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thread-32861
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32861
|
Should I include name of potential advisor on my statement of purpose (SOP)
|
2014-12-07T18:52:51.610
|
# Question
Title: Should I include name of potential advisor on my statement of purpose (SOP)
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.
# Answer
> 3 votes
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.
# Answer
> 1 votes
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.
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Tags: graduate-admissions, graduate-school, statement-of-purpose
---
|
thread-32848
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32848
|
What do I do if my results are not ready before a conference?
|
2014-12-07T13:55:59.237
|
# Question
Title: What do I do if my results are not ready before a conference?
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.
# Answer
> 17 votes
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.
# Answer
> 29 votes
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.
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Tags: conference, poster
---
|
thread-32867
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32867
|
When a PhD program asks for academic transcripts, are they referring to university-level transcripts only or also earlier transcripts?
|
2014-12-07T20:23:38.757
|
# Question
Title: When a PhD program asks for academic transcripts, are they referring to university-level transcripts only or also earlier transcripts?
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?
# Answer
It refers only to BSc and MSc scores.
> 9 votes
# Answer
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.
> 5 votes
---
Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, united-states, transcript-of-records
---
|
thread-32803
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32803
|
Should I worry that my advisor will get sick of being a professor and move to industry?
|
2014-12-06T16:49:48.733
|
# Question
Title: Should I worry that my advisor will get sick of being a professor and move to industry?
My advisor is a first year professor (in CS) and he seems really busy and stressed all the time. Before becoming a professor, he was in industry, where he probably had to do a lot less work and could spend more time with his family. Should I worry that he'll move back to industry in a year or two because he's decided being a professor is not for him?
# Answer
> Should I worry that he'll move back to industry in a year or two because he's decided being a professor is not for him?
This is probably not worth worrying about, although it could happen. Computer scientists who leave industry for academia generally really want to be in academia and don't often return to industry quickly.
If you're concerned, one way to get a feeling for his perspective is to ask him about his experience with industrial and academic jobs. This is a very natural question, since he knows both sides well and this information is relevant to your own future plans. You could follow up by asking him how he chose academia over industry if he leaves that vague. If he sounds unhappy with his decision, you could ask whether he thinks he might return to industry someday. I bet this conversation will reassure you that he wants to be in academia, and at least you'll find out if your fears are justified.
Incidentally, I'm skeptical that computer scientists in industry have a lot less work and spend more time with their families. The ones I've met spend their time a little differently than academics do but seem rather busy as well.
> 5 votes
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Tags: advisor
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|
thread-32828
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32828
|
When are professors most free during a semester?
|
2014-12-07T04:17:25.977
|
# Question
Title: When are professors most free during a semester?
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?
# Answer
> 16 votes
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.
# Answer
> 9 votes
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.
# Answer
> 8 votes
* 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.
# Answer
> 7 votes
Last year, Eszter Hargittai published an essay in Inside Higher Ed titled "How I spent Summer 'Vacation'" 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.
# Answer
> 3 votes
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...
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Tags: professorship, working-time
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|
thread-32878
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32878
|
Is it unethical to hire students for private consulting work?
|
2014-12-08T00:39:23.167
|
# Question
Title: Is it unethical to hire students for private consulting work?
As a faculty member, I tend not to involve students in any of my own consulting projects, but I often run into small units of work that would be great opportunities for students, especially undergraduates. Is it unethical for a faculty member to employ students as consultants/contractors for private, non-academic projects? I can see how many students may find such opportunities valuable, but I am curious about ethical issues that such a relationship might introduce.
# Answer
> 15 votes
I'm at a University at the moment where this sort of thing is quite common - and indeed, my previous institution had another department where a relationship like this one actually led to a major company that hires a large number of graduates. It isn't *inherently* unethical, but you need to make sure that business interests and academic ones are kept separate. It might, for example, be wise to have an uninvolved faculty member serving as co-supervisor. My institution's stance:
> Protecting the Interests of Students and Trainees:
>
> The impact of a perceived or actual conflict of interest or commitment of faculty members on their students (including post-doctoral fellows and other trainees) is of special concern to the university. In particular, the university is committed to maintaining the content and quality of the educational experience for students whose research is sponsored by a for-profit business and whose faculty advisors have a financial interest or a management role in that business. The concern is even greater if the dissertation work could potentially affect the value of a company in which the faculty member has an ownership or managerial interest.
>
> For example, a faculty member who pressures a student to complete work related to the faculty member’s company could easily affect the student’s completion of graduate studies in a timely and appropriate way, thereby putting the faculty member’s interest in obtaining proprietary results ahead of the student’s academic or scholarly research activities. The concern is similar for the involvement of students in faculty consulting or other external activities. The risks and benefits of such involvement must be carefully weighed by departmental administrators responsible for evaluating the disclosure and approving the request, particularly where the involvement may be longer term and/or more time consuming.
>
> University policy recognizes that the involvement of students in faculty-owned or managed businesses or consulting may yield substantial benefit to the student, provided that certain conditions are met.
>
> Faculty members must disclose the proposed involvement of students in their external activities or in company-sponsored research. Faculty members who intend to serve as PI or co-PI on sponsored projects and have graduate students or trainees conduct a portion of the research under their supervision must develop a conflict of interest management plan to address protections for these early career scholars. See Example 2 under Managing Conflicts of Interest for appropriate strategies. Students and postdoctoral trainees have the right to be fully informed about the source of their funding, the nature of the faculty member’s personal interest or involvement, and, if relevant, any agreements concerning data collection, copyright, or patent protection arising from the research. Departmental and college-level administrators review the risks and protections with the student using the Research Agreement for Students and Postdoctoral Associates.
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Tags: ethics, conflict-of-interest, consulting
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thread-32880
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32880
|
Academic tassel at convocation: left or right for dual undergraduate/post graduate students?
|
2014-12-08T01:56:14.943
|
# Question
Title: Academic tassel at convocation: left or right for dual undergraduate/post graduate students?
Apologies if the question I ask is not suited for this SE.
At convocation, it is usually the culture for undergrads to wear the tassel on right and switch to left after being given the degree. For postgraduates, the tassel is supposed to be on the left.
My question has two parts:
a) What about people who are straight away getting their post graduate degree (in case of students who have opted for a dual degree program or integrated course)? Do they wear the tassel on the right (as they have never been given a degree before)?
b) When exactly should the turning of the tassel happen (for undergrads)? On the stage itself when receiving the degree?
Many thanks for any answers in advance!
# Answer
At my institution (in the United States), students always wear the tassel on the right, even if they've earned a prior degree. At Commencement, the President tells the students when to switch. (In our case, that's everyone at once, after diplomas (really, diploma covers) have been presented.)
> 4 votes
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Tags: etiquette, graduation, outward-appearance, academic-dress
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thread-20182
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20182
|
Would it be considered cheating to ask for homework help on the internet, if I openly acknowledge the help received?
|
2014-05-03T02:02:55.757
|
# Question
Title: Would it be considered cheating to ask for homework help on the internet, if I openly acknowledge the help received?
Say you have a homework assignment and you're struggling with it. You ask a question about some portion of it on a site like physics.stackexchange or math.SE or stackoverflow.com, etc.
You then cite the help you received in your homework, as well as including a link to the post which helped you.
Given that you are removing the "dishonesty" part of the equation, is this still considered cheating? Or would a professor just not give you credit for the part which they feel you didn't do on your own?
# Answer
This depends a great deal on the professor and course in question. Better to ask first if you plan to do this. Also, check the syllabus if there is a stated policy regarding help on homework.
> 28 votes
# Answer
I think it is acceptable, but you might considering asking your professor first.
I have cited help from cross validated and stack overflow before with help on modeling in R. I tested my data for heteroskedasticity using a test (Breusch–Pagan)that the professor did not mention in class.I provided a link to the discussion in my assignment. I did not receive negative marks, in fact, he actually **complemented my work** in front of the class for "going the extra mile" and using alternate resources and finding a test he did not mention in lecture.
I think most professors want you to learn, it shouldn't matter how. Now if you post you data and someone does all the work for you, that is a different animal..
> 11 votes
# Answer
I would say that it also depends on how you asked your question online. You should demonstrate in your homework that you have understood the procedure you're outlining as your answer, and then acknowledge that you received help online by providing the link where you asked your question. If I were the professor, I would click the link to see the question. If it were a question along the lines of "Here's a problem. What's the answer?", then I would give you no credit. If your question clearly showed some effort and understanding, and that you made sure you properly understood the answer(s), I would say it's ok. But most importantly of all (I think), you should admit in your question that you're working on a homework problem. That way people will try to *help* you rather than just give you the answer.
> 4 votes
# Answer
As vadim123 says, it depends on the professor.
What I have done in the past (when outside help was not expressly forbidden) was write that I obtained help from someone on the internet or the tutoring center because I was stuck. Then I would go to great lengths to explain the concept in such a way that the professor could see that I had gained mastery of the concept, and I put some work into the problem. Sometimes I would do additional problems too. Other times I would turn in problems I had worked several times, never arriving at a reasonable answer, and ask the professor for help. As I recall, I was always given credit for doing the work. Your mileage may vary.
There is a difference between asking for help and cheating, and I think it comes down to ones motivation. By doing the additional work, it should show that your goal was not to just get an answer to turn in, but to gain understanding of the concept.
> 3 votes
# Answer
I think that there are two dimensions to this question:
```
- 1) Would it be considered cheating by your professor?
- 2) Should it be considered cheating?
```
The answer to 1) depends on your professor, university, curriculum, etc. If you are unsure, it's probably best to ask your professor. My personal experience is that lecturers actually like it when a student stuck with some homework exercise approaches them (as long as you show them that you actually thought about the problem and tried different things and don't just ask them for a solution). At my university most professors state at the beginning of the course how they expect the students to do the assignment - e.g., discussing it with colleagues is allowed (but you have to be able to explain your submitted solution in detail); using other sources than the course material is allowed (but you have to cite it properly), etc.
The answer to 2) very much depends on the personal code of ethics. I strongly think that it should not be considered cheating, as long as (i) the student can explain the solution in detail (ii) other material is cited correctly, and (iii) the student didn't use the solutions of other students from previous semesters. After all, the job of a student is to understand things - being able to ask the right questions at the right places is actually a very important skill.
> 2 votes
# Answer
I think that the other answers do not quite answer the question that was asked. My answer is no, it is not cheating to turn in a homework assignment that cites a website like Math.SE. (This is assuming that you put quotation marks around any text that you copy; otherwise it could still be plagiarism.)
Of course it would be a good idea to ask the professor beforehand whether this is allowed, but failure to do so would not constitute cheating any more than attempting to turn in a homework assignment late without first determining whether this was allowed would constitute cheating. As long as the student makes it clear that the homework uses outside sources (or was turned in late,) the professor has the choice to accept the homework or not according to his or her policy.
Keep in mind that if citing outside sources in your homework is a violation of the professor's policy, then the penalty could be significant (just as for failing to turn in the homework on time.) However, it is still not something that the professor could reasonably report to the university administration as cheating, nor is it something that a reasonable university would consider to be cheating.
According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the relevant definitions of "cheating" are
> 1a: to practice fraud or trickery
>
> 2b: to violate rules dishonestly.
In both definitions, dishonesty is a crucial element (and one which the OP has explicitly ruled out.) In fact cheating, plagiarism, falsification of data, *etc.*, are often collectively termed "academic dishonesty," making this condition explicit.
> 1 votes
# Answer
According to my understanding, this is not consider as cheating if student explore and search by the help of second tutor or professor. There are many websites offering the same services and provide your proper platform for online tutoring and homework help like udemy, tutorvista and StudentLance.com Actually, some time student could not get the teacher point of view and needs something different for better understanding especially in Mathematics.
> 1 votes
# Answer
*Asking* for help on the internet may be considered cheating, depending on how much help you got versus how much of your own research you did.
*Not crediting* help received on the internet may be considered even more unethical, verging on plagiarism.
If you're going to incorporate other folks' answers in your own, it's polite to acknowledge their contributions. At the very least.
> 0 votes
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Tags: education, plagiarism, homework
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thread-32891
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32891
|
What is normally not acceptable to budget in a grant
|
2014-12-08T10:49:49.377
|
# Question
Title: What is normally not acceptable to budget in a grant
I seem to have much more freedom in industry sponsored grants, so this is specific to government grants. I have never been allowed to budget in a 'Computer', but I can budget in 'a CPU'. I mostly work with computation, but I assume the computer issue effects many fields. I also cannot budget in tables and chairs, but through overhead from the institute I can buy those.
Are there other issues for budgeting funding for items that are not allowed that may be more specific to fields?
For example, are there usually restrictions on a microscope, for people in that field.
# Answer
First of, Marc has it right - these things need to be defined in the grant rules / grant agreement. There is no universal truth in these matters. For instance, European Union funded projects almost always contain travel budgets, which can be used for project meetings or research-related trips (e.g., conferences). The Austrian Science Fundation (FWF), on the other hand, explicitly disallow travel budgets for conference trips and claims that these expenses need to be covered by overheads. Contrary, the Swiss National Science Fundation (SNF) works very similar to FWF, but allows for travel budgets.
That being said, typically only costs that are *specific to running a project* and which would not have been accrued without the project are covered. Besides personnell costs, that typically includes buying special hardware that is essential to the project, but which is not usually used in the rest of the PI's research. What is usually not covered are indirect costs that stem from hiring *any* researcher. This includes mundane things, such as the office space for the researcher, desks, telephony costs, coffee (if you work in a place that buys such things for employees), and IT equipment.
As for the "why are CPUs covered, but not entire computers?" case - I presume that your grant does not allow you to buy just *any* CPU from your grant, but it should allow hardware specific to your project (e.g., buying or renting a powerful server or cluster for number crunching in relation to a computationally intense project). It will likely not allow you to buy just a regular desktop CPU, just as it would not allow you to buy the entire desktop computer.
> 3 votes
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Tags: funding
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thread-32760
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32760
|
Including unpublished manuscript with CV?
|
2014-12-05T13:22:38.597
|
# Question
Title: Including unpublished manuscript with CV?
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.
# Answer
> 5 votes
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.
# Answer
> 1 votes
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 on on *contributorship* here on academia.sx.
# Answer
> 0 votes
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.
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Tags: publications, job-search, cv
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thread-32901
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32901
|
Uninteresting research area and contacting potential supervisors
|
2014-12-08T13:47:54.770
|
# Question
Title: Uninteresting research area and contacting potential supervisors
I've recently finished off my undergraduate degrees and am in the process of contacting various faculty members for MSc supervision. Recently I have been offered supervision at a research lab which I had previously worked with. However, I don't find the research that the lab is doing all that interesting. As a result, I've decided to contact a couple of different potential supervisors (both are world-renowned/highly cited) at a different institution. One of these potential supervisors has not replied to my last email and I'm thinking about contacting the other potential supervisor. My issue is two-fold:
1) If I move to another research area, will the lead supervisor at the lab that has given me an offer be jilted and could this adversely affect me in the future? Is it bad to reject an offer if I'm not interested in the research field? **EDIT**: The lead supervisor and another collaborator/co-supervisor are happy for me to leave if I don't like the research area. But I will still do some research at the lab over the summer holidays.
2) The two potential supervisors are both in the same faculty at the same institution. The one that I have contacted already is the Head of the prospective research group whilst the other potential supervisor is a member of it. Both of them work quite closely together (looking at their recently published papers).
* Would it be unethical/bad for me to contact the other potential supervisor given that the Head of the group has not replied to my last email? It has been a week and a half since the last reply. Should I re-engage with the Head of the group?
* Should I tell the potential supervisor that I'm thinking of contacting that I have already contacted the Head of the group? Will the more junior member feel like he was the second choice and hence inclined to not respond?
# Answer
Your undergrad supervisor would be a terrible person if they tried to attack you in the future because you didn't want to work with them for your masters. That's just crazy, but it does happen. You'd be better talking to the supervisor and getting their advice about what you actually want to do. They may know one of the other potential supervisors in the other area and be able to set up and introduction.
Besides, even if your current supervisor did want to try to harm you later because you didn't want to work with them, wouldn't your rather risk that than get locked into research about a topic you don't like?
You should feel free to contact the more junior member of the potential research group. Do let them know that you've tried to reach the head, that you understand that they're very busy, and that you'd like to work with the group in the future.
> 1 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, research-process, graduate-school, research-undergraduate, supervision
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thread-32897
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32897
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Unacceptable quality of writing in a letter of recommendation
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2014-12-08T12:18:27.087
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# Question
Title: Unacceptable quality of writing in a letter of recommendation
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.
# Answer
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".
> 6 votes
# Answer
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.
> 1 votes
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Tags: recommendation-letter, writing-style
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thread-8291
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8291
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Whether to use Dr or Prof when addressing oneself in an email?
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2013-02-27T17:17:48.633
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# Question
Title: Whether to use Dr or Prof when addressing oneself in an email?
I feel awkward addressing myself as Dr. X or Prof X. I know that this is common practice (e.g. in emails, letters, etc..). In emails, I prefer to just use my initials or first name. Is this a common experience (i.e. not wanting to be addressed as Dr. or Professor)?
# Answer
Use whatever you feel comfortable with. That said, you should also tailor it to the type of correspondence when necessary. A formal letter should include a formal address for yourself, and less formal can be more or less whatever you'd like. In dealing with students, I generally sign school related emails as "Dr. G.," (with just the first letter of my last name) but I've also taught classes where I've gone by my first name exclusively, and let the students decide how to address me, after telling them it is fine with me if they use my first name. More formal student correspondence (e.g., if I'm cc'ing another instructor, or if the matter involves the administration) gets my full last name, and correspondence to colleagues is almost always my first name.
I also have a signature block, that includes my title, full name, email address and (sometimes) my telephone number.
> 22 votes
# Answer
I've been using my initials as the "sign-off" for my emails as long as I've had my email account. The difference between a formal email and an informal one is whether or not I include the "name block" or if I leave it out, which greeting I use ("Dear Prof. X" or "Dear Y"), and which valediction I use ("Sincerely" versus "Thanks" or "Cheers" or the like).
Normally, I don't know many people who sign their full names to an email. For an *official letter,* however, your address should be your full name, unless you know the recipient well enough to be on a first name basis with them. (And even then you might still opt for the full name!)
> 8 votes
# Answer
There seems to be two questions/issues here.
A lot of people I know do not use Dr/Prof/PhD when referring to themselves and in email signatures. I would say that this is quite common and perfectly acceptable.
The final statement you make is "not wanting to be addressed as Dr. or Professor." I think this is quite a bit rarer. I know a lot of people who tell students that they can call them by first name or Dr, or whatever they are comfortable with. I also know people who say "please call me by by first name". I don't know anyone who ever says "please don't call me Dr. or Professor." I would go so far as to say that demanding someone not use an honorific, or being offended when they do, is uncommon and not proper.
> 6 votes
# Answer
This answer is US-centric and based on my own experiences, so take it with a grain of salt.
"Professor" is a job title; "Doctor" is an academic title. Unless you're dealing with your students (in or outside of class), it's usually not necessary to refer yourself or to be referred to as "Prof. Lastname." It's common, at least in the United States, for anyone from grad students on up (and occasionally undergrads) to refer to each other by their first names, even over email.
A signature block is a good way to get around the issue; something like:
```
Dr. Firstname Lastname
Florple Professor of Theoretical Blorplonomics
Foobarbaz University, Room 12-345, (555)-123-4567
```
conveys your rank and title without having to worry about whether you should address yourself as Dr. Prof. X, Prof. X, Dr. X, etc. (In most situations, at least in science in the United States, being a professor implies that you have a doctorate, so the "Dr." above isn't necessary. The same line of thought about the email signature applies to doctors outside of academia, though.)
Personally, I generally just use my name, without any titles, except when (a) I'm in a formal or professional setting; (b) most of the people I'm around don't have similar titles; and (c) it matters professionally that I have such titles. Those situations don't occur very often.
> 2 votes
# Answer
I think that it depends on type of email or letter you are writing.
When you are writing an official email, it is better to use your initial as `Dr.`, but when you are writing to a friend I prefer not to use `Dr.` or `Prof.`. However, It all depends on the person. Some people prefer to be called `Professor Doctor Name Surname` even by their close friends and some other are nicer and using their given name is sufficient for them.
> 0 votes
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Tags: professorship
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thread-32890
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32890
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Possibly fraudulent journal: cite or not to cite?
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2014-12-08T10:40:29.213
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# Question
Title: Possibly fraudulent journal: cite or not to cite?
When I was doing literature review, I came across a paper published in a journal Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology.
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?
# Answer
> 16 votes
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. 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.
# Answer
> 6 votes
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.
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Tags: citations, journals
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thread-32902
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32902
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When should one include the proof of known results in a mathematical PhD thesis?
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2014-12-08T14:14:05.900
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# Question
Title: When should one include the proof of known results in a mathematical PhD thesis?
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.
# Answer
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.
> 42 votes
# Answer
This is a good question, and as Anonymous Mathematician 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. (Anonymous Mathematician'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, 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 student 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.
> 17 votes
# Answer
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.
> 10 votes
# Answer
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.
