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thread-6067 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6067 | Important factors for hiring a young mathematician | 2013-01-06T20:46:55.920 | # Question
Title: Important factors for hiring a young mathematician
Let's list important factors for evaluation of a job candidate (for research post doc, assistant professor, tenure track, etc):
1. Research experience (research articles, research talks, expository articles, perhaps books).
2. Teaching experience (tutoring, undergraduate courses, graduate courses, etc).
3. Academic background (grades, the university of graduation, current affiliation, etc).
4. Reference (who is writing reference letter and how he is writing it).
5. Personal (natural) features (nationality, race, language, etc).
6. Social and family status (connections, marriage, etc).
7. Other factors (you name it).
I have been in job market for several years. I was always wondering how do the above factors affect my job application in different academic institutions? I would like to know the approximate percentage of importance of these factors in different institutions.
And my second question is How the hiring committees evaluate a candidate? Is it based on reference letters, CV, list of publications, research statement, teaching statement?
My impression is reference letters are very important at least for the first job after PhD. Am I right?
# Answer
> 36 votes
I don't have anything essentially divergent to say from the other answers, but since you inquired about mathematics specifically and I am a mathematician who has been (and currently am) involved in postdoctoral and tenure track hiring, I thought it might be useful for me to weigh in as well. Lacking true inspiration, let me just comment on your criteria.
(Let me also assume that we are talking about jobs at a "research university", as it seems you are.)
> Research experience (research articles, research talks, expository articles, perhaps books).
Mathematicians are judged on a combination of research *promise* and research *success*: as you get older, one looks increasingly for evidence that the former has been converted into the latter. However, for every kind of research job in mathematics, they are hiring you on the basis of the work they expect you to do in the future. So, for instance, if you have already solved a major problem, you can coast on that for a time but after a while people want to hear what you are working on now. Research talks are probably the best way of exploring the dichotomy between past and future research: as such, they are very important whenever they exist, which is almost always on the tenure track job market and in a small (but perhaps increasing?) minority of postdoctoral jobs.
Expository articles generally do not count towards the research component of your application. (If someone is counting papers, then if you have 8 research papers and 1 expository paper then people will probably say you have 9 papers altogether, so it counts a little bit. But *if pressed*, its value could contract considerably: e.g. if there are worries that a candidate has too few papers, than a paper viewed as expository will probably not allay this worry.) Strategically it is probably best to advertise expository articles as having some teaching / mentoring / service component, if at all possible.
With regard to writing books: one of my most distinguished colleagues, Dino Lorenzini, wrote an excellent and rather successful book near the beginning of his career. He now tells anyone who will listen that junior faculty should not write books. Of course sometimes the heart wants what it wants, but from a strategic perspective I think this is eminently sound, and I say this as someone who may turn around and write some books now that I am solidly into my mid-career.
> Teaching experience (tutoring, undergraduate courses, graduate courses, etc).
*Successful teaching experiences* are indeed valued for a research job. At most research universities teaching is still a main component of one's job and, especially, of one's promotion and tenure packages. Most research departments are looking most of the time for *thoroughly solid* teachers rather than especially brilliant or innovative ones. Your teaching dossier should convey most of all that the department who hires you will never have to think about your teaching in a negative way.
Some graduate students do not get to do instruction at all (as opposed to TA work: grading, leading problem sessions, and so forth). There is a big difference between TA work and instruction, and as a hirer I am very wary of candidates who attempt to convince me that they will be a successful instructor based only on TA experience. I would strongly advise every math graduate student to be the instructor of record for at least one successful undergraduate course (where "successful" means you can get a strong teaching letter out of the experience).
Teaching experience at the graduate level is almost unheard of for graduate students and is far from guaranteed in postdocs. Even within my own department, some of my colleagues feel strongly that postdocs should teach topics graduate courses in their areas of interest, whereas other colleagues feel that it is the job of the tenure track faculty to teach these courses. I lean more towards the latter, and I don't feel that teaching graduate courses is an important part of a tenure track job application: I would be equally impressed or more with other kinds of interactions with the graduate program, e.g. participating in or organizing seminars, reading theses, and so forth.
I'm having a hard time thinking about how tutoring experience could play a significant role. If you have founded the Khan Academy or the Euclid Lab, you would probably get some attention / consideration for this. Much less and your employers are unlikely to care.
> Academic background (grades, the university of graduation, current affiliation, etc).
No research university that I know of asks for grades or transcripts for candidates for faculty positions. Of course your *pedigree* -- i.e., where you did your undergraduate and graduate work, and your current institution -- is of some importance, but not *that* much importance. Anyway, what's done is done here: presumably you took what opportunities you could to attend / work at better, rather than worse, institutions!
> Reference (who is writing reference letter and how he is writing it).
Or she! When you are applying for your first postdoc, your adviser's letter may well be the *most* important part of the application: most graduates, even very strong ones, cannot speak about their research accomplishments and near future goals as convincingly as their advisers can. Later on your adviser's letter gets less important, but you probably get more letters overall, and they are always a key part of the application.
> Personal (natural) features (nationality, race, language, etc).
In the United States it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race. Nationality is probably a no-go as well. Language issues are important: if English is not your native language, employers will (or at any rate, should) look carefully at your skills.
> Social and family status (connections, marriage, etc).
Professional connections can be important; e.g. they come out in recommendation letters and in your academic pedigree. It is illegal for employers to inquire about your marital status, sexual orientation, or whether you have children. It is not illegal for you to bring these things up, and if you have a "two-body problem" -- i.e., a partner who is also an academic -- than you should do so at some point, and that brings an extra layer of complication to the process. But if a candidate is not looking for an academic job for her partner, I honestly don't care at all whether she is married, gay, celibate, and so forth. I can assure you that in most American departments any such talk about these matters in the context of a hiring discussion would be rapidly quelled.
# Answer
> 13 votes
Your question is fairly general, but the title implies that you want to ask about mathematics. I think the more general question makes sense, so I'll answer that one, based on my experience in computer science in the US
Among the criteria you list, (1) and (4) (research and letters) are usually the most important in research-oriented universities. (3) academic background (but not grades) plays a role in initial filtering but usually takes second place to (1)/(4) once people get some familiarity with the candidate.
It is rare that (2) plays a role, unless the job calls for significant teaching, or is in a teaching-oriented university. Since math folks teach a lot more than CS folks, this might be one point of difference.
Many of the factors listed in (5) cannot be considered legally, and rightly so. I seriously doubt that (6) plays a direct role, but personal connections can help open doors, much like (3).
# Answer
> 9 votes
I'll second Suresh’s generic answer (I'm a chemist myself), but I'll add a few points: first, one of the reasons that teaching skills usually play little role in hiring decisions is that they are much harder to evaluate/quantify than research skills. Most people in the hiring committee will be researchers or think they know how research should be evaluated. Most of them don't know how to evaluate teaching skills (and if they did, they hardly have time to do it anyway).
Regarding 5, it probably depends on the country, but some of these can be serious barriers for employment: language is the most important one, especially if teaching is involved. At least in France, most university won't recruit at the junior level someone who doesn't speak French, as that is the language in which undergrad courses are taught. Nationality can also be a stopper in specific circumstances (nuclear research, for one thing).
Finally, I think an important factor you did not list is the performance of the candidate in interviews with the hiring committee: self-assurance, conveying the impression of someone well-prepared, etc.
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Tags: job, career-path, job-search, mathematics
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thread-6032 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6032 | Switching from one area of graduate study to another? | 2013-01-04T15:15:05.053 | # Question
Title: Switching from one area of graduate study to another?
Is it possible to switch from one area of graduate study to another in US universities? For example, suppose someone has enrolled in a computer science phd program. Can he switch over to math(or physics) phd program in the same school later?(or say from applied mathematics to pure mathematics?)
What are the steps for doing for doing that?
# Answer
In general, transferring to a different department requires a fresh application. While many departments will be sympathetic to applications from students alresdy at the university, they will still require all the formalities associated with a new admission.
However, the procedures vary wildly from place to place, and you must check with your local institution (if you have one already).
Other factors that can mitigate or complicate this process: if there's a standard procedure for doing this, if the two departments historically are comfortable with movement back and forth, if the departments are in the same college/school within the university, and so on.
> 9 votes
# Answer
In most cases you have to apply for admission to the new program, as most American universities admit by department or college for graduate studies.
It is much more difficult to switch from one PhD program to another, as you not only have to apply again and be admitted by the department offering the degree, but you must take the PhD qualifying exam in your new program. Also, depending on how closely aligned the fields are, coursework taken in your original program may or may not be applicable to your new program. It is generally easier to switch Master's programs but still will normally require a new application.
Many departments or colleges limit the number of courses you can apply to a graduate degree taken in another program. In the Master's program I teach in, it is three, and they must be courses that would have reasonable application to our degree. We routinely accept students changing programs, unless their academic performance was sub-par in their previous program, i.e. any Cs, even if their GPA is satisfactory, and/or any course failures.
> 2 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school
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thread-6060 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6060 | What are potential downsides of (universal) author IDs pushed for by publishers etc.? | 2013-01-06T15:29:08.943 | # Question
Title: What are potential downsides of (universal) author IDs pushed for by publishers etc.?
In recent years, several organizations (publishers, arXiv, universities) started pushing for systems of a reliable author identification, gaining considerable traction with the recent launch of ORCID. This works by assigning IDs to persons. In some cases, the person itself can then connect his/her articles to the person ID. In other cases, publishers ask / plan to ask for the ID upon manuscript submission.
Examples:
* ORCID (supported among others by Spinger, Elsevier, American Physical Society, American Chemical Society, IEEE, Institute of Physics)
* ResearcherID by Thomson Reuters
* Scopus Author ID
There are some obvious advantages of a precise and machine-readable author identification. These pros are strongly advocated by the big organizations, which are of course very interested. But what about the cons? Before all researchers become obliged to using such IDs, we should discuss the cons and potential problems.
What do you think and what are the biggest potential disadvantages for the authors? Do you know some nice article / blog / discussion about disadvantages?
