cases where an institution or its employee is more or less "officially" accused of either willful wrongdoing, or of insufficient protection of the information so that e.g. a database was hacked and the information read out.
If there are such cases, what happened? How were they discovered, and what were the consequences for the scientist whose data was made public, and for the institution which should have kept it secret?<issue_comment>username_1: This is a little bit different than your question, but I think fits the spirit: there have been a number of high-profile cases of scientists being held in a position of trust and being accused of leaking confidential information. Two notorious such cases in the United States:
* <NAME> was [accused of leaking his PGP encryption algorithm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#History), which at that time (1991) was considered illegal to export from the United States. He has claimed that the initial dissemination was accidental, which might or might not be credible, given the early stage of development of the internet. Once he was formally accused and facing potential jail time, he published the source code in a book, turning it into a question of free speech.
* [<NAME>](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Postol) has claimed that various US anti-missile systems do not perform as claimed, leading, among other things to several misconduct investigations against a number of other researchers and also Postol himself. Notably, Postol ended up being accused of violating confidentiality rules with regard to other researchers. He has never formally been sanctioned, but remains a center of controversy.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Academic publications are sometimes subject to an [embargo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_embargo), in which information about the publication is shared with the media, but they are restricted from publishing a news article using this information before a certain date.
In this context, leaks are not uncommon. Sometimes the author of the paper is responsible for the leak; on other occasions, the publisher or a news agency may be responsible.
Here are two examples in which the Associated Press broke an embargo:
* [AP technical glitch unintentionally breaks JAMA Avastin study embargo](https://embargowatch.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/ap-technical-glitch-unintentionally-breaks-jama-avastin-study-embargo/)
* [AP breaks abortion data embargo](https://embargowatch.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/ap-breaks-abortion-data-embargo/)
In both of these cases, there were no serious consequences for anybody involved.
In a case that *did* involve consequences, a researcher published a paper using data that was made available through the NIH, but was subject to a data embargo. The paper was retracted (see the [story on RetractionWatch](https://embargowatch.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/journals-can-break-embargoes-too-a-data-breach-at-pnas-with-consequences/)), and the researcher's access to the shared data was suspended:
>
> Upon learning of the violation, the investigator’s access to dbGaP [database of Genotypes and Phenotypes] was immediately suspended pending an investigation by the NIH Data Access Committee with responsibility for the dataset involved and a review by the GWAS Senior Oversight Committee (SOC). Information pertaining to the incident was requested from the investigator’s home institution through the Institutional Signing Official that approved the investigator’s original request to the NIH. After a thorough review of the circumstances pertaining to the violation, the SOC revoked access to all dbGaP data for a period of six months.
>
>
> All work with data downloaded before the date of the access suspension was expected to cease during the ban. This ban included the Primary Investigator as well as those individuals working with the individual-level GWAS data under his Data Access Request, because they also agreed to abide by the terms and conditions for data use within the Data Use Certification agreement. The period of the ban passed on March 4, 2010, and Dr. Zhang may now submit new requests for access to dbGaP data.
>
>
>
Another data leak scenario was mentioned by <NAME> in a [comment](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32988/are-there-known-cases-of-leaks-in-academia#comment74071_32988): when a researcher uses private data that is leaked. [Here](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/24/cftc-cme-research-idUSL2N0D91IT20130424) is an example of a case where
>
> the world's largest futures exchange has accused the top U.S. derivatives regulator of illegally sharing sensitive market data with outside researchers who then used the information to publish academic papers about high-frequency trading
>
>
>
Possibly the most high-profile case of data leakage in the very recent past is [Climategate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy), but that turned out to be more of a "hack" than a leak by someone who had legitimate access to the data. In 2009, a server at the University of East Anglia (UEA) was compromised, and material was leaked including more than 1,000 emails, 2,000 documents, and source code, pertaining to climate change research. Many of the emails concerned technical aspects of climate research, such as data analysis. In this case, climate change skeptics argued that the leaked materials showed that scientists engaged in a conspiracy to manipulate climate data. However, various investigative committees reported no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct on the part of the scientists.
The individuals responsible for the breach were not identified. Police said said, however, that despite rumors to the contrary, the attack had been carried out "remotely via the internet" and that there was "no evidence to suggest that anyone working at or associated with the University of East Anglia was involved in the crime."
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/10 | 1,171 | 4,909 | <issue_start>username_0: The class was scheduled to take the final next week. I wanted to take the test this week, because there's some place I was planning to be on the day of the final. My teacher said that doesn't count as an extenuating circumstance, and that his dean wouldn't like it. His dean isn't even administering the exam, so why would she even care?<issue_comment>username_1: If there is a scheduled time when exams are given, the dean is often the person who receives complaints about exams that are given at the wrong time (e.g. if the professor unilaterally moves the exam). The dean cares because he or she has to deal with the complaints!
To keep things organized, the dean may have told the faculty (perhaps through their department chairs) only to reschedule exams if there are extenuating circumstances. That would not be an unreasonable or surprising request, in my experience.
The professor might (depending on the institution, their tenure status, and their own sense of agency) be able to move your exam anyway. But the answer you received should be viewed as a polite "no".
Personally, I am only sometimes able to move the exams in that way. It depends, for me, on whether I have the exam written, what day and time the student wants to take the exam, how many students I anticipate will want an alternate time, etc. Of course, if there is a serious circumstance I will schedule a make up. But just wanting to be somewhere else is not much of an extenuating circumstance - taking the final is an expected part of taking the class.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Allowing students to take finals at other than the scheduled time could cause the following problems:
1. Complaints from other students (in other courses under other professors) that they weren't allowed to take their final exam at a nonstandard time. "<NAME> Johnny got to take Professor Smith's final early, why can't I take <NAME>'s final early."
2. If the same final exam is used for all students, then students who take the exam early can leak information about the questions to other students.
3. To avoid the problem in point 2, we often give a different final exam to students who must take the exam at a non-standard time. However, this can lead to complaints that the alternate exam is unfair. At the very least, it means extra work for the professor in writing the exam.
There are certainly circumstances where a student can't take a final exam at the scheduled time. For example, a student in one of my classes is ill, so we've arranged for a makeup final exam to be given in January at the start of the spring semester.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Here is a perspective people don't usually consider...accreditation. Each student is required to meet a certain amount of instructional hours per class. The accreditation committee sets the required hours and audits school records to make sure these requirements are being met.
If a student takes the final early, it implies they are going to miss a class. By allowing this, the teacher has tacitly agreed to violate the accreditation requirements of the class.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: "Someplace where I was planning to be" doesn't tell the full story. By itself, that's a reason for denying a request for a different test time.
"Someplace" (at a particular time) is a lot more excusable for an emergency. If there is an illness or potential death in the family, and you need to get there before, say, one of your parents die, or for a scheduled funeral, that would be an adequate reason for rescheduling your test. So might a (legal) "court" date; possibly even another "court date" at the invitation, of say, Queen Elizabeth II.
But barring a "good reason," professors and deans are supposed to deny requests for rescheduling a test.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I now have 2 students who want to reschedule their final exams - both for valid reasons, but both in reasonably high level courses - calc 2 and a programming class. The final for Calc 2 requires significant preparation time, and time setting the rubric. The programming exam is easier to write but harder to grade when there is just one person taking it. Both require an addition of about 8 hours (each) to write, proctor and grade these finals. I don't want to stand in the way of my students who have excellent opportunities - but I have a policy in place that requires exams to be taken at exam time - barring extreme (i.e. hospitalized emergencies). Part of the problem is the schedule of the college I teach at - spring semester runs into June. The other problem is guilt - other professors are doing it so I should to... peer pressure maybe. There should be one clear campus wide policy requiring students to take the final on the day scheduled. I shouldn't be spending any time worrying about this. :-/
Upvotes: -1 |
2014/12/10 | 842 | 3,422 | <issue_start>username_0: My literature professor pronounces the name of a very famous novelist incorrectly (I've searched quite a bit and I'm sure of it). I'll have an oral examination soon, and I'm not entirely sure whether I should adapt and pronounce it like she does, or correctly. I'm afraid that if I choose the last option she will tell me I'm wrong, and I'd have to explain she is, which might embarrass her.
What's the best thing to do? If the second, what would be the most polite way to explain I'm right?<issue_comment>username_1: Just pronounce the name the best way you can. If you think pronouncing it correctly differs so much from the way you have heard it from your teacher then using something close to their pronunciation can help stop confusion so in this case you roll with the punches. The fact that names are sometimes pronounced weird, wrong or even butchered is just a reality. In some cases it is a lack of exposure to unusual names or forms of spelling. This is a very common experience for anyone visiting a country with a different language.
So, in general, don't worry too much about it. Sometimes to avoid confusion if the "true" pronunciation and the way you have heard it differ to the extent it can be seen as two different words, you may have to adopt a stance closer to that which find wrong. But the worst that can happen is that you will be corrected.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Ideally, find your professor during office hours, and say something like "Hey, this has been confusing me... I'm seeing all these references to one pronunciation and you've been using another. Is there a disagreement in the academic community, or are both pronunciations valid, or did the author use a less-common pronunciation, or are these other references simply wrong?"
In other words, don't tell her that she's making a mistake; ask her to help you learn. Much more polite, much harder to take offense at, and much less likely to embarass *you* if she says either "Well, this is how [author] always pronounced his name when I spoke to him" or "I have a slight speech impediment that I'm a bit embarrassed about; thanks for not bringing this up in public."
The fact that she's outvoted does not necessarily mean she's wrong. For that matter, she may not be aware that there is a difference, or not be able to reproduce that difference accurately, if her accent isn't the same as the others you've spoken to (or your own)... or you may be having the same problem in the other direction.
You have an interesting question. Ask it. In private, and *as* a question, and you'll probably get an interesting answer and maybe a bit of an uptick on your grade for having made additional effort. If you *tell* her that she's wrong, and/or do so in the middle of class, it's likely to go less well for either of you.
If you really can't meet with her before the exam, despite your best efforts, you have to decide whether you're going to pronounce it her way, pronounce it your way and -- if challenged -- say "I've been meaning to ask about that; this is how I've always heard it...", or try for a compromise between them with the "I've been meaning to ask" as a fallback.
But I really doubt you're going to get dinged for getting this wrong if you get the rest of the exam right. So maybe you should focus on aceing the exam, rather than on this nitpicky point.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/12/10 | 1,411 | 5,661 | <issue_start>username_0: I just finished my first semester teaching (I lead two recitation sections for pre-calculus twice a week). It went well, but I've noticed a sizable callus has formed on my right middle finger on the left side between the nail and first knuckle. This is from how I hold the chalk, I believe. The callus is rubbing against my finger when I write now and causing a bit of pain.
How do I prevent this callus? I don't have much experience with writing on the chalkboard so I imagine this is from holding the chalk incorrectly. Maybe someone knows secrets to the chalkboard that I am not aware of?<issue_comment>username_1: Simple prevention would be to wrap a small bandage or piece of adhesive tape around your finger before each recitation session. (Or, as @Cape\_Code suggested, use rock-climbing tape.)This will also help to mitigate the pain you are experiencing now, and may even hasten the disappearance of the callus.
As for your question on holding the chalk correctly/incorrectly, I can't help you there. This is the same spot in which I always develop a callus from writing, no matter which writing instrument I am using. AFAIK, I also *am* holding my chalk/pen/pencil correctly! I believe this is simply your skin's natural defense against friction, and the only remedy may be to find an alternative teaching method which does not rely so heavily on chalkboard use.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: A couple ways. You may consider products called "chalk clip" or "chalk holder" like this one:
They make the girth larger and less likely to produce a small pressure point on your finger, which causes callus.
Another option is to get some "foam tubing" from general hardware stores. They are cheap and in different sizes, thicknesses, and even colors. Cut a 2 to 2.5 inches long segment and put it over your middle finger. To improve comfort when bending your finger you can make a small vertical incision on the tube (palm side) so that you can bend the finger more freely.
Volleyball players also have elastic finger guards like these:
You can get a set of them from sports stores. Just pull it down a bit to protect your last joint rather than the middle joint. My experience (as a volleyball player not chalk writer) is that the ones with nylon outside and a thin foam layer inside work are the most comfortable.
If technology permits, you can also consider projecting your hand writing using a projector, computer tablet, or even interactive screen. Those methods allow you to write with a lighter grip.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Well, this condition depends on many factors:
1. **Time.** If you don't mind having a rougher skin on your hands, then give it some time. However, if it doesn't get better over time, then something has to be done.
2. **Dry hands.** IMHO a big issue for many people: chalk dries your hand skin. Seriously. You should have some good cream in your office and apply it before and after each lecture. This can significantly help with the skin condition, and together with the previous point, it may be enough.
3. **Chalk holding.** There are several ways how to hold a chalk. Some people prefer this or that. I suggest trying couple of them:
* Hold it like a pen -- however, this presses the chalk against the nail base on your middle finger, not quite good.
* Hold it like a dining knife in high society -- you get a long chalk and touch it by thumb tip from one side and by all fingertips from the other side. This requires a chalk that writes without much pressure
* Take small piece and hold it between the tips of your thumb, point finger and middle finger. (My personal favourite)
* With longer chalks, you can press it against the palm, and then do as above.
4. **Type of chalk.** I know three basic types of chalk: soft square-profile chalks that leave trace on everything they touch, hard rounded chalks that leave thinner traces and last forever; and something in between -- square profile but quite hard. There are surely others. You may try different types of chalk if you can, to see which one do you like.