> -5 votes
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Tags: phd, thesis, mathematics
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thread-30719
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30719
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How to build a list of seminal papers in a field?
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2014-10-28T14:13:21.543
|
# Question
Title: How to build a list of seminal papers in a field?
This question is similar to this one, but focused on papers rather than on authors. Does anybody know of a systematic way to build a list of the most cited and/or influential papers in a discipline?
I've tried to use Google Scholar, but I was not able to search papers by label, as you can do in the case of authors (see the accepted answer here).
# Answer
> 14 votes
I have undertaken to create such lists as an academic exercise myself, and quite a lot of effort is involved in doing this. There are a variety of approaches that I will suggest, and I would place more emphasis on the first approaches.
**Literature review papers**: Look for literature reviews on the subject of interest. Read the reviews' analysis and discussion of the state of research, there should usually be a discussion of *how* the state got where it is, and their citations should point you right at the seminal works.
**Paper Cites**: review known papers of interest for their citations. You'll want to recurse back to this strategy as more papers become known to you.
**Textbook tables of citations**: Review several respected textbooks that cover the subject, and inspect their citations for more works that you want to be aware of.
**Reputation, reference**: Ask professors and PhD students in the field what papers they think are important. Some professors may not be particularly helpful, but some may drop a comprehensive bibliographic database right in your lap.
**Seminar Reading Lists**: Ask for the reading list for PhD student seminars in the field.
**Most Downloads/Read**: This might not lead you to seminal works, per se, but seminal works will tend to be more read, and this provides another way of categorizing and prioritizing your review the literature. For example, if one paper has been downloaded at a rate 1000 times higher than another on the same topic, you might choose to examine the former first.
Also, you'll need to keep track of your efforts. Expecting to solely rely on your memory is not only wrong, but likely to mean you've wasted much of your research time. I use Zotero, a free bibliographic database with integration in Firefox, to track the papers I've read. If I get papers or books in electronic form, Zotero can also store the electronic copy for me. It can also quickly create a table of references for you, and has some other nice features. It also has competitors that I'm not as familiar with, of note are Mendeley, a freemium model platform, and Endnote, a rather popular and mature commercial platform.
# Answer
> 1 votes
In addition to the other suggestions, try searching for "*your-field-name* bibliography". You may find that someone has put a useful list of papers online, perhaps even in a format you can import into your reference manager. For example, I searched for "artificial life bibliography" and found many useful results, including this collection of Computer Science Bibliographies.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Some citation databases (such as Scopus and ISI Web of Science) give you the ability to see what are the references and citations for a specific paper. With this feature you may come with just one seminal paper and then see who cited this paper (forward) and who was referenced in the paper (backward) with the highest citations themselves. You can extend this chain in past and future or expand it by including lower citations or more papers in the initial set.
This method is probably working in a more narrowed scope than "field" but probably just one line of research in a field.
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Tags: literature-search
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thread-32915
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32915
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Accept a PhD offer from a local school while applying to others?
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2014-12-08T18:32:09.107
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# Question
Title: Accept a PhD offer from a local school while applying to others?
I just completed a masters in CS at a local school while working as a developer. I liked the process and want to go on to a PhD in other places. My adviser supports my choice and is writing me letters to the other schools. That said, the (small) department has offered me funding to stay on for the PhD, starting in the spring. The faculty in my department study very different things from me. I am applying to much more prestigious places now. If I don't get in I will probably take a year to publish more and then apply again. With that said, should I accept the offer to transfer into the PhD program at my local school? Will it help or hurt my chances if I need to reapply? I could certainly say (credibly) that there is no advisor in my department that supports my interests. I saw this and this but am not sure what to do:
Is transferring to another university an option for an unhappy PhD student?
Trying other PhD opportunities while accepting an offer from my master supervisor?
# Answer
There is a general rule that if you apply to multiple academic programs in the same year, then once you accept an offer of admission to one of them, you must immediately contact all the others to withdraw your application, so that they can offer admission to someone else.
So if you accept the offer to join your PhD program at the local school, that is a final decision for at least a year, and you have to withdraw your applications from the prestigious places. You cannot wait and see if a more prestigious school accepts you. That would be considered unethical.
If after a year, you decide that you want to think about transferring, you can apply to a more prestigious program then. However, at that time, your new application will need to include your achievements during that extra year, and the program will evaluate your expectations based on what they would expect a first-year PhD student to achieve. So depending on how that year goes, your application could become either stronger or weaker.
> 6 votes
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Tags: career-path, application
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thread-32860
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32860
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Can good grades alone get me into grad school?
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2014-12-07T18:36:59.363
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# Question
Title: Can good grades alone get me into grad school?
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?
# Answer
> 11 votes
> 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).
# Answer
> 0 votes
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.
# Answer
> 0 votes
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?
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Tags: graduate-admissions
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thread-32924
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32924
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Financial resources for M.Sc. students in the U.S. universities
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2014-12-08T21:12:57.400
|
# Question
Title: Financial resources for M.Sc. students in the U.S. universities
Most universities in the US provide financial aid to Ph.D. students. When the universities accept a student they inform him/her what are they offering (scholarship, stipend as TA, etc.). What is the situation with the M.Sc. students? Do they also get (sometimes) offerings about financial aid?
Maybe their offerings are based on resources that remain after some Ph.D. students decline their admittance. Is it possible for some M.Sc. students to get scholarships (from the university - not counting outside resources) or positions as TAs or RAs and thus they can pay their tuition and maintain a monthly stipend? Is the situation dependent on the student's nationality?
It is not an answer to a single question. I would appreciate it if someone explains the whole procedure that is followed for the M.Sc. students in the U.S. universities regarding the financial aid that they can get from the university.
---
EDIT: I mostly interested for computer science, but in general, the same situation should be true for other engineering majors in general.
# Answer
This depends a lot on the university, the discipline, and the individual department.
A key factor is that many universities have "terminal masters" programs that are not research oriented. Students in these programs typically complete an MS degree by coursework only, and don't complete a thesis. Students in such programs almost never receive financial aid in the form of fellowships or teaching or research assistantships. Other MS programs are research oriented and include a thesis or significant master's project. Some departments have two different MS programs, one with thesis and one without.
Even if the MS program is research oriented, departments with strong PhD programs tend to focus on supporting PhD students and MS students may either not be eligible at all for assistantships or they may be given lower priority than PhD students.
Some departments that do not have PhD programs do have research oriented MS programs and will provide financial support to MS students. This is one option, although these departments are not going to be as highly regarded as the departments with strong PHD programs.
> 4 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, masters, funding
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thread-32870
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32870
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How do you balance producing results with learning new skills?
|
2014-12-07T20:34:42.867
|
# Question
Title: How do you balance producing results with learning new skills?
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?
# Answer
> 57 votes
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. 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.
# Answer
> 24 votes
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.
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.
# Answer
> 19 votes
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!
# Answer
> 5 votes
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.
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Tags: research-process, time-management
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thread-32938
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32938
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Protocol for writing a recommendation letter for someone you only know on a personal basis
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2014-12-09T06:49:24.687
|
# Question
Title: Protocol for writing a recommendation letter for someone you only know on a personal basis
I am a graduate student. A close friend of mine is applying to post graduate research position and has asked me to provide a recommendation for her. I have never written a formal recommendation letter before and would like some advice on how to write this.
For some background, I am studying in a unrelated field compared to what she is applying for - Quantitative Finance vs. psychological counseling. I have personally known her for many years and she is very supportive with strengths such as a warm personality, a nurturing nature, and a great sense of humor. Her attitude is very laid back and she is very easy to get to know. Her loyalty and trust is unshakeable. However, my relationship with her is only on a personal level. While I think she is an amazing person, my knowledge of her academically and research wise is meager at best.
What are graduate admissions panels typically looking for in a recommendation letter? Is there a particular format they require? I just want to be the most help I can and help my friend achieve admission.
# Answer
Graduate admissions panels are not (generally) looking for personal references. They are looking for academic references.
Tell your friend to find another letter writer; nothing you say about her wonderful personality will help her get admitted. At best, it would be a wasted opportunity for her to submit an *actual* academic reference; more likely, it would actively work against her (looks like she's clueless, or such a bad student that she can't get anyone to write an academic letter for her).
Also see Kisses of Death in the Graduate School Application Process, page 2, "Harmful letters of recommendation," subsection "Inappropriate sources."
> 42 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, recommendation-letter, writing-style
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thread-32430
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32430
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How does time off for a serious illness affect funding and duration of PhD?
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2014-11-28T18:31:59.510
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# Question
Title: How does time off for a serious illness affect funding and duration of PhD?
I am a PhD student from India studying in the UK and I have been diagnosed with Hepatitis B during my recent visit to India. The sad part is that it is a recurrence of the disease as I contracted it before my PhD and had to delay my PhD for a few months in the beginning.
Now that I have been diagnosed with it again, I'm afraid of telling my supervisor and sponsors about it as I feel they might cancel the funding as I have such a recurrent problem.
I say this because my project is funded by a German company who are a stickler for time and want me to finish my work on time as there have been enough delays.
I also took 2 months off in the summer to work on a separate research project outside of my PhD to build experience. It was not taken nicely by the company but I went anyway as I had a very good first year viva and report. I took it with the thought that I would make up the time by working extra once I get back and my supervisor supported me in this regard. Plus, UK PhD students are allowed 6-8 weeks off during their PhD for holidays and I haven't taken any time off since except to visit India for a conference, which has led to my predicament.
I feel completely lost and I do not know what to do.
What I exactly want to know is, If its normal for PhD students to take time off for illnesses? Can sponsors withdraw funding in that event? How does it affect the time of the PhD?
# Answer
I'm at Simon Fraser University in Canada, but I've recently been dealing with this issue as I'm involved with our grad student association, so I wanted to respond to your question. If you don't change your registration status in any way, your semesters will almost certainly count against you in every way imaginable -- everyone thinks you're making progress and there is nothing to say otherwise. You should look into your university's 'on leave' policy, as that will be the formal mechanism that allows other allowances to take place. Here, leave for medical reasons will require going through your supervisor (and in turn, a faculty committee), but is essentially always granted, so I hope that works the same where you are.
Unfortunately, funding entities likely have their own, probably very specific, rules, so it's unlikely any general advice would cover them.
Ultimately, I highly recommend taking formal leave (i.e. changing your registration status), because various negative effects will likely accrue otherwise.
> 6 votes
# Answer
I'm at a UK university. In my institution, which almost certainly doesn't have the same regulations as all, there are two distinct issues.
First, the university regulations around PhD candidature. Here, you can suspend your studies which "stops the clock" on your PhD with absolutely no come-back (formally). There is a maximum length of time for this (from memory, a total of 18 months) after which it becomes a "fitness to study" matter. But initially I would *always* recommend that a student suspends until they are well enough to continue.
Second, the issues around the funding for your PhD. There are (at least) two possibilities here, and you'll need to carefully read your contract/offer letter to see which applies to you. In the first case, the company is paying the university in general, or your supervisor in particular, for the research. In this case it is **their** responsibility to get the work done on time, **not yours**. The university and its staff has to work within its own regulations regarding sick leave. I would be astonished if those regulations could force you to work whilst seriously ill. \[I would not be at all astonished if some within the university would try to make you work when ill, outwith the regulations\]
In the second case, you are (possibly partially) directly funded by the company. In that case the contract may have clauses about "funding subject to suitable progress". However, as commenters have mentioned, that again has to be judged within UK employment law. Here it is more complex, but I would expect that sick leave regulations would again apply as normal.
Bottom line: I would recommend to tell your supervisor and graduate school as soon as possible, to suspend your studies until able to work again, and to contact your union / student union / student support people if there is any trouble about this.
> 5 votes
# Answer
You may be interest to see university of Manchester's sick leave policy for PhD students.
I suspect the main points will be similar for other UK institutions, although details may vary.
Relevant points are:
* You may suspend you studies due to sickness for a maximum of 12 months throughout your studies.
* For industry funded PhDs payment of stipend will depend on regulations of funder, so you may not get paid sick leave.
* You must get a medical certificate to certify you are ill.
Personally I would just tell you supervisor that you are ill and explain the situation to them.
However, if you are not comfortable telling them immediately other people you could contact are your student union welfare rep/graduate school rep or most places also have a student advice centre or similar. These should be able to tell you/find out the specific regulations for you institution and assist you if your supervisor is awkward.
> 2 votes
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Tags: phd, funding, united-kingdom, health
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thread-32940
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32940
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My mentor got laid off from a private research lab. Is there anything I can do to help him find a new job?
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2014-12-09T07:31:40.340
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# Question
Title: My mentor got laid off from a private research lab. Is there anything I can do to help him find a new job?
I am a grad student and I wanted to know if there was anything I could realistically do. I think he's the best supervisor I've ever had, and working with him was very fun, and made me grow a lot as a researcher. He's done a lot for my career and I think the world would be grossly unfair if he didn't get another research job.
I would love to serve as a reference but I don't think universities or industrial research labs listen to random grad students.
# Answer
Your mentor most likely has his own list of references and if it comes to the point where he needs to have references from his grad students, then he is doing a very poor job of taking care of himself.
Offer to assist him in any way you can. If he needs a pair of extra hands to complete a side project that will get him hired where he wants to be hired, volunteer to be that extra pair of hands. Who knows, you might learn more from that experience.
Offer to be his eyes and ears for positions on your campus and have him say in the cover letter that he is applying on your recommendation.
If you want to offer help someone, talk to them and discuss what their need for help is and in what ways you can help meet that need. While you are assisting, leave them the lead in taking care of themselves. It is more economical of your time and energy and leads to a better outcome to help in the ways that you can help than to obsess about helping in ways that you can't - you are not in a position to give recommendations, so don't bang your head against the wall about giving one. Go for something doable instead.
> 8 votes
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Tags: job-search
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thread-32949
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32949
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Selecting references for PhD applications: are industry references OK?
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2014-12-09T11:47:07.197
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# Question
Title: Selecting references for PhD applications: are industry references OK?
My background:
* Final year computer science undergraduate in the UK.
* Spent one year working in a scientific facility developing software for scientists. My colleagues had previous academic experience (PhDs in math or physics).
* Researched for 3 months under professor N within my university.
* My dissertation begins in February, so cannot use my supervisor from that.
I want to pursue a PhD, and am at the stage of applying for programmes. However, each programme requires *"two academic references"*, and am unable to come up with a second one (professor N being the first) that would provide the best application.
Giving many of you read references, and recruit PhD students, which of the following references would you prefer receiving:
1. A senior software developer where I previously worked (he has a PhD in physics), but I feel this is not "academic".
2. My personal tutor (a professor who helps with any personal or professional problems), whom I have not seen in a few months, but have used for references before (to get the aforementioned job).
3. Professor B who has taught me over the past three months, but whom I am not close with (on a personal or professional level).
I know my question is a bit specific, so perhaps to generalise:
**Q.** Is it acceptable to have industrial references when applying for PhD positions, or should I instead use university professors as reference? Even if they may result in a generic reference letter.
**Q.** How can I speak with professor B to avoid him writing a generic reference letter about me?
# Answer
> 6 votes
Industrial references are fine when your colleagues have good academic credentials. It may suggest that you will be good at finding applications for research.
Generic references are not fine in academia: unlike industry, academics generally aren't interested in verifying that you have held the posts your CV says you have held, and they do mark down candidates whose references are less than stellar. It is well worth asking a referee what they will say about you.
The easiest way to avoid referees writing something generic about you is to tell them what you have been doing, ideally in writing, when you ask for the reference. Referees generally appreciate this kind of help when writing references, which is a quite significant drain on the time of many academics.
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, recommendation-letter, industry
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thread-7641
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7641
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Requiring student to participate in online challenges to complete coursework
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2013-01-31T08:27:53.210
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# Question
Title: Requiring student to participate in online challenges to complete coursework
I'm teaching a programming course with ~20 students, guiding them through coding assignments and helping them understand what they are doing, and why it works or doesn't. Tasks expected of them range from trivial to medium-complexity in the range of a 40-hours curriculum.
Now, toward the end of the course, they know enough to solve moderate programming problems. In order to get them to work on a few things more "exciting" than what we offer them, I am considering asking them to join an online coding (or problem-solving-through-coding) competition, such as Project Euler. I wouldn't expect them to be able to solve all problems, of course, but I could select a list of problems for them to pick from. For example:
> For this session, you are expected to solve between 5 and 10 problems from the following selection of Project Euler numbers: 1-10, 13, 15, 20-24, 26-29, 33, 35-38.
Sure, I could just copy these problems and make them "assignments" for them, but I think it could bring some fun for them to see it as part of a competition. Also, why I don't understand why, it seems that to their generation, doing anything *online* is vastly more exciting than doing the same thing otherwise. Finally, I have some hope that a few students might actually get into it, and continue doing it for fun after the course.
Now, comes the question: **what downsides do you see** to requiring them to participate in one of these online challenges? (I'm most interested in the specific case I detail above, but generic advice/answers for other types of online participation might be interesting too!)
# Answer
> 10 votes
This sounds like a great idea to me overall, but I can see a few potential issues:
1. It's possible that one or more of your students might already be a participant, which could raise issues of fairness. (Other students may complain that he/she got a head start.)
2. Similarly, the fact that these problems are widely distributed on the web may make it easier to find solutions online. I haven't looked at the Project Euler solutions online and don't know if they are any good, but it's not hard to find purported solutions. This could also be a pain for you: if you make it easy to cheat, then you're more likely to have to figure out how to deal with cheaters.
# Answer
> 7 votes
One potential problem, if you're within the US, is running afoul of your University's interpretation of FERPA. My university forbids me from *requiring* students to participate in an publicly-accessible forum using their real name or university email address, because *the fact that someone is a registered student* is considered a protected educational record.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Project Euler is pretty reliable but (as well as the other answers) I can see two risks:
1. The website (with the challenges on it) may become unavailable.
2. The owner of the page can edit the content as often and as much as they like, so there is no guarantee the challenges set when you viewed them are the same as your students will see.
# Answer
> 1 votes
I'm doing my entire Bachelor course by distance (online) from an interstate university in Australia, when I live in antother state. To check that we've done all the related online module readings, etc, for most subjects we have 10-20 marks of the total marks for the subject set out for forum participation. You could allocate a small percentage of marks for this which would hopefully give your students the incentive to do this online task.
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Tags: teaching
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thread-30160
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30160
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Why do some journals prefer MS Word?
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2014-10-18T10:17:31.120
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# Question
Title: Why do some journals prefer MS Word?
Some journals (specifically on biology or chemistry) accept only MS Word files as manuscripts, while many journals on mathematics or physics prefer LaTeX. Even *Science* prefers MS Word.
Why do they insist on proprietary MS Word, instead of accepting PDF + plain text? I don't think they typeset papers on MS Word.
# Answer
I cannot answer for all journals but can provide insights into a few. One issue concerns the authors rather than the journals themselves. If a community has little need for equations then the need for LaTeX is also perceived as small. Hence a journal would not implement something that they think has no use.
In my own field of Earth Science, the usage of LaTeX varies between sub-disciplines. In Glaciology, being a quantitative subfield, a majority use LaTeX while in other more descriptive subfields no-one uses LaTeX. It is easy to see that this is also reflected in what formats the journals accept. Since the editors of the journals usually come from the sub-disciplines their journals cover, the editors are used to using the same authoring tools as others which further cements the existing structure.
On top of that the individual publisher may add capacity to journals. Elsevier, for example, has a LaTeX-class that can be used for their journals, while Wiley, for example, do not. This can help journals take the step to also include LaTeX contributions even though editors may not be users themselves.
> 19 votes
# Answer
The main divide that I notice in preferred input format is between journals that routinely reformat your paper and those that do not.
* Journals wanting Word generally ask the author just just send a pile of text and figures, which they will stitch together to look precisely how they want it to look, with special fancy styling, etc.
* Journals that want LaTeX generally ask the author to send a PDF file looking almost exactly as it will for publication, plus the LaTeX so they can recompile with the right page and issue information.
The first is essentially a leftover from the days before computer formatting, when a journal would be getting a bundle of paper, which would need to be typeset by hand in any case. These days it is most likely to be preserved in either high-end journals that can afford a significant paid staff or else in subfields that simply haven't made the cultural transition. Word is then a "lowest common denominator" that, unfortunately, the world has generally settled on for styled documents (though some places will also accept non-proprietary formats: for example, PLoS ONE also accepts rtf)
LaTeX lets a journal run much more leanly, since it places more burden on the authors. When something goes wrong with LaTeX, however, it's likely to go much more problematically wrong because it's possible for authors to include some awfully fancy programming in LaTeX (I know a person who wrote a piece of database management software entirely in TeX). To handle that, you need a much more programming-savvy journal staff, or else a large and well-maintained automated backend like IEEE's PDF eXpress to help you detect and manage the problems that come with freedom.
> 17 votes
# Answer
It is much easier to find copy-editors with Word skills than Latex skills. I am aware of two journals that used to accept submissions written in Latex that switched to Word-only because they could not find editors with the skills needed for Latex, and of another that is considering this switch.