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Related texts:
# Answer
> 13 votes
Your question is long and somewhat argumentative. I'll answer here to a small part of it. You say:
> *“Are you sure that you will still be proud of your last paper in 20 years time? In some cases you might prefer to not include a certain article in your next grant/job application.”*
To me, the sounds very contradictory with the principles and aims of scientific publishing, regardless of how identification is performed. Once something is published under your name, it is part of the academic record and should not disappear, even if you don't like it anymore.
It is actually a **very good thing** that the integrity of the academic record, including published literature, is maintained throughout history. It is even part of scholarly publishers' duties to do so. That it is associated with your name and affiliation(s), or with a unique identifier, doesn't change naught. To given an example, if an academic were to produce a full list of publications (as part of a long CV or grant application) and willingly omit a publication from this list, I would consider it unethical (though I don't think it is something that often happens).
# Answer
> 13 votes
In mathematics, we already have a database of this sort - two them, in fact, with in MathSciNet and Zentralblatt MATH. Both aim to be comprehensive for mathematics publications, going back to the 1940s. It is completely standard for me to use this to get a list of every publication (in mathematics) by a fellow mathematician, and anyone can do it about me. These data have indeed been used to perform scientific analysis of collaboration patterns, which are somewhat fascinating, as in this paper.
So, if there were going to be cons, this might be a fruitful place to look for them. As someone in the field, the main cons that I see are not with the fact that the database is public and complete - after all, the point of publishing is to make a paper public. The main issues I have are with the relationship between the database and my day-to-day workflow:
* Occasionally, publications outside academia may not be present. For example, if someone publishes a chapter of a popular book, or writes editorials based on their professional knowledge, these may not be indexed.
* The system is still only marginal for getting actual copies of the papers that are indexed. This has gotten slightly better over time, but I generally still have to google the title of the paper to look for preprints, copies on the author's webpage, etc. The system has slowly been adding links to the publisher's canonical page for each paper.
* As far as I know there is no way for me to add a link to my personal webpage to either system.
* Papers only appear in the database after publication, which can be years after they were presented at conferences and well known to the research community. So someone in a distant location would find it hard to keep at the cutting edge of research solely looking at the databases.
# Answer
> 3 votes
One downside that hasn't been mentioned yet: *if* the administrators of this system collect and record everyone's email addresses, then this has some disadvantages for researchers.
A big targeted database with e-mail addresses, research interests, institutes and whatsnot has a great value for advertising companies. I am sure we all get enough spam, and a fraction of it is researcher-targeted spam: vanity press, dubious publishers, cash-cow conferences. Wouldn't they all like to have more addresses?
Moreover, many of us are going to be working actively to keep our profile up-to-date and accurate; we will be basically working for free to build and check such a database. Many of us are already doing this for Google Scholar.
If the database contains email addresses, access to them needs to be strictly regulated; any form of machine and automated access in particular. If there is a commercial entity behind it, that is another major concern. A private firm can be sold to evil stakeholders, or can go bankrupt and have to sell the database. Even if the database owners do not do anything, a simple hacker attack can expose a well-structured database of the e-mail addresses of most professional researchers.
# Answer
> 2 votes
A few possible problems:
1) Such an ID system seems a little intrusive. It would impose something like an obligatory Facebook for researchers.
2) Everyone's research output could then be identified reliably (in machine-readable form) and used for all sorts of data mining. Among the possible uses some may not be desirable for everyone:
2a) Algorithmic rating of a researcher's output becomes very simple for anyone interested. It might reinforce the tendency for people to judge by some computed rank, instead of actually looking at the content of the articles.
2b) Authors might be tempted to optimize their (machine generated) rankings by annoying tricks.
2c) People could easily study the "graph of your collaborators" etc. (adding to point 1).
3) You lose every control over the communication about your publication list. Instead of being able to present it yourself to others it is stored in a public database to which you have no access. Hence, you cannot choose anymore whether you want to present your publication list to others in machine-readable form or not, and whether you want to present the full list, or (for what ever reason) a certain subset.
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Tags: publications, journals, authorship, digital-researcher-id
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thread-6001 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6001 | Ethical Disclosure of Professional Knowledge in PhD Dissertation | 2013-01-02T00:57:22.947 | # Question
Title: Ethical Disclosure of Professional Knowledge in PhD Dissertation
I have just completed my PhD. Although my examiners did not raise any concerns, I have been grappling with an ethical issue for the entire duration of my candidature.
The issue concerns professional knowledge of the field on which my research is based. This is an issue of concern because I am employed in the field and have access to information that is generally not publicly available (but is available to me as an employee) or only found in hard-to-get industry publications (e.g. newsletters). These publications are hard-to-get because of their specialised nature and limited circulation.
Disclosing this information creates a potential conflict of interest for me (because of reasons associated with commercial-in-confidence, breach of trust etc.). It gets even worse because I am often actively involved in generating this information as part of various negotiations I am required to have with third parties (in my capacity as an employee). As an example, I draft policy speeches for my CEO so this has the effect of quoting my own work in my dissertation (but attributed to my CEO in the citation and bibliography!)
To resolve this matter, I have declared (categorically) this conflict of interest (several times in my dissertation) (although I don't identify myself as the ghost writer). I have also put whatever information I thought could be ethically disclosed in the relevant context (e.g. cited the publicly available newsletter, where possible). This was to ensure future researchers could benefit from this 'inside' knowledge. I have stated this as one of the contributions to knowledge that my dissertation is making.
I must add that the professional knowledge does not contradict or undermine my research, so I am certainly not withholding the information for this reason. On the contrary, this information enhances the main arguments of my study (so omitting it presents a significant dilemma for me).
i would love to hear how else could this matter be resolved.
# Answer
I've known cases where the thesis itself has **very** restricted circulation for a fixed period (e.g. six years) after completion, to protect the commercial information that went into it. The restriction also meant that papers couldn't be published on the back of the PhD research for six years, too.
That was an arrangement made early on during the writing of the thesis, and it enabled the use of a lot of information that would otherwise have been out of bounds.
That's potentially quite an impediment to one's career, so one would have to get good advice on whether it was a price worth paying. But it doesn't make an academic career impossible: I know of at least one successful academic who's take this path - she's an exceptional talent, and so it's no surprise that her path has been exceptional. It does put an emphasis on diversifying straight after the PhD, to gather material for new publications. Diversification can be a good thing: lots of new post-docs get typecast and trapped by and in their PhD subject.
> 9 votes
# Answer
A good starting point would be to talk to your research advisor about how to handle this, and follow his/her advice. This is the sort of situation for which advisors exist to help.
That said, the way you are handling it seems reasonable and sensible. You cannot breach your confidentiality obligations. However, public but hard-to-find newsletters don't seem quite as problematic; you can cite them and quote from them.
For future reference: I personally try to separate out my research from any confidential commercial work I do, precisely to avoid these kinds of conflicts. In other words, I try to avoid doing research on the same topic where I also know confidential commercial information, and I try to avoid taking on confidential commercial engagements on the same topic where I am actively doing research. I personally think that is good practice, but this is a matter for personal preference and style.
> 6 votes
# Answer
And, as a small point, if one's work is confidential for the reason that it is so extremely useful/important/wonderful (!?!), while one cannot claim this directly, it is usually possible to communicate facts about the situation in a way that will be understood by potential employers. One's letter writers would hopefully/presumably comment on the situation, and possibly gossip will lead the way, besides, if it's really something good.
At least as a starting point, honesty + keeping promises is a good baseline. :)
> 1 votes
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Tags: ethics
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thread-498 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/498 | Scope for the role of peer reviewer | 2012-03-01T17:16:30.317 | # Question
Title: Scope for the role of peer reviewer
As a young scholar I frequently struggle with knowing the extent to which I should be critical of particular components of papers I am reviewing. I can formulate a rough hierarchy between major concerns (things that need to be changed or this shouldn't be published) and relatively minor concerns (things I think would improve the manuscript, but aren't substantive enough to affect whether the paper is publishable or not).The question here concerns the latter, in essence I don't know where the cut-off in reasonableness should be for minor concerns.
For one example, being curmudgeonly I would say bad graphics are the norm rather than the exception in my field, although they aren't frequently *so bad* I can't figure out what the author is trying to say. Are minor critques of graphs appropriate (e.g. your gridlines are very obtrusive, the aspect ratio of your chart isn't appropriate, your colors/patterns are hard to distinguish, you should use a dot plot instead of a stacked bar graph, etc.) Frequently my suggested improvements would be somewhat arbitrary though, so I frequently hesitate to give such advice.
Is there any advice to guide the role of the peer-reviewer? Another side question too, does the scope change if I'm doing this for a colleague versus as an anonymous reviewer for a journal?
# Answer
I think everything you're asking about is within the scope of the reviewer's role. Generally speaking, I divide my review up into three sections:
**Summary**: A summary and free-form critique. Here I communicate what I think the "gist" of the paper is about, its strengths, and offer some weaknesses that might exist in the paper as a whole. For example, if I think the authors were slightly too timid in not offering a interpretation of the data, or if they've missed or glossed over some major point.
**Major criticisms**: These are things that *must* be fixed in order for me to consider it a publishable paper, and if I have the chance to review the revisions (some journals do this), things I expect to either see changed, or have *very* good arguments for why they're not. Stuff in this category includes:
* Flawed or inappropriate methods
* Major intuitive leaps that aren't supported by the data or analysis
* Study design problems that need attention
* Major failings of interpretation
* Journal specific problems, like failing to properly report your protocol to established standards for a clinical trial, or the inappropriate use of p-values in some journals.
**Minor criticisms**: These are all things that are essentially "The advice of someone reading your draft with a critical eye". Importantly, these are things where, if they all made it in, while I would possibly be annoyed, I wouldn't be upset that the paper hit the press. This *does* include things like advice on graphics (my pet peeve is graphics that are unintelligible when printed), missing citations, etc. Things that are above the level of a copy editor, but aren't going to move my decision on the paper one way or another, unless there are *a lot* of them.
Occasionally I'll put in one or two small copy editing notes if something jumps out at me (insure vs. assure vs. ensure, etc.)
The cut-off I use is "Will this irk me when I see it in print, and will I think less of the authors that produced it?" To use your example of bad graphs, yes, this would annoy me, and it results in a less usable finding than one with the appropriate graphs - just like garbled language in the Results section might. If its minor stuff, like a turn of phrase I wouldn't have used, or a slight fondness for run-on sentences? That falls below the radar.