As for the special chalk holders and stuff: I have never used them, which doesn't mean they are bad. Just a remark: With the softy things, remember to wash them well since chalk tends to accumulate in these.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: If you have board space, use larger diameter chalk and grip it with your whole hand as you would a flashlight. You don't generally need to make the tiny motions for which the pen-writing variant of the precision grip is good for. If you still want a precision grip, get larger diameter chalk and hold it between your first four fingertips (or three if you must use narrow pieces and you have wide fingers).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: My method is to hold the chalk like a magic wand (or, less excitingly, like a [drawing](http://drawingacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/how-to-hold-a-pencil.jpg) [pencil](http://www.artforhomeschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/hold-pencil.jpg)). This keeping the chalk resting in my palm, where the skin is thicker, and allows me to grip with many different parts of my fingers. It's also helps me to think of board work as drawing, rather than writing, as a reminder to keep the letters large, neat, and readable.
Another thing you may want to try is using Hagomoro chalk, which has a wax coating on the grip part. It costs a little to have a box imported, but I thought it was worth it.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/10 | 3,793 | 15,564 | <issue_start>username_0: I have made the experience that even the most excellent academics are often didactically mediocre lecturers. I also watched some of last years Nobel lectures and realised many laureates are actually not particularly good at teaching.
What is it that makes some lectures didactically effective and others not, regardless of how knowledgable the lecturer is?<issue_comment>username_1: Unless you put a lot of thought into your lectures, it's hard to adopt the mindset of a student who knows much less than you. You may take certain concepts for granted, and you've long forgotten how you learned them, or what originally confused you. At the time you learned them you were probably much more well-prepared than the average student, so common stumbling blocks for students were never issues for you.
This means there are a lot of professors who are good at giving talks (to people well-versed in their field), but poor at giving lectures (to people with little or no background).
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> What is it that makes delivering a good, clear, informative lecture so challenging?
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>
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It is challenging because learning is challenging. The things that one could easily convey to a very general audience simply by being clear and informative are by and large not the things (or certainly, not all the things) that one learns in university-level courses.
What makes a good lecturer is a great question, but a bit broad for a site like this. If you have a group of students / faculty colleagues, I highly recommend throwing this out to the group: break the question up into some directed subquestions, give everyone the questions, and then after a week or so meet to discuss their answers. I actually did something like this recently (the topic was "successful math talks"), and what ensued was entertaining and enlightening.
Here let me (still very superficially) try to address your observation that even Nobel Laureates need not be good lecturers. Again I will break this up into a few subquestions.
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> 1) Do you expect a Nobel Laureate to be a better lecturer than a faculty member with a less exceptional research profile? Why or why not?
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> 2) Do you think that Nobel Laureates would be especially good or bad at giving certain kinds of lectures, or lectures to certain kinds of audiences? Why?
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I think everyone can get a turn at answering these questions. (Probably not here: the site is not designed for that.) Let me take a crack at the first one:
One can argue that Nobelists ought to be on average very good lecturers. First of all (contrary to what some people would like to think), intelligence and acumen in one domain is positively correlated with intelligence and acumen in another domain, and the correlation increases to perfect as the two domains converge. If you are a professor of X, then researching X and teaching X are your two main duties. They are different, but I can isolate a common variable. The best way to be a bad teacher is to have a poor understanding of your subject, and Nobelists must be the least at risk for that. The people who have not thoroughly mastered their field, especially at the level of coursework, are in my experience essentially never the people who are making the cutting edge breakthroughs.
Is it possible that when a true luminary gives a lecture, we evaluate them with that high standard in mind? I often tell the story of a colloquium I saw given by a Fields Medalist ("the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize"). By chance I had read about his work, relatively casually, about a month before his lecture. I was profoundly disappointed by his lecture because it was merely clear and informative. The information he conveyed was almost exactly the information that I had read before. However, when I read about I found it incredibly exciting and impressive. In person he did not convey any of this: it was just a recitation of "In 1982, I proved this theorem; two years later I proved the following improvement". I felt afterwards that if for some (totally counterfactual) reason I had given the talk instead, I would have done a better job, because I would have been so enthusiastic. Mine is a sincere reaction, but you see that I was coming in with very high standards, and the idea that I could have done better ought to be construed as a description of the psychology of my reaction: taken literally, it seems rather unlikely.
One can also argue that it is not so surprising if Nobelists give lectures that are merely okay or actually not as good as what other faculty are doing. (Again it depends a lot on *what kind of lecture* we're talking about, which I am omitting for now.) Let's go back to what I said before: being a professor of X involves researching X and teaching X. Yes, these skills are positively correlated. But they also compete for our time. If you are a subject area expert with some teaching experience, then you can probably deliver a decent lecture on X with a moderate amount of preparation. But maybe moderate is more preparation than you want or feel that you can spare. If you don't prepare at all, then no matter how brilliant you are you are probably going to give a lecture which the audience will regard as being rough -- maybe too rough. If you want to give a better lecture then you probably have to prepare more. Now there are a lot of people in university environments who are spending much more time and thought preparing their lectures. It is not a zero-sum phenomenon because no one tells you exactly how many hours you should spend total in any given week. There are a lot of leading researchers who are clearly putting substantial time into their lectures. However, Nobelists are the extreme case: you are selecting people for which the community as a whole feels that their research is much more valuable than their teaching.
Taking these two things together: I would expect a Nobelist to give lectures that are excellent in some ways and below average in others. By the way, what makes a good lecture is a many-dimensional space, and many is the time that a friend and I have walked out of the same talk and discovered that one of us loved it and the other hated it. But if you're judging a talk by the types of things that go into undergraduate student evaluations: I think you're mixing together a lot of highs and lows and thus one should expect the results to be pretty much all over the place.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: What makes giving a clear lecture so difficult? There are two components to giving an interesting and engaging lecture: content and delivery.
### Delivery
Does the speaker project, or mumble? Confidently walk about the room, or stay locked behind a lectern? Make eye contact, or spend more time looking at a white board than the audience? Read from a set of PowerPoint slides, or supplement them with pertinent material? Pepper their speech with *ums* and *ahs*, or speak as though the talk was more reheased? Presentation style is imporant. Two speakers can speak from the same script, with one keeping the audience riveted while the other puts them to sleep.
Most doctoral programs don't require a public speaking course – maybe they should? – and public speaking isn't taught in the physics lab, your advisor's office, or the department conference room. If you want to hone these skills, you'll need to do it on your own, join an outside organization such as Toastmasters, or participate in whatever faculty development opportunities are afforded at your institution.
### Content
This one is difficult for the lecturer, because much of the content is dictated by the course curriculum. We don't get to choose our topic, and speak about *The Day I Was Rescued from the Well*, or *Three Secrets to Research Success*. Instead, we are required to talk about Maxwell's equations, or orbital mechanics, or the logistics problems at the Battle of Wellington.
In the case of a Nobel laureate, this problem is compounded, because the speaker is often speaking about the culmination research to a general audience with little or no experience in the field. It can be challenging for a subject matter expert to distill vast knowledge and expertise into nuggets comprehensible for the layman; it's difficult to convey excitement to people with insufficient background knowledge to share that emotion. Advances in the field are made after years of study with tedious experimentation and observation. How long would you be able to retain interest talking about your dissertation research at a New Year's Eve party? Winning a Nobel Prize wouldn't make that any easier.
### Other Challenges in Academia
Whether it's a professor in front of the classroom, or a Nobel laureate in a university lecture hall, most talks seem to be about 50 minutes to an hour long: double the length of most sermons, and quadruple the length of most TED talks. That's a long time to hold the attention of an audience! Even accomplished speakers would find it difficult to engage an audience that long. That's why playwrights pen tales of love triangles, not mathematical proofs.
The classroom professor has an additional challenge in that the "audience" (i.e., the enrolled students) may not be all that motivated to learn, making it especially difficult to give a memorable performance while also ensuring valuable learning took place.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: There is large field of research dedicated to pedagogy, and the idea that you just *are* a good lecturer or not is as unfounded as saying that you are a good researcher or not. Everybody has some predispositions, but there is also a lot to learn from the existing literature, from colleagues, from past past experience, etc.
In the UK, the [Higher Education Academy](https://www.heacademy.ac.uk) has developed the [UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF)](https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/professional-recognition/uk-professional-standards-framework-ukpsf), which is *"a comprehensive set of professional standards and guidelines for HE providers and leaders"*. The rest of my answer is basically copied from the UKPSF.
The UKPSF defines three dimensions:
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> **Areas of Activity**
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> A1 Design and plan learning activities and/or programmes of study
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> A2 Teach and/or support learning
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> A3 Assess and give feedback to learners
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> A4 Develop effective learning environments and approaches to
> student support and guidance
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> A5 Engage in continuing professional development in subjects/disciplines
> and their pedagogy, incorporating research, scholarship and the evaluation of professional practices
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> **Core Knowledge**
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> K1 The subject material
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> K2 Appropriate methods for teaching, learning and assessing in the subject
> area and at the level of the academic programme
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> K3 How students learn, both generally and within their subject/ disciplinary area(s)
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> K4 The use and value of appropriate learning technologies
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> K5 Methods for evaluating the effectiveness of teaching
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> K6 The implications of quality assurance and quality enhancement for
> academic and professional practice with a particular focus on teaching
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> **Professional Values**
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> V1 Respect individual learners and diverse learning communities
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> V2 Promote participation in higher education and equality of
> opportunity for learners
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> V3 Use evidence-informed approaches and the outcomes from research,
> scholarship and continuing professional development
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> V4 Acknowledge the wider context in which higher education operates
> recognising the implications for professional practice
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A lecturer is, in general, expected to meet the requirements to be a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Descriptor 2), which means:
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> Demonstrates a broad understanding
> of effective approaches to teaching and learning support as key contributions to high quality student learning. Individuals should be able to provide evidence of:
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> I. Successful engagement across all five Areas of Activity
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> II. Appropriate knowledge and understanding across all aspects of
> Core Knowledge
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> III. A commitment to all the Professional Values
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> IV. Successful engagement in appropriate teaching practices
> related to the Areas of Activity
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> V. Successful incorporation of subject and pedagogic research and/
> or scholarship within the above activities, as part of an integrated approach to academic practice
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> VI. Successful engagement in continuing professional
> development in relation to teaching, learning, assessment and, where appropriate, related professional practices
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EDIT: Note that the key point here is **demonstrate**. For each of the points above, there are clear ways to demonstrate that one understands them. For instance, *"methods for evaluating the effectiveness of teaching"* include asking feedback from students, performing comparative analysis from one year to another, engage in a reflective process, etc, so demonstrating this point is not just about saying "oh yes, I care that my teaching is effective".
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I think these are the most important properties:
* **Understanding your audience** I you can empathize with your audience and understand at what level they are mentally, and how accessible the material is for them, you can tailor the lecture or talk to make it most accessible. My most successful lectures were when I remembered exactly what it was like when I learnt the material. The most difficult ones are when the material is too familiar to me and I can't understand why it would be difficult. A good lecturer will go through great trouble to understand his audience and tailor the material.
* **Repetition** Isolating the key points, and repeating them at different points in different ways. If everything you say has a 20 percent chance of sticking, you need to double up on the important elements, for the sake of redundancy.
* **Putting in the time** I've never heard of a good lecturer who could just wing it. Most of them make it look easy, but all of them slave over it. You can't be a good lecturer if you don't care. The audience will notice if the i's aren't dotted.
* **Telling a good story** Firstly, this means both finding a throughline in the material, where every step follows from the last and the listener has a structure to hold on to. Making it more that just an enumeration of facts and subjects. Secondly, it means creating tension. Using the same techniques that storytellers do. It's more difficult if you don't have spaceships, dragons and romantic situations to talk about, but you can still set up expectations and statisfy them and you can still have little jokes and you can still vary between action scenes and gentle dialog.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I've heard the following story, which seems relevant, but I can't find a source for it now. Someone asked <NAME> for the rules for giving a good lecture. Ulam at first denied that such rules could exist, but the questioner persisted, and Ulam finally came up with the following two rules. (1) Have something to say. (2) If, by good fortune, you have two things to say, then say first the one and then the other, not both at once.
Violations of Ulam's rules account for surprisingly many of the occasions when I've left a lecture wishing I hadn't gone to it.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/10 | 711 | 3,026 | <issue_start>username_0: At the secondary school I went there was an implicit sense that all students were expected to go to university. For example councillors would come into our English classes to give presentations on how to make smooth transition to a university. I guess I always had the assumption that a university degree is necessary to a) make a living and b) make a living doing something you enjoy. Now that I'm a little older and a little more experienced I know this is not always the case. There are plenty of people (especially in business) who did not complete a university program. How do you decide if university is right for you? Is the correct approach to decide on the job you want and then, if university is required, get the degree for it?<issue_comment>username_1: What do you want to do with your life? University is one way of getting to some of the answers. Trade school or apprenticing is another, if you think that's closer to what you want to spend your life doing.
It's also legitimate to say you don't know yet -- in which case you need to decide whether starting classes would help you decide what interests you, or if doing something else for a year makes more sense.
I knew what I wanted to study (or thought I did; turns out I was close but not on the mark), but even so I decided to take a year off before college; I needed a bit of maturation time, and to switch from being the youngest in the class to being one of the older kids, for my own comfort. Spent the year doing volunteer work in a hospital (electronic repair, "biomedical engineering"), which was certainly educational in the general sense, helped build my self confidence, and may actually have helped my college application stand out from others.
"... There are nine and sixty ways / of constructing tribal lays, / And every single one of them is right!" -- Kipling
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> There are plenty of people (especially in business) who did not complete a university program.
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Make no mistake, university is still required for the vast majority of jobs at the vast majority of employers. There are certainly plenty of outliers, but they are a small percentage of professionals.
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> Is the correct approach to decide on the job you want and then, if university is required, get the degree for it?