There is a big problem with Latex as an authoring format, which is that it is a sophisticated and not terribly readable programming language, one that encourages people to hack up idiosyncratic macros for use in their articles. If you have 10 papers to be edited into an issue of a journal, life is much harder if each of the papers defines its own macros to do roughly similar things in incompatible ways, with possible and hard to deal with namespace collisions. This also means that the skills needed for editing in Latex are higher than those needed for editing articles written in Word.
That said, journals that can handle this problem gain freedom from vendors in their publishing operations. It is no accident that Latex is more popular with smaller publishers than with the giant publishers.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Similar to jakebeal, Peter Jansson, and this https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1046940 website. I would propose the reason for format is usually based on the end goal, which determines why someone prefers a format. Some journal or conference that uses professional graphic designers or wants the comfort/freedom of an easily formatted manuscript may want to use inDesign (one of the standards for making book layouts).
Even if inDesign is not the end point, it could just be easier to layout a microsoft template, or could just be easier because the typesetter for a journal is accustom to those options.
> 1 votes
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Tags: journals, software, latex, formatting
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thread-32947
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32947
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How do I answer a question on the ethical implications of my work at PhD viva?
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2014-12-09T11:16:30.237
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# Question
Title: How do I answer a question on the ethical implications of my work at PhD viva?
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?
# Answer
> 2 votes
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.
# Answer
> 0 votes
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.
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Tags: phd, defense
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thread-32959
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32959
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Why shouldn't I quote famous scientists in my SOP?
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2014-12-09T18:35:58.647
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# Question
Title: Why shouldn't I quote famous scientists in my SOP?
In one of Ben Bitdiddle's comment, 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...".
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.
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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.
# Answer
> 34 votes
A statement of purpose is **forward-looking.** It is not meant to be, to paraphrase Wordsworth, "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.
# Answer
> 22 votes
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.
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Tags: statement-of-purpose, writing-style
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thread-32963
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32963
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How much involvement should my advisor have in deciding my availability and actions for me?
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2014-12-09T20:29:18.957
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# Question
Title: How much involvement should my advisor have in deciding my availability and actions for me?
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.
# Answer
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.
> 20 votes
# Answer
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.
> 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.
> 15 votes
# Answer
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.
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!
> 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.
This is baffling, but I think reinforces the notion I've laid out above.
> Advisor schedules meetings over the time I have to eat lunch, tells me I should eat during the meeting
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?
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).
This is rather ridiculous on your advisor's part.
> Advisor tells me I must share a room with another student at the conference hotel
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.
> 10 votes
# Answer
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.
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.
> 9 votes
# Answer
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.
> 3 votes
# Answer
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" :)
> -11 votes
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Tags: phd, advisor, working-time, workplace, work-life-balance
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thread-32978
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32978
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Is there a recommended font and size for a job application?
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2014-12-10T03:51:17.120
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# Question
Title: Is there a recommended font and size for a job application?
Is there a recommended font and size for academic job application? Usually I see Times New Roman being used with a 10 point font size for research papers, but I don't think that it is the best font and size for reading. Can I pick a font that I prefer, or is there some "best practices" that people expect and I should follow?
# Answer
It really doesn't matter what font you choose, as long as it's not unprofessional. You can safely choose any font you might use for a research paper, 10 to 12 points in size (preferably 11 or 12, for the benefit of those with poor eyesight, but 10 is OK). It's not worth worrying about this too much. You can't help your chances through elegant typography, and the only way you can hurt them is if you do something ridiculous. Any effects on readability are probably small, and I don't think most hiring committee members have strong opinions on the matter (while the ones who do don't always agree).
> 8 votes
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Tags: faculty-application, formatting
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thread-32979
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32979
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Is there an advantage in including quotes from teaching evaluations in a teaching statement?
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2014-12-10T04:46:35.523
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# Question
Title: Is there an advantage in including quotes from teaching evaluations in a teaching statement?
For context, I am a mathematics PhD student, and I am writing up my teaching statement. In looking up examples of teaching statements, I saw that one of them included quotes from students from teaching evaluations. I thought it was a nice touch.
I am merely a graduate student and I don't have the perspective of someone on a hiring committee.
**Would it be to my advantage to include quotes from my teaching evaluations?**
# Answer
> 14 votes
I would consider student comments in teaching statements as "standard optional": they are not required, and probably the majority of teaching statements do not include them, but a substantial minority do and it is certainly quite reasonable to do so. Here are some things to keep in mind:
* Your teaching statement is your chance to convey your philosophy of teaching and, in so doing, show yourself to be a clear thinker, competent writer and to possess fluency in English (assuming that you are applying to a job where English is spoken). Including *too many* quotes by other people in a short statement works against this. I am a wordy person, but for me I think a teaching statement should be at least two pages long. If you have a 1.5 page teaching statement and a third of it is quotes, then I worry that you're using the quotes to evade the short essay you've been asked to write. Succeeding in an academic job is a lot harder than succeeding in writing a two-page essay, so that doesn't inspire my confidence.
* The positive side of the last comment is that it would be much better not to just include quotes in a pile at the end but rather to use them to illustrate points about your own teaching. Drawing an explicit moral from each quote would not be overdoing it.
* Including quotes in your own teaching statement is a bit like including quotes on the back of a book saying how good it is. These quotes can be part of a successful sales pitch, but let's be real: they are cherry-picked. (If you're not cherry-picking the very best quotes, you're losing ground to everyone else who is. In particular, think ten times before including a quote that has the slightest hint of negativity or even measured praise about your teaching. Saying something negative about yourself in application materials is a black belt level sacrifice throw.) The idea that you fundamentally gain legitimacy from a teaching statement by including the students' own words is a dubious one to the jaded eye. Most of the eyes reading your application will be highly jaded.
* Consider feeding the quotes (especially if you have more than one or two) to a faculty member who can put them in a teaching letter. It is harder to write good teaching letters than good teaching statements. Along with cold, hard statistics about your teaching (but be careful about introducing negativity, as above), including quotes from students is a good way to personalize the letter. (Saying that Ms. X is clear, attentive and well-liked by students only fills up so much space, and almost everyone else is saying it too.)
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Tags: teaching-statement, course-evaluation
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thread-32965
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32965
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How to quote a quote?
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2014-12-09T21:08:04.930
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# Question
Title: How to quote a quote?
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?
# Answer
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.
> 18 votes
# Answer
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.
> 6 votes
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Tags: citations, writing, quotation
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thread-32980
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32980
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Who is eligible to apply for instructor or assistant professor positions?
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2014-12-10T04:56:03.510
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# Question
Title: Who is eligible to apply for instructor or assistant professor positions?
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?
# Answer
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.
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 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, Nate Eldredge 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.
> 8 votes
# Answer
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.
> 5 votes
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Tags: application, job-search, faculty-application
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thread-32929
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32929
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How to tell my supervisor that I have severe phobia of flying?
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2014-12-08T23:16:00.480
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# Question
Title: How to tell my supervisor that I have severe phobia of flying?
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
# Answer
> 7 votes
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.
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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.**
# Answer
> 27 votes
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.
# Answer
> 15 votes
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 — 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.
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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.
# Answer
> 5 votes
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 :-)
# Answer
> 2 votes
Joined just to post this answer:
G.H. Hardy 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?
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.
# Answer
> 1 votes
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.
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Tags: conference, travel, health
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thread-32983
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32983
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Should a teaching statement be posted publicly on the web?
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2014-12-10T06:01:54.340
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# Question
Title: Should a teaching statement be posted publicly on the web?
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?**
# Answer
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.
> 14 votes
# Answer
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.
> 2 votes
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Tags: website, teaching-statement
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thread-33015
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33015
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How to show the accreditation of a university abroad
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2014-12-10T20:51:52.860
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# Question
Title: How to show the accreditation of a university abroad
I live in the U.S but got my undergrad from a university in another country. Now I have applied for Masters in the U.S and the department of graduate studies have requested this information from me, How do I provide it to them? What are they looking for?
Also: The university is Sheikh Bahaei University
> Is the university where you obtained your undergraduate degree an accredited institution? That is, is it of a reasonable quality in some quantifiable ways?
# Answer
Various countries have different accrediting bodies. Wikipedia has a nice overview.
From what you've written, it seems like they are looking for some information about what body (usually a private accrediting agency or a government ministry of education) your undergraduate institution is accredited by. To use a school near me as an example, I might say something like:
> Brooklyn College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, as stated here. You can see Brooklyn College listed on the accrediting body's website, here.
In your case, you can point them to this page, which shows that the university is accredited by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of Iran (which is the government body that is responsible for accreditation of institutes of higher education in Iran).
> 1 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, accreditation
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thread-33011
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33011
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What questions should I ask as a candidate during an interview for a tenure-track assistant professor position?
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2014-12-10T18:15:51.853
|
# Question
Title: What questions should I ask as a candidate during an interview for a tenure-track assistant professor position?
I will soon be at an on-campus interview for a tenure-track assistant professor position. I expect that in the course of the day, I will be asked the question, "Do you have any questions for us?" What are good questions for me to ask to show that I am interested in the department and would very much like to join?
# Answer
I don't think that most candidates are very good at faking interest. So, ask the questions you are genuinely interested in, and your interest will show through. It is true that you have to give the best impression you can during an interview, but you don't want to come across as fake or scripted.
I would start by reading the university, college, and department websites. That may give you some questions.
If you run out of questions, you can always ask other faculty in the department about themselves. It is rumored that academics love to talk about themselves. You can also talk about your research, which is an easy way to make small talk and show off your communication skills.
Given that general advice, here are some questions that I think are common and "safe":
* Ask about the tenure process. How long is the probationary period? What is the general process? Is there any form of mid-tenure review?
* Ask about teaching. What courses do new faculty typically teach? How tightly controlled are they? Will you have a lot of new preparations? Do faculty often teach over the summer? What process is used to make teaching assignments (seniority, rotation, etc.)?
* Ask about benefits. They can tell you about the insurance and retirement benefits, which vary significantly from school to school.
* Ask about housing. Where do most of the faculty live? How far from campus do they live? How expensive is it to live in the area? Are there any particularly nice locations to live near the college?
* Ask about living in the area. Is it a lively place? A quiet place that's "good for raising a family"? Is there much nightlife? Is there convenient local shopping? Is it good for biking?
Here are some questions that you have to think about carefully before you ask them:
> 11 votes
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Tags: job-search, tenure-track, interview
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thread-33001
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33001
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What to do if I only want to study master not PHD with a professor
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2014-12-10T15:26:26.690
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# Question
Title: What to do if I only want to study master not PHD with a professor
I decided to study math after graduating from business department. I entered a 2-year taught program in the same university in Asia and used the time to take all the necessary courses. In the first year, I have studied elementary real analysis, complex analysis, abstract algebra and topology. This is the first term of my second year, I took differential geometry, Fourier analysis, graduate real analysis and functional analysis. My grade is OK and currently I am applying for a research program. My final goal is to go to a top program in US to study my PHD. Since I know it is very competitive, this year I decided to apply a research master only and apply PHD after I gained two-year research experience.
There is a tenured professor in my university whose research interest is nonlinear PDE focusing on fluid dynamics. I am very interested on his research topic and I have made an appointment with him to explore the possibility to do research under his supervision. However, after chatting with one of his student today, I was told the professor usually only accepting student who is willing to continue studying PHD with him. I understand the reason. Since it's a pure math subject, in the first two year, student can only take the basic course, read the basic materials. It's almost impossible for a student to produce any good results after the master. He is very famous in the area so he has a lot of students to select. He don't want to waste the money and time to train a student for others.
On the other hand, I don't think my university is good enough and it's my dream to work and study with the best students in a top program. Since I will meet the professor in a few days, I want to make some preparation so that I can convince his to support me. I will finish all the necessary graduate courses after this year, which means it may safe me some time so that I can focus on research instead of coursework in the research program. But I still think it's impossible for me to produce the same result as a PHD student in 2 years. But since I am really interested in the area, I still want to have a try and talk with him. Currently I am planning to tell him the truth about my plan. Is there anything I can do to improve the chance of being admitted?
# Answer
I would focus most of the meeting on the professor's research, and use that time to show that you would be able to jump into research right away. Probably the best way to do that is to
1. Read the professor's papers beforehand and display a sincere interest in his work.
2. Have an elevator pitch prepared for each of your previous projects so you can talk about them intelligently and with enthusiasm.
If the meeting goes well he should start discussing potential projects with you, and you should be actively engaged in this discussion, and ask intelligent questions.
Near the end of the meeting, inform him of your plan to do a PhD elsewhere. It's better to be rejected by this guy upfront than to be accepted under false pretenses. In order to go to a strong university you will need his letter of reference, and he might write you a weak letter if you deceive him. (If he's really a jerk he might write you a weak letter specifically so you have to stay with him.)
But it's important to discuss this issue after he already wants you, and is on the verge of making you an offer. Otherwise he has no reason to even consider you.
(If he specifically asks about your future plans, you should be honest and unapologetic. To many professors, being ambitious is a good thing, and shows you are higher quality than the students who come in wanting to stay.)
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, masters, mathematics
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thread-33000
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33000
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A professor of mine pronounces an author's name incorrectly, what should I do?
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2014-12-10T15:24:55.813
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# Question
Title: A professor of mine pronounces an author's name incorrectly, what should I do?
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?
# Answer
> 10 votes
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.
# Answer
> 8 votes
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.
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Tags: etiquette, professorship, communication, personal-name
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thread-33031
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33031
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Studies over how noisy is it to accept/reject submissions
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2014-12-11T01:27:27.860
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# Question
Title: Studies over how noisy is it to accept/reject submissions
This year, the NIPS 2014 conference did an interesting experiment: conference chairs duplicated 10% of the submissions (170 papers) and sent them to two different groups of reviewers. The result: **25.9% of disagreement**.
This indicates that for almost every one out of four papers, the paper is accepted by one group of experts while rejected by the other group. This just shows how noisy the reviewing process is. I was wondering if there were other similar experiments for other fields and what the disagreement percentage was in each (regardless of the venue: journal or conference).
# Answer
There have been *many* studies on this. Here is a recent meta-analysis of 48(!) of them:
> Bornmann, Lutz, Rüdiger Mutz, and Hans-Dieter Daniel. "A reliability-generalization study of journal peer reviews: a multilevel meta-analysis of inter-rater reliability and its determinants." PLOS ONE 5.12 (2010): e14331.
Here's the abstract:
> ### Background
>
> This paper presents the first meta-analysis for the inter-rater reliability (IRR) of journal peer reviews. IRR is defined as the extent to which two or more independent reviews of the same scientific document agree.
>
> ### Methodology/Principal Findings
>
> Altogether, 70 reliability coefficients (Cohen's Kappa, intra-class correlation \[ICC\], and Pearson product-moment correlation \[r\]) from 48 studies were taken into account in the meta-analysis. The studies were based on a total of 19,443 manuscripts; on average, each study had a sample size of 311 manuscripts (minimum: 28, maximum: 1983). The results of the meta-analysis confirmed the findings of the narrative literature reviews published to date: The level of IRR (mean ICC/r<sup>2</sup> = .34, mean Cohen's Kappa = .17) was low. To explain the study-to-study variation of the IRR coefficients, meta-regression analyses were calculated using seven covariates. Two covariates that emerged in the meta-regression analyses as statistically significant to gain an approximate homogeneity of the intra-class correlations indicated that, firstly, the more manuscripts that a study is based on, the smaller the reported IRR coefficients are. Secondly, if the information of the rating system for reviewers was reported in a study, then this was associated with a smaller IRR coefficient than if the information was not conveyed.
>
> ### Conclusions/Significance
>
> Studies that report a high level of IRR are to be considered less credible than those with a low level of IRR. According to our meta-analysis the IRR of peer assessments is quite limited and needs improvement (e.g., reader system).
This meta-analysis includes studies of peer review agreement in economics/law, natural sciences, medical sciences, and social sciences.
Here is another paper, which includes a section on the reliability of peer review (i.e. agreement between reviewers) in which a number of other studies are summarized:
> Bornmann, Lutz. "Scientific peer review." Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 45.1 (2011): 197-245.
Specifically in computer science, there's this:
> Ragone, Azzurra, et al. "On peer review in computer science: analysis of its effectiveness and suggestions for improvement." Scientometrics 97.2 (2013): 317-356.
They measured inter-reviewer agreement in
> a large reviews data set from ten different conferences in computer science for a total of ca. 9,000 reviews on ca. 2,800 submitted contributions.
and found
> in our case we have six conferences with ICC \> 0.6, i.e. with significant correlation, 3 conferences with a fair correlation (0.4 \< ICC \< 0.59) and one conference with poor correlation among raters (ICC \< 0.4).
They also found that agreement on "strong reject" papers was much higher than agreement on other papers. More precisely,
> A more detailed analysis shows that if somebody gives a mark from the "strong reject" band, this increases the probability of giving marks not only from strong and weak reject bands (by 14 and 63% correspondingly) but also from borderline band (by 11%). In the "strong accept" set the probability of others giving a "weak accept" mark is 20% higher than the overall probability, but the probability of giving marks from other bands are almost the same as the overall probabilities.
>
> Therefore, we can say that we have marks skewed towards the "weak accept" and reviewers still agree on very bad contributions while disagree on very good.
> 21 votes
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Tags: publications, peer-review, rejection, reference-request
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thread-33006
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33006
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How to prevent calluses from writing on chalkboard?
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2014-12-10T16:28:49.393
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# Question
Title: How to prevent calluses from writing on chalkboard?
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?
# Answer
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.
> 10 votes
# Answer
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.
> 16 votes
# Answer
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.
> 5 votes
# Answer
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).
> 2 votes
# Answer
My method is to hold the chalk like a magic wand (or, less excitingly, like a drawing pencil). 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.
> 1 votes
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Tags: teaching, health
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thread-34044
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34044
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Should I ask for generic reference letter?
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2014-12-11T06:57:42.843
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# Question
Title: Should I ask for generic reference letter?
I was given advice to apply for multiple PhD programs because it is difficult to get in.
Some programs require reference letter from professors or supervisors. I don’t believe that professors have time and will to give me multiple reference letters for each school I apply to.
I have considered asking them for a generic reference letter.
*How would a generic reference letter be received by a graduate school committee?*
# Answer
Faculty members will not write "brand new" letters for every school and program you want to apply for. However, once the basic letter has been written, addressing it to the intended recipient is not very challenging. So it is OK to ask your advisors to write a letter for you, and to send it to multiple places. (If you're applying to schools in the US, the faculty member will be responsible for uploading it herself in any event.)
> 5 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, recommendation-letter
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thread-32644
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32644
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How to differentiate long paraphrasing and original ideas with APA in-text citations?
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2014-12-03T06:13:29.170
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# Question
Title: How to differentiate long paraphrasing and original ideas with APA in-text citations?
Let's say I have the following paragraph:
> Smith (2011) contends that blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. This allows for one to decide that monkeys are actually fish.
Everything in `blah`s is paraphrased from Smith (2011), but the conclusion that monkeys are actually fish is my own idea. How do I mark where Smith's ideas end and my ideas start?
# Answer
> 1 votes
Use a conditional construction to indicate distance from the cited claim. E.g.,
> Smith (2011) contends that blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. *If Smith's contention were true, it would follow* that monkeys are actually fish.
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Tags: citations, citation-style
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thread-34051
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34051
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What universities are recognized by USA universities?
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2014-12-11T08:56:39.720
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# Question
Title: What universities are recognized by USA universities?
I just completed my bachelor of Electrical engineering with first class honors at The University of Western Sydney. I am now thinking of doing a phd in one of the good universities in the USA.
When I look at the minimum entry requirement for graduate admission in MIT, Stanford, UCB, ..., they all indicate that I should have a bachelor from a recognized university. How can I know the university that I completed my undergraduate degree, is recognized by these American institutions?
# Answer
> 5 votes
There is an official list of accredited US institutes of post-secondary education, the database of accredited post-secondary institutions and programmes, but according to that page, the Department of Education does not maintain a list of recognised institutions worldwide. Instead, there is an educational NGO, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, that maintains a list of accrediting bodies that are recognised by its member organisations (which include Stanford and UC Berkeley, but not MIT), the Database of Institutions and Programs Accredited by Recognized United States Accrediting Organizations. The institutions recognised by the member organisations are the institutions accredited by one of these bodies, which are national in scope.
As a state university, the University of Western Sydney is accredited. For other institutions with less international visibility, rather than look up this information yourself, it is better to contact the HR department of the institutions to which you apply to get their direct judgement on whether that institution is recognised by them.
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Tags: graduate-admissions
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thread-34059
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34059
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How to formulate my resume, if a PhD defense exam fails with mark “Dissertation passed, Oral failed”
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2014-12-11T10:50:45.797
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# Question
Title: How to formulate my resume, if a PhD defense exam fails with mark “Dissertation passed, Oral failed”
My PhD examination consists of two parts namely the dissertation note and the oral note. Unfortunately, it was fails with “Dissertation passed, Oral failed”. What could be the best way to form it in my resume? Could I write: finished PhD study only with Dissertation, in short “PhD Dissertation”?
# Answer
So, have you officially been granted a degree of Ph.D. or have you not? I cannot tell from the way that your question is currently phrased.