As for friends vs. anonymous reviews, I think the scope does change slightly. For a friend, you're helping them polish a paper - I think a great many more things fall under that umbrella, including things like "That's really not what a semi-colon is for" or fiddling with the graphics parameters on a plot. For a reviewer, you're one of the last gatekeepers before this goes out into the world - but you *aren't* an editor. Your focus should be on the research, and the appropriate presentation of it, unless the errors are so bad as to impede one of those.
In either case, you should be polite.
> 35 votes
# Answer
Please see my answer to a similar question on the theoretical computer science SE site.
At @David's suggestion, I'm copy-pasting my answer here, but keep in mind that the question is slightly different, and my answer is aimed at theoretical computer science. The bold questions are quoted from the original post. Point 5 is probably the most relevant for this question.
Short version: **Be respectful, but brutally honest.**
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1. **What are the main criteria for determining the significance of a paper's results?** To the best of your knowledge, does the paper make a significant, well-presented, and correct contribution to the state of the art? If the paper fails any of the three criteria, it's fair to reject it for that reason alone, regardless of the other two.
2. **What are the main elements of a referee report, and which parts are most important?** Here's what I think a report should contain. Everything should be visible to the author, except *possibly* for serious accusations of misconduct.
a. A quick summary of the paper, to help the editor judge the quality of the results, and to help convince both the author and the editor that you actually read and understood the paper. Place the result in its larger context. Include a history of prior versions, even if the authors include it in the submission. Be respectful, but brutally honest.
b. A discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the paper, in terms of correctness, novelty, clarity, importance, generality, potential impact, elegance, technical depth, robustness, etc. If you suspect unethical behavior (plagiarism, parallel submission, cooked data), describe your suspicions. Be respectful, but brutally honest.
c. A recommendation to the editor for further action — accept, accept with minor revision, ask for a second round of reviewing, or reject outright. Keep in mind that you are making a recommendation, not a decision; if you can't make up your mind, just say so. Be respectful, but brutally honest.
d. More detailed feedback to the author — more detailed justification for your recommendation, requests for clarification in the final version, missing references, bugs in the proofs, simplifications, generalizations, typos, etc. Be respectful, but brutally honest.
3. **How does assessment for conferences differ from that in journals?** Conference reports should be shorter; program committees have hundreds of papers to consider at once. Whether there should be a difference between conference and journal papers is up to the journal (and indirectly, up to the community). Most theoretical computer science journals do *not* insist on a significant difference; it is quite common for the conference and journal versions of a theory paper to be essentially identical. When in doubt, ask the editor!
4. **What if I don't understand the paper? ...the proof? (Is it my fault or theirs?)** If you still don't understand the paper after making a good-faith effort, it's the author's fault, or possibly the editor's, but *certainly not* yours. The author's primary responsibility is to effectively communicate their result to their audience, and a good editor will send you a paper to referee only if they think you're a good representative of the paper's intended audience. But you do have to make a good-faith effort; do not expect to immediately understand everything (anything?) immediately on your first reading.
5. **What about typographical/grammatical mistakes?** If there are a *lot* of errors, don't even read the paper; just recommend rejection on the grounds that the paper is not professionally written. Otherwise, if you really want to be thorough, include a *representative* list of grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes, but don't knock yourself out finding every last bug. Be respectful, but brutally honest.
6. **How much time should I spend on a report?** Expect to spend about an hour per page, mostly on internalizing the paper's results and techniques. Be pleasantly surprised when it doesn't actually take that long. (If it takes significantly less time than that, either the paper is either exceedingly elegant and well-written, you know the area extremely well, or the paper is technically shallow. Don't confuse these three possibilities.)
7. **How many reports a year am I expected to write?** You should write at least as many referee reports as other people write for you. If this takes more time than writing your own papers, you're not spending enough time on your own papers.
> 17 votes
# Answer
*PLoS Computational Biology* editor P.E. Bourne has written a series of very decent *“Ten simples rules to …”* articles. There is no detailed guide to being a good reviewer, but *Ten Simple Rules for Reviewers* sure is a good starting point. Summing it up:
1. Do Not Accept a Review Assignment unless You Can Accomplish the Task in the Requested Timeframe—Learn to Say No
2. Avoid Conflict of Interest
3. Write Reviews You Would Be Satisfied with as an Author
4. As a Reviewer You Are Part of the Authoring Process
5. Be Sure to Enjoy and to Learn from the Reviewing Process
6. Develop a Method of Reviewing That Works for You
7. Spend Your Precious Time on Papers Worthy of a Good Review
8. Maintain the Anonymity of the Review Process if the Journal Requires It
9. Write Clearly, Succinctly, and in a Neutral Tone, but Be Decisive
10. Make Use of the “Comments to Editors”
I would add: carefully read both the “instructions for authors” and “instructions for reviewers” of the journal you are reviewing for, if you are not already very familiar with them.
> 13 votes
# Answer
There are certain things I look for when reviewing papers that are "show stoppers", i.e. if I find one of these, I usually recommend rejection.
* Things that don't add up, e.g. fractions that don't add up to 1, unreasonable large performance improvements such as orders of magnitude when the proposed method would save 50% of the work in the best case.
* Major omissions, i.e. something that would be required to reproduce the results/implement the method is not described adequately.
* Wrong or unjustified statements.
The things that don't fall into this category (e.g. graphs that are hard to read) are usually not a reason for me to recommend rejection, unless they occur several times throughout the paper. The same goes for bad spelling/grammar.
I would always point out things like you mention as example (one particular thing I don't like is graphs with different scales next to each other to compare two approaches) if you think that changing them would make the paper better. In the end, everything is subjective and may seem arbitrary.
I would use the same diligence regardless of whether looking something over for a colleague or reviewing for conference/journal because even in the former case the paper will presumably be submitted somewhere where it will be peer-reviewed.
In summary, I think that there need to be a number of minor concerns throughout the paper to recommend its rejection. One or two graphs that look odd would for me not be a reason to do so, unless of course there are other, more serious problems.
> 11 votes
# Answer
Here is the rough checklist I use for refereeing. I work in mathematics, so it may need adjustment for other areas. When I write a review, I imagine it is for my own paper, and I try to include the things that I would like a reviewer to include for me.
1. **Is the paper correct?** Trivial errors can be corrected in a resubmission, of course. I have not yet received a paper in which I found any serious error.
1. Part of correctness is clarity. I consider the average readership of the journal (to the extent I can), and any aspects of the paper that would be unclear to them can be raised in the report. There is a difference, of course, between unclarity and writing style. But papers should use standard terminology when it exists, and proofs should be written in a way that is not unduly difficult to follow. Occasionally, a referee can suggest a more streamlined proof, which is fine.
2. I keep a running list of typos, style errors, and other trivialities, which I list at the bottom of the report with minimal commentary.
3. I do not check the correctness of all bibliographic data, but I often refer to one or more of the references when reading the paper. If I notice any errors in the bibliography I note them in the report.
2. **Is the paper complete?**
1. Are there any obvious gaps in the research? For example, if a theorem has a strange additional hypothesis, the author should address the necessity of this hypothesis, or consider stating it as a question. Nobody else will be able to publish a paper to fill in minor gaps, so it is important for the author to be sufficiently thorough in the original paper, for the sake of the overall literature.
2. Are there additional references that should be cited? If I know of additional research that the author has not mentioned, I can raise it in the report. I believe this is one of the more important roles of the reviewer, because no author is aware of the entire research literature.
3. **Does the paper fit the journal to which it has been submitted?** I have a general feeling for the differences between the journals in my area. Most journals have a statement of scope and purpose on their website, as well. For some journals, I think that all professional-quality, on-topic papers are in the scope of the journal. But for "high-tier" journals, the paper needs to have sufficient results (and, perhaps, a sufficient density of results) to fit.
1. The degree of completeness (item 2) can be important here. The editor will make the final decision, of course, but it is not inappropriate for the reviewer to indicate if they think the paper is correct but not a good fit for the journal to which it is submitted.
2. If it is clear that a paper is not a good fit, I may write a report indicating this without verifying the correctness of the results. This allows the author to resubmit to another journal more quickly than if I took my time with the paper.
4. **Did the editor give any additional instructions?** For example, one top-tier journal explicitly asked reviewers to raise the quality level required for acceptance, because the journal had a long backlog and wanted to reduce the volume of accepted papers. Other uncommon situations can arise, which the editor may summarize for the reviewer.
I attempt to answer questions 1 and 3 in the first paragraph of the review. These are what the editor needs to know. The lower parts of the review are intended more for the author, and may have remarks related to possible changes or additions, particularly if my recommendation is to revise and resubmit.
> 10 votes
# Answer
If you decide that a particular paper you're reviewing is acceptable, then your job as a referee of the paper becomes to suggest improvements that you think will *substantively* help the presentation of the scientific content. Even minor corrections like the ones you've listed can be considered substantive when they lead to "real" improvement.
For example, I'd argue that suggesting a comment that axes labels should be 12 pt instead of 7 pt would be appropriate, as it would substantially improve legibility; however, arguing for 12 pt instead of 13 pt is not significant enough to make a real difference. Similarly, I would point out grammatical or spelling mistakes if they are relatively few in number, but make a general comment if there are many, because I'm not being paid to be a copy editor. (As another example, Oxford commas wouldn't rise to that level, unless it's an "Eats, shoots, and leaves" issue.)
In general, however, there isn't anything that is really *too* nitpicking in nature unless all you're doing is expressing a personal preference.
> 5 votes
# Answer
If these are suggestions rather than mandates (as you suggest) and if you are willing to commit the time to providing such feedback, I'd say go for it. It could only help, as long as you're not so picky that the authors end up with a list that is too overwhelming to deal with (not sure where the bar is for that).
FYI: I'm a "young" scholar, too, not a journal editor.
> 4 votes
# Answer
I can also add some other pointer I've come to learn over the years on what constitutes a good reviews.
Things you should avoid:
* Rejecting the paper because you did not like the approach (science is not about liking, is about correctness)
* Rejecting the paper because it has many typos (you can always ask for a spell checking, but if the idea is good, not being a native speaker shouldn't affect you)
* Criticizing a paper for not having simple definitions, my rule of thumb is that if a concept pops in a Google search as a wikipedia page, the author does not have to explain it again.