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**No**. University isn't job training, it's education. An education provides you with the tools necessary to be a better person. A better employee for sure, but also a better entrepreneur, a better wife/husband, a better father/mother, a better solider, a better scientist... whatever.
The degree itself will open all sorts of professional doors, but it's the *education* that is valuable. The only reason to not get one is if you think you can get a better education doing something else. All things being equal though, attending an institution specializing in educating you is most likely to actually provide you with a worthwhile education.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/10 | 831 | 3,904 | <issue_start>username_0: Browsing various PhD admissions programs, I consistently find that there is a higher expectation of international students on the physics GRE for admission. For example, at [UT Austin](https://ph.utexas.edu/prospective-graduate-students/admissions), the average score on the physics GRE for students accepted for Fall 2011 was 907 for international students and 777 for US students.
Why is there such a difference in expectations?<issue_comment>username_1: First answer: education systems in the rest of the world include physics earlier in the curriculum than in the US, so one would naturally expect a student with more experience to score higher.
Second answer: Some countries have explicit "GRE training" to get their students into the highly-regarded US higher-education system (grad school). (this is an editorial answer - I have heard of such things but not in an official capacity).
Third answer: Before you get to graduate school, science/math education in the United States is terrible (googleable fact). If you held students to the same requirements, there would be zero US citizen graduate students in US graduate programs.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: (Some) US departments seek to maintain a critical mass of US students. (I expect that) such departments accept a critical mass of US students - the best that they can get - and then accept some number of international students to fill up their ranks - the best that they can get. Since international students generally score higher on standardized tests such as the GRE general/subject test (for all sorts of reasons), this leads to the accepted international students having higher test scores than the accepted US students.
A more general point, I believe, is that international students are often 'unknown quantities'. While a US student might have recommendation letters, research experience, etc. that gives an admissions committee a well-rounded perspective on them and could potentially make up for less-than-stellar test scores, this is not always possible for international students. So in some sense an international applicant has to have exceptional test scores to make up for being an unknown quantity in other respects. I believe this partly because international students who have been undergraduates in the US seem to fall into the `domestic students' box more so than the 'international students' box.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: The physics GRE is not a very good test of one's knowledge of physics or ability to solve physics problems. Most physics homework questions students will encounter are quite a bit lengthier and more involved than the sort of question that appears on the GRE. What the GRE tests is the ability to solve lots of very simple problems very quickly. Students who haven't specifically practiced for that will often do poorly even if they know the material well. Physics departments in the US typically don't give students this sort of practice. In some other countries, it's much more standard for departments to encourage such practice and provide assistance with it (e.g. students might train on lots of old exams). So it's a mistake to interpret this statistic as implying that international students are better educated than US students.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Another issue that may play a role is that it is much harder for faculty to accurately evaluate international students than US students. The recommenders and their institutions are less likely to be known to the people evaluating, and there is generally less of a good match between expectations in the different systems.
Thus, it is often the case that an international student needs to be much more obviously excellent than a US student, in order to obtain admission to the same program, and this would be expected to be reflected in GRE scores as well.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/11 | 4,526 | 18,735 | <issue_start>username_0: So thing aren't going well for me with my PhD and I sort of think I'm not going to get there (hard deadline is September and frankly I think I'm fairly close to having a breakdown). I'm in the UK and the hard deadline is university policy.
**How soon should I start looking for work outside academia? How should I go about explaining my (likely) failure?**
I'm not sure I know what to do from here.
I don't feel confident about bringing this up with my supervisor. If I did, he would brush it off (he doesn't really get me, I don't think) with something along the lines of "What else are you going to do? Just get on with it.". He has expressed concern about my progress before now. Also, part of the motivation for asking this question is feeling well-researched on this topic prior to having a conversation, which I'm hoping will show my supervisor that I'm serious about it.
If this information is useful I'm based in the UK, I have a pass at Master's level already and a 2:1 BSc in physics and I am in an allied field at the moment.<issue_comment>username_1: Your situation sounds tough. It is also very hard to specifically advise, but let me try to be at least vaguely helpful.
The natural person to talk to about this is indeed your supervisor. You say that he "would brush it off". That doesn't sound like a fully rational way of evaluating the situation to me. Either he will brush it off or he won't: you can't proceed further until you know which it is. Moreover, if you tell a PhD supervisor that you think you will have to drop out of the program and by the way you're fairly close to a breakdown and he brushes you off, then he's in worse shape than you by far. From my safe distance of total ignorance of your situation I am going to guess that if you bring things to him in a sincere and serious way, he is not likely to completely brush you off.
>
> How should I go about explaining my (likely) failure?
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>
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I'm sorry, I don't really know. I think explaining why you feel that your failure is likely is plenty for one conversation.
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> How soon should I start looking for work outside academia?
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I think you should process the "likely failure" part before you seriously start looking for work: first find out whether you can still get out with a PhD. (Unless you no longer even want to get a PhD, in which case you should also bring that up with your supervisor and should start working on an immediate exit strategy.)
If you and your supervisor -- or someone who can function as your supervisor if he is really incapable of stepping up to the task -- agree that your failure really is a likely outcome, then at that point you should start looking for outside work. If there is really little or no hope of success, you should start applying for jobs right away and feel free to take a job as soon as it is offered: you have a master's degree, so if you can't get a PhD then there's nothing keeping you there except the financial support you have.
A lot of people drop out of PhD programs for lots of reasons. (In many programs the overall completion rate is less than 50%.) You should speak in terms of leaving the program, not in terms of "failing" it. All that any prospective employer needs to know is that you are deciding to leave the program and the academic track. Try to have the positive spin on that originate in your own mind: if your present path is so unpleasant that continuing on it feels like heading towards a breakdown, won't it be an immensely pleasant relief to do something else? I am not a psychologist, but in my experience the real root of unhappiness is not so much the bad things that you have but the good things that you want and don't have. If you really want to be in a PhD program, you could try starting again somewhere else (maybe someplace where there isn't a hard deadline: that sucks). But it seems more likely that you really want to do something else. What is that something else? Identifying it and experiencing the sensation of moving towards it could make you feel much better.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: To Pete's brilliant answer I want to add that there is a chance that you are not as bad as you think. There is a lot of people suffering from the "impostor syndrome", and if your supervisor *brushes if off* it is very possible he has a different perspective, and thinks that you have done enough; but he is not conveying it effectively.
September is ten months away, more than a quarter of your PhD is left. Keep a cool head and don't rush to conclusions.
In case it helps: a friend of mine, also PhD student in the UK, was panicking because he had only six months left and no results. He is now a successful postdoc where he wanted.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Usually, there is considerable motivation for your adviser to get you successfully through the program. At my university in the Netherlands, a research group would get something like 80,000 euro from the University for each successful PhD candidate. Also, a professor's career will partly be judged on his or her ability to successfully graduate PhD students. So your professor has every reason to take your concerns seriously.
Second, it's important to understand what a hard deadline really means. Again, my experience in the Netherlands was that a PhD student got a 4 year contract at the University. After that you had to either: start as a Post-doc with the understanding you would finish up very soon or move on to a professional career and try to wrap up final papers and the thesis while working. I think less than 50% of PhD students finished within the 4 years. The rest used one of the other two options, including myself. I work with someone who got a PhD in the UK and had a similar experience there, so it seems likely to me that there will be a way for you to get a PhD even if your official time at the university is up. It will be more difficult, but then it will be down to whether you really want it or not. Again, though, it will be in your superviser's interest that you finish your PhD at some point rather than walk away.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I did subscribe in order to answer your question. The usual thing that you'll hear is that "it's not that bad, you'll have your Ph. D.". And, might you believe it or not, this is both true and the right ting to hear.
Your advisor has better grasp of what's in the field and the scientific contributions of your work. Trust him. Maybe your thesis won't win you a Nobel prize, but if he's confident it will win you a Ph. D. degree, then this is almost a sure thing.
You tend to compare your work with your own standards or maybe with the wrong people's work (e.g. experienced researchers etc.). Take a broader view of the topic and maybe read some really bad Ph. D. thesis. This will boost your confidence level.
This is not to say that you should lower your own standards, but to get over hopelessness. Then, trust people more experienced than you are (the Ph. D. advisor). And finally, remember that a Ph. D. degree is not there to prove that you are a researcher. It only proves that you are fit to become a researcher. Much more work will be needed.
And... a Ph. D. student is just that: a student. You have your doubts, the name "Ph. D." is quite frightening, but you should keep calm, organize your work, and commit to an effort without desperation.
Stopping the Ph. D. right now, on these grounds, looks for me like a "fuite en avant" (that's French. The best English translation that I did find on the Internet is "unconscious mechanism that causes a person to throw himself/herself into a dreaded danger".) Avoid that and only focus on getting things done.
You are also at a moment of your Ph. D. when much of your work is not yet organized and results might seem inexistent. This is because the work that you did was precisely that: a research work. You did explore many spots, contributions seems lost in the bigger picture, but when you start organizing all those, things will become clearer.
My advice: start writing your results in a document, let's say a draft of your thesis and of your Powerpoint (or LATEX) presentation.
This is of double usefulness:
1) will be helpful to you later, in writing the final version of your thesis
2) the strengths and weaknesses of your work will appear much clearer once you try to integrate your work in an organized presentation. The strengths that you'll see will boost your confidence. The weaknesses are the things you have to address.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Building on the other answers, I'd like to offer the following advice:
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> Focus on publishing papers, as soon and as well as possible
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Let me break down the reasoning:
* If you don't finish the PhD, but you do have a publication record, you have a better chance of being taken seriously academically. It depends on your location, but there are situations where you will be able to graduate later if you just add to your publications in later jobs. You may not get a postdoc position, but a job as a technician might be enough.
* In the end nobody will care about the thesis. The publications are what people actually read.
* As noted before, you are feeling pessimistic. Pessimism is great way to kill your productivity. If your only goal is the big one, you'll be depressed until you actually make it. By setting up smaller, intermediate goals (such as publications), you will rebuild your confidence and positivity step by step.
* Finally, if you do make the switch to industry, you'll have something to show for your work. You worked as a researcher for four years, and you produced publications. The PhD didn't quite come together, but I don't think you'll need to explain it beyond that. Most likely the interviewer won't know much about academic life, and if you give him a brief, honest answer, they won't really care.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: I am going to answer from a rather different perspective, that of someone who has been involved in technical hiring, the sort of person who is going to be looking at your job application and possibly interviewing you if you go into industry. I'm a retired computer programmer and computer architect, and have spent many hours trying to pick the right people to hire.
I had a colleague who started on a PhD. and decided after a few months that he was not suited to that path, and would do better in industry. That was absolutely no problem.
On the other hand, quitting at this point, or later, in a 4 year project is a potential red flag. It would make me worry that you may throw up your hands and quit a few months before a deadline if the going gets tough, rather than rising to the challenge. That would be a serious negative for most technical jobs. Moreover, even if you think you know what went wrong, why you did not complete the PhD., you would have nothing to show that would give me confidence in your analysis.
On the other hand, suppose you continue with the PhD. through September, putting together the best thesis you can in that time. If it is accepted, great, carry on with the academic path.
If it is rejected, you still have something to show a potential employer. You would need to analyze what went wrong, and understand your strengths and weaknesses. You either need to correct weak areas, or pick a job that plays to your strengths and does not need your weak areas. For example, if your thesis has insufficient original results but is well written and presented, you could apply for jobs where original research is not required, but organizing and presenting technical information is important. There are plenty of those.
In a comment on another answer, you say "my supervisor has had a lot of successful PhD candidates". That means he is both good at picking students, and good at shepherding them through the thesis process.
I think the time to start looking for industry jobs is after the very best thesis you can write by the deadline, taking full advantage of your supervisor's advice and shepherding skills, has been rejected.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_7: Do check your university's policy on extensions. It should have one, though financially you may be in a difficult place if you get one. Now is a good time to start thinking about it, though you might not need to apply just yet. Get in touch with the postgrad officer in the student union if there is one - they may have a realistic idea of when extensions are granted.
Within your department/faculty there should be someone with responsibility for graduate students. They may well be more suited to this discussion than your supervisor, and will be well placed to see the big picture.
During my PhD each student was assessed annually by 2 academics who weren't their supervisor. This was a very useful process (though preparing for it felt like a waste of time sometimes). These assessors were similarly able to advise informally on progress. You may not have such a system, and even if you do, it may not work so well for you as it did for me.
It's a little later than typical in your PhD but everyone hits a stage like this, sometimes more than once. You will at some point need to involve your supervisor. Those great results that both you and your supervisor were hoping for after your early successes were always unlikely really -- but the majority of supervisors would have let you know by now if you were well short of the necessary progress.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Short version: *This is perfectly normal; don't panic; hold on tight.*
As Patricia said, this would be the worst time to drop out, so don't do that.
Your question refers to ‘my probable PhD flop’, but who says ‘probable’? If it's you, I doubt you're the best judge at this point. Many/most PhD students go through something like this, at around this stage, and you're in excellent company. *[long list of sample late-PhD worries deleted, in retrospect, on the grounds it's too depressing]*.
You say your supervisor ‘would brush it off’, not ‘brushed it off’. Try talking to him about how you feel: since you say he's had a lot of successful PhD students, he'll also have had a lot of them having the screaming hab-dabs at about the same stage. This is your first PhD, but it's his *n*-th, and he's probably OK at spotting any *real* warning signs. He may or may not be good at being reassuring, but if he's not worried, then you perhaps shouldn't be worried either (and I agree that's easier said than done). No-one doesn't care about whether their PhD students fail. A lot can, and usually does, happen in the last 6–12 months of a PhD, and there are strategies for dealing with problems.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: I'd like to offer a completely different perspective. We are about a week away from the winter solstice. Dec 21 will be the shortest day and longest night of the year. Many people, myself included, are strongly influenced by the shortened photoperiod. You've probably heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which can cause depression and disturbances to the sleep cycle. Do you find that you are a lot more energetic and confident in the spring and summer months? If so, then you might wish to read a few articles about SAD.