If you have a Ph.D., you can simply honestly write down that you have a Ph.D. degree, and not attempt to explain whatever it means at your institution to be given a Ph.D. while failing your defense. Don't hide it if you are asked, but if this is the case then apparently your institution thinks that you are worthy of a Ph.D., and it's up to others to judge whether they respect your institution.
If you do not actually have a Ph.D. yet, then you can't write that you have a Ph.D., and it probably doesn't matter all that much to the reader that you have an accepted dissertation.
> 16 votes
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Tags: phd, thesis
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thread-34076
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34076
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Should I mention in my letter of recommendation that my student has bad handwritting?
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2014-12-11T14:35:06.840
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# Question
Title: Should I mention in my letter of recommendation that my student has bad handwritting?
A student I taught is really a good student but writes like he is writing with his wrong hand.
The college where I teach requires every one to administer a subjective final exam for 60% of the grade. Its a 3 hour exam and people usually fillout a 30 page booklet. I know many lecturers gave him bad grades because they were too impatient to read his answers they gave him B+ or a B when he deserves at-least a A. I know this cause I taught him Data structures using C and he performed very well while he got a mere B grade in a C language course.
Should I mention this in my LOR or will mentioning this have some bad consequence for him.
I can easily grade 3 students in the time I grade his one paper. So I can imagine how some universities could see him as a liability.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I would not mention this no, this should not have any consequence to the students application, it may be a little out of place. It would be worth advising the student to inform any future places of study about his handwriting he may be able to get some alternate support with regard to exams.
I would not see this student as a liability, just maybe needing a little extra support in this area, it is fair for an examiner to not spend ages marking one students paper due to bad handwriting, so long as they give it a fair go and a good effort.
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Tags: recommendation-letter
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thread-34052
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34052
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What can I do to prevent ethnic conflicts in research groups?
|
2014-12-11T09:05:03.297
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# Question
Title: What can I do to prevent ethnic conflicts in research groups?
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?
# Answer
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.
> 7 votes
# Answer
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.
> 0 votes
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Tags: interpersonal-issues, international-students, group-dynamics, research-group, ethnicity
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thread-33023
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33023
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Why do many PhD programs expect a higher average physics GRE score for international students than US students?
|
2014-12-10T04:42:12.927
|
# Question
Title: Why do many PhD programs expect a higher average physics GRE score for international students than US students?
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, 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?
# Answer
(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.
> 13 votes
# Answer
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.
> 11 votes
# Answer
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.
> 7 votes
# Answer
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.
> 4 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, united-states, gre, physics, international-students
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thread-33041
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33041
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Is it unfair to regrade prior work after detecting cheating?
|
2014-12-11T05:16:43.627
|
# Question
Title: Is it unfair to regrade prior work after detecting cheating?
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?
# Answer
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.
> 76 votes
# Answer
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.
> 39 votes
# Answer
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:
> 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.
(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.
> 24 votes
# Answer
"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 Anonymous Mathematician'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.
> 16 votes
# Answer
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.
> -8 votes
# Answer
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.
> -10 votes
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Tags: teaching, grading, cheating
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thread-33022
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33022
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How do you know if university is right for you?
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2014-12-10T22:37:46.197
|
# Question
Title: How do you know if university is right for you?
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?
# Answer
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
> 2 votes
# Answer
> There are plenty of people (especially in business) who did not complete a university program.
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.
> Is the correct approach to decide on the job you want and then, if university is required, get the degree for it?
**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.
> 0 votes
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Tags: university, job, undergraduate
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thread-34101
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34101
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PhD defence announcement
|
2014-12-11T20:02:04.383
|
# Question
Title: PhD defence announcement
What information should contain a (A4-sized, landscape-oriented) poster announcing a PhD defence? What idioms, jargon or style is usually used? Could you provide some models or examples?
# Answer
> 4 votes
This example, from my PhD institution, seems to be pretty typical. As you can see it's quite basic. I don't think there's really a need to include much more information than this. The only thing I might add is a short abstract.
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Tags: phd, communication, defense, announcements
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thread-34107
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34107
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Combinatorics or Linear Algebra for Computer Science/Applied Mathematics Degree?
|
2014-12-11T20:41:18.677
|
# Question
Title: Combinatorics or Linear Algebra for Computer Science/Applied Mathematics Degree?
I'm looking to graduate in the upcoming Spring with a BS in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, and was curious on which of the two courses would be most applicable moving forward. I'm only able to take one of either "Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory" or "Combinatorics and Graph Theory" next semester, given that I'll be entering the field of Software Engineering following graduation.
Certainly, one class won't make or break one's education in the grand scheme of things, but I wanted to know which would serve best moving forward in engineering, or at the least to round out an applied mathematics degree.
Either way, thanks for your consideration with this dilemma of mine.
# Answer
I'd go for "Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory" as you'll need that if you ever need to do any machine learning or computer graphics, both of which are increasingly common "tools" for modern software systems.
Learning a bit about graphs too wouldn't hurt.
> 3 votes
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Tags: mathematics, computer-science, coursework
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thread-34100
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34100
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How to make students learn prerequisites
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2014-12-11T20:00:59.630
|
# Question
Title: How to make students learn prerequisites
Throughout this year (at least some of) my students found it hard to follow the theory part of a computational physics course I thought. This was mostly because they lacked the mathematical foundations they should have learned already years ago.
Since I did not want to lower the course level to that of an introductory course in mathematics, I adjusted it only insofar that I tried hard to simplify the presentation. In addition, I offered my help in consultation hours and the possibility to discuss selected exercises in detail during the lectures if I get detailed questions (which I almost never got). Finally, I tried to design exercises in a way which should make them learn basics as well. I also announced very early that knowledge of basics will be a strict requirement for the exam. The students already have a Bachelor degree and should in principle know how to learn from books by themselves. However, many of them preferred to stay idle throughout the year and to wait for the sample solutions I slowly and reluctantly handed out. They then tried to learn those (more or less by heart) instead of learning the methods behind. This happened even though I had announced that this would not be useful, especially because they are allowed to use all written/printed resources.
Now a relatively large number (1/4-1/3) opted out (did not hand in a solution) and will repeat the exam in 2 month. This apparently means that they want to use more time to prepare themselves. Others will speculate that the next exam will be similar (since I thought the course for the first time they did not have any old sample solutions).
For at least the first group of people the declared goal of making them learn the basics might therefore be reached. However, I would like to achieve this in a less forceful way such that the lectures become more enjoyable for them. So, how can I make them start to learn the the prerequisites early? In a sense I would like to change their general strategy to wait until the end and to solve the problem of completing the exam by learning by heart.
The problem is complicated a bit by the fact that the audience is mixed from different fields with different degrees.
The obvious solution to improve the teaching of their early math courses is unfortunately not something I can provide without a general strategy change by the University. Obviously I will always try to improve the quality of my own teaching but I do not want to reduce the level of the course to zero. My course already included a brief repetition of required basics.
# Answer
> 10 votes
I think you can't *make* students learn anything, and it would be especially difficult to make them learn something other than what you are teaching at the moment. Still, I can think of some things to address the problem (many of which it sounds like you are already doing):
1. You can make sure that the unprepared students see early on that they are unprepared and liable to fail the course. This might not motivate them to learn, but it is still a nice thing to do.
2. You can give exercises that require them to learn prerequisite notions incrementally, giving them hints on where to find information not covered in the lecture. Just don't expect them to learn more than they need for each problem.
3. At the end of the term, you can make sure not to pass the students who didn't learn the things you said they would need to know in order to pass. (Otherwise you justify the very behavior that you complain about.)
4. You can pitch the course at a lower (but still nonzero) level. In my opinion the only reason *not* to spend more time on the basics would be if there were a significant number of students who would be bored by this. But maybe they would appreciate a review anyway.
5. Instead of changing the course, you could change the course description to try to deter more of the unprepared students.
6. If the students vary too widely in their backgrounds, you could try to create different versions of the course in future years.
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Tags: teaching
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thread-34111
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34111
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Should I give an overview of my research program at the beginning or at the end of my job talk?
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2014-12-11T21:36:51.140
|
# Question
Title: Should I give an overview of my research program at the beginning or at the end of my job talk?
I am preparing to give a job talk for an on-campus interview for a tenure-track assistant professor position. In many of the job talks I have attended, candidates will spend 40 minutes talking in depth about a particular project, as well as spending 5-10 minutes on their *research program*, i.e. summarizing other projects they have completed and briefly describing questions they are interested in exploring in their future research.
**Question:** Is it better to give the the "research program" part of the talk before the in-depth project, or vice versa?
**My personal inclination** If I recall correctly, I have seen candidates do either of the two approaches. I am inclined towards talking about the "research program" first, then the in-depth project second. This is because there has been research showing that after 10 minutes, the people attending a lecture lose attention. (See John Medina's book *Brain Rules*) If I leave the "research program" to the end, I am afraid many people may have "fallen asleep" by then, but if I put it in the beginning, hopefully it is more likely to be remembered.
# Answer
I agree with your inclination: explaining your research programme, arguably the most important part of a tenure-track job talk, at the end seems counter-productive, to say the least. Moreover, I would definitely *not* spend only 5 minutes of your talk on your programme. 10 minutes seems like the absolute minimum in a one-hour job talk.
More generally, job talks tend to consist of five parts:
1. The "About Me" part that usually kicks off the talk. Keep this short, as it is essentially pretty boring for the audience.
2. The "Intro" of the research field. Explain your audience what you are actually doing. Here, the point is not so much to sell your own work within the field, but to sell the field itself to the faculty.
3. Your "Research Agenda" within the field. As I mentioned above, arguably the most important part of the talk. The biggest mistake here is to step into what I call the "parameter optimization" trap - making it seem like your research agenda consists primarily of small incremental improvements of your PhD thesis.
4. The "Zoom In". Take out one part of your work, and explain in detail what you have been doing.
5. The "Outlook". Wrap the talk up with an outlook. Where is your field going, where are you going, how would your joining change the research of the faculty?
One problem is knowing how far in-depth each of these segments should be. My PhD advisor used to say that bullets (2) and (3) need to be easy enough to understand that every CS faculty can follow, but deep enough that it still perceived as important and valuable research. For bullet (4), it is ok (maybe expected) that the details are not all that accessible anymore for faculty working in very different fields. However, at Bullet (5), you need to pick up your entire audience again.
> 11 votes
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Tags: job-search, tenure-track, presentation, interview
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thread-33021
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33021
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What makes a didactically effective lecture?
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2014-12-10T22:37:35.193
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# Question
Title: What makes a didactically effective lecture?
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?
# Answer
> 36 votes
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).
# Answer
> 15 votes
> What is it that makes delivering a good, clear, informative lecture so challenging?
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.
> 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?
> 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?
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.
# Answer
> 11 votes
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.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I've heard the following story, which seems relevant, but I can't find a source for it now. Someone asked Stanislaw Ulam 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.
# Answer
> 4 votes
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.
# Answer
> 3 votes
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 has developed the 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:
> **Areas of Activity**
>
> A1 Design and plan learning activities and/or programmes of study
>
> A2 Teach and/or support learning
>
> A3 Assess and give feedback to learners
>
> A4 Develop effective learning environments and approaches to student support and guidance
>
> A5 Engage in continuing professional development in subjects/disciplines and their pedagogy, incorporating research, scholarship and the evaluation of professional practices
>
> **Core Knowledge**
>
> K1 The subject material
>
> K2 Appropriate methods for teaching, learning and assessing in the subject area and at the level of the academic programme
>
> K3 How students learn, both generally and within their subject/ disciplinary area(s)
>
> K4 The use and value of appropriate learning technologies
>
> K5 Methods for evaluating the effectiveness of teaching
>
> K6 The implications of quality assurance and quality enhancement for academic and professional practice with a particular focus on teaching
>
> **Professional Values**
>
> V1 Respect individual learners and diverse learning communities
>
> V2 Promote participation in higher education and equality of opportunity for learners
>
> V3 Use evidence-informed approaches and the outcomes from research, scholarship and continuing professional development
>
> V4 Acknowledge the wider context in which higher education operates recognising the implications for professional practice
A lecturer is, in general, expected to meet the requirements to be a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Descriptor 2), which means:
> 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:
>
> I. Successful engagement across all five Areas of Activity
>
> II. Appropriate knowledge and understanding across all aspects of Core Knowledge
>
> III. A commitment to all the Professional Values
>
> IV. Successful engagement in appropriate teaching practices related to the Areas of Activity
>
> V. Successful incorporation of subject and pedagogic research and/ or scholarship within the above activities, as part of an integrated approach to academic practice
>
> VI. Successful engagement in continuing professional development in relation to teaching, learning, assessment and, where appropriate, related professional practices
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".
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Tags: teaching, lecture-teaching-method
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thread-34114
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34114
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Why do graduate programs have comprehensive examinations (comps)?
|
2014-12-11T22:35:01.870
|
# Question
Title: Why do graduate programs have comprehensive examinations (comps)?
I'm about to begin studying for the comprehensive examinations (comps) my masters program (Computer Information Systems) requires. I'm curious as to the point of even having them in the first place. I'm not concerned about whether or not I'll pass my comps. I know that I will. It just seems like a lot of wasted time in both preparation and the fact that I'll have to burn a precious day of vacation to take them.
I could understand if, as stated in another post regarding PhD programs, we were required to take them after our first year of the program as part of a larger weeding out process. However, that isn't the case. We're simply required to take them before graduation.
In four separate exams, we're tested on the four core courses for our program. Didn't I pass those courses already? Haven't I already earned a satisfactory/passing grade for each course?
Would someone please provide my ignornant mind with some insight into the possible reasons why? It feels like double jeopardy... Thanks!
EDIT: The exams are written by the same instructors who taugh the specific class I took. For example, both Dr. Jones and Dr. Smith teach CourseX. However, since I took Dr. Jones for that course, he is the person who wrote the comp for the course. At least, that's my understanding of how they're written and by whom. I apologize for leaving this nugget out. I shouldn't write these questions while I'm sleep deprived...
# Answer
The question is about exams taken at the *end* of a master's program. I have given such exams. In my mind, they make the candidate *prove* that they have mastered the material of the courses, which is a form of quality control. But the exams also have a few secondary goals in my mind:
* By studying for the exams, students gain more understanding of the material, and come away better educated. The actual *taking* of the exam is less important, in a sense, than the time spent studying. If a student studies well, they should pass the exam.
* The exams keep the faculty honest when teaching, because the faculty know their students will have to pass exams that will be seen by other faculty. Exams within a course are often not seen by other faculty, so the instructor is not as publicly accountable.
* The exams help the faculty see what the students know, all in one setting. We can use this to revise courses at the departmental level if we find that many students have the same gaps in their knowledge.
> 4 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, masters, exams
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thread-34038
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34038
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How do mathematicians conduct research?
|
2014-12-11T06:07:06.800
|
# Question
Title: How do mathematicians conduct research?
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?
# Answer
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).
> 107 votes
# Answer
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 Oswald Veblen's answer which talks about doing similar "experiments" by hand.
> 36 votes
# Answer
> 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.
> 30 votes
# Answer
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.)
> 26 votes
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Tags: research-process, mathematics
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thread-34127
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34127
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Slow Response from Journal: Should I withdraw a paper?
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2014-12-12T01:27:25.290
|
# Question
Title: Slow Response from Journal: Should I withdraw a paper?
I submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal in August and the status has been "with editor" ever since. I was concerned that it had not been sent for review for 4 months and I sent inquiries twice without getting any response. I am wondering if I should just withdraw my paper?
# Answer
> 5 votes
It's possible that the editor it was assigned to has left the journal. Call them on the phone and then call another editor of that journal. It's definitely odd for it to have fallen through the cracks like that.
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Tags: publications, journals, paper-submission, editors, withdraw
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thread-34125
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34125
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How to ask for a letter of recommendation on a tight deadline, from professors I haven't spoken to in years?
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2014-12-12T00:42:07.367
|
# Question
Title: How to ask for a letter of recommendation on a tight deadline, from professors I haven't spoken to in years?
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.
# Answer
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.
> 10 votes
# Answer
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.
> 5 votes
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Tags: recommendation-letter, email
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thread-32988
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32988
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Are there known cases of leaks in academia?
|
2014-12-10T09:26:26.013
|
# Question
Title: Are there known cases of leaks in academia?
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?
# Answer
> 3 votes
Academic publications are sometimes subject to an 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:
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), 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 Stephan Kolassa in a comment: when a researcher uses private data that is leaked. Here 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, 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."
# Answer
> 2 votes
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:
* Phil Zimmerman was accused of leaking his PGP encryption algorithm, 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.
* Ted 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.
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Tags: data, privacy
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thread-32931
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32931
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Does posting papers on Academia.edu count as publishing?
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2014-12-09T00:36:28.313
|
# Question
Title: Does posting papers on Academia.edu count as publishing?
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?
# Answer
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.
> 14 votes
# Answer
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.
> -7 votes
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Tags: publications, journals, copyright, preprint, online-publication
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thread-34135
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34135
|
Can I add dropbox links to my resume for graduate school applications?
|
2014-12-12T05:56:49.563
|
# Question
Title: Can I add dropbox links to my resume for graduate school applications?
I am applying for Masters in ECE, since setting up a personal website at short notice is impossible,I wanted to provide dropbox links in my CV. For example:
1. Worst Outgoing Student Award \[Certificate\]
2. Bachelors in Bunking Classes \[Relevant Coursework\]
3. Book Report on Taming of the Shrew \[Report\]
All the \[\**\] fields are basically dropbox links, accessible to all. I wanted to know if this is recommended or not.
# Answer
Your CV should stand on its own. Admissions committees are likely to have stacks of material through which to look, and will almost certainly make a decision based on what you send them. It is most *unlikely* that they'll be willing to hunt around to find things you should have told them directly, and even *less* likely if they have to download documents from Dropbox instead of just displaying them.
Spend your time making your CV as good as you can instead of spending time trying to take shortcuts, because that's what those Dropbox links will look like to the committee.
> 4 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, cv, website
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thread-34149
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34149
|
When is it necessary to consult a university lawyer?
|
2014-12-12T09:46:46.423
|
# Question
Title: When is it necessary to consult a university lawyer?
A comment on this answer of mine about e-book lending suggested that it would be better to talk to a lawyer. The situation is as follows: My head of school asked me to explore means of providing our core text books in electronic form to our students. I talked to Library services and IT services and they recommended iPads with standard consumer licensed e-book versions installed. I passed this information on to my head of school, who instructed the school manager to buy the iPads, copies of the books, and other associated hardware needed for running an iPad lending service. Have I, my head of school, or my school manager been negligent for not consulting a lawyer in this manner? Should academics really be consulting university lawyers on a regular basis?
# Answer
> 5 votes
Well, first of all it's good to check the license yourself. Here you will find that it says that
> (i) You shall be authorized to use the iBooks Store Products only for **personal**, noncommercial use.
So, in this case it wouldn't even have been necessary to contact a university lawyer for the simple reason that the license is incredibly clear. In cases where it isn't you should at all times contact a university lawyer or contact the company in question itself, because **in general** IT and library personnel are not trained in legal matters (I just dropped by the library to ask). Now a valid argument could be made that it's the libraries responsibility to ask the university lawyer instead of you, but that's up to the mechanisms within your institution, the core issue remaining that one should be consulted somewhere down the line.
As to the question of negligence, I *think* (as a non-lawyer) you might be attributed negligence for not reading the license yourself, but not for not consulting a lawyer and just asking library/IT personnel. Still, it all depends on who was technically responsible for what and how the question towards the library people was phrased.
Additionally for future reference in case people find this through Google, the license also says
> You acknowledge that you are purchasing the content made available through the iBooks Store Service (the “iBooks Store Products”) from the third-party provider of that iBooks Store Product (the “Publisher”); Apple is acting as agent for the Publisher in providing each such iBooks Store Product to you; Apple is not a party to the transaction between you and the Publisher with respect to that iBooks Store Product; and the Publisher of each iBooks Store Product reserves the right to enforce the terms of use relating to that iBooks Store Product. The Publisher of each iBooks Store Product is solely responsible for that iBooks Store Product, the content therein, any warranties to the extent that such warranties have not been disclaimed, and any claims that you or any other party may have relating to that iBooks Store Product or your use of that iBooks Store Product.
So not only would you need permission from Apple, but also from the third party selling every single individual book.
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Tags: legal-issues
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thread-34117
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34117
|
Citation for quoting a current accepted value in an abstract?
|
2014-12-11T23:34:34.793
|
# Question
Title: Citation for quoting a current accepted value in an abstract?
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?
# Answer
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 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.
> 2 votes
# Answer
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.
> 1 votes
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Tags: citations, writing, abstract
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thread-34146
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34146
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Can a single bad letter of recommendation ruin my chances of getting admitted to grad school?
|
2014-12-12T08:51:38.563
|
# Question
Title: Can a single bad letter of recommendation ruin my chances of getting admitted to grad school?
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?
# Answer
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."
> 23 votes
# Answer
**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 says that even a "good but not great" letter could keep you out of some departments.