Things that can help the paper:
* If the Grammar is poor, recommend some book for writing styles, like Strunk and White, and give some examples on how the paper can be improved.
* If you think the paper has some obscure concepts (that did not come up in Wikipedia) ask for clarification.
* The paper, as a rule, should be implementable by someone who has the expertise in the area.
> 4 votes
# Answer
My main criterion for such concerns over clarity and presentation is **reader time**: is the time it takes the authors to address your concern comparable to the (cumulative) time gained by the paper's readers.
This also means: the larger the expected audience, the more you can nitpick.
> 1 votes
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Tags: journals, peer-review
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thread-6105 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6105 | What is the best way of keeping track of academic readings and persons? | 2013-01-09T15:30:58.157 | # Question
Title: What is the best way of keeping track of academic readings and persons?
I have started a brand new research from start of the year. I would like to know what are the easiest way of keeping track of the academic papers, journals and authors.
I use sites like Google Scholar, informatik.uni-trier.de for discovery of articles and following interesting conferences and people. I have used sites and tools like Mendeley and ResearchGate. I quite like the sites, but I am too reluctant to use them as for each of them I need to find everything by myself, create my own library to suit my interests.
I already got a warning by the stackexchange system saying **The question you're asking appears subjective and is likely to be closed.** but it would be great help if someone could explain some tools/software which do this?
Summarizing my questions:
1. How do you keep track of academic papers, authors effectively?
2. Are there any tools that can search/scrap the internet by some keywords/name and keep track of them? \[I know of Google alerts, what I seek is some kind of tool with a management interface\]
# Answer
> 13 votes
Although you are aware of this already, I feel I need to state how satisfied I am with mostly using google scholar + a feed reader + a bibliography manager for this. Although it is not integrated, I don't currently feel any need to search for a better all in one platform.
I use google reader to subscribe to RSS feeds for online first and published articles for journals I am interested in (any reader which you can organize feeds into folders and search should be fine - I suspect many have better search capabilities that google reader). The vast majority of journals this is not much of a time suck to read all the titles and peruse abstracts I am interested in. The most prodiguous publications (e.g. Science/Nature) are only borderline annoying with 60+ posts a week, but even that is not that difficult to quickly navigate through.
I have a few fairly specific google scholar alerts (as well as general google alerts), so as to not get too much in my inbox. I basically have a few key words in articles specific to my research interest, and I have alerts for specific authors. I also have alerts to people who cite my articles.
I use CiteULike to manage my bibliography + personal database on my local machine to export various formats (e.g. bibtex or specific citation format). This has the added benefit that I can send articles directly from google reader to citeulike, but I suspect the same set-up could be crafted for other bibliography managers (Zotero, Mendeley) and possible other feed readers.
---
Basically in a nut-shell,
1. feed reader to stay up to date with newly published articles in journals I am interested in,
2. google scholar alerts for potentially related material that isn't in those journals, and
3. a bibliography manager to store articles to read later on.
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Tags: phd, research-process, citations, tools
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thread-6107 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6107 | Should I order references on surname or paper title when using Harvard style? | 2013-01-09T17:50:07.023 | # Question
Title: Should I order references on surname or paper title when using Harvard style?
I use the harvard referencing style.
One of our assignment instructions is:
> The reference list should be in alphabetical order
Lets use the following references as an example
> Kopecky, J. and Simperl, E., 2008. Semantic Web Service Offer Discovery for E-commerce.
>
> Sanvido, F., Sanchez, D., Mendoza, A. and Lopez, A., 2011. Dynamic Negotiation Layer for Secure Semantic Service Oriented Architectures.
Following the instruction I was given to order the references, is it generally implied that I should order the references by the first authors surname: Kopecky then Sanvido.
Or is it implied that I should order by the paper titles: "Dynamic Negotiation Layer..." then "Semantic Web Service..."
# Answer
> 5 votes
From Harvard website:
> The entries in the list should be in **alphabetical order by the author's last name \[sic\]**.
As pointed out by aeismail in the comment, the second criterion is the date:
> Works by the same author should be ordered chronologically, from oldest to most recent
Of course, you might have many articles with the **same author and same year**, in that case, they say that:
> If your reference list includes multiple works by the same author in the same year, identify them in your parenthetical citations and in your reference list by a lowercase letter after the year, assigning each letter in alphabetical order by the title of the work
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Tags: citations
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thread-6113 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6113 | Value of Print on Demand Publishing of PhD Dissertation | 2013-01-10T00:35:49.783 | # Question
Title: Value of Print on Demand Publishing of PhD Dissertation
Following on from my question here, I understand there are many non-traditional methods of publishing a PhD dissertation as a book. One of it is Print of Demand (POD) method. A contributor to the question in the above link gives VDM as an example.
However, a close look at the Wikipedia article (same link as the VDM) reveals that POD is not peer reviewed and often adds little to a person's publication record.
I am wondering that if a PhD dissertation is of sufficient standard to be passed by the relevant university (assuming the University is reputable itself), why does it need to be peer-reviewed? Also, if it is reproduced as a book by POD, why shouldn't it add to the publication record of the author.
The PhD is often the first major work of many students (I fall in this category) so making the most out of it is the only way to add value to one's CV.
# Answer
> I am wondering that if a PhD dissertation is of sufficient standard to be passed by the relevant university (assuming the University is reputable itself), why does it need to be peer-reviewed?
In an ideal world, that could be reasonable, but in practice it's unclear what the standards are for a dissertation. For example, imagine a student who works diligently for years but doesn't accomplish much. Many advisors, even in very prestigious departments, will eventually let the student graduate with a minimal dissertation. Or what about a sloppy student whose dissertation is full of minor errors? Hopefully the advisor will put pressure on the student to fix the errors, but sometimes, given the choice between letting the student graduate and keeping on struggling fruitlessly with this, the advisor caves in and approves a shoddy thesis. Perhaps this shouldn't happen, but occasionally it does.
Of course peer-reviewed journals are also far from perfect, but their judgments are somewhat clearer. A paper accepted by the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society is a more meaningful guarantee of quality than a dissertation from a top-five math department, although on average the dissertations will be better.
Peer review can also lead to valuable feedback and suggestions. A dissertation has often not received many comments from anyone not on the thesis committee, and getting anonymous feedback from other experts can be important.
> Also, if it is reproduced as a book by POD, why shouldn't it add to the publication record of the author.
The problem is that it doesn't "add" anything that wasn't already there. Your dissertation is part of your academic track record, and your decision to let a company print it on demand is not additional evidence of quality or impact.
It's certainly useful to try to get visibility for your dissertation. In a field where this is considered appropriate, posting it online (for example, on the arXiv) is very valuable. Far more people will look at it there than via any POD publisher. Letting someone print it on demand too can't hurt, as long as there are no copyright issues, but it won't help much either.
> The PhD is often the first major work of many students (I fall in this category) so making the most out of it is the only way to add value to one's CV.
Certainly. In most fields, you can make the most of it academically by turning it into journal articles or a scholarly book. Mathematics isn't a book-based field, so I can't speak to this from personal experience, but my understanding is that publishing a dissertation as a book involves a lot of review and editing, and it's really not the same as letting a POD publisher reprint the dissertation.
> 9 votes
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Tags: phd, publications, thesis
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thread-6116 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6116 | How do you get started organizing a class? | 2013-01-10T02:01:48.423 | # Question
Title: How do you get started organizing a class?
As an academic in the university, how do you organize your self from the beginning of a semester?
For example:
* How do you take the absent students names?
* How do prepare your materials?
* How do you write a syllabus for students and do you hand them out?
* What computer programs do you use to plan your lessons?
I started my career as a lecturer last semester and I found myself not organized so I need to learn from your experience.
# Answer
> 14 votes
> How do you take the absent students names?
I don't. If a student finds my lectures boring or useless, they shouldn't waste their time coming to class. *(As others point out, there are very good reasons to require attendance in laboratory-, studio-, and discussion-based classes.)*
> How do prepare your materials?
Coffee and LaTeX. Lots of coffee and LaTeX.
> How do you write a syllabus for students and do you hand them out?
When I started out, I modified the syllabus from the previous iteration of the course, which was taught by an experienced instructor, so I could be sure to include all the necessary details. I used to hand out the syllabus on the first day of class, but now I just post it on the well-advertised course web site.
> What computer programs do you use to plan your lessons?
I write everything in LaTeX (specifically, TeXShop) and distribute everything as PDF files on the course web site. (See the first question.) I also use SubEthaEdit to edit the course web pages themselves.
# Answer
> 8 votes
One issue is not mentioned above, and is very important.
Make sure to state and post policies ahead of time for:
* how you'll deal with late submission of homeworks
* what your policy on cheating/plagiarism is
* any related university policies that students need to be made aware of.
These are more important than you might imagine. At the very least, having the policy allows you to be consistent when dealing with student excuses, and prevents you from having to make up policy as you go along. If someone is caught cheating, it will be important to have an up-front policy that you can point to, otherwise it will be difficult to penalize the student.
# Answer
> 6 votes
1. For teaching it is a must that you prepare a syllabus. Actually you should also have a time schedule for your syllabus. I would also rethink about the order of the topics and the depth of my presentation as well as the example and exercises that I want to give students.
2. Besides syllabus, I suggest you explain your methods of evaluation including your exams, homeworks, class presentations, etc.
3. Giving a list of useful books and other reading materials is also helpful, especially in advanced courses.
# Answer
> 6 votes
This semester I'm teaching a brand new course at my university. It's an elective course, so I can be much more of the "mad scientist experimenting."
I have a generic list of topics, and a general plan for the number of lectures during the semester. That means I can organize things loosely, rather than specifying in exhaustive detail what will be covered in each lecture before the start of the semester. Some topics have taken me much less time than I anticipated, and others have run much longer.
I have been using a combination of LaTeX and MultiMarkdown to prepare my lecture notes. I have also made the conscious decision *not* to use slides, but instead to go "old-school" and lecture at the blackboard. I've found this makes the pace of the course slower, and allows me to focus on the major concepts, rather than trying to cram too much material into a single lecture. However, I do publish the lecture notes following the end of each lecture, making it easier for students to keep up with the material.