I have personally found it very helpful to bathe my office in light throughout the day. Using a photographic light meter, I determined that my previously preferred office illumination level was about 100 lux at the surface of my desk. By switching on all of the lights and keeping the window blind open, I was able to increase that to 700-1000 lux, depending upon the weather. I am now keeping my office fully illuminated all day, and I find that my mood and energy level are elevated. I have read that it is equally important to have reduced illumination in the evening hours to ensure a good night's rest.
A very simplistic explanation is that light (and exercise) increase serotonin, which lifts the mood and increases energy levels, while darkness increases melatonin which causes drowsiness. So get as much light as possible in the morning and throughout the day. Take an outdoor walk at midday if possible. And then dim the lights in the evening. Give it a week or two and see if you feel any better.
Also, if you want an easy, economical way to increase your office illumination, purchase a T5 high-output fluorescent light fixture. Each 46" high-output T5 tube emits 5000 lumens. One of those fixtures would probably double the illumination of your office. Three of them would turn your office into an operating theater!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: Just to be clear, you are talking about a deadline of Sep 2015, right? Perhaps you can elaborate on your current status. What is your situation with your work, do you have a thesis draft? If not, start writing one immediately. If it helps, I spent the last year of my PhD basically freaking out, though I don't think it was obvious to anyone else. I think I did a lot of smiling out of sheer nervousness. I did eventually get a PhD, though. I know other people (friends, acquaintances) who also had a bad time.
Bottom line; lots of people have a rough time in the closing stages of a PhD. Try to stay calm and relaxed. Definitely talk to your adviser. Also, talk to your fellow students. Try doing something else at least part time. You can't work the whole time, and if you try to, you'll spend the time you can't work panicking. I recommend going dancing. Excellent exercise, and as good as anything I've found for taking your mind off things.
For what it is worth, I agree with what the majority are saying here - try to get your PhD if you can. For one thing, you have already spent all this time on it. Second, it seems you are interested in doing research. Maybe it won't work out eventually - nobody can see the future. But the time to give up is not now. Getting a PhD is only the beginning of a research career, unless you are already 70. :-)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_11: In addition to the other answers, it's very likely that your university has some sort of system for providing free counselling/therapy for students. (Try googling for " student counselling".) A counsellor can help you understand to what extent your feelings of failure are based in reality versus (extremely common and normal!) PhD-induced depression, help you find ways to cope with stress/breakdown/feelings of failure, and help you figure out what path is best for you. Helping you cope with these kinds of situations is literally their job -- please take advantage of them!
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/11 | 344 | 1,238 | <issue_start>username_0: I have graduated this year with a second class first division. In addition, I ranked sixth. However, the problem is that I scored a D+ in my undergrad research project. Now I am aiming to pursue a masters degree at UK. My supervisor did not show up regularly plus he was 2 hours far away from my place.
I am really worried if this is going to ruin my chances into getting accepted in a good university such as Glasgow, Sheffield, Bristol or Bath. Do you think I have a chance?
BTW: I am an international student majored in engineering.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Do you think I have a chance?
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**Yes.**
I was accepted to a masters program with some bad grades on my undergraduate transcript, some courses with less then 40% marks. In graduate school I got a distinction and now I'm a postdoc.
Doing poorly in a single course won't ostracize you from all graduate schools.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Except at a handful of schools, taught MSc course in the UK are generally unfunded and not selective. Full fee paying international students are essentially the holy grail of students in the UK. With a 2.1 and 5-10k for fees you should have a large choice of good schools.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/11 | 1,574 | 6,480 | <issue_start>username_0: We are thinking about buying new textbooks for our students. Is there an established practice of buying digital copies of books for students? I expect that e-books should generally be cheaper and we might also be able to save money on delivery.
If the school were to purchase 10 copies of some particular title (e.g., this [condensed matter physics book](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B005C74HXC)), would it be possible to loan these e-books to one set of students for some period of time (2 years), and later use the same licensed e-books for the next set of students?
**Edit**
I'm asking is it *legal* to give the same e-book file to multiple student generations, given that the particular licensed copy is only used by one student at a time.
If it is legal, I'm interesting in the established procedure for doing so. Are there any special considerations for different vendors or for different e-book formats?<issue_comment>username_1: Generally speaking, when you purchase digital content, you are usually purchasing a *license* for said content. You will have to read the license to find out what the terms are. For example, [here](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201014950) is the general license agreement for the Kindle store. It states that as a general rule:
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> Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense, or otherwise assign any rights to the Kindle Content or any portion of it to any third party
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which would prohibit the scheme you suggest in the general case ("unless specifically indicated otherwise").
Similarly, for books sold in the Google Play store, the license terms [include the following](https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1062968?hl=en):
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> You may not lend or co-own any of your Books on Google Play purchases with another person.
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The specific license terms can vary by content distributor, publisher, and individual book.
In cases where lending is permitted (e.g. [some Kindle books](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_rel_topic?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200549320)), it's usually very restricted - for ordinary customers. Libraries can purchase licenses for some books that are more permissive for lending purposes. You should consult with your university librarians about what options are available to them.
You *may* be able to find an appropriate book for your purposes with a permissive license that allows lending (maybe even some open educational resources, if you're really lucky), but this will probably take some work.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: One of the problems with how software is licensed, is it is not always clear when you are violating the EULA. After consultations with our library and IT department, we bought a large number of iPads that students can borrow from the school. We have loaded these iPads with a number of useful books, including our core textbooks. The IT and the library felt the issues with iPads were less than with lending the ebook directly or using laptops. The issue with laptops is that each user would generally have a separate and private account while for an iPad there is only one account. Your best bet is to talk to someone else and get them to sign off on it.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: My guess is that your best chance is to do this via your library (not as institute).
Here's is a localized answer for ebooks and libraries for **Germany**:
Source: <http://www.bibliotheksportal.de/themen/digitale-bibliothek/e-books-in-bibliotheken.html>
* The UrhG (German copyright law) has explicit rules for content on physical media. Besides printed books this also covers CDs and DVDs.
Roughly speaking the idea is that a library is allowed to lend out books on physical media. The loss of the publisher because of a larger number of readers for the book is compensated by a so-called "Bibliothekstantieme" ("library royalty").
* The problem with ebooks is that they are not covered by those "physical" library rules. This means that libraries negotiate individual licensing contracts with the publishers.
* The university library ebooks I've used so far were restricted to reading from university IPs, some even to computers at the library. Look&feel of the procedure were similar to electronic journal access.
Talk to your university library, I'm sure they know how to deal with that. They'll probably also be able to give rough guesstimates about the costs.
* There exist public e-libraries, e.g. [Onleihe](http://www.onleihe.net) is an network for ebooks of public libraries mainly in the German speaking countries. They know for sure how to deal with this, and something the like probably also exists in your country.
The mode of this is described (I haven't tried it personally) as very similar to traditional library use: there is a number of copies available, if they are all lent out you have to wait until one is "returned". You get access for a restricted time and then the reading license is returned and you cannot open the book any longer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: To know whether the device workaround is legal, you need to figure out if the ebook license is owned by the individual or the account.
If it is owned by the individual making the purchase, it should be able to be transferred to a different account. If losing access to an account (on Amazon or Kindle or whatever) also loses you access to a license that is purchased and owned, then it belongs to the account. Not you. Giving the account to someone else to use should not count as distribution as long as the written material isn't copied, emailed, printed, etc.)
However, you would need a lawyer regardless of what you do. Laws are just chess pieces businesses use to play for the most amount of money possible. You need your own chess player to protect your interests.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: The situation may have changed in the last five or so years since the question was asked. But, currently, in the US, libraries are able to make agreements with some publishers for just this purpose. There are limits in the agreements, as you would expect. I don't know if the limits would make it hard to lend a title for a complete term. Most library lending is for a couple of weeks, but there are exceptions.
Have a local library explore this with publishers.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/11 | 1,838 | 7,828 | <issue_start>username_0: I teach various undergraduate courses. I make the cheating policies clear on the first day of lectures, check the student's understanding of this with an on-line quiz, and remind students of the policy almost weekly in class. I try hard to detect cheating, but cannot catch everyone.
Sometimes I discover cheating mid-way through the semester. For example, I caught some students submitting duplicate assignments. After making the discovery, I looked back to past work that they submitted to the course Web site, and found the students sent identical papers for all past assignments, but I already awarded them A's.
Is it unfair of me to go back and regrade prior assignments when students cheated?<issue_comment>username_1: "Unfair" is a pretty slippery concept. As I have quipped several times on this site already, I feel very confident that by writing down even some of the things that students insist must be done in the name of fairness, we could logically deduce that the only fair thing to do is to give them all A's. More seriously: let's talk ethics instead of fairness. I don't find regrading homework in lieu of information gained to be unethical in the slightest. If you graded a problem incorrectly and later noticed that it was wrong, then on the contrary the ethical thing to do would be to change the grade. However a lot of instructors would think twice about doing this because students may ~~find it unfair~~ not be happy about it. (Sometimes they regrade the problem and say "I'll give you the credit anyway", but isn't that *truly* unfair to the other students??)
(**Added**: I agree with username_2's answer that revisiting *subjective grading issues* after the fact is less defensible. What I had in mind above was noticing that you added up 20 and 30 and 20 and got 90 and similarly clearcut matters.)
I don't think a lack of detecting cheating is a grading error, so regrading when you detect cheating ought to be more defensible than the in principle correct practice of fixing incorrectly high grades. However, I predict that the students may ~~find it unfair~~ not be happy about it. A regrade may encourage the students to contest the cheating, which is of course their right. So, as usual, when you accuse students of cheating you can't do so lightly.
But hold on a minute: is the nickel-and-dime approach of regrading necessary in this case? You say that you have already caught the students cheating on other assignments. You don't build a case of academic dishonesty piecemeal: you look at all the incriminating evidence at once. The students' *past* duplicate assignments can certainly be used as evidence in your *present* allegations of academic dishonesty. If they are found guilty of cheating, then the penalty should not be localized to precisely the problem sets in which cheating was observed (especially if the cheating takes place across multiple problem sets). In the circles I travel in, having their homework grade for the entire course reduced to zero would be one of the **lightest** punishments on the table in this case. No worry about regrades if that happens.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Looking over previous assignments after detecting cheating is perfectly reasonable. In fact, I'd advise that you *should* do it if you can.
Revising previous judgment calls about the quality of a student's work could be unfair, or at least extremely upsetting to the student. For example, it wouldn't be reasonable to say "Remember that paper I gave you an A- on? After thinking about it a little more, I've decided that I was too generous and your work deserved a B+ instead, so I'm changing your grade."
However, looking for evidence of cheating is different from reconsidering your grading standards. You aren't changing your opinion of the grade the work would deserve if it was properly done. Instead, you are trying to figure out whether it was in fact properly done. If not, then the student never earned the grade in the first place and has no cause to complain about unfairness.
In other words, there's no statute of limitations for cheating. Just because a grade has already been assigned, it doesn't mean you can't be found guilty of cheating, in which case the previous grade becomes irrelevant.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: You have detected a willful and on-going pattern of cheating.
I don't know about your school, but many including mine have an explicit policy on academic misconduct. Indeed, we're required to copy the policy into our course syllabus every semester. Ours reads in part:
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> Penalties for academic misconduct in any course may include a failing grade on the assignment, **a failing grade in the course**, or any other course-related sanction the instructor determines to be appropriate.
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(Emphasis added.)
One option is to preserve and document the evidence and simply inform your department head that you are summarily failing the students. Once he or she is on board you tell the students (in private, of course) and move on.
That way the question of re-grading doesn't come up.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: You should consult your institution's policies; there may be due-process requirements.
At one institution where I have worked, as I recall, university regulations required that before an instructor could impose a grade penalty for cheating, they first had to meet with the student, present the evidence, and allow the student to respond. The instructor could then make a determination as to whether cheating had occurred, but the student had the right to demand a hearing before a university panel set up for that purpose, whose decision could overrule the instructor. Further appeals were possible beyond that point. Until the student either accepted the charge, or exhausted their appeals, the instructor had to grade the assignment under the assumption that it was completed honestly.
So under such a policy, you could certainly go back and look at the past assignments to see if you thought there was evidence of cheating; but you could not actually change the grade until the hearing process was duly completed.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: Cheating is an Academic crime that should be punished by academic death.
Grade change has nothing to do with it.
It is the academic institute's policy to contain such crime by expulsion.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: In all fairness, I think cheating is just the same as answering correctly.
In real life, you are graded on the result of you work. If you are asked to deliver X and deliver X, that is acceptable regardless of the means (unless illegal).
What really is the difference between cheating or studying? in the long run, I would argue that cheating is actually a much more beneficial skill to lean. For example if you know how to cheat, you can cheat at any subject, if you study for math, you wont necessarily pass science.
School is suppose to prepare you for life, And thus should take into account things like technology. Never in life will a boss tell a co-worker to find a solution to a problem but they can not use the internet or their mobile phone to find the answer. Before starting my own business, I have worked for a few larger companies and the mentality of most of the young out of college employees seem to be if you are tasked with an assignment, do it on your own and don't ask anyone for help even if you don't know the answer or else you will seem incapable, probably because they have this mindset coming out of school that asking peers for the answer to a problem is not the way things are done.
If you student(s) have found a way to receive a positive result with less work, I think that deserves and A...
The exception I would give is plagiarism.
Upvotes: -1 |
2014/12/11 | 2,743 | 11,811 | <issue_start>username_0: I am curious as to how mathematicians conduct research. I hope some of you can help me solve this little mystery.