> 9 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, recommendation-letter
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thread-34170
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34170
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How can full-time lecturers find the time to prepare for lectures?
|
2014-12-12T16:56:17.380
|
# Question
Title: How can full-time lecturers find the time to prepare for lectures?
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.
# Answer
> 14 votes
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."
# Answer
> 5 votes
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.
# Answer
> 1 votes
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.
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Tags: lecturer, preparation
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thread-34169
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34169
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How should I stay in professional contact with former supervisors and/or colleagues?
|
2014-12-12T16:36:43.067
|
# Question
Title: How should I stay in professional contact with former supervisors and/or colleagues?
I want to ask if anyone still keeps in touch with former supervisors and/or colleagues from previous universities and how to do it in a professional way.
I want to keep in touch with them for not only future reference letters but also potential research collaboration.
# Answer
The easiest way is to keep working on projects with them. If that ship has sailed, then the next best way is to be friends with them on social media, which is to say, be friends with them in real life. Barring that, you have to work to communicate with them on a regular basis about topics relevant to your shared interests: go to conferences and strike up conversations with them, share interesting papers with them via email (i.e., "Did you see this new paper from prof X? What'd you think?"), propose joint projects and write joint grant proposals, etc. It's not hard, but it does take active work.
People definitely do this, and I think it's one of the best ways for a new post-PhD researcher to get experience writing grants and proposing projects if they haven't gotten that experience already. That being said, it's also hard. You're supposed to be striking out on your own and establishing new frontiers. Your old colleagues are either doing the same thing or using the slot you left to pay new students/postdocs to continue the work you left behind. It can be challenging for everyone to strike the right balance.
> 8 votes
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Tags: etiquette, collaboration, communication, supervision
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thread-34190
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34190
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Taking suggestions for grading rubric for multiple answers test
|
2014-12-12T23:07:36.900
|
# Question
Title: Taking suggestions for grading rubric for multiple answers test
We're being encouraged to use multiple answer tests at my school. In case you're not familiar with the concept, each question may have multiple correct answers; students are encouraged to mark all valid answers.
There's at least one correct each for each question. Each question has either 4 or 5 answers to select from. It is possible that all answers are correct.
I would like to grade this so that, even when there are multiple correct answers, if the student only selected one answer and it is correct, they receive partial credit.
What I'm not sure about is how to grade problems in which:
* all answers have been selected, but not all answers are correct.
* some of the selected answers are correct and others are incorrect.
We've been given no guidelines beyond what I've mentioned above. When asked about how we should grade these tests, we've been told no more than to try to award partial credit if at least one correct answer has been selected.
Does anyone out there have experience grading tests like this? If so, how might you design a grading rubric.
# Answer
> 7 votes
One simple way to design a grading rubric for this situation is to consider the question as though it were a set of true-false questions. So if there are 5 answer and the question is worth five points, then there is 1 point for marking each true, and 1 for *not* marking each false answer.
Thus, for example, consider the following question:
> Which of these are mammals? (5 points)
>
> 1. Cat
> 2. Turtle
> 3. Lizard
> 4. Fish
> 5. Dog
If the student marked "Cat, Turtle", then they would receive 3 points: they lose 1 point for marking "Turtle" and 1 point for failing to mark "Dog."
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Tags: grades
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thread-34137
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34137
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How do I check my work is worthy?
|
2014-12-12T07:35:30.240
|
# Question
Title: How do I check my work is worthy?
I would like to check if my mathematics paper is worthy of publication.
Is there any guide on the quality and form required for paper to be of publication quality?
Is there organization which will evaluate my paper for free?
How should I determine if my work is substantive enough to be grounds for pursuing PhD thesis?
# Answer
Regarding the Ph.D. part of the question, only a school can grant a Ph.D., and no school will grant you a degree if you are not enrolled as a Ph.D. student. Your best bet is probably to contact the mathematics department at a nearby research university and ask if a faculty member would be willing to look at your work. If you have really been doing original research on your own, then you can probably be admitted as a student and begin working toward a degree.
Regarding the journal part of the question, most journals do not charge fees to authors (they make their money from subscription fees). Most journals have web sites that explain the format and process for submitting a paper. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic\_publishing#Publishing\_process for a description of how this works.
> 2 votes
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Tags: publications, journals
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thread-32655
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32655
|
How can I find out whether I am permitted to re-use an online questionnaire in my own research?
|
2014-12-03T14:58:49.450
|
# Question
Title: How can I find out whether I am permitted to re-use an online questionnaire in my own research?
So, I get this page's link: User Interface Usability Evaluation with Web-Based Questionnaires 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.
# Answer
The script doesn't seem to have a license but says, "question.cgi is a free script for administering user interface usability questionnaires on the web." In other places on the page you linked to, the authors encourage reuse. If you are unsure or unclear, you can contact the authors.
> 1 votes
# Answer
Actually, the text on the page is pretty clear:
> The script is freely available, AS-IS
So, yes, you can use it as it is.
Combine this with the (slightly) earlier text
> allows the online reader to design and create their own questionnaire
and I think there is only one way to interpret this as "Feel free to use this!"
> 1 votes
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Tags: research-undergraduate, copyright, online-resource, survey-research
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thread-34198
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34198
|
Highlighting sentences in the statement of purpose
|
2014-12-13T01:43:33.700
|
# Question
Title: Highlighting sentences in the statement of purpose
I am under the impression that admissions officers are busy people and they have lots and lots of applications to review, especially in top schools. Because of this, it could happen that the some statements of purpose might not be thoroughly read.
Does it make sense to highlight things (underline, bold) that I think admissions officers are looking for? Like ranking or publications? What might admissions officers understand from the statement of purpose if they found these highlights?
# Answer
> 1 votes
I use a similar approach, using bold to highlight key words or expressions in a short free text summary in my CV. The benefit is that points I think are key to my career are visible even at a glance. As you mention, many are stressed and reading through letters take time. Although the persons responsible for the admission process should read the material carefully, it is only human to, for example, get tired after a large number of applications. Using highlighting and other forms of structuring elements (paragraph breaks or even bulleted or numbered lists) to make the text easier to access is therefore a good way to make the reading easier.
To anyone thinking that highlighting might induce unfair advantages, it is worth stating that it can also easily back-fire if the highlighting is not consistent or give an impression that is not consistent with what the text or other supporting material will indicate. In other words, any highlighting must be done with care to be a tool to simplify the access to the information and not to skew it.
Depending on where you are in your career, the CV will be the most important part of an application. Finding ways in which to summarize, for example the general impact of your articles or other activities becomes important. This is why I have a short summary text at the start of the CV, the lists of publications is then supporting the statements about number of publications, the citations of individual articles, etc.
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, graduate-school, application
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thread-34106
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34106
|
Mediocre Thesis Topic. Does this Hurt my Reputation
|
2014-12-11T20:35:36.830
|
# Question
Title: Mediocre Thesis Topic. Does this Hurt my Reputation
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.
# Answer
A PhD is documentation that you can do your own research. You don't have to take what you're given. That said, maybe your advisor considers the "toy problems" a warmup for more advanced research? You should talk to your advisor and also to other faculty members you trust. Let them know that you are concerned your topic may be weak. Perhaps they will have some ideas on how you can make it stronger. Depending on the outcome of these discussions, you may want to shop around for a different advisor who is a better fit for you, both in research interests and personality. The key is to take charge of your own dissertation.
> 3 votes
# Answer
You sound like you're at the very early stages of the research process. Perhaps these problems are not as simple as they appear to be.
In any case, I think you're fretting prematurely. If your research topic ends up being less-than-stellar, you'll have plenty of opportunities to redeem yourself by doing more exciting work after you're done. To answer your question, I don't think a "mediocre" thesis topic would have long-lasting effects on your overall reputation, which will ultimately be judged by a much larger body of work.
From one of your comments:
> *if you select a research project that goes nowhere, you may end up going through the rabbit hole, and end up without a PhD*
This could happen if the project is too easy; this could happen if the problem is too hard. This could happen if someone else is doing research right now that will nullify your results before you're done. This could happen if you get burned out and don't finish your work. In some respects, completing a PhD is like a minefield; it's fraught with risk.
You can switch advisors, switch topics, or start doing the work your advisor assigned. Unless you have more than a hunch that this work will be fruitless, I'd recommend starting with the task you've been assigned, and not letting fears of your reputation 10 years down the road paralyze you from getting underway.
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, thesis, research-topic
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thread-34209
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34209
|
Grad student protecing ideas in a research paper for futher development
|
2014-12-13T11:35:24.880
|
# Question
Title: Grad student protecing ideas in a research paper for futher development
I am working on a graduate school research paper in finance/accounting. My adviser is really excited about my paper and this professor is a prolific publisher. The paper has progressed enough to hand in for the course. I want to develop this paper further after the course is over. However, after meeting with my adviser, (her student assistance's desk is in the professor's office) three other graduate students are doing their papers on the same subject. How can I turn in the paper but protect the work so I can develop it further on my own time? I put a qualifier (not to use without my permission) on the paper but the professor wants it removed. I explained that I wanted to further develop it but she said it is for others to use.
# Answer
> 5 votes
On the face of it this sounds very serious. Of course there may be information that can explain some of the aspects that are unknown to me and also you. So with that in mind.
If you have come up with the idea on your own, the work you have done is certainly yours. Often the basic idea is given by, for example, the adviser, in which case some (how much can differ widely) of the intellectual input is shared. You will, through your work still have some degree of ownership. If the adviser has given a similar basic idea to several students the situation can become really messy. It is not clear from your post if the other students started their work, once they got wind of your success or if they were given earlier input to start along the same lines. In any case, I would argue that the adviser has a responsibility to also protect your possible ownership but unfortunately what is ethically correct and what happens in real life can deviate significantly.
So what can be done? The first thing to do is to talk to the advisor and say you want to work this up to a publication (I have to assume here that you know or have had indications it can be published). In other fields it is possible to post work online to get a time stamp on your work, what possibilities exist for you I will leave to others who may know such possibilities to comment upon.
The comment that "it is for others to use" seems ridiculous. Unless there is a policy or local rule that states that anything produced within a course belongs to the school or course responsible or does not belong to the student, it appears quite unethical to take such a stance. Laws on immaterial rights or intellectual property are usually quite strong. It may therefore be useful to take the matter up with someone in the department who is either there to handle the graduate studies or some form of counsellor at the university level. You must know what structures are in place for possible grievances. the important point is that you need to figure out where you stand based on the details that are known. This is also why a very black or white answer cannot be given here, the information is too weak. But, based on what you have made known the situation sounds problematic from an ethical point of view.
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Tags: research-process, graduate-school, ethics, advisor, intellectual-property
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thread-34216
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34216
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Elsevier Computers and Security "With Editor" status just after 12 hours - what does it mean?
|
2014-12-13T14:45:46.013
|
# Question
Title: Elsevier Computers and Security "With Editor" status just after 12 hours - what does it mean?
I am new to journal submissions. I have been working as a research assistant at the University in Sweden for 3 months. Yesterday, at 5:00pm I submitted a paper to Elsevier's Computers & Security. My paper was received and had the status "Submitted to Journal"
The next day at 6:00am I got an email that my paper had its status changed status to "With Editor". All of this is very new to me, and I do not understand that what this new status means. Does it mean that someone is working on my paper just now?
*Can I infer the journal's view/reception of my paper from the speed of the status change?*
# Answer
In electronic submission systems the manuscript (MS) is handled according to a certain work flow. When a MS is submitted it has to be assigned to an editor who will check, for example, if the MS is appropriate for the journal or adheres to journal "Instructions for Authors" (or equivalent). The editor will then either start to assign reviewers to your MS or pass it on to an Associate editor (equiv.) to do the same. Then several rounds follow that is beyond this post. Thus there are lots of steps that your MS will undergo and the system will signals some subset of all steps involved.
So the likely interpretation of your observed change in status is that the journal, possibly through some administrator, has assigned the MS to an editor for further processing. This does not necessarily mean much but it shows your MS is on its way forward in the journal work flow. The process of moving a MS to a new step can be done very quickly and will largely depend on the timing of the person doing the chore. In the journal where I am editor, there is a six day limit to move MS from submitted to an editor. Usually the move is made within 24 hours and shorter depending on when the MS is submitted and when the admin checks the newly submitted MS list.
Se also this Elsevier link
> 14 votes
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Tags: publications, journals, elsevier, journal-workflow
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thread-34213
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34213
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Correct Academic Title, Necessity of Adding All Emails, Necessity of Adding Authors Photo in IEEE Transaction Journal?
|
2014-12-13T14:27:34.067
|
# Question
Title: Correct Academic Title, Necessity of Adding All Emails, Necessity of Adding Authors Photo in IEEE Transaction Journal?
I should provide a concise biography of myself for IEEE transactions journal. We received the paper proof and this biography goes at the end of our accepted paper. At one point in my biography I should add my current position. So, I’ve written the following sentence. `“He is currently a lecturer in ABC University”` ABC University is a small university that I am teaching some academic courses there. I am working there with my Master degree and teach the student who are purchasing Bachelor degree in Electrical engineering. I am not an associated, assistant or full professor. I am a part time instructor that is qualified to teach these students. Also, I don't have any constant commitment to the university as well. I fill out a contract form for each semester and get paid based on the hours that I teach at the university. So I would like to ask:
> what is my exact ranking title? A lecturer, instructor, adjunct lecturer, adjunct instructor or what?
>
> How much is it important to be precise for academic title in this biography?
My professor which is the corresponding author of this paper didn't add my email at the foot note of paper and only added his own email there. He was concern about exceeding 8 page limit of IEEE transactions papers in first submission of the manuscript. In the other stages where we received the revision of the paper he said we will add it after the acceptance stage.... so, right now we received the IEEE proof PDF of the paper and we are only asked to prepare a Biography.So I would like to ask:
> Is it important to include all authors email in the paper? (I am the first name on the paper and he is the second, but he is the corresponding author)
>
> considering the fact that, we only received the PDF of the paper, How can we correct the foot note at this stage?
The IEEE editorial board didn't ask us about providing a photo beside our biography. Why is that? All publications of this kid of transactions have a photo beside authors biography. Also, in the 'authors guide' it is mentioned that a photo and biography is needed. on the other hand, my professor told me we only send them our short biography, because after their pedantic revision our paper became 13 pages and we should pay about 550$ fine. So, I would like to ask:
> Is it important to add our photo beside biography?
> Considering the fact that we didn't exceed 8 page limit of IEEE in the first submission of our manuscript, and the other 5 pages has been added to the paper based on the reviewers revision and editing of the editorial board, Do we still need to pay that fine? Also, My professor and I are Senior member and Student of IEEE organization, does that help us to get rid of paying the fine?
Your help is much appreciated in advance.
# Answer
> 2 votes
> what is my exact ranking title? A lecturer, instructor, adjunct lecturer, adjunct instructor or what?
>
> How much is it important to be precise for academic title in this biography?
If you are uncertain about your official title, talk to folks in your departmental office and/or the human resources (HR) people (or folks in the equivalent HR office at your institution). So long as you are making a good effort to state truthfully what your current title is, I wouldn't expect there to be any problems.
> Is it important to include all authors email in the paper? (I am the first name on the paper and he is the second, but he is the corresponding author)
>
> considering the fact that, we only received the PDF of the paper, How can we correct the foot note at this stage?
I have seen folks list email addresses for all authors, just the email address of the corresponding author, or somewhere in between. It's up to you: you have every right to have your email address shown on the first-page footnote if you want it there. To make any additions to the footnote (or your biography, or anything else as I mentioned in this answer), contact the senior editor assigned to your manuscript. If you don't know who the senior editor is, the corresponding author of your paper does: contact your corresponding author and ask them to supply you with this information.
> Is it important to add our photo beside biography? Considering the fact that we didn't exceed 8 page limit of IEEE in the first submission of our manuscript, and the other 5 pages has been added to the paper based on the reviewers revision and editing of the editorial board, Do we still need to pay that fine? Also, My professor and I are Senior member and Student of IEEE organization, does that help us to get rid of paying the fine?
Again, it's up to you: some authors have bios with pictures, some do not (some people choose not to even include a bio!). To me, the IEEE Transactions have very clear policies on the charges authors pay for going over a certain page limit: everyone pays these regardless of whether they are members of the IEEE or not.
Finally, don't let your corresponding author "bully" you into omitting your bio/photo just to save on publishing costs. As a corresponding author, even though I don't care if my bio has to be shortened to fit some page-count restriction, I always make sure to save room for co-author bios/photos and find other ways to trim the paper down without sacrificing the overall quality of the paper. The way I see it, if a co-author wants to include a bio/photo to, for example, advertise themselves to the journal's target audience, then they should be given the opportunity to do so.
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Tags: journals, paper-submission, ieee
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thread-34174
|
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34174
|
"Do you need travel support?" Questions on Conference Applications
|
2014-12-12T17:36:14.247
|
# Question
Title: "Do you need travel support?" Questions on Conference Applications
I am applying for conferences now for the first time while I have my own grant. My grant is mainly for my living stipend but has some money set aside for travel over 4 years. I am starting to apply for conferences and they are asking if I need support. The technical answer is "no," but the more complicated answer is that to go to all the conferences I want to go to, then I will need support from some of these conferences in order to pay for it for the course of 4 years.
Do I just say "yes" despite the short answer? It's very clear I have this grant that has some travel money, but in the end it's not unlimited, but I don't want to come off as greedy.
*How detailed should a response to a travel support requirement inquiry be?*
# Answer
What you should answer will depend on the conference you're attending and the country it is hosted in. Different conferences will have different amounts of money available for travel support and there is no single set of criteria that is used to determine who is eligible. Often travel support is aimed at students and researchers with a very low budget, for example those from poor countries. It is typically not intended for people who have the budget to attend several conferences, but want to attend more.
So figure out what the eligibility criteria are. If they're not listed on the conference website you can either just fill in "yes" and hope that you are provided with documents that provide further information.
But as is often the case, the simplest way might be to just ask. Send an email to the conference organizers asking what their criteria and intended target audience are for travel support.
> 4 votes
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Tags: conference, funding
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thread-34164
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34164
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Is it ethical to express thanks and gratitude to a reviewer in the reply to the review text?
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2014-12-12T15:53:18.853
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# Question
Title: Is it ethical to express thanks and gratitude to a reviewer in the reply to the review text?
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.
# Answer
> 18 votes
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.
# Answer
> 18 votes
Yes, how could it possibly be unethical to thank someone? This is very common.
# Answer
> 4 votes
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.
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Tags: research-process, ethics, peer-review, etiquette
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thread-34222
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34222
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Is it acceptable to keep extending medical leave to prolong insurance coverage, when one has no intent of returning?
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2014-12-13T15:29:28.400
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# Question
Title: Is it acceptable to keep extending medical leave to prolong insurance coverage, when one has no intent of returning?
Two years ago I enrolled in a very high-ranked program in field X. Partway through the program, I developed severe health problems which affected my memory and cognitive function, and which made it difficult to learn the required material. In addition, I also found I was not that interested in the research itself (although the aforementioned memory/cognitive problems were far more damaging to my learning than the lack of interest).
Due to the combination of these two factors, I sought medical leave to deal with the health problems, which was granted in March. Around July/August, the problem was partially alleviated, and I have mostly been feeling better, and have decided to switch to another field of study Y. I talked with my adviser about my situation and explained the health problems, and he asked me if I was still planning on re-entering the program, and I told him that I felt that I might perform better working in field Y; we mutually agreed to terminate the leave, and I am currently applying to a second round of graduate schools.
This is where things get slightly more complicated. The health insurance I had under the medical leave was far better than my ordinary health insurance, and my mother has (since August) been trying to persuade me to extend my leave as long as legally possible, potentially up until Fall 2015 enrollment. According to doctors I talked to at the previous institution, it is not uncommon for students to take up to three years on medical leave, so this is AFAIK legally possible. In the interim time, she wants me to tell my adviser that I am still dealing with medical issues, and am not yet able to decide on re-entering the institute's program in field X, during which I can apply to other schools in field Y and enroll in one of them for Fall 2015. I have not yet told her that I have previously spoken with my adviser and agreed to end the leave.
My question is:
* Under this set of circumstances, was I right in contacting my adviser and terminating leave, instead of extending it up until Fall 2015 enrollment at another institution?
Personally, my gut instinct towards my mother's proposal is that it is effectively financial blackmail, arguably dishonest, and would sour post-leave relations with my adviser. However, I am generally bad at gauging these sort of questions, and seek advice here as to what the correct course of action would have been. My mother has told me that the institute legally has to extend my medical leave as long as I am otherwise in good standing and still expressing desire to eventually re-enroll, and that by doing otherwise, I am potentially burning academic bridges behind me and making it more difficult for me to find a new graduate position. In any case, I hope that this question is sufficiently generalizable that it can help people who find themselves in similar circumstances regarding the handling of academic medical leave.
### Edit
To clarify, I was not paid a stipend during leave, and the insurance premium was paid for by the institution.