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Tags: university, teaching
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thread-6100 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6100 | Why should the scientific community avoid double submissions? | 2013-01-09T11:01:05.163 | # Question
Title: Why should the scientific community avoid double submissions?
Every journal has strict rules about duplicate submissions, and I do not mean publishing the paper in 2 venues.
My approach is mostly from an economics point of view: Given the fact that most reviews take between 2-3 months, plus any number of months for a resubmission, limiting yourself to only one journal seems not only a waste of time for the individual, but an overall drag for the scientific community. Even if you make a groundbreaking discovery, it won't get published until about a year later.
Multiple submissions dramatically increase the chances of getting your work published, and if you get accepted in both, you can always pull out your paper. From a marketplace point of view, this makes sense, since in this way, journals would be fighting for authors and not the other way around.
Models like Arxiv have proven that this is not such a crazy idea
# Answer
One possible answer is that the referee process of a paper is a very professional and time consuming job (at least I am sure it is in mathematics). Therefore it is not fair you submit your paper to several journals and make them to referee your paper by different experts and then you withdraw your paper just because your paper got accepted by another journal.
> 44 votes
# Answer
I think there are three reasons.
1. From the publishers' perspective they want to squash competition. They want to know that if they invest the time and resources to evaluate the paper that they have a very good chance of publishing it. I don't particularly like how the publishing industry currently works and I might argue that this is in fact a reason to double submit.
2. The second reason is about the reviewer and editor resources. These are our colleagues and wasting their time is not fair. As a reviewer I want to know that if I put time and effort into a review, that my comments will be considered. Even if my review leads to a rejection, you will likely think about the feedback before resubmitting.
3. Having little or no cost associated with multiple submissions reduces the effectiveness of the peer review process. You increase the chance of finding a set of reviewers who miss flaws and potentially ignore reviewers who find flaws.
> 27 votes
# Answer
If the point of publication was to get it published as quickly as possible, then there might be some merit to your argument. But the point of **peer-reviewed** publication is to have the community vet your work and certify its basic soundness (not value/impact necessarily - that's a different story).
In that case, the delay involved in publication is a problem that needs to be fixed, but you shouldn't fix it by allowing multiple instances of peer-review.
> 12 votes
# Answer
One reason could be- if the paper gets accepted at both the venues, then you'll have to decide which venue is better. You could have thought about this before submitting also, so to avoid loss of time of the reviewers, you should do it before.
> 4 votes
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Tags: publications
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thread-6129 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6129 | How to get started with submitting first peer reviewed paper based on PhD? | 2013-01-10T23:30:45.080 | # Question
Title: How to get started with submitting first peer reviewed paper based on PhD?
I am not based in academia so unsure what the protocols (and the underlying and unwritten conventions are) in regard to getting my first paper published in a peer reviewed journal.
The paper will come out of my PhD dissertation.
How do I start the ball rolling?
# Answer
> 9 votes
The procedural parts are pretty simple:
1. Select the journal you're interested in submitting to.
2. Read their "Instructions for Authors".
3. *Follow* those instructions.
It may sound trite putting it that way, but journals are typically pretty good at being clear about what they want, both in terms of content areas and format & typography.
What you also need to do is identify what you want to take from your PhD, and determine what the "narrative" structure of that material is - a paper that's just a bunch of random things with no through-line is not a great paper.
You may also want to take the time to look at the editorial board of the journal you're interested in, find who is knowledgeable in the topic of your paper and be sure to indicate (in the manner proscribed in the instructions for authors) that you'd like them to be the editor in charge of your paper. A good choice here can help ensure that it's reviewed by the right people for the job.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Luke Mathieson covered all the necessary points. I am just adding a few supplementary ones. As a PhD student, I can assure you that opinion of your guide regarding the choice of the journal also matters (I mean, he/she wants to send somewhere and you somewhere else can create conflict and better avoided). If you have followed up works of some earlier works, then you can try in the journals where the those earlier papers were published.
One more point. Sometimes it is important to get a quick publication. For which you need to sacrifice a little and go for a journal with fast publication. You did not write your field. In Mathematics and some Theoretical Computer Science journals take an year or more for publication. TCS conference proceeding are faster and many of them are referred (and something like FOCS publication can change your life). Physics journals (theory) are generally fast. To be in safer side, keep a copy in arxiv.
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Tags: publications, peer-review
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thread-6127 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6127 | What is the proper way to cite the usage of an API? | 2013-01-10T14:33:30.923 | # Question
Title: What is the proper way to cite the usage of an API?
For a grant I am writing, I need to describe how I mined data from social media sites. I collected data from sites such as Twitter using each site's API and a Python wrapper. In writing my methods, I assume that I should mention which APIs I used, or at least that I used an API.
Do I need to provide a citation if I refer to using, say, the Python wrapper for Twitter's API. If so, how do I do that?
# Answer
> 4 votes
I don't think you'll find any documented correct way to do this. Personally, I would write a sentence saying that I did it, a sentence describing what an API is, and a link to the version-specific API documentation website (i.e., `https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/` for the API Version 3 instead of `https://developers.google.com/youtube/` the general Youtube API help website).
If you're including code in the submission, consider adding the API code in an appendix.
# Answer
> 1 votes
I don't think there is a standard way, some APIs have a notes sections that have things like citations, and things like that.
Sometimes, the API comes attached to some paper, in which case you should cite the paper.
I've mostly seen people citing the webpage itself if no other resource is available
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Tags: citations, online-resource
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thread-6086 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6086 | How do I convert my PhD dissertation so that it can be published as a book? | 2013-01-08T23:25:15.947 | # Question
Title: How do I convert my PhD dissertation so that it can be published as a book?
I have just completed a PhD by research, which I think has some merits in being available as a book (This is, of course, my personal opinion). The research cuts across several fields (e.g. sociology, public policy).
I am wondering what I need to do to take the next step.
In particular:
1. How do you turn an academic piece like the dissertation (which is written for the examiners) into a book (which is for the general public)?
2. How do I find publishers who specialise in my field?
# Answer
Why do you want the book?
* For prestige?: publishers who contact you, don't do any review and charge high prices will only increase your prestige to those that don't know them (and these are probably not those you want to impress).
* For dissemination?: why not just put the pdf available (as was already recommended)?. Those who are interested will find it, those who are not will probably not buy a PhD thesis
* For money?: I doubt you will really make much out of it.
My recommendation: put it as a pdf on your website / your school's dissertation repository. If you see that lot's of people download it, consider an improved version as book.
> 9 votes
# Answer
Your first question is quite tricky (to answer and to do). It depends on what you mean by "the public". A version for academics needs little change from a thesis. For students you need to consider how to highlight what can be learnt from your work. For the *general* general public, you'll have to start thinking about rewriting perhaps quite a bit, keeping your language accessible and building a narrative. As I am in a different field, perhaps some or all of this is already a part of your thesis.
The second question is simpler, who publishes the books that you read for your thesis?
> 6 votes
# Answer
If your university does not require you to publish your dissertation as a book, I would be very reluctant to invest the time needed to get your dissertation published. I would put the PDF of your dissertation on your own website, making it available to everyone who wants to look at it. I would spend the time needed to rewrite your book on writing more peer reviewed articles. Either by publishing chapters from your dissertation, or by doing new research. I think publications are more important than a book, especially for someone like you who still has only a few publications.
> 5 votes
# Answer
As a partial answer, Springer used to publish (theoretically) outstanding PhD thesis in Mathematics in its 'Lecture notes in Mathematics' as research monograph. However I do not know how many of the published volumes are Phd thesis. Definitely a (math) thesis requires a lot of polishing and rewriting before publishing.
> 4 votes
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Tags: publications, phd, thesis, books
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thread-1956 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1956 | Do professors frown upon students who don't take notes? | 2012-06-09T06:48:53.290 | # Question
Title: Do professors frown upon students who don't take notes?
I am a math student and never take notes in class. I feel like I am offending the professors by not taking notes. In general, do professors like students to be "active" during class? I have never learned much by taking notes.
I see other graduate students furiously taking notes...and then I am afraid that professors may write that I am lazy in recommendation letters. So maybe I should just takes notes?
# Answer
Sometimes I wish students would stop taking notes and actually think about what I'm saying. I provide the lecture notes before/after class anyway...
> 30 votes
# Answer
> I am afraid that professors may write that I am lazy in recommendation letters.
I can assure you that there is no reason to be afraid of that. That is just not something that would ever get written in a letter. Not taking notes might lead to a poor first impression, but it is your knowledge of the subject (something like your grade, but not exactly) that influences letters.
When I am teaching, I don't pay attention to if people are taking notes or not. I do pay attention to if students are paying attention. As long as you can remember the things you need to remember, then you do not need to write them down.
> 25 votes
# Answer
I'm a math professor. (I have taught at Stanford and several other universities.)
I prefer that my students do not take notes during my lectures. Before the lecture, browse through the relevant chapter of the text book. During the lecture, focus on what your professor says. Taking notes will just distract you, and make it harder for you to follow the lecture. After the lecture, read the textbook carefully. It is much more well written than any notes would be.
> 9 votes
# Answer
Use whatever study habits you need to succeed. Your performance on assessments will make more of an impression than how you absorb the material. If you can perform well without notetaking and your professor recognizes it, he/she will more likely be very impressed with you.
> 7 votes
# Answer
For very standard, orthodox material based on a textbook, it is reasonable to not take notes and do as much engaged, active thinking-or-questioning during a lecture. One should be alert to insights (hopefully!) from the person in the front of the room, and from others, so a bit of note-writing about the peripheral things is to be expected.
For advanced courses, and for seminars based only loosely on publicly-available material, or actually intended to be \_explications\_of\_ otherwise-opaque material, the task is to *both* take as many notes as possible (even if/when printed material is provided), *and* think as much as remaining resources allow, because without notes the words spoken and written will mostly vanish. Here I overlook the possibility that one's memory is so excellent and so practiced that one truly can perfectly remember things one does not understand. The latter possibility is very important to cultivate, but this question wouldn't have arisen at all if that were already in reach.