To me, mathematics is a branch where you either get it or you don't. If you see the solution, then you've solved the problem, otherwise you will have to tackle it bit by bit. Exactly how this is done is elusive to me.
Unlike physicists, chemists, engineers or even sociologists, I can't see where a mathematician (other than statisticians) gather their data from. Also, unlike the other professions mentioned above, it is not apparent that mathematicians perform any experiments.
Additionally, a huge amount of work has already been laid down by other mathematicians, I wonder if there is a lot of "copy and pasting" as we see in software engineering (think of using other people's code)
So my question is, where do mathematicians get their research topics from and how do they go about conducting research? What is considered acceptable progress in mathematics?<issue_comment>username_1: As far as pure mathematics, you are quite right: there are neither data nor experiments.
Drastically oversimplified, a mathematics research project goes like this:
1. Develop, or select from the existing literature, a mathematical statement ("conjecture") that you think will be of interest to other mathematicians, and whose truth or falsity is not known. (For example, "There are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers that differ by 2.") This is your *problem*.
2. Construct a mathematical proof (or disproof) of this statement. See below. This is the *solution* of the problem.
3. Write a paper explaining your proof, and submit it to a journal. Peer reviewers will decide whether your problem is interesting and whether your solution is logically correct. If so, it can be published, and the conjecture is now a theorem.
The following discussion will make much more sense to anyone who has tried to write mathematical proofs at any level, but I'll try an analogy. A mathematical proof is often described as a chain of logical deductions, starting from something that is known (or generally agreed) to be true, and ending with the statement you are trying to prove. Each link must be a logical consequence of the one before it.
For a very simple problem, a proof might have only one link: in that case one can often see the solution immediately. This would normally not be interesting enough to publish on its own, though mathematics papers typically contain several such results ("lemmas") used as intermediate steps on the way to something more interesting.
So one is left to, as you say, "tackle it bit by bit". You construct the chain a link at a time. Maybe you start at the beginning (something that is already known to be true) and try to build toward the statement you want to prove. Maybe you go the other way: from the desired statement, work backward toward something that is known. Maybe you try to build free-standing lengths of chain in the middle and hope that you will later manage to link them together. You need a certain amount of experience and intuition to guess which direction you should direct your chain to eventually get it where it needs to go. There are generally lots of false starts and dead ends before you complete the chain. (If, indeed, you ever do. Maybe you just get completely stuck, abandon the project, and find a new one to work on. I suspect this happens to the vast majority of mathematics research projects that are ever started.)
Of course, you want to take advantage of work already done by other people: using their theorems to justify steps in your proof. In an abstract sense, you are taking their chain and splicing it into your own. But in mathematics, as in software design, copy-and-paste is a poor methodology for code reuse. You don't repeat their proof; you just cite their paper and use their theorem. In the software analogy, you link your program against their library.
You might also find a published theorem that doesn't prove exactly the piece you need, but whose proof can be adapted. So this sometimes turns into the equivalent of copying and pasting someone else's code (giving them due credit, of course) but changing a few lines where needed. More often the changes are more extensive and your version ends up looking like a reimplementation from scratch, which now supports the necessary extra features.
"Acceptable progress" is quite subjective and usually based on how interesting or useful your theorem is, compared to the existing body of knowledge. In some cases, a theorem that looks like a very slight improvement on something previously known can be a huge breakthrough. In other cases, a theorem could have all sorts of new results, but maybe they are not useful for proving further theorems that anyone finds interesting, and so nobody cares.
Now, through this whole process, here is what an outside observer actually sees you doing:
* Search for books and papers.
* Read them.
* Stare into space for a while.
* Scribble inscrutable symbols on a chalkboard. (The symbols themselves are usually meaningful to other mathematicians, but at any given moment, the context in which they make sense may exist only in your head.)
* Scribble similar inscrutable symbols on paper.
* Use LaTeX to produce beautifully-typeset inscrutable symbols interspersed with incomprehensible technical terms, connected by lots of "therefore"s and "hence"s.
* Loop until done.
* Submit said beautifully-typeset gibberish to a journal.
* Apply for funding.
* Attend a conference, where you speak unintelligibly about your gibberish, and listen to others do the same about theirs.
* Loop until emeritus, or perhaps until dead ([in the sense of Erdős](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Personality)).
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: One point to note is that, for some questions, it is possible to do experiments to get data. Certain questions are things we now have computer programs to generate, and previously they could have been done on a far more limited scale by hand. So in some cases mathematicians do work more like experimental scientists. On the other hand, once they've found what seems to be a pattern, they change approach. Gathering further examples isn't much use (unless you then find a counter-example, but it can be encouraging) - you need to find an actual proof.
More generally, nearly every big result will come from some 'experiments': you try special cases, cases with more hypotheses, extreme cases that might result in failures...
On the 'copy-and-paste' point, mathematicians do use a lot of what other people have done (generally they must), but whereas you might copy someone's code to use it, when you cite a theorem you don't need to copy out the proof. So in terms of written space in a paper, the 'copied' section is very small. There are (fairly large) exceptions to this: fairly often a proof someone has given is very close to what you need, but not quite good enough, because you want to use it for something different to what they did. So you may end up writing out something very similar, but with your own subtle tweaks. I guess you could see this as like adjusting someone else's machine (we call things machines too, but here I mean a physical one). The difference is that generally in order to do this sort of thing you must completely understand what the machine does. Another big reason for 'copying' is that you may need (for actual theoretical reasons or for expositional ones) to build on the actual workings of the machine, not just on the output it gives.
More to the point of the question:
As a mathematician, you generally read, and aim to understand, what other people have done. That gives you a bank of tools you can use - results (which you may or may or may not be completely able to prove yourself), and methods that have worked in the past. You build up an idea of things that tend to work, and how to adapt things slightly to work in similar situations. You do a fair amount of trial and error - you try something, but realise you get stuck at some point. Then you try and understand why you are stuck, and if there's a way round. You try proving the opposite to what you want, and see where you get stuck (or don't!).
Once you have a working proof, you see whether there are closely related things you can/can't prove. What happens if you remove/change a hypothesis? Also, does the reverse statement hold? If not entirely, are there some cases in which it does? Can you give examples to show your result is as good as possible? Can you combine it with other things you know about?
Another source of questions is what other people are interested in. Sometimes you know how to do something they want doing, but you didn't think of it until they asked.
One more point I'd like to make in the 'methods of proof category' is that, for me at least, there's a degree to which I work by 'feel'. You know those puzzles where all the pieces seem to be jammed in place but you're meant to take them apart (and put them back together again)? You sort of play around until you feel a bit that's looser than the rest, right? Sometimes proofs are a bit like that. When you understand something well, you can 'feel' where things are wedged tight and where they are looser.
Sometimes you also hope that lightning (inspiration) will strike. Occasionally it does.
(All of this may not exactly answer the question, but hopefully it gives some insight.)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Actually, even in pure mathematics, it very often is possible to do experiments of a sort.
It's very common to come up with a hypothesis that seems plausible but you're not sure if it's true or not. If it's true, proving that is probably quite a lot of work; if it's false, proving that could be quite a lot of work, too. But, if it's true, trying to prove that it's false is a *huge* amount of work! Before you invest a lot of effort into trying to prove the wrong direction, it's good to gain some intuition about the situation and whether the statement seems more likely to be true or to be false. Computers can be very useful for this kind of thing: you can generate lots of examples and see if they satisfy your hypothesis. If they do, you might try to prove your hypothesis is true; if they don't, you might try to refine your hypothesis by adding more conditions to it.
See also [username_4's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/34119/10685) which talks about doing similar "experiments" by hand.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> Unlike physicists, chemists, engineers or even sociologists, I can't see where a mathematician (other than statisticians) gather their data from. Also, unlike the other professions mentioned above, it is not apparent that mathematicians perform any experiments.
>
>
>
I "gather data" and perform experiments" by working out my conjectures in the context of specific examples. If the conjecture works out in several examples, that makes me more confident that it may be true in general.
For example, suppose that I think that every topological space of a certain form has a particular property. I will start by looking at some "simple" spaces, like the real line, and see if they have the property. If they do, I may look at some more complicated space. Often, when I look at what specific attributes of the examples were necessary to show they had the property in question, it tells me what hypotheses I need to add to make my conjecture into a theorem.
This is not the same as scientific experimentation, nor the same as computer experimentation, which is also important in various areas of mathematics. But it is its own form of experimentation, nevertheless.
Upvotes: 5 |
2014/12/11 | 437 | 2,048 | <issue_start>username_0: Many research groups are international. While I hope that academics are in general open-minded and tolerant, there might still be a potential for conflicts when researchers from different ethnic groups, which are hostile towards each other or are even at war, work together in the same group.
As a head of the research group, what measures can I take to prevent such conflicts from affecting the work of the group?<issue_comment>username_1: One of the advantages of being the head of a research group is that your position should give you a great opportunity to set the tone of the working environment for the group.
The first key to establishing a healthy research group is setting a good example. Try to be open about your views and encourage good interactions, and be careful not to implicitly support bad behavior by appearing to condone poor treatment or opposition to ideas based on who they come from rather than their merits. Your group will take cues from your behavior, which to some degree will implicitly define what is and isn't acceptable in your group.
Try to be proactive about including everyone.
Make sure your students and researchers are aware that one of the minimum requirements for participation in the group is that people treat each other with courtesy and respect. Unless it's a political science research group, politics and conflicts between ethnic groups should be tabled. It's understandable for people to have differences, but you should try to make it clear that your group is not the place to hash out wider conflicts.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Try to mix up your groups with different ethnics, don't let subgroups consist just of the same ethnic. give out the target to check for possible different approaches to the problem based on an ethnic background. if there is more than one approach to the problem, based on ethnics (or maybe just any other reason) have the whole group vote on which approach would be most effective and should be used.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/11 | 2,744 | 12,338 | <issue_start>username_0: Eventually I grew tired of having to explain over and over why *all* my class material is in English. It's a mandatory course in Art History. I want to put some warning in my syllabus to minimize any arguments. The problem is how to do it politely, yet clearly.
The reasons are clear: there is no material in their native language for the courses I teach; obviously I cannot and will not translate the material; and it is their duty to read in English. I guess I cannot tell them straight that if they do not read English well they will not even understand classes well and will get low grades. I don't want to sound rude.
Is there a way to explain the situation, or is it better not to include such a written statement in a syllabus and keep things as they are?<issue_comment>username_1: I agree that it makes sense to set expectations as early as possible.
I'd just put
>
> Note that all XXX for this course are in English.
>
>
>
in the syllabus. You should of course be *specific* as to what XXX is:
* Class slides
* Required reading
* Supplemental reading
* Lectures (you could have slides in English but speak the local language during the actual lecture)
* Quizzes
* Exams
If quizzes/exams are in English, you should also note whether students would be expected to *answer* in English.
Whether or not you also want to include the reasons for this is really up to how much space you have in the syllabus and whether there isn't anything more important to put there. I'd say that a warning might be a better use for the space:
>
> If your English is not up to reading/understanding/writing technical documents, this course likely is not a good fit for you.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In many fields, you cannot be considered educated as an effective practitioner unless you know a particular language, because communications in that field are done in that language.
For example, once it was the case that one could not be a chemist without reading German, because all of the most critical work in chemistry was published in German.
Currently, it is extremely difficult to be a computer programmer without reading English: although interfaces and user documentation is often translated, the actual code and APIs for most programs is written in English.
Likewise, around the world all air traffic controllers are required to be proficient in English, as that is the agreed-upon fall-back language for air traffic control.
If the course you are teaching is in such a field, then explaining this fact can help students understand why it is important for them to read texts in English. They may not be happy with this fact (and there may be good reasons to be unhappy about it), but understanding how language plays into their ability to put the material to use may be useful for getting them to accept its importance.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I think you can simply mention the main references and course materials at the beginning of the class.
On the other hand, I believe, it is the job of an instructor, to present the material in the official language of his/her institution is such a way that without additional materials, the students can well follow the course and to be able to successfully pass the exams.
<NAME> once said
```
The student's note-book should be his principal text-book.
```
In Mathematics (and I believe in many other domains) there are still some domains in which one cannot really be an expert without knowing French and German. But just because the materials of my domain is not in the official language of my institution (for example they are in French or German), doesn't mean I can force the students to learn them. It is my job to teach them and present them in the official language of my institution.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Could you clarify where you are teaching and at what level?
A young undergraduate student might consider it "unfair" if he or she fails your course because of insufficient English skills. A more mature student will understand that you're offering preparation for real life.
A professor of mine once told us halfway through the class that "the remainder would be held in the international language of science, broken American English." He expected us to get the technical terms right and the rest of our sentences understandable. Proper pronounciation was optional.
Back to your question, tell your students that you expect reading comprehension of technical literature. They don't have to speak English, and they don't have to write beautiful sentences.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I think you certainly need to make crystal clear at the very beginning of the class that a reading knowledge of English is required. If possible, it should be clear even earlier than that - perhaps mentioned in the course description that students read when deciding to register for the class. That way, students who do not have the necessary skills can sign up for some other class instead. By the time the class starts, it may be more difficult for them to do so.
Another option may be to require an appropriate English class as a prerequisite (which can be waived for students who already have sufficient fluency).
If this is a mandatory course, then you need to have a discussion with your department as to whether your use of English materials is reasonable. They have an interest in running a program which students can actually pass. If your colleagues decide that this is not reasonable, then either you will have to change the way you teach it, or someone else will have to teach it instead of you.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: If the course is mandatory I think, in fairness to the students, you should go one of two routes:
* Make the English reading requirement formal and written. It should be included in the prospectus for any program that requires your course. There should be a suitable English course that can be taken before your course, and that course, or equivalent skill, should be a stated prerequisite.