# Answer
> 13 votes
Assuming that you are in the United States, the ethics of the situation are not clear-cut, because the health care system is such a mess. It may not be clear to either you or your former advisor who is actually paying for the health care. For example, the school may have outsourced responsibility to a third-party insurance solution, or it might be covered by some unusual provision of the new health law, or the FMLA, or who knows what. Honestly, I have no idea, and probably you can't find out without detailed interactions with HR, and even they might not be in compliance with laws and regulations and might not even know it.
It's also the case that, while there is a clear conservative ethical solution of "better safe than sorry," it's not actually clear that it is the right thing to do, given the amount of financial and/or medical problems that can be caused by a short period uncovered in the US. A colleague of mine, for example, who was actually continually covered with a good plan, had problems getting critical medical care for a child because her plan was late in handling paperwork on a year-to-year transition. On the flip side, I kept using some of my university's medical services for years after I had left, because I asked about it and was told that my alumni status meant it was still OK: it turned out that I wasn't supposed to, but nobody including me knew that.
So it's a pretty mess to sort through. How should you deal with it? Let's lay out some principles:
1. You really don't want to burn bridges. This means that if you decide that it is important to try to stay on the same plan, then you should make sure that your advisor is OK with it. Some professors I know would tell you to do it, and some would be uncomfortable. What you *don't* want to do is have the professor be uncomfortable and only find out later.
2. Second, how critical is the difference between the plans? Are you potentially facing many thousands of dollars in extra cost or being forced to go untreated for your medical conditions? If the difference is relatively small, then let it go. If the difference could destroy your health or life, then it's appropriate to try to use the options that are available.
None of this is ethically squeaky clean, unfortunately, and I wish that it were so. Unfortunately, because health care coverage is so tightly linked to employment in the United States, we have a system that sometimes forces people to choose between problematic options.
In sum: if you can afford to drop down a grade in health care, that's the ethically best choice. If you can't, make sure your professor is OK with you taking advantage of something that is permissible under the system but ethically questionable.
# Answer
> 10 votes
You made the correct decision, and the only ethical decision. Your leave was granted on the premise that you would return. When that ceased to be true, you correctly terminated your relationship with the program, ending your medical leave benefit.
As far as burning academic bridges, you'd do a far more effective job of bridge-burning if you flim-flammed your old program into paying for more leave, then told them you wouldn't be returning. Although that sort of information should be confidential, I guarantee you it'd get around unofficially, perhaps not as a statement of the facts, but as, "this is someone you do not need and do not want."
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Tags: ethics, united-states, health
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thread-34132
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34132
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In applications for academic jobs that ask for a "copy of transcript", is a "copy of transcript" an unofficial or official copy?
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2014-12-12T04:21:23.457
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# Question
Title: In applications for academic jobs that ask for a "copy of transcript", is a "copy of transcript" an unofficial or official copy?
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?
# Answer
> 2 votes
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 W88'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.
# Answer
> 0 votes
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.
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Tags: job-search, faculty-application, transcript-of-records
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thread-17294
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17294
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What to do if I can't get a visa to attend a conference that accepted my paper?
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2014-02-21T22:38:10.943
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# Question
Title: What to do if I can't get a visa to attend a conference that accepted my paper?
My work got accepted into a very good category in a very good conference in my field. Due to complicated visa issues it will be very hard for me to attend that conference.
If I don't attend the conference they are certainly going to remove my work from the proceedings.
I am worried I won't be able to claim any sort of achievement if I don't attend this conference.
Can I still add it to my CV and specify that my work got accepted in this conference in a very good category?
# Answer
If your paper gets withdrawn, then there may be no public record that it ever was accepted (and if there were, it could potentially be misconstrued as a withdrawel for other reasons). I can't say I've ever seen such an item on a CV.
On the other hand, even if you cannot make it to the conference in person, you can try to either:
a) have someone else give the talk in your place.
b) give the talk via telecommunication, e.g. Skype.
Both options are certainly not too unusual in my field (theoretical computer science/math). If you have to go for the second one, make sure not to leave contacting the conference organizers for the last moment, and be aware that this causes quite some work for them. If you can provide enough detail on your visa issues that it is clear that it's not just "You waited too long to apply", most people will be quite understanding.
> 29 votes
# Answer
You will need to find some way to have the paper presented. At the most recent conference I attended, a speaker was unable to attend for visa reasons and sent in a video talk. That talk was played back by a friend who also took some (simple) questions.
At pretty much every conference I've been to in the past few years in the US at least one person has had visa trouble, so it's not uncommon at all. But you will need to do due diligence to try and get the visa as far as possible. Once that fails, then the above three suggestions (someone else, a skype talk, a video talk) become available, depending on what the conference organizers want.
> 28 votes
# Answer
This happened in my lab. The solution was to either present the work by a co-author, or present the work by a lab mate that was attending the conference.
Pay attention that in the second case (non-author, lab mate) you need to get in touch with the *conference staff* in order to expose the case to them and make sure they agree. Some conferences consider it a *paper withdrawal* when none of the co-authors attends the conference to present the work. Also, you will still have to pay the author fees, even if you can't assist to the conference.
> 8 votes
# Answer
I recently gave a presentation at a conference on behalf of a colleague who was unable to attend, so it's certainly a possibility in at least some fields (I'm in theoretical computer science). I had nothing to do with the research, but I do know the person, so I was able to talk to them beforehand and get a decent briefing on the material.
If you know some of the other attendees, that may be a possible route to getting your work presented. In my experience of glancing at the rules of various conference (all CS though), there is only a requirement that the work is presented - it doesn't strictly say by whom, and that at least one of the authors registers.
> 6 votes
# Answer
I have encountered multiple instances of this. Once, the airlines messed up my connections so badly that I did not make it to the conference (which was in a remote region) although I had given myself 48 hours "leeway" for just that eventuality. We ended up setting up a Skype connection (voice only - the internet connection was quite poor) and the talk was well received. I have to say though, that not seeing your audience and gaging their reaction / understanding is a HUGE barrier to effective delivery.
On another occasion, a hurricane caused severe flooding of the house of an academic acquaintance, and he chose not to travel abroad to give a presentation - instead he dealt with the flooding, insurance, etc. He asked me to give the talk for him, and we discussed it at length so I would be able to present effectively. The only problem was that I could not answer follow-up questions: instead I put up the author's email information as the last slide so people could follow up with him directly.
On a third occasion, travel restrictions (funding) required me to stand in for a colleague; while I was not an author on the paper, I was very familiar with the work (from my group) and was able to present and field questions from the audience. That is the ideal scenario.
On no account should you simply be a "no show": that will affect your acceptance at future conferences (even though it is "not your fault"). Everyone understands that stuff happens - but the show must go on. So find a sub - preferably someone you know and trust, with knowledge about your work. If necessary, just call all the other authors who are presenting in the same section - they are likely to understand the material best. And presumably you know some of them from other conferences?
> 3 votes
# Answer
As you know, most conferences accept papers on the condition that one of the authors attends the conference to give a presentation. Of course, sometimes things come up and somebody who planned to attend cannot; organizers are sympathetic to that, as discussed in the other answers.
However, I think it's worth pointing out that, if you knew at the time of submitting the paper that getting a visa would be difficult or impossible, you should probably have agreed that one of your co-authors would attend the conference from the start. If all your co-authors were in the same situation, it would, I think, have been best to contact the organizers for advice before submitting.
> 2 votes
# Answer
Have you considered converting your presentation to a poster? If the conference organisers have accepted your presentation as a talk, then they should - I expect - accept a poster from you on the same topic, even if you can't attend owing to your visa difficulties.
If you submit a poster, your contribution will at least be on record. Additionally, you might be able to convince someone at the conference - via your network of collaborators - to spend a few precious minutes of their presentation talk to advertise your poster, adding, perhaps, that but for your visa difficulties, you would have been in attendance to present your work orally.
> 1 votes
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Tags: conference, cv, travel, visa
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thread-34246
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34246
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If an editor appoints a non-expert reviewer by mistake, is there any way to convey this to the editor?
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2014-12-13T21:55:43.100
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# Question
Title: If an editor appoints a non-expert reviewer by mistake, is there any way to convey this to the editor?
What to do if somebody is suspicious after reading the review report of a research paper that one of the reviewers may be his ex-coworker, who is not an expert in the subject of the paper?
# Answer
> 7 votes
The question seems to be predicated on two assumptions:
1) If the review was not blind and the OP knew that the reviewer was his **F**ormer **C**oworker, he could make a convincing case to the editor that **FC** was not qualified to review the paper.
2) Thus, because he *suspects* that the reviewer was **FC**, he wants to contact the editor to find out if this was the case.
The second assumption is really a mistaken one, I think: according to the principles of blind review, you shouldn't know the identity of the reviewer. If you think you do, you should nevertheless act as if you don't, and if you have partial information, you should definitely not go around sleuthing to see if you can solve the case. This is one of the basic cultural assumptions of peer review. I think that if the author goes down this road, it is very likely that he will be told that his actions are inappropriate and will burn bridges with the editor and the journal.
I find the first assumption problematic too, in a more subtle way. The reason that reviews are anonymous is that you should not be engaging in an *ad hominem* discussion of the reviewer. Just because you know someone's identity doesn't mean that you are an authority on their academic and intellectual qualifications. Maybe **FC** didn't know your subject well back when you knew him, *in your opinion*. How do you know what he knows now?
Choosing a suitable person to be the referee is the editor's call, not the author's. Calling attention to someone's identity -- even hypothetically, as in "I don't know who the reviewer was, but *if* it was **FC**..." -- as a strike against the referee report will be regarded by many as obnoxious. If you have anything to say to the editor, it is about the referee report itself. If the referee report contains a comment that through its specific brand of inexpertise suggests to you that it was made by **FC**, forget about the **FC** part and explain why the comment is *definitively* incorrect. If you can point out clear errors in the referee report that are in the serious to egregious range -- i.e., a reasonable person would worry that they compromise the integrity of the verdict -- then you have a case for getting the report thrown out and/or getting an additional independent report. More likely the situation is not so clearcut, and in my opinion you should still compose a polite response to the editor if you feel that a lack of expertise played a factor in the report, but you fully expect to resubmit your paper elsewhere.
Getting a bad (as in, less than skilled) referee report and having to resubmit elsewhere is quite a common feature of peer review. Luckily there is a lot more than one journal, so you can just start fresh elsewhere, and doing so is usually a much better idea than trying to extract reparations from the editor and/or the referee.
# Answer
> 2 votes
First, I doubt any editor would appoint a reviewer by "mistake". Editors look for persons who are deemed to provide in-depth reviews on the manuscript or in some cases part of it. As editor it is of course difficult to keep track of co-workers so it is probably not uncommon that co-workers become assigned. If a reviewers feels they cannot provide a fair review, and one such instance can be if they feel to close to the author, they have a responsibility to decline the review. It is possible an editor appoints somebody relatively familiar with your work in the belief that they have insights that may be useful. This would be a poor assumption on the part of the editor and one I would deem as slightly lazy.
Despite these and other safety-measures reviewers that for one or another reason are unsuitable become appointed. Many journals therefore have opportunities for authors to signal non-preferred reviewers. It is also possible to add names of non-wanted reviewers in the submission letters. Such persons usually are ones with whom a personal conflict exists.
With all that in mind, it is not clear that the editor has made any mistake despite the fact that you look unfavourable on the choice and *suspect* that you know one of the reviewers. If you feel a review is off in some respect, you are free to signal this to the editor when you return a revised manuscript (assuming you received a revisions "verdict"). If your manuscript is rejected and the rejection is due to the reviewer you would see as non-preferable, you should contact the editor to see if you can discuss a "second chance". The problem here is that you need to have sound arguments for the problem arising from the reviewer. The fact that no indication of the non-preferred status of the reviewer is, form the view of the editor, a complicating factor; how is the editor to know? Suspecting you know the reviewer is not a very solid ground for changing the opinion.
So, the best you can do is to work with the reviews to improve the manuscript and provide good arguments for not following points where you believe reviewers do not have a strong point. So take the reviews in stride and simply argue for what you think are reasonable constructive changes to your manuscript.
# Answer
> -4 votes
First of all, it is perfectly alright to review a coworker's article, unless they were involved in the research or provided assistance of some sort - in other words, they shouldn't be biased. If, as your question's title suggests, the reviewer is not an expert in the field, and the editor made the mistake of appointing him with this task, you could contact the editor asking why he did so. Mention that he is just your coworker and not an expert in this area. Instead of making quick judgments, wait for the review and go through it to see if it is acceptable by your own standards. It is very unlikely, I believe, that it would be worthless to a point were you might want to ask your editor to reject it, nevertheless you could always make a request to exclude that review from being published.
NOTE: Contact your editor and ask for advice.
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Tags: peer-review, paper-submission, editors
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thread-34230
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34230
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The editor asks me to wait couple of days
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2014-12-13T17:13:08.887
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# Question
Title: The editor asks me to wait couple of days
I have submitted my manuscript to one of the top-tier journal in my field. The reviewers' feedback was positive in the first round of revision; one reviewer favoured the paper and asked for revisions while the second reviewer did not read it because I did not adhere to the target word count of the journal. The editor then asked me to make an R&R. I submitted my revision and 5 days after the resubmission the dashboard was converted into "awaiting EIC decision". The editor discussed the decision with one of his associates and then asked me to wait for a couple of days to render a final decision. He did not tell me that it would be sent out for a third review.
My question is that why the need for days to render a decision after discussing the reviewers' reports with the associate editor? Can anyone from the journal's editors explain this case?
Edit: The problem is that the status "awaiting for EIC decision" took around 15 days till I received an email from the editor that he was out of the disk and once he received on X day he would render a decision. At that day or the following day, he told me to have patience and waited for couple of days as he was discussing the reviewers' reports with his associate. My question is whether there was disagreement between the reviewers then he may assign another reviewer or what?
# Answer
In general the editor makes choices as to how to best get a manuscript evaluated. If one reviewer did not return a review, it is only natural to ask for a new reviewer's opinion. The fact that the editor-in-Chief confers with another editor could mean that they confer whether or not the existing single review is sufficient.
As for time, I am not sure why you question a few days for a decision. Most editors do their work outside of normal departmental duties so finding time for discussing a particular manuscript can take some time and surely five days is not anything remarkable?
So from my view point, as Editor-in-Chief (of another journal), you seem to be very impatient and lacking insight in the everyday editorial business of a journal. I do not see anything strange about what has happened and I particularly do not see any reason for the editor to let you in to the internal work of the journal editorship.
> 15 votes
# Answer
Your edit contains the answer to your question: editors are people too, and sometimes delays happen because of that fact. This is less true for a "professionally edited" journal like Nature or Science, where there is likely to be a formal handoff of responsibilities between editors when one is unavailable. Most journals, however, are run by faculty volunteering their time as part of their service to their scientific community. If an editor is unavailable for a week or two, it is likely that everything in their queue will just wait until they return. And that's generally OK, because a week or two doesn't make a big difference in a multi-month process.
In your case, your edit states that the editor had a slipped disk. This is an incredibly painful medical condition that is probably screwing up their whole life while they get it dealt with. Compared to this, you and your paper are not a high priority, and you need to have some patience.
> 0 votes
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Tags: publications, editors, journal-workflow
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thread-34239
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34239
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On what factors is a dissertation approved
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2014-12-13T20:48:57.787
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# Question
Title: On what factors is a dissertation approved
What are the factors that are considered when granting a PhD degree. For example, if a person has published excellent papers, but their dissertation is not perfect i.e. omissions and typos, would the committee consider it? Also, what happens if they have good papers published, but the oral defense is not great. People generally believe that if the dissertation advisors says OK, then everything works out. How true is that? P.S. I am asking in the U.S.
# Answer
Although the exact process varies from university to university, the general form of the process in the United States is typically as follows:
1. The student needs to do work that makes a novel contribution to the sum of all human knowledge. This is the universal part of the process, and the key thing that a Ph.D. really certifies that you are capable of.
2. The student, with guidance from the advisor writes up this work in a thesis document. In some areas this is not-yet-published work, in others it is a summation of things already published. In either case, it should be a complete and thorough presentation of the ideas and work.
3. Eventually the advisor and student are both satisfied, and the advisor judges that the student's work will pass external review.
4. External review is obtained from some combination of oral or public defense and input from other committee members. Sometimes the defense is a serious part of the process, sometimes it is not; in either case, an advisor should never allow a student to stand for a defense unless they will pass.
5. The student satisfies any additional requirements imposed through the external review. Sometimes this is just correcting typos, sometimes this is a lengthy period of additional research. If it is the latter, then the advisor has generally screwed up.
6. Submit the final document for archive, and graduate.
Note that this process assumes some flexibility in the length of a Ph.D., which is typically the case in the US. I know that in some other places, such as many institutions in Europe, there is often a shorter and fixed schedule. I'm not sure how one deals with not being ready on time in that case...
> 7 votes
# Answer
It mostly depends on the university policy. Normally typoes are accepted to a certain extent as especially foreign students are not expected to manage the language perfectly.
Omissions on the other hand are a totally different thing. You have to omit many things anyway as they would not fit into the frame of your thesis. On the other handm if you omit something which is part of the area you are doing research on, then chances are high, that you are rejected - at least you will never get more than a "cum rite" and if you're satisfied with that, then I'd reconsider the whole doctorate-thing.
> 3 votes
# Answer
It greatly depends on the country and less so on the university. In general, it is true that a supervisor will not approve a thesis to be sent to the committee that he/she doesn't feel has a good chance of being accepted. Because doing so would not only reflect poorly on the supervisor, it also means more work for everyone involved.
In general, things like language errors are not cause for rejection unless you make it really bad. The thesis is judged primarily on its scientific content. Note that in some fields, you can create a thesis by simply making each published paper into a chapter and adding an introduction and conclusion. This allows for all of the critical parts of the thesis to be completed and reviewed beforehand.
The importance of the oral defense depends on the country. In my country, the Netherlands, the oral defense is practically irrelevant for most people. While in theory you can fail, as long as you keep talking, you will pass. It's mostly a show for friends and family. But in other countries the oral defense has more weight
> 2 votes
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Tags: thesis, degree
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thread-34260
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34260
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Is it unusual for a professor to submit recommendations to other universities more promptly than their own?
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2014-12-14T05:18:10.877
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# Question
Title: Is it unusual for a professor to submit recommendations to other universities more promptly than their own?
I am applying to graduate programs at several universities, including the one that I am currently at. My professors sent their letters of recommendations to the other universities promptly and quickly, but have not sent them to their own university yet, despite sending them at least over 5 automated requests.
I am highly worried because the deadline is coming up in two days. Is this a common occurrence, and what I should do about it?
# Answer
There's not enough information to say for sure, but one possibility is that they know the deadline isn't strict because they've seen what happens from the inside. When submitting a letter to another university, it's hard to know how harmful a delay might be, but your recommenders may know that in your department nobody even plans to look at the letters until the end of next week. (It's not uncommon to schedule a buffer period between the deadline and the beginning of organized review, precisely to give late letters a chance to arrive.) Or they may trust that their colleagues on the admissions committee will forgive them for being late.
> 10 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, recommendation-letter
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thread-34261
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34261
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Long review time in CS discipline
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2014-12-14T05:47:31.060
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# Question
Title: Long review time in CS discipline
It has been an year since I submitted my research paper to a journal in Concurrency (Computer Science). The status says it is still under review. Is this typical of journals in this discipline?
# Answer
While six months is not unusual in computer science (where journals have little urgency), a year is too long to go without any response. Write to the editor, and ask **politely** when you should expect a response.
> 7 votes
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Tags: journals
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thread-34041
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34041
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Writing a research statement in mathematics without having any research experience
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2014-12-11T06:33:07.130
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# Question
Title: Writing a research statement in mathematics without having any research experience
It's pretty common that European universities ask for a Research Statement when applying to a PhD program. The problem is that at my current university where I did my undergraduate and where I'm currently in a masters degree program, I haven't had any research experience at all. My adviser told me that I should wait until enrolled in a PhD program to start worrying about doing research. (My B.Sc. is in physics and I want to work in mathematics - hence the M.S. in math - so he told me I should work on having a solid basis in maths first.)
I'm pretty sure I know in which *area* I want to focus my future work, but I haven't worked substantially in that area (it's quite advanced) and I'm far from being able to contribute academically to this area.
*How should I formulate my Research Statement on my PhD application?*
# Answer
> 5 votes
Your research statement should set out the background to the problems that interest you, what you think you could contribute to their analysis/solution, and an overview of the approach(es) that you anticipate that you might have to take. People want to be reassured that you understand the nature of research (ie. how it differs to an undergraduate programme of work), that you have a substantial and interesting problem in mind, and that you are potentially equipped to make an original and nontrivial contribution to knowledge.
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, research-process, mathematics, statement-of-purpose
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thread-34273
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34273
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How should the order of faculty names be in a letter?
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2014-12-14T16:04:30.367
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# Question
Title: How should the order of faculty names be in a letter?
Assume we have 6 professors with names that are:
> Professor: David Goh and Gautam George
> Associate Professor: Juan James and Laura Alfaro
> Assistant Professor: Abigail Baldwin and Jose Choudhury
How should the names of faculty members be ordered in an application or cover letter (previous or potential collaborators)? First order by rank and then order by last name? Or just by last name.