And, yes, in advanced courses and seminars, although I've gotten over the surprise, I am baffled at the claim that people can't usefully take notes. The usual claim is that by not taking notes they think about the material in real time. This would be great if it were usefully true, but I find that my students do not have total recall... so that mostly they have neither notes nor recollection.
Perhaps the main practical trick to learn is to be able to write, very fast, without looking at the paper, and be able to "copy" the visual layout of the blackboard (whiteboard, whatever) without necessarily stopping listening to the audio. Yes, this does require a lot of effort, but, hopefully, it gains something.
Belated Edit: thinking about (perceptions of the idea of) "learning styles"... If the material in a class is truly available in many places, and the instructor has no insights to offer, is just rehearsing it for those too passive to do it themselves, well, sure, note-taking is a dubious ritual. But, as my biased language was entirely meant to communicate, there's no operational issue there. There is of course the risk that the students fail to appreciate that the instructor offers genuinely new insights, but nevermind. A much more serious issue arises if we're talking about more-advanced graduate-level material. Of course, once again, if the lectures are mere quotations from a standard text or extant notes, with no "added value", ... sure, scant need to write anything down. *However*, and I think this is the interesting and most dangerous case, if, heaven willing, your instructor is really an expert with hard-to-objectify understanding of significant things, one should expect to fail to understand, or seem to understand but actually fail, or ... so having a written transcript to study later and deconstruct is incredibly useful.
That is, in the interesting/serious/dangerous situations, it's not about "learning styles", but about preservation of information per se. All my experience indicates that students misjudge the cut-off for this, too, so, ...
> 3 votes
# Answer
One of my professors forbid to take notes during the lecture, unless it helps you learn and memorize during the lecture. The slides were available online.
> 1 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, note-taking
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thread-6164 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6164 | Is doing a PhD just for the university requirement is a good idea? | 2013-01-12T01:41:48.713 | # Question
Title: Is doing a PhD just for the university requirement is a good idea?
I have an MSc degree and I work at university as a lecturer. However, the university has a policy where you should do your PhD within a given time frame. The problem is that I'm not interested in any area yet, nor am I interested in doing the work associated with a PhD.
Should I just go with it because the university forces me to do it, or should I just quit from the university and look for another job?
What do you think? Can I succeed if I start doing my PhD while i feel that I'm forced to do it?
# Answer
> 13 votes
In my university back in Mexico, they had something similar, if professors want to get ahead (income, professional, etc) they had to an additional degree (Masters, PhD)
I think that if you do not have the motivation, you'll have a lot of problems, doing a PhD is already a taxing endeavor, in the sense that many times you'll start wondering wether this was a good idea or not.
As in many things in life, if you do this because you are made to (like students that go to college because their parents want to) you'll have lots of resentment.
However, not all is lost, you can try looking for something you are really passionate about, and then try to do a PhD on that.
# Answer
> 5 votes
A PhD has the potential to open many doors. Its better to do it when there is some motivation than regret later. Think six years from now and where you want to be and whether it would require a PhD.
Do note that it is not easy. It requires hardwork and dedication. There would be many times when you would want to quit. So have a strong reason to pull you through when this happens.
Most importantly, in my view you would be better placed in whatever field you choose with a PhD. You may be afraid of sacrificing three years of your life now but what about the rest of the years ahead. As the say, time flies. Only you can make the call.
# Answer
> 4 votes
Above all, a PhD is about learning how to become a researcher. You mention that you have a lecturer position, does it include doing research? If you want to become a researcher in addition to teaching, a PhD is the way to go. If performing research is what you want, doing a PhD is logical, and should be worth it. If you have no ambition in being a researcher, a PhD is going to be a very painful process, similar to doing any other job you do not enjoy.
In the end, it is all about what you want. If you want to be a reseacher, do a PhD. If not, I would not recommend it.
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Tags: phd, job, university
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thread-6180 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6180 | Related work in an article | 2013-01-13T13:37:45.220 | # Question
Title: Related work in an article
(This is a junior researcher's question.)
Scientific publications contain a part discussing related work and the context of the paper. However, it is not clear where to put the section discussing related work of a paper.
**Where does the section on related work belong in a scientific publication? Is there any universal standard, or is it arbitrary?**
# Answer
> 15 votes
If you're writing a conference paper, put it in the same place as it appears in the conference papers you read. If you're not reading any conference papers, you're not ready to write one.
If you're writing a journal paper, put it in the same place as it appears in the journal papers you read. If you're not reading any journal papers, you're not ready to write one.
If you're writing a dissertation, put it in the same place as it appears in the dissertations you read. If you're not reading any dissertations, you're not ready to write one.
If you're writing a `$PAPER_TYPE`, put it in the same place as it appears in the `$PAPER_TYPE`s that you read. If you're not reading any `$PAPER_TYPE`s, you're not ready to write one.
Also: **Ask your advisor.**
# Answer
> 4 votes
Generally, put it in the introduction. This partly motivates further study of the field, i.e., by showing that previous experts have worked on similar problems, and that such problems are well established.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Like so many times, it depends on the field. The options in general are either at the beginning, after the intro; or at the end, before the conclusions. Look at previous issues of the journal/conf you are targeting.
Also, ask your advisor.
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Tags: research-process, publications, writing
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thread-6175 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6175 | Advancement to Candidacy, PhD in Computer Science | 2013-01-13T02:45:10.430 | # Question
Title: Advancement to Candidacy, PhD in Computer Science
As a PhD student in CS I will have advancement to candidacy soon. I am looking for information which helps me on the advancement exam. Particularly:
1. What does a committee expecting to hear from me?
2. What should I focus on during me presentation: should I tell them about work I have done or what I am planning to do?
3. If I need tell them what I am planning to do, then how to do that? I mean, research is vague, there is no clear guidance, and you don't know what will be in the end.
Any comments that help better understand what to expect and how to prepare are very welcome!
# Answer
> 6 votes
The only goal of the candidacy/qualifying/preliminary exam is to convince the committee that you deserve to pass the candidacy/qualifying/preliminary exam. The passing criteria differ, sometimes radically, from one university to the next, from department to the next, from one research area to the next, and even from one committee member to the next. It's the academic equivalent of Calvinball, only you don't get to make up the rules. Do not question the mask.
The ***only*** way to determine how to prepare for the candidacy/qualifying/preliminary exam is to **ask your committee members directly**. Individually. In person. I *strongly* recommend scheduling a one-on-one meeting with each committee member at least a month in advance of the actual exam.
Same goes for the thesis defense.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Have a solid research proposal and present it well. There is no other way to convince your assessors.
In my case, I had to do a public presentation with the assessors sitting in the audience. It was not an easy exercise but I took on the challenge head-on (really, there was no other option). And I prepared, prepared and prepared.
I asked my supervisor what the likely questions would be and how can I make my proposal better. I attended presentations by other students and studied the vibes.
Just be aware that not everything always goes to plan. I had chosen a concept that was highly contested in the literature so had several question on how I would handle it. (One of my assessors was an expert in that area!)
Most importantly, show a willingness to learn. If you cannot answer a question, be honest about it. Say something like "Thats an interesting angle and I will certainly take your comments on board". And mean it. Be honest and polite.
Confirmation of candidature is to show you are ready to do advanced research. Your assessors would most likely overlook a few flaws in your proposal (no research is perfect) but may not be that generous if they realise you are not ready. Believe me, they are amazingly quick at the latter.
# Answer
> 1 votes
***Ask your advisor and the program coordinator***. Usually, each institute has a guide for the candidacy exam. The guide lists some general requirements and the method of examining. The answers to your questions depends upon your department regulations and policies.
> What does a committee expecting to hear from me?
They expect you to be expert in your field and answer their tough questions. Also, they expect you to agree with their opinions and not try to be too smart.
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Tags: phd, graduate-school
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thread-7197 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7197 | What are the academic job ranks in Sweden? | 2013-01-14T14:05:35.490 | # Question
Title: What are the academic job ranks in Sweden?
Recently I read about a position as "universitetslektor" in a Swedish university. I did some research to figure out what this academic rank means. In my understanding it is similar to a lecturer in the British system. What I could not figure out is if "universitetslektor" is a permanent position, or if there is a qualification after which this position becomes permanent. Also, does *universitetslektor* refer to *lecturer* or to *senior lecturer*. What would be the analogue in the US system?
# Answer
In general, «Universitetslektor» is the closest the Swedish system has to an «associate professor» in the US system, and is close to a «lecturer» in the British system. The more junior rank would be «Biträdande lektor», and the more senior «Professor».
There are some subtleties in play here though; most importantly for the linked position is the phrase «tidsbegränsade anställningar». This means that the position is for a limited time only — they are hiring from March to December, supposedly to fill an urgent teaching need. The limit in time signals several things. One of them is that it is likely to be important to shoulder the teaching required — it might, depending on the department and their situation, for instance be difficult to buy out teaching time with research funds. Another is that it comes with none of the tenure guarantees usual «lektorat» provides. Since the position is time-limited, it will evaporate at the end of the time, to be replaced with a different position if the department finds the funds to hire again.
The hierarchy to figure out how the ranks work would be something like:
**Tidsbegränsad anställning**: Time-limited appointment. Not subject to tenure-like employment protection.
**Adjunkt**: Adjunct teacher. Needs not have a doctorate. Fills a teaching need.
**Biträdande lektor**: Similar to tenure track; usually time-limited to 4-6 years, at the end of which a review takes place deciding whether to upgrade the position to...
**Lektor**: The most common of Swedish University teaching/research positions. Obligated to teach, but can usually trade teaching time against research grant money. At every University I have ever interacted with, these come with an obligation for a certain amount of pedagogical qualifications — and if you are hired without pedagogical coursework in your CV, you may have to spend large swathes of your first year studying higher education pedagogy.
**Professor**: Similar to Professor in the UK or Full or even Named professorships in the US. It used to be very rare — one or two per field wasn't uncomomon; but since 1999, Professor is a possible target for promotion from Lektor, which increases the numbers. Before the 1999 reform, a Professor could not be fired, even under usual Swedish employment protection rules.
In summary: «Universitetslektor» is an essentially tenured position. They all come with heavy-looking teaching loads, but it is common in Sweden to reduce teaching loads with grant money. «Tidsbegränsad anställning» is a non-tenured and likely to be teaching-heavy position.