* Make it possible to get the top grade in your course without reading any English. That would mean including in the course notes material that an English-reading student could get from text books. The text books would be at the most optional extras for students who want to go beyond your course, not required material. Given the additional information that the subject is Art History, you could still require the text books for their illustrations, but write notes that tell the students what they are looking at.
Whether English-reading is required for the program seems to be a policy decision that should be made by the faculty as a whole.
=======================================================================
There is a third, intermediate, option. Campaign to make the course an option rather than mandatory. In that case, the English requirement would only need to be documented in materials the students use to make their optional course selections. It does not need to be part of the requirements for the program as a whole.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: Try something similar to the following:
>
> This course, and all required reading, will be presented in English. If you need assistance understanding any course materials, please see your counselor or [other university resources for ESL students].
>
>
>
This makes it clear that everything will be presented in a specific language, and indicates that the class and teacher are not the appropriate people to work with students lacking English proficiency.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Depending on the country/culture in which you teach, it might simply not be possible. It's easy to assume the “everybody speaks English” or that “students will need it anyway” to make your life easier but often it's not true.
Without starting a debate on language planning, it's not obvious to me why it should be impossible to learn art history and enter a career in teaching, become a museum curator or whatever it is your students could do after taking your course, certainly if they speak another major European language.
Personally, I speak several languages and would certainly recommend learning English to anybody who asks but I also know people doing decent work without knowing it, even in supposedly internationalized and English-dominated fields like computer science. It's useful and common to be sure but outside of academic research it's not vital and I don't think it would be fair for me to deny people an education and career (or, from another perspective, to limit the talent pool in the country) on that basis alone.
If you teach in a country where English is not a general requirement in higher education or there is an expectation that lecturers provide their own teaching material, then it is in fact your job to enable learning in the local language and there might be no way to prevent students from perceiving your not doing so as unfair, rude and lazy.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: You are asking how to explain things politely. I don't think it's that complicated. Simply state:
"All required reading for this course will be in English."
There's nothing rude about that in terms of voice.
However, you don't give us enough background information to understand the context. If this college doesn't teach all courses in English, and doesn't require proficiency in English, or anything similar, then no matter what your voice, students are going to see this as a rather rude obstruction in their curriculum. This would be a failing of the particular school you are teaching in. They need to make it clear to students that there may be classes requiring all reading in English prior to them committing to the program.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_10: I can't judge your colleagues just from your observations, but maybe I agree with you. Nonetheless, students are suffering (though not terribly) from this.
Since you wrote that you can't really discuss this with the faculty, I think the possible solutions are:
* List the requirement anyway, if your colleagues won't bother you for that. Some students will be annoyed *and* in their right to be annoyed (at the situation, if not necessarily at you).
* To improve things for students, if you can, get faculty to make your course optional, and possibly to accept at least an optional English course for credit in the degree.
That still implies discussion with colleagues, but it doesn't require
them to do extra work (say, learn English), so they might be more
willing to accept. Moreover, it's the easiest solution which is
actually fair to students. That might reduce your studentship to
people who care and accept the requirement. For you, that might be good (you'd get more motivated students) or not (if too few students pick your course and colleagues get nervous about it).
* I don't know really enough to say this, but if it's reasonable for you, you might want to change to another department where you can work with your colleagues rather than against them. From your tone, it sounds like it would avoid you quite some annoyance *and* make both departments better for students. I've seen or suffered, as a students, enough departments where communication between professors was visibly dysfunctional. Of course, I don't think anybody can demand such an extreme solution from you.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_11: I second username_4's remark about the language of science being broken English -- and I would stress the **advantage** of this fact to the students (at least in the first lesson). Science isn't something that is done only in and for one country, e.g., German Science, or US Science, etc.
Sure, there are national organizations and differences in universities between countries, but the findings themselves are usually applicable and discussed internationally (with all intercultural differences, at least most of the work in psychology is widely applicable, probably all of the 'hard sciences', and I'm guessing that even if local art history is discussed, theories are probably internationally applicable).
So, being able to (at least) understand English allows a student to listen into that discussion.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/11 | 433 | 1,902 | <issue_start>username_0: Does it worth to add IEEE membership to my CV? It seems every body can pay a fee and become an IEEE member.<issue_comment>username_1: Many CVs have a section for professional society memberships. Mere membership doesn't necessarily convey a significant distinction, but it does say which groups you have chosen to invest in affiliating with and which judge you to qualify.
For the IEEE in particular, it actually does have fairly strict [membership qualifications](http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/join/qualifications.html). Most people cannot qualify for IEEE membership, but pretty much any practitioner of the field can, because that is what it is designed to select for. Thus, putting an IEEE membership in your professional society memberships section of your CV is entirely appropriate.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I do/would not. The IEEE membership is a paid for membership, which academics, like myself, often buy simply for the benefit of obtaining reduced conference fees. I am sure that there are more legitimate uses of it, but in most cases, it's for attending conferences or registering with a journal. Unless you are an IEEE fellow or one of their other distinctions, all it requires is an academic email address and 25$/year to join, so I would not list it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I do put my academic affiliations at the very, very end of my CV. It is not there to prove my worth in any way, but rather to show which academic associations I affiliate most closely with and where I have been active in contributing to.
You could also get that through looking at the Conference Presentations portion of my cv, but I've presented at conferences where I'm not a member.
This is particularly important in interdisciplinary fields where it's not clear which conference / disciplinary borders one occupies.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/11 | 464 | 2,111 | <issue_start>username_0: What is general rule regarding the number of reviewers? Date under manuscript status "under review" has now changed for third time within two months. What could this implicate?<issue_comment>username_1: It is very common to use two reviewers although other numbers occur as well. The process of getting reviewers to accept to do a review can be a long and hard process. In your case the delay may well be the result of an editor receiving negative answers to requests which means the editor will contact further persons. whether or not the date change in the manuscript handling system reflects this is hard to say without knowing what system is used and how it may be set up for the specific journal. My bet would, however, be that you see the editors multiple attempts to find reviewers to accept. At some point in the process, you can e-mail the editor to ask about the progress of your manuscript but you need to assess when the time is becoming too long and this will differ between disciplines and journals within that discipline. As an editor, it can be very annoying when people start sending such mails prematurely when one is in the middle of trying to line up good reviewers. But, as stated, it is a judgement call.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In my field (biology) most of journals use two reviewers, but the third reviewer is normally called if the first two significantly disagree.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: The number of reviewers can vary. In my experience, it is normal for a paper to be by two anonymous referees (in double blind review, also blind to the authors) and the final decision will be made by an editor or associate chair who, generally, is not blind to the identities of the authors of the reviewers.
In situations where this is significant disagreement, additional reviewers can be added.
This can even vary within journals. For example, PLOSONE assigns an editor who can reach out to as many reviewers as they like or accept papers outright. Last I checked, the median number of external reviews at that journal was 2.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/11 | 387 | 1,822 | <issue_start>username_0: Is it advisable (in terms of the benefit for the students and the work it causes) to make the grading completely transparent to students? I think for instance of publishing the sample solutions for the exam or the distribution of the grades given. Would those measures be suitable to convince the students that the grading is fair or would it rather make worse students feel treated in an unfair way and trigger many complaints? As far as I understand the University now normally lets the students only see their individual grades. Of course they will always compare themselves in smaller groups.<issue_comment>username_1: Transparency is great, when you can do it. Many of my large undergraduate classes would show a score histogram for every major quiz or exam, and some would explicitly give the grading rubric. This was generally very much appreciated by the students for exactly the reasons you give: better understanding of how they stand and why they got the scores they got, letting them judge fairness and know *when* to reasonably object (which sometimes happened).
From the TA side, my experience was that transparency actually *decreased* my work, because it meant that I didn't need to deal with many spurious complaints, and that many of the complaints could be resolved directly through reference to the rubric.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I always made my grading as transparent as possible. It makes it fairer for the students and if they complain and gather points where they should not get them, it helps me improve the grading in the next exam.
From my point of view, tutors/teachers/examiners that do not make their grading transparent are not professional and seem to be weak at grading, otherwise they would not fear to make their process transparent.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/11 | 509 | 2,263 | <issue_start>username_0: Just curious as to the effects of publishing a mediocre PHD thesis:
After sitting down and taking a cold, detached, look at my thesis topic, I realized I was given a pair of coobook-style problems, i.e., in order to answer the questions I was given to answer, I just need to go over a list of requirements and see if the general results apply to my specific problems. Instead of research level, the problems I was given look more like exercises at the end of a book; a graduate-level book, but still, cookbook.
Question: Once I am done with this, which shouldn't take more than a few months, how will this look to anyone going over the thesis? Since I will be having some extra time, I am considering doing some extra research and tacking it into the thesis. Is there something else I can do?
I suspect my advisor may not have a very high opinion of me and thought I could not likely handle anything more complicated. This itself brings issues as to the recommendations I may receive when someone asks my advisor for a recommendation.<issue_comment>username_1: Transparency is great, when you can do it. Many of my large undergraduate classes would show a score histogram for every major quiz or exam, and some would explicitly give the grading rubric. This was generally very much appreciated by the students for exactly the reasons you give: better understanding of how they stand and why they got the scores they got, letting them judge fairness and know *when* to reasonably object (which sometimes happened).
From the TA side, my experience was that transparency actually *decreased* my work, because it meant that I didn't need to deal with many spurious complaints, and that many of the complaints could be resolved directly through reference to the rubric.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I always made my grading as transparent as possible. It makes it fairer for the students and if they complain and gather points where they should not get them, it helps me improve the grading in the next exam.
From my point of view, tutors/teachers/examiners that do not make their grading transparent are not professional and seem to be weak at grading, otherwise they would not fear to make their process transparent.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/11 | 387 | 1,855 | <issue_start>username_0: In the abstract of a scientific report, when comparing an experimentally measured value to a current accepted value, should you provide a citation for it?<issue_comment>username_1: As Nate says, check the guidelines for this.
From, some experience i had in a paper that got published a few months back, I was told to leave the cite to the intro and not the abstract.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: It is typically not necessary to report the currently accepted value of a quantity in the abstract, but, indeed, you should report it in the scientific report (with citation). In the report you should also discuss the compatibility between your result and the currently accepted value.
However, if there is a significant discrepancy between the accepted value and your result, and the main aim of your report is to discuss the cause of this discrepancy, then it can be useful to report the accepted value also in the abstract. In this case, the citation is needed, but take into account that, frequently, citations in abstracts follow different style conventions from those of the main text.
Pay particular attention to the source of the accepted value. For example, for fundamental physical constants, the *Committee on Data for Science and Technology* (CODATA) publishes around every 4 years a new "adjustment" of the recommended values ([here](http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/index.html) you can find the values of the latest adjustment with references). These recommended values are calculated on the basis of the best available measurements. The CODATA adjustment should be considered the only reliable source for the accepted values of fundamental physical constants (values reported in books are typically outdated). Other official sources exist for values of quantities related to other fields.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/12 | 567 | 2,282 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm studying Computer Science with a double major in Math at a public university. I hope to attend a private school like Vanderbilt (Nashville, USA) to pursue an MS or PhD. My GPA is still above a 3.0, however:
* I have received a **U** (unsatisfied, incorrectly submitted work) as a final grade in a single credit course that is part of an honors college program during my first semester in college.
* I also had one terrible score (**D**) in a 200 level maths course during the same semester.
*Will these early blemishes on my transcript affect my chances of getting into graduate school?*<issue_comment>username_1: If a student did poorly in their first semester of college, but did well afterwards, admissions committees will conclude that the student learned from what ever problems they had the first semester, and will be unlikely to perform poorly again. However, if they can choose a student with a perfect record, they will. On the whole, first semester grades are of little importance except at the most selective institutions.
If you explain in your application what went wrong, why it will never happen again, and how it made you a better applicant, it may strengthen your application.
(us perspective)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Wow. Congrats on pursuing such a challenging major
How relevant is that math course to your major? Is it one of the requirements? A lot of good advisors/faculty members understand that freshman year is only a summer from high school (think about it) so hopefully the graduate school will be understanding. Nobody is rarely ever perfect from the start- college is a learning process!
I'll be honest. I got straight C's my freshman and sophomore year. But I got lucky, went to classes, and got my sh\*t together! My professors recognized that even though I did poorly early on, that I had potential, and gave me research projects (she pulled me out at the end of class- thought I was in trouble)
Eventually, I got a project with NASA and it proved to graduate school that I was ready for research by the time I was applying.
So from my experience, no, it does not matter too much your freshman year. But make sure you have something to prove that you are academically strong enough now!
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/12/12 | 1,300 | 5,148 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently applying to Ph.D. programs at several universities. Since I was a transfer student in my undergraduate years, and I have great relationships with my professors at community college, I asked them to be my letter writers for letter of recommendations.
Today I received an email from one of the schools I am applying to asking for a LOR from a professor from the school that I got my bachelor's degree (or else they are likely to reject my application). They give me time until mid January to turn that in.
My problems now are:
1. I graduated five years ago and have not contacted my professors there
2. I contacted their departments today to find out their office hours but they are gone for winter breaks already.
It seems like that my only option is to just email them. And my thoughts are that the worse case scenario is just a "no" from them. And as long as I am being polite, I would not be blacklisted (please correct me if I am wrong on this).
If that is the case,should I be straight forward in my email explaining my situation honestly and ask them if they could write me a LOR or since I have until mid January, just ask them for a LOR as I would normally do it?
I drafted the two versions. Any comments or feedback will be helpful and greatly appreciated. Or if none of my solutions is a good one, I would really appreciate any other ideas.
Thank you very much!