1. George, Goh, James, Alfaro, Baldwin, and Choudhury
2. Alfaro, Baldwin, Choudhury, George, Goh, and James
# Answer
From the choice of tags, I think you mean a cover letter for a job application. In that context, I suppose you are giving names of faculty that you want to work with and/or have a research connection with. (It couldn't hurt to make this more explicit in your question.) Assuming that:
Ordering the faculty by rank doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Alphabetical order is perfectly reasonable and common. However, the more names you list without any commentary, the more it looks like you are fishing for something rather than calling attention to a real kinship or commonality. Thus, if you are going to list more than one or two names, it would be a better idea to break it up into several sentences and describe what you think the intellectual relations are. If you do this, you should group by the type of connection you have -- e.g. "Professors X and Y may be interested in my work on perverse sheaves" -- and it would make sense to list the strongest connections first.
If you just give a list of names out of alphabetical order, it's not clear what the ordering means. (In fact you do so in the statement of the question: within the faculty ranks, your variable names are not alphabetized. Once I noticed that, I found it very confusing. That may be useful information for you.) Two possibilities: (i) The names are listed in descending order of importance (somehow). (ii) You wrote the letter very quickly and just grabbed names in the order you found them. Nobody likes to be ranked down in importance without understanding why, so I wouldn't do this.
**Added**: The above answer is from the perspective of an American university. Maybe academic rank is taken more seriously as a form of social rank in other cultures (it really isn't in the US: a new hire assistant professor calls all her colleagues by their first names immediately on arrival). If by chance you are applying to a university in Asia, then I wouldn't assume this answer applies.
> 5 votes
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Tags: faculty-application, application-cover-letter
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thread-34283
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34283
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Listing Latin Honor GPA while you are still undergraduate in your CV
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2014-12-14T18:31:22.770
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# Question
Title: Listing Latin Honor GPA while you are still undergraduate in your CV
I am wondering if my GPA is in the category of one of Latin honors like Cum Laude or Summa Cum Laude but I am still undergrad can I include Latin honors in CV while applying to graduate school? This post is talking about this case however whoever asked the question did not specify whether he is still undergrad or graduate student. Honor Listed in undergrad. Should it go on the CV for grad applications ?
# Answer
I would **not** include such a statement in your CV, since Latin honors are normally awarded at graduation. Until you have actually received the honors, don't list it in your CV. (Moreover, putting "eligible for *magna cum laude*" or the equivalent makes it look like you're trying too hard to list extra prizes, which reflects poorly on you.)
> 19 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, graduate-school, gpa
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thread-31694
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31694
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How very high reading/listening but low speaking/writing TOEFL scores are usually judged on graduate admission?
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2014-11-14T00:32:29.327
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# Question
Title: How very high reading/listening but low speaking/writing TOEFL scores are usually judged on graduate admission?
Can you please let me know how following TOEFL scores are usually judged on graduate (mainly master) admission if a) minimum requirement is 100 and b) minimum total requirement is 80 and minimum speaking requirement is 24?
Reading & Listening: 29
Speaking & Writing: 20
Probably I would not have the chance to provide this explanation to admission board however it may be worth mentioning here that I communicate very well in my native language and I can speak better in English without exam pressure. I have learned English on my own and I have not been able to practice speaking/writing enough.
# Answer
Speaking ability is considered very important; the TOEFL is used to determine if you can speak well enough to teach as a TA at US universities. Keep in mind teaching is also high pressure, like taking an exam.
These scores might do better with degree programs which do not require the graduate student to teach.
http://www.ets.org/toefl/ibt/scores/understand
> 2 votes
# Answer
This largely depends on the school. Some schools have this as strict requirement others good profile may compensate lower TOEFL scores. In either case, the department secretary/chair is the one who has the answer ( or the graduate studies office).
> 0 votes
# Answer
Besides the aspects of TA roles, there are other issues with both speaking and writing. On speaking, will you be able to participate properly in class discussions, will you be able to ask sufficient questions when stuck in a topic.
On writing, most assessment will be in written form and the inability to communicate clearly in written English can cost you a significant amount of marks.
Besides this, you need to think about your ability to listen to spoken English. Listening and reading are separate skills, and the inability to consume spoken English can entirely undermine your studies.
Based upon my experience with master students (we increased our requirements at some point, computer science is actually remarkably dependent on good English), you really do not want to skimp on the English requirement. Poor English tends to result in poor or failing results, despite the student's inherent capabilities.
Finally, most programmes **want** to admit foreign (profit making) students. Language requirements tend to be absolute minimums and going below them tends to be inadvisable from both sides (student and university).
> 0 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, toefl, language-exams
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thread-34287
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34287
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How should I refer to non-permanent Web Pages, via Web Pages saved in PDF format?
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2014-12-14T20:39:24.697
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# Question
Title: How should I refer to non-permanent Web Pages, via Web Pages saved in PDF format?
This question is only concerning references to non-permanent (and even semi-permanent) information, for example, Web pages (but not limited to web pages).
I understand that some researches post the normal author, year, time, etc... and the URL of a referenced non-permanent Web Page.
I've heard that some readers or reviewers may object to reference any non-permanent source. To eliminate these complaints, am I allowed to simply include the original web page, saved as a PDF file, as as an attachment, with the research paper? (to, for example, IEEE)?
Can I include the PDF referenced web pages, via arXiv? (as part of the published research paper).
Can I reference the PDF referenced web pages, via PDF files I host on Google drive (or something similar)?
I'm aware that in certain situations, you should not reference a Web page. However, that is not my question (and in certain situations, it is OK to reference web pages; for example, if your study is showing how the web page changes over time :-) ).
# Answer
I think that there are three main cases to consider here:
1. The web pages are aggregated *data*, e.g., in your example of a study that quantifies change over time. Collecting web pages as data is routinely done in scientific studies, such as complexity studies that track a *lot* of pages. In this case, the pages are not generally cited (and any data from them is likely to be at least partially abstracted and de-identified, to deal with a variety of legal issues).
2. An individual web page is a subject of study, e.g., for literary or intellectual criticism. In this case, the standard references to the URL with time accessed is appropriate, along with block quoting of critical passages as part of your analysis. You should save full copies yourself, and share them upon request, but likely cannot publish them unless you obtain permission or unless the source has explicitly adopted a copyright that allows republication (e.g., Wikipedia).
3. The web page is being cited as a scientific work (some overlap with the last case). In this case also, the standard reference of URL with time accessed is appropriate. This is unusual, since most scientific works go into archival papers of some form, but does happen---I've certainly done so, when that is actually the right document to cite. This should still be a document with some expectation of longevity, e.g., a blog post on a scientist's established site, the archives of a mailing list or discussion group, a manual from a piece of software's distribution site.
> 5 votes
# Answer
First of all, there are two common usage cases of referring to web pages. There is use like any other reference - in which case you refer to mainly the written content on a particular web page (hopefully, and in many cases, this is dated). The other case is when you refer to a website such as academia.stackexchange.com.
Websites are inherently dynamic and their use is not as a reference (a footnote may be more appropriate here).
The primary factor in deciding how to use the materials is by looking at their role within the paper. In your case you are looking at specific parts of dynamic web pages. These pages would in effect be illustrations, not unlike pictures of observations or experiments (say a set of photo's from microscope observations in the case of a biology paper). The papers/pdfs should be treated as such and either included in-line, as appendices, or made available as separate download (preferably through the publisher).
> 0 votes
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Tags: publications, citations, online-resource
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thread-29638
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29638
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How to gain admissions to graduate school with postgrad diploma, but no degree?
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2014-10-09T00:30:11.180
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# Question
Title: How to gain admissions to graduate school with postgrad diploma, but no degree?
At the age of 21 I entered an (UK) M.Sc./Postgraduate Diploma Programme in Software Engineering.
I entered without an Undergraduate degree based upon modules I undertook in a distance learning Masters Programme from a reputable UK University that required no formal entrance requirements (very unusual situation that I took advantage of).
Out of a cohort of 40 students on the new M.Sc. course I was the only one without an Undergraduate degree although I had Postgraduate credits as mentioned. Again this was unusual.
I graduated with a UK Postgraduate Diploma (but not an M.Sc. as I could not fund the remaining twelve week/3 month project), however my marks were excellent.
Here I am twenty years later with no degree. *I wish to undertake further study in Software Engineering* and am at a loss to effectively know where to start. I am way too late to go back and do the three month research project to get my M.Sc.
\[For those outside the UK a Postgraduate Diploma is effectively the taught/exam component of an M.S/M.Sc. and usually compromises 75% of the course. It is an M.Sc. in all but the three month research project. Most students complete the project but some do not, usually due to funding or academic reasons. My reason was purely funding.\]
I am not qualified for an Undergraduate Degree in Software Engineering (effectively a waste of time as I'm somewhat beyond that syllabus) as I do not hold School level University entrance qualifications and I'm not qualified for an M.S/M.Sc. ironically (even though I previously were on an M.Sc!) as I have no first/Undergraduate degree.
If I had finished the extra 12 weeks I'd be qualified to enter a Ph.D. programme but the failure to do the twelve weeks (wholly due to the fees at the time which were huge for the Project) makes me qualified for nothing even though I hold a formal Postgraduate level qualification.
What to do?
# Answer
> 1 votes
I can't vouch for the UK, but here on the other side of the puddle, once you've been out in the Real World (TM) for some number of years, your classes start mattering less and what you've done with them starts mattering more. A school's concern, if you're coming back for an advanced degree, is whether you have enough knowledge to cover the prerequisites and enough aptitude to complete the degree in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable grade. (In other words, whether you'll be a student whom they're good for and who makes them look good.)
For PhD there may be some bias toward folks who are already researchers, but "research" comes in many flavors, not all academic.
(I could have gotten into Columbia in NY for a MS simply on the basis of "you can't be an idiot or IBM wouldn't have hired you" -- plus having aced a few of their extension classes. Can't imagine things are very different there.)
# Answer
> 0 votes
I'm going out on a limb here, but if you would like to get into academic research, perhaps you could manage to get a paper or two published on your own. My understanding is that if these are well-received, they could make up for any missing formal qualifications.
# Answer
> 0 votes
It is very unfortunate that you miss your project, especially since you do not have an undergraduate diploma either. A project is very important, not only for your ability to do research, but also for your ability to write a long coherent document arguing your research questions. I tend to ask for any thesis from prospective students to verify their abilities.
Lacking a project, you should endeavour to compensate. You should have some long-form written document that may compensate and demonstrate your abilities. This could take the form of a research paper (even unpublished). Your best bet of getting in (assuming you're good enough - a PhD is not for everyone) is to do a thorough review to identify your research group and possible supervisors. Then try to contact them personally, and convince them you're worth their effort. They should be able to guide you through the rest of the process.
Be aware though that academics tend to get lots of unsolicited emails from "prospective PhD students" of varying quality. These tend to be especially from the middle east due to government sponsored scholarships without entry requirements on the sponsoring side (if students get accepted they get the scholarship - if they fail, they often have to pay back the scholarship).
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Tags: graduate-admissions, degree
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thread-34292
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34292
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What can I do one day before admissions deadline, if I believe my recommendation letter writer will not submit in time?
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2014-12-14T21:58:44.857
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# Question
Title: What can I do one day before admissions deadline, if I believe my recommendation letter writer will not submit in time?
One of my professors this term promised to write me a recommendation letter for grad school. However, tomorrow is the deadline and her letter is not on the application website. She really liked me, so it's probably a case of her forgetting about/misremembering the deadline.
However, I can't reach her via e-mail, and she's the kind of person who puts absolutely no information online (phone, travel plans, etc). Perhaps she's on some sort of trip to a conference or something.
What can I do (with respect to the graduate programs I have applied to) to resolve this? Is there usually some sort of university policy regarding this situation? I really don't want to be unable to apply for grad school because a professor forgot to check her e-mail.
This situation is different from What can I do if a professor agreed to write a recommendation letter, but never sent it?, because in my situation the deadline has not yet passed.
# Answer
I would try the following:
* Contact the department(s) where you are applying, and ask them if they have received the letter. (It's possible that they have received it, but for some reason it has not yet been logged in their online system.) Explain that you would ask the professor herself but you cannot reach her.
* If they say they have not received it, ask if they would be willing to keep your application under consideration, pending the arrival of the letter. I don't know if this will help, but it's worth a try.
* Contact the professor's department chair and see if he/she knows anything about the professor's whereabouts. It is possible that something unusual has happened (e.g. she is in the hospital), in which case the chair may be able to write a note to the admission committee explaining the circumstances and asking for their patience.
* If it seems that the letter may not be forthcoming within a few days, consider seeing if someone else can write you a letter. Be sure to explain to them the circumstances, so they understand that it is urgent for reasons beyond your control.
Hopefully someone who has been on an admission committee will add an answer saying how they normally handle such situations (which must be rather common).
> 11 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, recommendation-letter, deadlines
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thread-33032
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33032
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Career advice: How can I move on from my probable PhD flop?
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2014-12-11T01:33:28.480
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# Question
Title: Career advice: How can I move on from my probable PhD flop?
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.
# Answer
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.
> 76 votes
# Answer
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.
> 42 votes
# Answer
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?
I'm sorry, I don't really know. I think explaining why you feel that your failure is likely is plenty for one conversation.
> How soon should I start looking for work outside academia?
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.
> 29 votes
# Answer
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.
> 15 votes
# Answer
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!
> 8 votes
# Answer
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.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Building on the other answers, I'd like to offer the following advice:
> Focus on publishing papers, as soon and as well as possible
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.
> 5 votes
# Answer
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.
> 5 votes
# Answer
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. :-)
> 5 votes
# Answer
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.
> 3 votes
# Answer
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!
> 1 votes
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Tags: phd, career-path
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thread-34285
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34285
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Should I be considering a Accelerated Master Program?
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2014-12-14T18:57:44.493
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# Question
Title: Should I be considering a Accelerated Master Program?
I'm a 3rd year undergrad in Mathematics and Chemistry. I find most of subjects I have encountered very interesting, like computer science, physics and my two majors. I try to be involved with projects with professors from different fields. I'm having a hard time to decide what I truly want to do. That's why I want to learn more about each subjects. Should I focus on one thing at a time?
The decision I need to make right now is that, I found two Accelerated Master Program (AMP) in both Chemistry and Computer science. They are both 5 years program. The deadline is the second semester of junior year. I heard from my Chemistry adviser that I cannot use any AMP credit to fulfill part of a PhD if I changed my mind later. I think AMP is a good chance for me to have a better view of those subjects without committing 5-6 years PhD work. I'm afraid once I go in depth and I find I like it then I will have to spend more time later.
*Is it more advisable to pursue an accelerated masters program or just a bachelors degree when planning on possibly pursuing PhD program latter?*
# Answer
> 1 votes
I would suggest to change your thinking style. There are many things we are passionate about them, but the life is too short and there is always a career competition. Therefore, most of us could be successful in one branch. I suggest specify a deadline for yourself, ask others in these fields and at some point decide when your decision deadline come. By deciding I mean throw away all the other subjects completely from your mind.
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Tags: graduate-school, undergraduate
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thread-31139
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31139
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Writing a recommendation for highschool student
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2014-11-04T14:44:54.073
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# Question
Title: Writing a recommendation for highschool student
I am a full time researcher at a research institute, we are part of a university, but the institute does not have students, just researchers. I mostly have assistant researchers and interns that are undergrad. I am thinking of bringing on a final year highschool student who is really promising and has been winning some awards.
They are interested in me writing a recommendation letter (to US schools, but we are outside US). Is this advisable?
My main concerns are the appropriateness of a research based letter for undergrad admissions, as well as not being a Professor or Senior faculty as mentioned in questions specific for graduate school. However when I think about myself, I am pretty sure I had high school teachers write my recommendations, non of which had a PHD nor, obviously, were professors.
# Answer
You're giving the student an extraordinary experience compared to her fellow applicants, so it's natural for her to ask you for a letter explaining that experience and your opinions of her work. And I think it's very reasonable to provide one.
> 5 votes
# Answer
I would say you're expected to write letters for high school students who work for you. Students usually do research to get into college, and in many cases, your letter is the whole reason the student chooses to join your lab.
When I applied to college the application asked for letters from a science and a humanities teacher, but also allowed us to submit an optional letter (which would presumably be yours).
> 0 votes
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Tags: recommendation-letter, undergraduate
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thread-34317
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34317
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How to cite prices in academia?
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2014-12-15T10:56:56.263
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# Question
Title: How to cite prices in academia?
In the introduction of my thesis I want to motivate the use of alternative neutron converters to helium-3 by mentioning the exploding cost of latter.
I am not directly involved with helium-3, since I work with the alternatives. Online research yielded for instance a congressional research paper by Shea and Morgan from 2010, and the wikipedia page for helium-3 links to an IEEE site also from 2010, mentioning the price explosion in that year.
Is one of those source apt for citation? Is there a best way to cite prices in academia?
# Answer
There are two, as I see it very different questions you pose. as for the aptness of the sources, the Shea and Morgan paper is a publication that can be referenced because it is traceable and likely to be remaining for a long time in unaltered state. It is also published by a formal body.
When it comes to citing prices the question is perhaps trickier. Not knowing the market for helium-3 I do not know where the prices are determined but usually there is some form of exchange that determines prices based on the market and this makes prices shift quickly. In such cases, one needs to find a source where the market swings are documented and stored so that one can cite a price at a specific time in a time series that people can revisit if they wish to check the correctness of your assessments. This type of referencing is common in economics when discussing price variations, trends etc.
> 6 votes
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Tags: citations, writing
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thread-34271
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34271
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How can you best answer when a Scholarship proposal asks for your objectives?
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2014-12-14T15:53:15.130
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# Question
Title: How can you best answer when a Scholarship proposal asks for your objectives?
I come from a developing country and I got admitted to a UK university in MSC, Computer Science. As I am not financially strong, I am also applying for a fully funded scholarship. There is an online form I need to submit for the consideration of this scholarship.
There are some questions that I can't answer them in the way the needs to be answered and convenes the scholarship organization. One of them is:
> What will be your objectives during the award?
If I answer this question it would be simple like the following:
> My main objective during the period is to get more and more knowledge and to learn new technologies that will give boost to my career.
I'm guessing this answer isn't viewed positively from by a scholarship committee.
*What content do scholarship committees expect to see in the "Objectives" section of an application?*
# Answer
> 1 votes
"During the award" sounds a bit strange to me; I guess it means during the period covered by the scholarship. First, I'd be sure to answer the question with specifics, not generalities. Something like "During the award period, my objectives are: 1) to complete the first year with an A average grade, 2) to master programming skills in Java (or whatever) such that I can independently program a controller for quad-power drone aircraft, and 3) ... etc.
# Answer
> 0 votes
I tried my best to answer the question. Please review it. If you find something missing or inappropriate let me know.
"In my Masters program my goal is to expand my mental horizons, detailed understanding of latest tools and technologies adopted by engineering, with the time. I also want to learn technical, managerial as well as behavioral aspects of the field to work in higher positions. I strongly feel that master’s program will inculcate a strong quality assurance and testing component in my knowledge, so as to raise the level of excellence in my work. I came to know that an academic experience is must-to-have component for growth in global field of Computer Science, as well as to make a mark in professional career. From use of sophisticated tools to advanced theories, MS teaches me all that I need to know to enhance my academic experience and qualification."
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Tags: funding, application, computer-science
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thread-34187
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34187
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What can I do to be able to understand conference presentations?
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2014-12-12T22:19:53.850
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# Question
Title: What can I do to be able to understand conference presentations?
(I wish to remain anonymous, so I've omitted many details here. If those details make this question unanswerable, please don't hesitate to vote it down or close it.)
I've been a PhD student in mathematics for about two years. Whenever I am at a conference, summer school, or a small seminar talk in our university, I usually don't understand anything about the talk after the first two minutes. Sometimes the speaker goes quickly through some basic concepts about group theory, finite fields, or similar, that I'm able to follow because I know the stuff already. But when the new stuff starts, most of the time I get so lost that I can't even answer the simple question "What was the talk about?" when my friends ask. So I just sit there with an open notebook, and after the first few minutes of each talk, I start scribbling some unrelated things to kill time before the next talk. If I see an interesting formula or similar on the slides, even if I don't know what the speaker is talking about, I sometimes try to see if I can figure out what that formula means, just because simple mathematics is still fun - what I do still does not help me understand the topic of the talk.
The problem might be partly about being able to focus, but I guess it's mostly about the actual scientific content. When taking courses as an undergrad, I never had problems of this magnitude while attending lectures because I had time and material for studying the topic before and after the lectures, and the lecturers had a decent estimate of what the students know before the lecture.
Do you have similar experience? Is there something I can do to actually benefit from listening to conference presentations? I hope this is not the impostor syndrome - if everyone in the audience feels like this, conferences are horrible waste of money, time, and natural resources.
I came up with a few ideas but they don't seem practical.
* "You're not really supposed to understand anything as a PhD student. Just sit there and wait for a familiar term, theorem, concept, whatever to appear. Conference by conference, talk by talk, you'll probably encounter more and familiar stuff, and before you know it, you don't have this problem any more." If I had to decide, I'd never fund a learning process this slow. Or probably it is much quicker than I can imagine.