> 22 votes
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Tags: job, titles, sweden
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thread-7209 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7209 | Is it ethical to use a data-set made as a research assistant? | 2013-01-14T19:37:41.157 | # Question
Title: Is it ethical to use a data-set made as a research assistant?
Two years ago I was a research assistant during my undergraduate and my sole duty was the aggregation of many economic surveys, a very tedious task. This data-set, to my knowledge is one of a kind.
Now in graduate school, I had come up with a research idea, and this data-set that I made would be perfect for my research. My research idea is not related to my previous professors, though as of yet, he has no present publication for the research he was doing when I was working for him.
My question is, would it be ethical for me to use this data-set for my own research when I had made it while being employed for my previous professor. The obvious response would be to ask him but sadly we had a falling-out just before I graduated.
# Answer
As with any situation, there are many levels to any answer… Mainly, the question is: was the data-set published? If so, who owns the copyright? Probably not your professor, but the university. If it wasn't published, then it isn't ethical to use the records you kept of it for another purpose, without authorization from your employer.
However, there might be a solution, regardless of your fall-out before graduation. \[1\] **Just get your current advisor to ask him!** One staff researcher to another, the situation is not the same as you dealing with your formed professor.
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\[1\] I am amazed at how many times I have read this situation (I cannot speak to my adviser/professor/…) raised in questions on this site! Every time, I think: before or around the time of graduation, aren't you a bit young to make “enemies”? I can sure name many people I thought fools or who annoyed me during my studies and early career, but I always tried as hard as I could to get things done in a manner that no bridge was burnt…
> 20 votes
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Tags: research-process, ethics, research-undergraduate, data, research-assistantship
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thread-7218 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7218 | Life as a math professor | 2013-01-03T19:10:17.363 | # Question
Title: Life as a math professor
I am currently an undergraduate math major in my 3rd year (in America). I have taken lots of pure math courses, and anything I put in my resume tells potential employers I'm probably going to be an academic.
However, I still would like to know from current researchers what is it like to be a math professor. More specifically, I have already guessed at basically what they do (research approachable problems, teach zero or one or two classes at a time, go to conferences and seminars to get ideas, life is probably easier after tenure and more stressful before, pay is sufficient but probably less than industry). When I look up career-related questions on this site, I generally get questions dealing with the items mentioned above.
But what is the job satisfaction like (people probably get impressions from colleagues)? What sorts of things should one consider before committing to an academic career (as it's a long road)? What is the work environment like (what sorts of people with which one has to interact)? Which types of people generally like an academic environment?
# Answer
In my opinion, it really depends on the type of academic job that you want/are able to land. Professional life in (1) a top tier research university, is different than in (2) a medium tier Ph.D. granting department, is different than in (3) a Master's granting department with a more modest research agenda, is different than in (4) a predominantly teaching oriented, four year college.
The teaching load/research expectation continuum certainly varies across the four. On one end of the spectrum, say at (1)-(2), the teaching load will be light (as you describe) but with research expectations in terms of papers in top tier journals and landing external funding that is very high. However, even if the actual *course load* is less, you will spend a chunk of time working with graduate students in reading courses, research seminars, their thesis, etc. As you move from (2) to (3), the research expectations decrease as teaching loads increase. In (4), you very well may have no requirement to produce original mathematical research in the form of journal articles, but instead be expected to demonstrate "continued scholarly activity" which can take a variety of forms. On the other hand, you may be teaching 4 classes a semester.
Pay, generally---but not always and certainly not uniformly---decreases from (1) to (4). The autonomy of academic life is usually very attractive and serves to counterbalance a salary that is less than what people in some mathematical specialties could garner in industry.
In my opinion, the type of job one shoots for (and will eventually find success/satisfaction in) is a combination of one's passions (research vs. teaching vs both), innate talents (again, in both research and teaching), aspirations, competitiveness, willingness to deal with pressure, and geography, to name a few.
As a nod to pragmatism, one thing to keep in mind is that the *vast* majority of jobs are in (4) and (3). Jobs in (1) and (2) are highly competitive to land. I have many friends in all four categories who are happy and very few (none?) who are unhappy, although admittedly the latter category probably self-selected out of academia.
Finally, since you are a third year undergrad, you will get a MUCH better sense of how much you really like mathematics in graduate school. During that time all of this should crystallize greatly. You will also get to see the profession much more up close than you do as an undergrad. It is great that you are thinking of these things now; keep your eyes and ears open in the coming years.
This is all just my two cents. Certainly others may have very different opinions, experiences, and perspectives...
> 48 votes
# Answer
I agree with most of what JohnD wrote, but let me mention some additional points.
**Many people that leave academia do so less because they're not "smart enough" and more because it doesn't suit their personality**. Research often involves long stretches of work with no clear signs of progress. To quote Hans Bethe: "Two things are required. One is a brain. And second is a willingness to spend long times in thinking, with a definite possibility that you come out with nothing." You may enjoy reading Paul Seymour's article: "How the proof of the strong perfect graph theorem was found." (This is an account of the backstory of solving one of the biggest open problems in discrete math in the last 20 years.) Particularly early in your career, this can be scary. Pre-tenure you **have to balance a desire to hold yourself to a very high standard versus your desire to get tenure, which requires publishing papers**, even if they don't always meet your ideal.
To succeed in research, you need to learn how to chart your own agenda. No one tells you what topics to work on, who to work with, how long to spend on a question, where to submit your papers, or which speaking invitations to accept. Personally, I enjoy making all of these decisions. But **for some people, this lack of structure is very difficult** to handle. It's **essential that you develop a clear vision, perseverance, self-confidence, and the ability to solve odd miscellaneous problems that arise**.
> 30 votes
# Answer
I think it would be useful to read *Letters to a Young Mathematician* by Ian Stewart. It gives a great deal of insight into the mathematical community and the teaching profession in particular.
> 22 votes
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Tags: professorship, career-path
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thread-6188 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6188 | When writing a peer review is it better protocol to quote parts of the orginal work or paraphrase? | 2013-01-13T22:14:14.270 | # Question
Title: When writing a peer review is it better protocol to quote parts of the orginal work or paraphrase?
I am writing a peer review exercise and I am not sure when referring to specific parts of the paper whether it is better to quote or paraphrase them. What is the correct protocol on such this?
The review decides whether the paper gets published in a small magazine, whether that makes any difference to these things, I am not sure.
# Answer
It depends why you are quoting/paraphrasing.
Usually I structure my review in two parts. The first part summarizes the paper, the major contributions, and the high-level strengths and weaknesses of the submission. In this part I paraphrase. This shows the authors, and the editor, that I have read and understood the paper well enough to describe its ideas in my own words.
In the second part I get into the details, i.e. you forgot citation X, formula Y has an error, these sentences are confusing, etc. In this part I quote.
> 5 votes
# Answer
For a review it doesn't matter that much, but it's safer to quote, so that there's no chance of misinterpretation.
> 13 votes
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Tags: peer-review
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thread-6184 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6184 | How to reference other people's work | 2013-01-13T19:33:22.137 | # Question
Title: How to reference other people's work
There are a few reference citing formats around but I'd like to know what's the relevant information to put in a reference in general. If I want to cite a book, what should go in the reference other than the title which is obvious, same for other media? By formatting I mean content, punctuation, font, size, typography, etc...
My second question is: do references undergo any modifications when the medium in which they are referenced changes (paper, article, tutorial, etc...).
# Answer
> 1 votes
Every publication type has some specific metadata that should be given in any citation.
For a book, these would be:
* Authors or editors for an edited book
* Title
* Year of publication
* Information on the publisher (mostly name and address)
For a journal article, you should include:
* Authors
* Title of the article
* Title of the journal
* Volume of the journal
* Page numbers or article identification number for journals without page numbers.
Generally, looking at the required fields for a bibtex entry may give you an idea of what are the required pieces of information for any publication type.
Note that some journals don't generally include the title for journal citations, but I find that inconvenient for the reader. There may by additional information depending on the citation style, for example the issue number for citing journal articles, URLs, ISBN/ISSN. But these additional pieces of information, the formatting and even the ordering of the information in the reference generally depend on publication venue, as Suresh wrote in his answer. The key information however should be the same for each citations style.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Formatting and desired content depend mostly on the publication venue. Most journals have a citation style, and will often provide a style file for the bibliography manager that you use. So it depends on what venue you have in mind.
If you don't have a venue in mind, then you can use any standard format that's used in your area of study.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Check out the IEEE citation reference \[PDF\] for an example of how the IEEE (Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) does its citations for different media.
They definitely change what information appears, depending on the medium.
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Tags: citations
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thread-7236 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7236 | Is it a good practice to indicate the desired handling editor when submitting a paper? | 2013-01-15T20:19:50.353 | # Question
Title: Is it a good practice to indicate the desired handling editor when submitting a paper?
In submission forms of academic journals, I often see the possibility to give names of desired / non-desired reviewers for the submitted papers. But very rarely I see fields for choosing an editor who handles the submission from the journal's editorial board.
When the submission form does not offer the choice of a handling editor, should one indicate a desired editor in the cover letter? Do some researchers (e.g. specific fields) commonly do so?
# Answer
I would only do so if you have a very good reason to want a particular editor (or to avoid another one): while there can exist valid such reasons, it could also be a warning sign for editors. For example, if you ask that the editor not be the “usual” editor for your particular subfield, it may be regarded as you trying to avoid careful scrutiny. So, **if you are not asked about it, and you don't really care** (or trust them to make the right call) (which should be the majority of cases), **just don't do it**.
Regarding usage: most of the chemistry journals I know allow you to pick your handling editor directly from a list (although availability and workload management might lead to changes after submission), and some journals allow you to pick both preferred and non-preferred editors.
> 9 votes
# Answer
In general, I agree with F'x's answer—special requests for editors beyond the standard process should generally be avoided. The exception to this rule would be if you feel that your paper, may end up being improperly assigned if you do *not* specify an editor. The primary reason I can think of why this might be the case would be if your paper is multidisciplinary, and you would prefer it to be in a different section of the paper than the one it is "normally" affiliated with. Again, however, this would appear to be a rare enough circumstance that there's little to be gained, and more to be lost (for the reasons F'x has laid out).