---
First version:
>
> Dear Dr. Smith,
>
>
> This is Mary, I took your XYZ class back in 2010. I apologize for my presumptuous email. I was on campus today but found out there is no class this week. I was hoping to ask you in person to see if you would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation.
>
>
> I was majoring in ABC and I am currently applying to CDF. (and I plan to give some more background info)
>
>
> You are the best person to write me a letter because not only did I gotten an A+ in your XYZ class and you made great comments about my group project on WHATEVER, your class was also the class that raised my awareness in XXX. I have my statement of purpose, transcripts, curriculum vita ready, which I will be able to provide.
>
>
>
---
2nd version:
>
> Dear Dr. Smith,
>
>
> This is Mary, I took your XYZ class back in 2010. I apologize for my presumptuous email. I was on campus today but found out there is no class this week. I was hoping to ask you in person to see if you would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation.
>
>
> I was majoring in ABC and I am currently applying to CDF programs. I have submitted my application to University of 123. They said they need a letter of recommendation from my University 321 professor. If not they will likely to reject my application. They gave me a deadline to turn in this letter of recommendation by January 10th, 2015. Would you be willing to write me a letter of recommendation? I have my statement of purpose, transcripts, curriculum vita ready that I will be able to provide.
>
>
> You are the best person to write me a letter because not only did I gotten an A+ in your XYZ class and you made great comments about my group project on WHATEVER, your class was also the class that raised my awareness in XXX. I have my statement of purpose, transcripts, curriculum vita ready, which I will be able to provide.
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: I think either version will be fine. The professor will understand that grad school wants a letter from the institution you graduated from. One month notice is plenty. Throw in that you really enjoyed their class and apologize for the fact that you need the letter over break.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: This is totally fine, don't worry about it. I wouldn't "apologize for your presumptuous e-mail". You might apologize for the fact that you are asking them to write on short notice; I'd simply explain that you had solicited references from people who had interacted with you more recently, and schools to which you had applied had requested a reference from your undergraduate institution.
Also I think it's fine to ask by e-mail instead of in person.
I'm unclear about what your relationship is to your recommenders -- you say that you finished a bachelor's degree earlier; are you a student or an instructor at this community college? In any case, you want to get letters from the people who can attest to your ability to do demanding academic work in your chosen discipline. It sounds like you might have chosen your recommenders poorly (i.e., you have chosen people who will say in generic terms that you are a "good person and a hard worker", or perhaps you taught you easier classes than you took as an undergrad). I speculate that your file is very positive but lacks credible evidence that you will succeed in a graduate program. If this is the case, then the school that contacted you is doing you a big favor (they could have simply rejected you).
You should ask someone who, in addition to thinking highly of you, will know what it takes to succeed in a Ph.D. program and will be able to communicate this in his or her letter.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/12 | 393 | 1,759 | <issue_start>username_0: I am confused in a lot of applications for academic jobs, such as assistant professor, lecturer, instructor, at academic institutions. Many of them ask for a "copy of transcript," but I am unsure about what this means. Does this mean I need to get my official sealed transcript, open it, and copy it, or does it mean I can use the unofficial transcript?<issue_comment>username_1: May I ask what you mean when you say official and unofficial?
If it helps, the copies issued from the institution where you graduated are all considered official. The original document you receive is also a copy called the original copy. You can also have multiple original copies.
So when they ask for an official copy of your transcript, as long as it has the signature of your registrar or equivalent, it is official; whether it is the original or the photocopy is a different matter.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: To know for sure, the easiest thing is to email the application contact person for a given job and ask.
My impression is that in many cases, the committee reviewing the transcripts does not really care whether they are official or unofficial, photocopied or not, whatever. All contain the same information. If you reach a later stage of the application process, they may require an official transcript to satisfy bureaucratic requirements.
As username_1's answer says, every printed version of your transcript is "a copy of your transcript". "A copy of your transcript" doesn't necessarily mean a photocopy, it just means "a piece of paper with your transcript printed on it". If you receive a sealed transcript from your school, that is "a copy of your transcript" and you can send it in as-is.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2014/12/12 | 1,894 | 8,437 | <issue_start>username_0: While using github for source code is generally something I love to encourage, if a student puts their (computer science) homework there, it's generally easy for others to find and copy - which creates a temptation to use it as a "baseline" for their own (identical in most cases) homework - while I understand the benefits of using github (versioning, transitioning across machines easily, teamwork-capabilities), and the individual student who is using it has verified that it is indeed their account and can explain the code well, I still feel uncomfortable with it.
Has anyone else dealt with this issue? how did you handle it? does the university have some sort of policy around publishing student-created work openly? (even if it is part of an assignment)?
As a side-note, my general policy regarding "very similar" assignments is that whomever submitted it first gets the points, and the other submissions do not receive any points, however I tend to ask the students to explain their code and how it works, why they chose X over Y, etc. in such cases first.
edit: I have been informed that there does exist a free version of github that students can use to host private repositories, and this is likely the course of action I will go with for the near future, however, there are several drawbacks:
1. The student will be unable to showcase their work (i.e. a link to their github on their resume)
2. The student will not be a student forever, and thus the repository won't be able to be private for free indefinitely
3. I have very little control (and interest in policing it) once the class is over, so the student could decide to make the repository public once the class is over.<issue_comment>username_1: Give students assignments where their work must address one of their personal interests. For example, instead of having every student program pizza maker, have each student program a machine to make their favorite food. This will make copy-and-paste cheating more difficult. It will also make students more interested and make your grading more interesting.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think your point 1 is fundamentally at odds with preventing homework sharing/copying. If someone can showcase their work, they can showcase it to their fellow students. Your points 2 and 3 suggest you want to re-use the same assignment over and over when teaching the class again, which makes this conflict even more inevitable. There's no way to username_8w students to share their work publically with anyone who might want to employ them, while also keeping it secret from their fellow students.
There's nothing you can do to keep everything a student does in your class hidden forever. I think the best solution is to require students to keep their work private *during* the class (using a Github edu account, Bitbucket, local git repo, whatever), then let them do whatever they want later. That means you will have to make new assignments every time you teach the class, but I think that is good practice anyway.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: There are many things to balance here, and the "best" solution is somewhat subjective.
However, in my opinion, the educational benefit of username_8wing students to learn version control early **far outweigh** the increased risk of exposing their code to others who would cheat. If your students are planning to go on to work as programmers in industry, being skilled with version control is almost as valuable as being skilled with coding. Programming is not a solitary task these days, after all.
Another thing to consider: at my undergraduate university, there was no department-wide policy on public version control (and I don't remember any professors having such a policy). However, I remember hearing it suggested that posting code on a public GitHub violated the general policy against plagiarism. This sort of ambiguity is bad for everyone. Whatever you decide is the right way to go, I would recommend stating your expectations explicitly with respect to public version control.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: It seems one point that is missing in this discussion is that at least in USA students own the copyright of their (nontrivial) work. As copyright holders they can reproduce, distribute, and display their works. Of course they can also create derivative works. So restriction on students' right may not even be legal.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: You may try automated plagiarism detection, such as [MOSS](https://theory.stanford.edu/~aiken/moss/) developed by Stanford. It detects similarities among code files, somewhat regardless of how the variables are named, the order of execution, etc. Then a human could manually look at the similarities and judge whether it is a case of plagiarism. Moreover, as I recall, MOSS username_8ws input of shared codebase, meaning that the "starter code" provided to all students would not count towards similarity.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: My focus on programming assignments has moved to having students copy all they want from all the GitHub repositories in the world, but to reference them in a report about the **process** by which they solved the problem, written in complete sentences. This is seen as cruel and unusual punishment by first-year students, but when former students meet me in town after graduation that is what they thank me for, that I taught them to write reports. And that their reports make a great reference for themselves.
We can't police this behavior, so we have to try and educate people. We teach them to value other people's work by citing it or giving credit, and we insist that they reflect on what they did. So it is fine to say: I got this code from Nancy, and then I asked Steve how to put widgets on this, and as a result I finally got this to work. That makes it easier for me to judge what the contribution of the student is.
It is more work for me, so I have gone to having the students do pair programming, assigning them random partners each week. That's a good exercise for them as well, and they get to know each other better.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: The optimal solution is to accompany the automatic code grading with a human face-to-face code-review, where the students must explain their code to you, and you can also ask them to make minor changes onlile to verify that they know what they did. If you do this, you do not have to worry about copying since the code-review will tell you how well they know the material.
The problem is that this solution requires a lot of work - at least 15 minutes per student per week. I do not have enough budget for this, so I use a sub-optimal solution: I make the weekly assignments only 10%-20% of the final grade, so that the incentive to copy is minimal. Meanwhile, I make sure that the final exam contains questions that are very similar to the assignments. Thus, students who have made the homework by themselves will have a higher grade in the final exam than copiers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Ignore it.
It is homework and not an exam. The students who just use it without understanding it risk to fail the exam and that's their problem not yours. They are all grownups and need to decide themself if they want to learn something or just to copy something.
As homework usually does not influence the final grade but only the admission to the exam, it is not worth to try to prevent it.
And github is one thing, but students have internal fileservers and wikis and other ways to organize how to exchange current homework or even a complete set of assignments from last year.
Make sure that everything that gets an actually relevant grade is not done without supervision and be a bit more relaxed about homework that should just help the students to learn and is not used to document their skill like a graded exam.
If you actually see that the code is copied between two students, you may not accept it. But this should be done by comparing their solutions not by monitoring github. They may copy in private or they may have worked together and you need to decide it based on the submission of their work.
When they are actually able to re-use code from the previous year, you may consider changing the assigments in a way that the code cannot be used without at least understanding it.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/12 | 644 | 2,659 | <issue_start>username_0: I am dealing with one very mercurial professor and I had a bit of an incident with him. I think I might have offended him slightly (I told him about the deadline to submit a letter of recommendation (LOR) in the nicest possible way and yet he flared up on me). My seniors tell me that he has the habit of extracting revenge on people who ask him for a LOR if they irritate him. I am afraid I might have offended him; he kinda scares me. But he is a very good researcher in computer networks and I performed well in his class. I don't want to drop him and choose another faculty.
Now I know very well that the other two lecturers are going to rate me well, but if this lecturer gives me a bad rating will it harm my chances of getting admitted?<issue_comment>username_1: Pick someone else if it isn't already too late.
The actual answer to your question is this: It is far better to have a good letter from a faculty member who is relatively unknown than a bad letter from someone they recognize and respect. In fact, the latter is probably the *worst* thing that could happen.
If it is already too late, *i.e.* you have asked Professor X, he's agreed, and you've sent him the material (which is probably an online link these days) then work hard to make writing the letter easy. Put together the following information and send it *fast:*
* Include your student number.
* Remind him which of his classes you have taken, and when.
* How did you distinguish yourself in those classes?
* How would you describe yourself? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? He is going to have to answer those questions when he writes your reference, so the more details the better; but these must be things your referee knows himself.
* What are some of your academic and nonacademic accomplishments that he may not remember?
* What makes him particularly qualified to write a letter for you? That is, why should the recipient of the letter value it over a letter from someone else?
This goes in an email that says, "Thank you very much for agreeing to write a reference for me on very short notice. I hope the following will be of use to you when you write it."
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: **Yes.**
A bad recommendation can ruin your chances. If a letter writer were to write that you had committed some grave academic dishonesty, for example, that would look extremely bad for you, even if the others were generally positive.
[An answer to another question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32031/2744) says that even a "good but not great" letter could keep you out of some departments.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/12/12 | 1,264 | 5,349 | <issue_start>username_0: In situations where one teaches purely undergraduate students (20 hours per week, 16 weeks per semester, 2 semesters per year) how many hours per week, and how many weeks per year, are people normally in their offices? Does this number change after the main teaching semesters complete?
I have just finished my fall semester and I find my normal office hours cannot handle the demand from the students. I'm a bit torn. On one hand, I want to support my students as much as they care to be supported but I must balance my own needs. I have plenty of other things to do besides teach (I have to prepare for the spring semester and that will take me significant time, I have marking to do, etc.). More office hours means less time (thus less quality) for prep (and other various tasks).
When I consider what my peers do, I see they often do less than the school requires of them (I am not interested in following their example). With > 300 students, it seems the only way to really satisfy the demand is to be there 20 hours per week...which leave me little (no) time for my other tasks.
My goal here is to try to identify what is fair to all involved.
**Edit:** I've posted a [follow-up question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/34428/2692) to this one.<issue_comment>username_1: My undergrad university held regular "helpdesks" in a classroom - where one or more teaching assistants and sometimes the lecturer were present. They essentially functioned like an extra (and optional) tutorial class, and the more proactive students would come in and work on their assignments, discussing among themselves and asking questions.
This allows you to spread time a bit more fairly among students than at an office hour, where one student might take up a lot of time and leave others waiting at the door. Answer one question, and then move on to someone else.
Perhaps you could try a similar strategy?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You might consider assigning more of the "real" learning to the students outside of lecture.
Save class-time for particularly tricky topics, interesting examples, etc. Make sure to leave plenty of time for questions. Encouraging your students to interact in class can be tricky in a large classroom (you'll always have the student who just **must** ask a burning question, that turns out to be a restatement of what you just said in an incredulous tone of voice). I'm not sure where in Asia you work, but it's my understanding that in many Asian cultures there can be reticence to look like you don't understand in class. Perhaps to discourage that attitude you could consistently remind your students that if they already understood the topic they wouldn't need to be there.
If the above works you'll have a lower volume of students in office hours.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Office hours for 300 students with no TA is clearly not going to work; certainly not if you try to give 30min to each.
You didn't say what sort of class you're teaching (quantitative? qualitative? creative?). But for most courses, **writing a set of problem sets/ FAQs/ lessons learned**/ whatever is a far more efficient use of your time.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> How many “office hours” are common (or standard) for full-time
> lecturers?