* "Go to conferences with topics closer to your research." Well, they don't exist, unless I organize a conference about my research. And the point of going to conferences is to learn about things in your field that are not exactly your research (of course in addition to telling others about your research).
* "When the conference schedule is published, pick one interesting presentation title for each day and try to learn something about that topic before conference." It might take a few days of focused study for each talk, so some weeks before the conference. I guess that time would be better used doing research.
# Answer
> 29 votes
## It's not your fault if you don't understand a talk
Unfortunately, many speakers at scientific conferences do a poor job. Most speakers I've seen talk more for themselves than for an actual audience. Unwittingly, they focus more on exhibiting knowledge than on being actually helpful towards the people sitting in front of them.
**This mostly happens because people don't know.** They see bad examples, which they assume must be good *because everybody does it* and just do what other people do.
**So if you did not understand, don't blame yourself.** It's the speaker's job to make you understand something. It's quite a paradox that many speakers thank the audience for their attention (!) after a talk—as if the audience did them a *favor* by paying attention. Instead, good speakers should be thanked by the audience, because they made things understandable.
## Become a better presenter yourself
What I recommend to understand other's presentations better is to **start giving better presentations yourself**. Effective scientific communication cannot be explained in a simple post, but here are some basic principles:
* Before starting to introduce yourself or reading the title of your talk (which is unnecessary anyway), **draw the audience's attention**. Explain to them *in a way they can relate to* why your problem domain is relevant.
* Then, **explain the problem** you are addressing (and why it is a problem).
* Next, **immediately state your conclusion**. Don't make your presentation a cliffhanger. Tell people the main point upfront; this helps them (decide to) focus on the remainder of the presentation.
* Continue with a **preview of your main points** that support the conclusion. This is a mental map for the rest of your talk.
* **Elaborate** on your points as necessary.
* Close the story by putting **your points and the conclusion** into perspective.
Many speakers fail to do one of the points above; especially postponing the conclusion towards the end is a common mistake that makes it hard for the audience to follow.
## Why should you do this with your own talks?
1. You **become part of the solution**. Other PhD students will now finally see a presentation they understand.
2. You will **inspire people to give better talks**, which you will understand more easily.
3. Doing the exercise for your own material, will eventually **help you do it for others.** If you see a poorly structured presentation, you will mentally start rearranging it into a better talk—helping you finally understand what others do more clearly.
## Why is the above presentation structure relevant?
By stating the conclusion first, you give people a mental map. **If they get lost during elaboration (like you often do), it's not a disaster: they know the most important thing already.** Furthermore, the preview will help them get back on track if they get lost during one of the subpoints.
# Answer
> 23 votes
In brief: conscientious study and engagement with mathematics, perhaps more broadly than one imagines one's specialty requires, eventually makes most conference talks intelligible. The process takes some years, to say the least. At the same time, many conference talks, even the better-quality ones, are very specialized, maybe not of terribly great interest even to the immediate specialists, but are "novel" in a sense that makes them publishable and thus evidence (to deans and department heads and funding agencies) that one is doing one's job. But their extreme *particularness* is easy to misunderstand, if one is hoping for persuasive, enlightening reports, rather than CV padding.
And, almost surely, the much-less-senior people in the room, and many of the more-senior, have no real idea what's going on, almost all the time. The chief trick of relatively-senior people is to know that what they're missing is not terribly valuable, to say the least, except as CV padding for the speaker.
At the same time, trying to stay engaged, to become accustomed to a great variety of terminology and apparent goals, is a very good enterprise. For one thing, many "programmes" of course inflate their own importance enormously, whatever their actual, perhaps great, importance may be. In particular, they are presented in a fashion so as to be impressive, rather than "easy", all the more insidiously when the presentation pretends to give a shortcut, but doesn't really quite do so. But/and, especially in the face of hype, mere acclimatization to the buzz-words is psychologically reassuring, and eventually one will notice the repetition, and realize what the game is.
That is, for example, an array of ideas and definitions and notation that is impressive and baffling the first 5 or 10 times is much less so around 20th or 30th, especially when one notices that the scary/impressive/baffling part is 95% of all the talks in a given genre, and that the new stuff is small and innocent by comparison.
And, somewhat more subtly, by paying attention, one can eventually discover the discrepancy between the impressive hype and "how it's done in practice".
But there're few "textbook-style" approaches to reaching any good level of sophistication, for various understandable-but-also-complicated human-nature-based reasons.
In summary: (1) don't presume (impostor syndrome...) that everyone else is understanding, although a few might be, and the more senior people have learned to not worry about it. (2) Don't presume that what you're not understanding is incredibly valuable, magical stuff. Probably is not. (3) Do try to make yourself stay engaged, so that your brain can process things a bit, and not be so baffled next time you hear essentially the same things again... or maybe 5-10 times later.
# Answer
> 15 votes
The standard conference talk format is simply too short to give a presentation that can be thoroughly understood at a deep technical level. As such, I generally see people falling into one of two modes for conference talks:
1. Attempt to present everything and make a horrible unintelligible mess that nobody can follow. This is especially true for mathematical talks, where few people can actually digest a complex set of symbolic manipulations in the minute or two that a slide is shown, let alone do it while their linguistic centers are being jammed by the speaker talking.
2. Treat the talk as an advertisement for the associated paper(s), presenting a lot of intuition and motivation, but omitting most of the technical details.
When I am listening to a dense mathematical talk, I simply do not try to follow the math at all. I look at the motivation, I look at the results, and I look at any intuitions the person has presented. If it seems interesting, then afterwards I will go and read the paper to actually understand the material.
If the person doesn't give a motivation or concrete results... I'm not going to bother to try to understand.
# Answer
> 6 votes
My personal attitude to conference talks is that I attend them for those 10 % to 40 % that I either understand since I am very familiar with the topic or that are not utterly horrible. I have found many people, including experienced scientists agree with me. As those numbers heavily depend on the field and scope of the conference (the conferences I attended range from medicine to applied mathematics) and given my experience with talks going in that direction, I find it easy to belief that conferences on pure mathematics have an even lower turnout rate. And yes, this is sad and mainly due to bad presenting skills.
Also, at least in my field, it’s quite common for senior researchers (and everybody else) to plan to use half of the time alloted to talks at conferences for other activities such as planning and discussing collaborations, sleeping, touristic activities, preparing their own talks or doing regular work. I would wager that the main thing that experience gives you is the capability to better predict which talks are a waste of time rather than understanding more talks.
So, as long as you understand some of the talks, this may be perfectly normal. And even if you don’t, this is not necessarily something to worry about: People approach and learn about new stuff in different ways. For example, if you prefer assessing new mathematics in small steps but with understanding these steps rather thoroughly, conferences may just not be made for you. (I once heard about a theory that there are two general ways to understand mathematics and similar, but I cannot find it right now.) So, if you do well with understanding papers and similar (still keeping in mind the impostor syndrome), I would not see any reasons to worry.
# Answer
> 5 votes
You are definitely not alone in not understanding most of the presentations at a conference. Especially if you're new to a field, you tend to be very much focused on your particular research, and you don't have a wider view just yet. This is especially true if your work is highly specialized (and therefore is just a small subset of the material covered in a conference).
Additionally, most speakers are there to present their work and latest results, not to give an introduction to the field. Especially in smaller fields, you see the same faces at each conference, so the speakers will tend to focus on the latest and greatest rather than making a lengthy introduction for newcomers. The fact that unless you're a keynote speaker you probably only have around 20 minutes to speak further reinforces the issue. Every minute spent on the introduction is a minute less for the work you've actually done (as introductions typically tend to consist mostly of literature research and old results).
The understanding of conference talks will improve with time as you learn more about the wider field and the work of the conference-regulars. In the mean time, if you want to speed up the process you can go and talk to one or more presenters after their presentation and ask them to fill in the blanks. Almost every researcher will be happy to explain their work to a colleague from an adjacent field, because colleagues tend to have a sufficient level of thinking and plenty of general background knowledge (compared to a layman) to allow the researcher to quickly get to a decent level of conversation.
# Answer
> 5 votes
At the end of this answer I will try to give some advise on what you can do to understand a larger part of the talks at conferences and seminars (and this advice will be fairly specific to mathematics). But first, I would like to mention some things that influence how much of the talk you can reasonably be expected to understand. This is both because it is useful to have a good idea of this to see if you are doing enough to understand talks, but also because some of the advise is related to these points.
Factors that determine how much you should understand:
**1. The topic of the talk.**
This one should seem obvious, but the closer the topic is to your own specialty, the more you should understand.
**2. The purpose of the talk.**
There are various types of talks, with various purposes. The most common talk is the "by experts for experts" talk, where the purpose is to explain the speakers latest research for others who do work in the same or related areas (most seminars and conference talks are of this type). This type of talk generally sets a fairly high bar for the prerequisites needed to understand the talk, since usually the speaker will have at most an hour (often only 45 minutes), and they want to actually present their own research rather than just give an introduction to a topic a large part of the audience will already be fully familiar with.
In the other end of the spectrum are the talks specifically aimed at students, which generally do not present any new research but gives an introduction to some topic. Foe these, one should be able to understand most of the talk as long as it is not a topic too far from ones own specialty (note that these should not be confused with seminars or conference talks given by PhD students or early postdocs, which can often be even harder to follow since the new results obtained by people early in their career are often of a much more technical nature than for those with more experience).
**3. How far you are in your studies.**
Again a fairly obvious one, but the earlier you are in your studies (or your academic career), the less you should expect to understand of any give talk.
**4. The speaker.**
This has already been mentioned by others, but it bears being reiterated: There are some really awful speakers out there. If the talk is given by one of them, even those who are intimately familiar with the topic (or even the results presented) will not understand the talk.
On the other hand, there are also some amazing speakers out there who can make you understand a talk on a topic you really should not have been able to.
Figuring out where on this spectrum the speaker lies can be tough, but often one can tell by trying to get a feel for how much attention those in the room, who ought to understand the talk, are paying. If they seem to lose interest (even though the talk does not seem to be about something elementary), then probably the speaker is not doing a good job.
**What can you do?**
So, what can you do to understand as much as possible of a talk, relative to what you ought to understand, given the above? These will be some generic pieces of advise on how to get the most of a conference (I will mention single-talk seminars at the end).
Before the conference, make sure you get abstracts for all the talks (if possible). From these, single out a reasonable number of talks that seem the most interesting, or where you know the speaker tends to be really good. Look more closely at these abstracts, and do some reading prior to the talks, but not by necessarily looking at the relevant papers (unless the talk is on a topic very close to your own). Instead, you should look up all those terms in the abstract you are not familiar with (or which you are not familiar with in the context). This will give you a better idea of what the talk is about.
Next, see if you can find some of the main results about the objects mentioned in the abstract (often one gets a better understanding of an object if one known the "rules" it obeys rather than just knowing the definition). It can also be good to find some of the main conjectures about these objects, since this gives an idea of what sort of questions are considered the most interesting (not because it is likely that the talk will present a proof of such a conjecture, though it can happen, as I have experienced myself).
Further, one of the things that often causes a lack of understanding of a talk at a conference is simply being tired from seeing too many talks. To alleviate this as much as possible, I suggest you bring something to the talks that you can entertain yourself with in a non-obvious way once you get to a point in the talk where you have no chance of understanding more.
This might sound a bit rude to the speaker, but this is why I mentioned that it should be non-obvious. It should preferably be such that if the speaker looks at you, you will just seem to be taking notes (unless you are way at the front, you can often have your phone lying in front of you without the speaker being able to see this for example).
Along with the above it should be mentioned that it can also be quite alright to not see every single talk at a conference (though you should probably check with your adviser what the culture is at the specific conference to be sure). Which talks to skip can then be based on which abstracts seem to suggest that you will understand the least (or if you happen to know that some specific speaker always gives terrible talks, you can also skip that).
As a final note on this, I would advise that you try to see as many talks as you can. As long as the speaker is not completely awful, you will actually learn more than you notice as long as you pay attention.
In case of single-talk seminars, most of the above of course does not apply. I would say that for single-talk seminars, you can better afford to spend some more time on getting acquainted with the subject of the talk beforehand, so you should treat it like you would a conference talk that you have deemed to be of high interest to you (and don't bring anything to entertain yourself, but really try to pay attention all the way through).
# Answer
> 4 votes
First of all, it is not overly surprising that you are having trouble understanding research talks as a 2nd year PhD student. When I was at that level, I found talks to be completely incomprehensible. That being said, I do think attending them is worthwhile.
I wouldn't recommend randomly writing down formulas in an attempt to decode them. Instead, a useful exercise might be to to keep track of terminology that appears in various talks. If the same terminology appears in different presentations, this is a good indication that it is important. After the conference, you can follow up on what the term is all about, where it comes from, and why it is important. Ask your adviser.
The key is to look for recurring themes in talks. Say, in one talk, the speaker defines "hefelumps" and goes on to state three (incomprehensible) properties that hefelumps have. In another talk, the speaker defines "woozles" and goes on to list a very similar list of properties. It may well be that this list of properties are part of a standard argument in your field that gets a certain theory going, and knowing this will cue you into what the speakers are planning to do next. When you see these patterns, it's worth asking your advisor what the relevance is.
This has been said before, but I don't think it can be emphasized enough--many talks are "for experts, by experts". In particular, it is entirely possible that there are two or three people in the audience that the talk is directed to. These are potentially not going to be very useful. To recognized these, you need to know who is who in the field and what they are working on. It may be helpful to go over the conference schedule with your adviser before you attend. Maybe s/he can clue you in to some of the politics.
On the other hand, the expert-to-expert talks can also be some of the more amusing, especially if the experts involved are rivals. I was recently at a conference where three different groups were jockeying for the credit for a certain result. The interactions were priceless. With that in mind, I'll finish by saying that not everything you learn from a math talk involves mathematics.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Are sessions from previous conferences ever filmed and made available online? If not, are particular presenters (those who sessions you thought you might want to see) putting any talks of theirs online ever?
If so, try watching one of these, from some previous year, very slowly. Pause, copy things down from the slide, look things up. Rewind when the presenter connects what they're saying to something they said before. Try doing some of it yourself by hand or with the appropriate tool to "follow along." Work out how much effort it takes to figure out how the title of the talk connects to what is actually presented. This may be easier if you have access to the actual paper of the same title.
Once you've "deconstructed" one talk like this, you will know a lot more about the issues in the talks you attend. For example, perhaps the structure and organization of the talk is terrible, and you could now give the presentation in a way that would make sense to people who don't already understand the material. Perhaps there's a simple visual aid (diagram, graph, table) that would illuminate the topic tremendously. Or perhaps it's just insanely difficult and requires hours of work to even begin to understand. In some fields, that would make it ineligible as a topic for a one-hour talk, but apparently not in mathematics.
In my industry it's normal to leave talks that turn out not to be right for me. If I'm not sure a talk is going to work well for me, I sit towards the back so I can slip out. For the sake of the speaker's ego, I will usually pack up quietly, everything except my phone, then wait for a moment when the speaker is not talking (eg the pause right before/after a slide change) and stand up, holding and looking at my phone, frown, and run out of the room apologizing to those I go past. This allows everyone to tell themselves that I had to deal with an urgent call or email or something. I find that staying in a talk half listening while trying to do something else just wears me out and leaves me with nothing accomplished. Who knows, you might even have a great hallway conversation with someone else who couldn't follow the talk and left!
If you manage to "crack the nut" of presenting complex topics in a way that can be understood by those without the background, you'll surely have a long and successful career. Even if all you manage to solve is the shorthand and assumed background that these presenters are drawing on, you'll understand more talks in the future. And if you career depends on understanding talks, then it's a skill you should learn. Just keep in mind you're almost certainly not expected to understand every single talk at conferences you attend.
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Tags: phd, conference
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thread-34332
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34332
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How important is one's first publication in affecting prospects, assuming others are to follow?
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2014-12-15T16:36:57.687
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# Question
Title: How important is one's first publication in affecting prospects, assuming others are to follow?
With respect to a first publication, how would the following factors affect prospects (in academia, as well as in research-based industry)?
1. Whether or not the publication is in a top-tier journal. Of course, I realize that the better a journal, the better. What I mean to say is, given that I have some work now (such as, for example, observing certain trends when a simulation is run on a high performance computing cluster, and explaining any anomalies that arise) which may be publishable in a non-top tier journal, and some other work (which works towards providing improvements to a recent paper) which *has a chance* of faring better than a non-top tier journal, but which will take more time to get ready (say, 6 months more?), is it worth waiting for the completion of better paper (i.e., the paper which may get into a better journal)?
2. Like in 1, given a choice between publishing as a non-primary author now, versus publishing as a primary author later, should I wait to publish as a primary author later, and only then submit the journal in which I am not to be a primary author (assuming, of course, that the primary author has no issues with waiting).
3. Would it matter if one's first paper is in a journal or a conference? I have heard that it is better to send a paper in for a conference before a journal (especially for a first paper), since conferences tend to give much quicker replies. Am I correct?
4. Does the content of a first paper matter? Whether it is a review-based paper, a paper suggesting improvements to an already existing paper, or a paper submitting a reasonably novel idea? Assuming of course, that other methods or ideas would eventually be published, should I, say, wait to propose something more, umm... novel*ish* first?
Long story short, **how much would my first publication (in terms of parameters such as reputation of journal, how much it goes towards improving knowledge in the field, whether or not I hold primary authorship and so on) affect my prospects (whether in the industry, or in the academia).**
NOTE 1: If it matters, this question is with specific reference to Computer Science (a little more to the applied side than to the theoretical side). Also, I am an undergraduate.
NOTE 2: By a journal of less repute/non-top tier journal, I do not mean to say a *disreputable* journal, such as a predatory one, merely a journal with lower impact factors, higher rates of acceptance, et. al.
# Answer
> 12 votes
A first publication matters less than you might think, especially as an undergraduate. My take on likely interpretations:
* If you publish as first author in a credible but low impact venue (of any type), people will think you're doing great for an undergraduate to be publishing as first author at all.
* If you publish as first author in a high impact venue (of any type), people will probably assume that the senior author on the paper did the critical intellectual work in defining a high-impact research plan, and that you just executed it (whether that rightly or wrongly describes your particular situation, that is still what is likely to be assumed, given the difficulty of publishing in high impact venues).
* If you publish not as first author (in any venue), people thing you're doing good work as an undergraduate on the team, but that the first author contributed more (which will probably be true).
Frankly, all of these sound like nice things to have people think about you. My recommendation for any undergraduate is to not get hung up trying for a perfect first publication. Your first publications will probably either involve a lot of hand-holding or else be a pretty rocky experience, as you gain experience in writing publications and communicating with your scientific community. It's better to start writing and gaining that experience now, rather than saving it for a more painful experience with a larger and more significant work that you are more heavily invested in.
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Tags: publications, research-undergraduate
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thread-26214
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26214
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My paper's content is slightly changed from the abstract I have submitted to a conference, can I edit the accepted abstract on my poster?
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2014-07-21T23:56:06.043
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# Question
Title: My paper's content is slightly changed from the abstract I have submitted to a conference, can I edit the accepted abstract on my poster?
I'm fairly early on in my PhD research. A few months ago I submitted an abstract to a conference, which was accepted. The conference is coming up soon, and my research has taken a slight turn away from my accepted abstract (still same field, collaborators, etc...--just asking slightly different questions and taking a slightly different approach).
My question is, am I obligated to put the program-accepted abstract on my poster? If I am, should I try to tie my poster content as closely to that accepted abstract as possible? Or can I present poster content that would've been more appropriate for a different abstract?
Or can I use a different abstract on my poster, and thus tie the content more closely to what my current research path is?
What about keeping the original abstract in its entirely, but appending it?
EDIT: I'm in the field of astrobiology (probably most similar to the fields of geology or astronomy if I had to relate it to a more conventional field)
# Answer
> 7 votes
I work in astronomy.
I have never heard of anyone in authority at a conference complain about a slight deviation from a submitted abstract.
I suggest writing your poster on your new direction, with a corresponding abstract.
I would also submit your amended abstract to the LOC of the conference as soon as possible. Mention that your work has taken a slight turn but the main topic and co-authors are unchanged.
If there is time, the LOC can include your amended abstract on any web-page or hard-copy documentation. Apologise for the inconvenience that this may cause the LOC and ask nicely that they make these amendments, if possible.
Even if these documents cannot be altered, I doubt that anyone is going to get upset that your new abstract is not exactly the same that you originally submitted.
# Answer
> 4 votes
In most fields, it is quite common for the subject matter of either a poster or a talk to stray quite significantly from the submitted and accepted abstract. This is understood as part of the "cost" of asking for abstracts to be submitted months before the conference is actually held. If people want to present cutting-edge research, then it will often require either a generic abstract or deviations from what was submitted.
That said, you can't arbitrarily change your poster topic *too* much—it should still be in the general area of the poster or abstract you submitted (otherwise it may end up being out of place in the session where it's presented). But deviations that stay within the topic matter are fine.
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Tags: etiquette, abstract, poster
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