>
>
>
Since no one's given a direct answer the title question, here is mine: 3 hours per week is what's required as a full-time lecturer at my large, urban, community college in the U.S. This holds true throughout our 12-week semesters, and no office hours are required outside teaching semesters.
Personally I feel that office hours should be a resource of last resort (I teach mathematics). I feel that students coming to office hours is a sign of something having gone wrong in the process; I try to arrange it so that all necessary material is available outside of personal meetings; and generally very few students come to my office hours (most days: none). Office hours should represent slack in the system to solve outstanding problems, not an overtaxed resource.
Presumably your institution also has some minimum specification for office hours? I would definitely take this as advice for how much time they expect on that task, and try to align it with that minimum as closely as possible. Back-calculate from there what assignments and time with students are possible per person. Possibly institute some kind of peer-review of the papers between students as feedback before you get them on your desk for grading.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: You say that the majority of your time is used to "give them guidance on what they've written in their assignment so far."
For each assignment, give your students a copy of the rubric you will use to evaluate their final work. Require students who want guidance to have applied the rubric to their work so far before coming to see you. Students will be able to answer many of their own questions, and you will be able to focus on the areas where they really need help.
Of course, that wasn't the question you asked. At my institution in the U.S., we are required to hold office hours for at least five hours per week during regular semesters and not at all during the time between semesters. (Those who teach in summer must hold summer office hours.)
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/12 | 255 | 1,085 | <issue_start>username_0: I want to know whether is it ethical to express thanks and gratitude to a reviewer
in the reply to review text. I feel we should express thanks to reviewers who spent valuable time to review our work.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, how could it possibly be unethical to thank someone? This is very common.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: It is not a question of ethics, it is a question about being courteous. Reviewers spend time to read and comment on your manuscript. Regardless of the type of comments you receive there will be significant voluntary work involved. It is only fair to show some gratitude. One way to think about this is that it is no different from any other type of professional correspondence.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: It's very common and standard courtesy. Correctly reviewing a manuscript takes quite a lot of time and is no small effort. And in most cases, a thorough review will help make your manuscript better, so it's not strange to thank someone for helping you improve your work.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/12/12 | 1,110 | 4,479 | <issue_start>username_0: This question is mostly out of curiosity (at least for the moment). I have never taught full courses but I have had to substitute many times, usually for graduate level courses. Preparing for a one hour lecture took me 2-6 hours.
I understand that full-time lecturers may be expected to teach 20 hours per week. I cannot imagine how one could find the time to prepare. How do they manage?
Also, what about a freshly hired lecturer? Teaching a course for the first time should take considerably more preparation, creating an extreme workload with 16-20 hours teaching per week.<issue_comment>username_1: Two points:
1. Preparing for a lower division course takes much less time than preparing than preparing for a graduate level course for several reasons. First, you presumably have much better knowledge of the material in the lower level course. Second, you tend to present material at a slower rate in a lower level course. Third, you should be using more active learning strategies (having the students do work in class) in a lower level course. I've found that although it takes an hour or two to prepare for an hour long class in one of my graduate courses, when I've needed to substitute in a lower division course (e.g. calculus) for an instructor who is out sick, I can typically prepare for the class in about a half hour.
2. it's much easier to teach a class if you have taught the course in previous semesters, and its particularly easy if you're teaching multiple sections of the same course in a semester. So, an instructor with a four course teaching load might actually be teaching three sections of one course and one section of a second course. This is described as "four sections, with two preps."
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Lectures that are 20 hours/week are not year-round. A new lecturer who is supposed to start lecturing in a new topic in September might need all summer to prepare. If it takes 5 hours of preparation to do 1 hour of lecturing, 100 hours of lecturing takes 500 hours to prepare, or around 12–13 working weeks. That should give a decent head start. But even with a little bit of lecturing experience, it's going to take considerably less than 5 hours of preparation to lecture for 1 hour — and/or a new lecturer may need to spend more than 40 hours per week initially.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Brian makes good points - lower level courses take less time to prepare for than upper division courses, and there is an economy of scale - teaching multiple sections of the same course greatly reduces the overhead of preparation.
That said, the first time a lecturer teaches a course, the workload **is** very high - depending on the course content, between 1-3 hours of prep for each hour of lecture (for the first section) is normal (this is an average over a whole semester). So if you had 20 contact hours per week, and that was (for example) two sections each of two new courses, then your prep workload might be something like:
* Course 1, Section 1 - 5 contact, 5-15 prep, 1 grading
* Course 1, Section 2 - 5 contact, 0 prep, 1 grading
* Course 2, Section 1 - 5 contact, 5-15 prep, 1 grading
* Course 2, Section 2 - 5 contact, 0 prep, 1 grading
This would work out to 34-54 hours per week for the first semester. In subsequent semesters, the prep time decreases greatly. You might need a minimum of 2 hours per week total using the example above, and if you spend more, that time can go into improving the quality of the lectures. So maybe you would spend 30-40 hours per week in subsequent semesters.
In short, the workload for the first semester is very high, but as you continue to teach the same courses, it decreases a lot. In my personal experience, after several semesters of teaching the same course, I can almost teach it from memory - so my prep time instead becomes "improvement" time. In the same respect, preparing one course makes preparing for other courses easier - you learn how to organize material more effectively, you find ways to re-use content and learning materials, and you develop teaching patterns that can be applied to multiple classes.
For all of these reasons, teaching is not really a profession that can be easily characterized by weekly workload. Some weeks you might put in 50-60 hours, some weeks maybe it would be only 20. But in general, for a full-time position the average should work out to somewhere around 40 hours per week.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/12/12 | 2,767 | 11,190 | <issue_start>username_0: Like the title says, I have a friend who is a post-doc and her professor is asking her and another post-doc to baby-sit for him. He does not pay them, he simply expects them to baby-sit for free because they work for him. It is not clear whether this happens during the day or in the evening, though by my understanding it makes little difference in academia. It is also not clear just how common it is for him to ask, but apparently it is at least semi-regular. To me this seems like an abuse of power and there should be rules against it. Is this kind of thing normal?<issue_comment>username_1: Your friend's advisor has made a very **unethical** request because, as a supervisor, it makes it harder for the postdocs to feel like they can say no. And they should feel free to say no, since the request is not normally part of any university employment contract I've seen.
Now, if the request were at the workplace, incidental and of brief duration (something like "Could you watch her while I take this call from the doctor's office?", for instance), then it wouldn't be so problematic (although still less than ideal). But anything more than that—anything that involved a regular arrangement, or was of extended duration—should be handled as a separate business transaction, so as to avoid exactly the coercion problem that you've raised.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: **It's completely inappropriate.**
* If a postdoc is an employee, there most certainly is a contract with a *job description* that, for sure, does not include babysitting.
* If a postdoc is funded with a personal grant (sometimes called 'soft money'), the *grant proposal* describes the work for which the money is to be used, and that, for sure, does not include babysitting.
Even though postdocs are often in an administrative gray area, expecting them to do non-research work for the convenience of their professor is wrong, regardless of the type of employment they have.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I have a friend who is a post-doc and her professor is asking her and another post-doc to baby-sit for him. He does not pay them, he simply expects them to baby-sit for free because they work for him.
>
>
>
Oh *hell* no.
-------------
This is neither normal nor remotely appropriate. Postdocs are first and foremost *professional colleagues*. Just *asking* postdocs to babysit is insulting, even if the PI offered to pay them.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: Time to get in touch with the campus ombudsman. They can help your friend protect their status by acting as an advocate. It really helps that there are two students being so negatively affected as it will improve their case and protect them.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: "professor asks post-doc to baby-sit" can mean a huge range of things, from totally inappropriate (as outlined by other answers, no need to reiterate that) to totally appropriate. I find it very difficult to judge the situation from scarce second-hand information.
I'll try to delineate in which situations I consider it appropriate.
---
Professor asks post-doc to baby-sit can range from baby-sit as in go to their home and look after the kid (inappropriate unless under very, very special circumstances - no question there) or as in "emergencies" happen so that the kid has to be at the workplace, and then the postdoc is asked to look after the kid while the parent is e.g. in a meeting or has to talk to someone in a lab where the kid should not go for safety reasons.
Let me give examples of situations where I think it appropriate:
* When I was a kid, it would happen that I had to be at my parents' workplace. I think I spent a fair amount of my first months sleeping in my mother's office. I'm sure she asked someone to look (or rather listen) after me when she had to do something outside the office (parental leave was not yet invented).
Later on, it has happened that neither babysitter nor grandma were available and both parents had to be at work/meetings at the same time (including late afternoon/evening). Even later, school closing early lead to a few occasions when I was told to come to the work place.
* I seem to remember that the kid of one of our elementary school teachers joining the class because the kindergarden was closed for whatever reason.
* I have a colleague with a 6-months-old kid (working part time). But she is a group leader so she has to attend meetings. Usually the dad (also working at our institute) takes the kid, or graddad comes. However, it happens that someone is needed to look after the kid for a while.
All these situations have in common that unless you seriously ask that one parent should quit their job as soon as there is a kid, these are "emergencies" that will just happen, and they need to be dealt with in a practical fashion. A solution is needed and that's IMHO all - no need to make a fuss.
Depending on the actual circumstances like meetings are often sheduled at short notice, school closing early whenever holidays start, no relations/close enough friends in the city to guard against babysitter being sick (the professor may have moved with their family to a distant city in order to become professor) this may happen "semi-regularly".
There are obviously also here situations thinkable that are inappropriate (professor is saving the hassle and money of getting a baby-sitter). I think the line is between the professor openly and mainly trying to benefit and the professor being awkward because they are in a situation where they need to rely on help from the postdoc. ("It is not what you say, it is the way you say it.")
---
Offering payment would be really weird. A more normal way in my experience to "pay" for unusual favors in general would be to bring, say, a cake. However, in the "nice" scenario the parents are probably under so much stress (e.g. by the baby-sitter they really rely on being sick) that they are at the limit of barely managing to catch up with absolute necessities (and may not even think of buying cake even if they'd usually do something the like).
---
I'd also like to add that there is a huge difference between baby-sitting as in the postdoc's time being completey taken up playing with the kid and baby-sitting as in having a sleeping baby in the office, or as in making sure that a kindergarden/elementary school kid is drawing mainly on the supplied paper while going on with office-type work. Or with having the kid running alongside while the postdoc does all the burocratic errands that anyways need to be done.
There's also a huge range in what the asking of the professor actually means: it may be as harmless as the postdocs *offered* to look after the kid and the professor taking this offer by *asking* one of the postdocs to babysit.
---
Last but not least, I think a postdoc should be grown up enough to know when to point out limits to their supervisor.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: The professor is acting incredibly inappropriate by asking that. Really, what makes it that way is because of the reasoning, which sounds much like that of the manager of a retail store asking an employee to stay late off the clock and help do inventory - "because you work for me".
If the professor is just 'offering', or perhaps they have a close relationship and the professor is simply being sarcastic, that's another story, but I'll not assume.
Simple solution - two one-syllable words, "no thanks".
If this is a recurring situation, and especially if the 'because you work for me' reasoning gets pulled out of the holster on more than this occasion - your friend may be dealing with an ethical situation, in which I'd recommend first of all for your friend to simply try to sit down with the professor and attempt to clear things up (such as reminding the professor of the nature of their relationship and the duties of her work under him - do they include babysitting?). If that doesn't work, there's always a board you can talk to (another user mentioned an ombudsman).
Of course, your friend *could* always just tell her professor she'd love to watch the kids - for a fee, of course.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: It could be normal because some people abuse other people because they think they are more superior than them. However, it is not fair. At least he could have properly asked in where he shows that a 'no' could also be an answer. Moreover, if this is to be more than once, then he is to offer some kind of compensation.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: On a not-quite-serious sidenote, the [hippocratic oath](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath) contains this passage:
>
> I will reverence my master who taught me the art. Equally with my parents, will I allow him things necessary for his support, and will consider his sons as brothers. I will teach them my art without reward or agreement; and I will impart all my acquirement, instructions, and whatever I know, to my master's children, as to my own.
>
>
>
This could cover babysitting (as long as the children are male). But mostly it shows how what is considered appropriate changes over the centuries.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: The simple answer is **"no, it is not acceptable if the relationship between the two are strictly work related"**.
For example, my advisor and our old postdoc were family friends, their wives were in same social circle etc. So they were doing favors for each other, professor to postdoc, postdoc to professor.
On the other hand, I and my advisor are strictly work related. He once asked me whether I can drive his daughter to a nearby school on Sunday morning for an event where she presents a high school poster; and he or his wife could not take her due to family emergency and being out of state. I did it, and made no big deal out of it. Yet he apologized me for inconvenience and offered me to pay for gas, food and all that I spent.
Another example, I live in a townhouse owned by a professor at the university. Whenever something is wrong with the house, let me give simple examples I've encountered here:
1. Kitchen incinerator is broken.
2. Lawn should be mowed.
3. The outer door should be painted because homeowner's association said so.
4. There is a wasp nest to be removed in the backyard.
5. Showers upstairs drip water to the one downstairs.
These are a few problems we had, and the professor never called a professional to solve the problem. Whenever we email to the landlord/professor, he ccs me and my roommate, sends it to his students to go and fix. Most times the necessary tools to fix are also bought by the students. Funny thing is that those PhD students and one postdoc are our friends.
We asked them whether they get paid, they said no. And we were like why do you do that? Simply tell him you won't do. All answered that they would like to keep a good relationship because the professor implied that there may be consequences regarding their stipends, funding resources, and graduation status. This is clearly an integrity and ethics problem, and should be dealt with accordingly.
Upvotes: 2 |
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