> 6 votes
# Answer
In my experience, more often than not math journals ask you to submit to a specific editor or indicate which editor is closest. If you're asked then it's certainly best practice to do your homework and suggest the right editor. As the other people's answers indicate this seems to vary by field.
> 4 votes
# Answer
I actually have been in this situation, but it was mostly a "Conflict of Interest Issue", since my adviser was the appointed editor for the journal I was sending my paper to, and he was also an author on it. There had to be some email exchange, and it did took sometime. I agree that it is quite unorthodox. Mostly because it reflects on the editor as well.
Once, actually, I could not submit for some conference because he was the organizing chair of the session and the conference had strict rules against it.
> 0 votes
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Tags: publications, peer-review, paper-submission
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thread-7215 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7215 | Discipline clarification or field of study | 2013-01-14T22:26:00.433 | # Question
Title: Discipline clarification or field of study
The boundaries between academic fields have blurred to such an extend that many studies today are interdisciplinary in nature.
My PhD is in the social sciences. It was located in the Faculty of Arts at the university. It is a blend of sociology, organisational economics, public policy and a bit of psychology.
I am wondering if a term like "social economics" is appropriate to describe my study. (It is neither "social" nor "economic" in the 'pure' sense.)
My university will just award me with a PhD but I want my CV to be more descriptive.
How does the academic community view these types of descriptions?
# Answer
> 1 votes
I have been in similar experiences with some friends, and I'm willing to share:
Here in Japan the programs usually have the weirdest possible names, even in the University of Tokyo they have the "PhD on Creative Informatics" (What's that supposed to mean?), when is nothing but a good ol' PhD on Computer Science. Or the "PhD on Frontier Sciences".
I asked my adviser and he told me that those names are usually for the sake of attracting more students. But he also told me something I've been seeing in the Industry looking for a job (Academic/Industry): No one really cares that much about the title in your PhD, but rather on your specialization topic. Usually questions will be directed towards: "What did you do on your PhD" rather than "What's the name of your PhD"
I advise you to create a brand around this concept of "Social Economics", if you know different people doing that, try to be in contact with them (Twitter/Mail/Conference) so you'll get recognized in the field later and when you get interviewed you don't have to explain it all over again.
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Tags: research-process
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thread-7253 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7253 | Informing my supervisor of discrepancy in the results | 2013-01-16T08:35:06.687 | # Question
Title: Informing my supervisor of discrepancy in the results
I am working on my MPhys thesis, on a certain dataset. Part of this dataset has been analyzed by my current supervisor during his PhD, with published results. He asked me to expand on that work by completing the analysis on the whole dataset.
When I repeat the analysis on the part he had already worked on, I get different results. Unfortunately he has not published any detail about *how exactly* he tackled the problem, and instead relied on his memory. He gave me advice like: put this parameter to 50, use feature A, use feature B, disable feature C and so on.
I was able to reproduce his result to within 10%, but yesterday I was horrified when I discovered that this was done without using one of the features he recommended, let's say feature A. I have played with the data since and am totally unable to reproduce the result (it is off by a factor of 2 when using my supervisor specifications).
Using feature A totally makes sense, so I am not sure on what to do: I am afraid that should I tell him about this problem, he would delay my upcoming viva. This has a lot of unwanted consequences, for example would force me to pay extra money to the University
# Answer
**In my opinion, it is absolutely essential that you are completely open about this**.
If you cannot reproduce his results, at least one (possibly both) of the following are true:
1. You are doing something wrong. You are a student and he is your supervisor. It's his job to help you if you are doing something wrong. There is nothing to be ashamed of. It's better to be delayed with correct results, than on time with wrong results.
2. He was doing something wrong. Don't be afraid! You are not accusing him of anything unethical (\*). If his previous results or his understanding are genuinely in error, he should be very interested in knowing this, and grateful if you discover such an error.
(\*) If you do suspect unethical behaviour, the question is entirely different and better asked separately.
> 27 votes
# Answer
You should talk to your advisers, and in good faith expect that, since everything is from memory, there is a multiplication by 1/2 missing or some minor detail. Else, falsifying data is the 9th circle of hell.
> 7 votes
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Tags: ethics, thesis, advisor
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thread-7238 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7238 | How to cite a rebuilt graphic | 2013-01-15T22:42:47.777 | # Question
Title: How to cite a rebuilt graphic
I'm going to have my first presentation in some weeks. Therefore I read some papers and now I'm building the presentation with LaTeX.
In the papers, I found some very useful graphics. But for quality reasons I don't like to take Screenshots of the PDF's. So I rebuild the graphics to have them as vector graphics.
Can I cite them just like I took a screenshot, or is there a difference?
# Answer
> 6 votes
There are **two parts** to this question: **citation and copyright issues**.
* Regarding citation: cite the source of the data/graphics/charts/schemes.
* For the copyright part, if the presentation of the data is really identical, most journals liberally give permission for reüse (you have to ask for it), but require an acknowledgement of the form ***“Reprinted with permission from …”***. That should cover modifications in format (bitmap to vectorial, or bitmap downsampling, etc.), but I have already seen people actually note the difference by using ***“Redrawn with permission from …”***. Now, if the figure is based on the first one, but with substantial modifications, you can be happy with only citing the source, or possibly adding ***“Figure based on X with permission from …”***.
# Answer
> 2 votes
For presentations, when you are using graphics from other papers, you refer to the paper. The most important think is not to pretend that it's yours and to point to the source (perhaps your whole point of this slide is to refer to a specific paper).
You may add "from \[cite\]" but usually it's "obvious".
Also, if the graphical differences are not trivial (i.e. programs almost *always* modify graphics anyway), you can add something like "redrawn from data from \[cite\]".
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Tags: citations, graphics
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thread-6040 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6040 | Research publications in string theory/QFT by undergrads | 2013-01-04T18:20:24.030 | # Question
Title: Research publications in string theory/QFT by undergrads
> **Possible Duplicate:**
> Importance of Undergraduate Research
I am a physics undergrad interested in pursuing research in string theory/ Quantum field theory for my PhD. I am feeling pressurized by the notion, that you NEED to publish a paper to get admission to a good grad school. I was wondering how common is it for a undergrad to write a research paper in these areas? Do most of the students selected for PhD admission in these areas at top universities already have research publications? Also how much is an undergrad aspiring to pursue these areas know before entering grad school.
# Answer
I'm not in the same area as you are, so I couldn't speak for students in theoretical physics. However, generally speaking, a publication doesn't make or break a graduate application. They are definitely a plus, but I don't believe any department would simply reject a student because they have no publications.
If you wanted to find out if graduate students in your area had journal articles published during their undergraduate, you can browse the websites for the related departments of schools you are interested in. Almost all of them have lists of their graduate students, some of which may have uploaded their resumes. You can check the dates on their publications.
Although I said publications don't make or break an application, previous work including internships, projects, research with an advisor in a related area is definitely a must. You are required to show that your interests led you to pursue further work in your fields of interest. This doesn't even have to be the same field that you are applying to graduate school for. But you are required to demonstrate that you are willing to put in the time and effort to go above and beyond in what you like to do.
> 6 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, research-process, graduate-admissions, research-undergraduate
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thread-7258 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7258 | Job after post-doc - Whom to list as referee? | 2013-01-16T10:58:05.953 | # Question
Title: Job after post-doc - Whom to list as referee?
I'm currently a postdoc (in computer science) and planning on applying for faculty jobs soon. During my 3 postdoc years I've had a couple of papers with 2 "superstars" in my field, whereas my current boss is somewhat less renowned. Most job ads seem to require 3 referees.
Now my question is, who should I list as referee?
1. my PhD advisor + the 2 superstars
2. my PostDoc supervisor + the 2 superstars
3. A different combination?
Would option 1 or 2 be perceived as unusual?
# Answer
List all 4!
People will find it odd if you PhD advisor is not under the list of referees. The same holds for the host of your last position. If you are limited to 3 references then get rid of one of the "superstars", but typically job descriptions say "at least x referees".
> 26 votes
# Answer
I agree with @A.Schulz: List all four. You **must** get letters from both your thesis advisor and your postdoc advisor.
If you **have** to choose only one of your superstar coauthors to write a letter for you, consider the purpose of the letter: to help the committee make an informed judgement of your **long-term potential for high-quality, high-impact research and intellectual leadership**, or to put it more bluntly, **your likelihood of getting tenure.** The best recommendation letters draw *direct* comparisons between your research ability/quality/reputation and that of other people in your subfield at similar career stages. For that reason, the most useful letters are from people who have a broad perspective on the field, with *direct* experience with *many* other people at the same career stage as you. For example, someone who has served on lots of recent program committees can offer a good perspective on your *current* competitors. Someone who has worked in a strong department for many years can offer a good perspective on people who had records comparable to yours in the past, and how their careers progressed. **The research reputation of your letter-writers is secondary to their credibility in judging *your* potential.**
Also, in the interests of objectivity, each of your letter-writers should focus as much as possible on the work that they were *not* involved in. In particular, what you do *not* want is a letter from a superstar coauthor that talks about the fantastic paper that the two of you wrote together; such a letter will not be taken seriously, because *of course* they think their own paper is good. So ideally, you should only ask a superstar coauthor for a letter if they are willing to write a strong letter about your *other* work.
> 11 votes
# Answer
Yes, if you have worked for your current boss for at least a year, not listing him as a reference will look weird. Same for not listing your PhD advisor, unless you obtained your PhD a long time ago (say, you have held 3 different positions since then). Thus, I would advise to drop one of the superstars if you are limited to 3 names.
Another thing to consider: you have worked with superstars, but if your relationship with you has been less close than your boss/advisor, will they write a glorifying enough reference letter for you? Unless you have made quite an impression on them, or you had an close relationship, I don't think the odds are in your favour (though you have more information to answer this question than I have).
> 8 votes
# Answer
I am not sure to what extent a letter from a "superstar" is that useful. Often superstars are only stars within their fields and not know more broadly. If you have a publication with these superstars, that will speak for itself. If there is a pending publication, maybe the letter would help. If there is no publication coming, it is not clear why you would want them to write a letter.
Unless there are odd circumstances you need letters from your PhD and Post-Doc supervisors. These people are going to be in the best position to write a letter for you since they likely know you the best and have the most invested in your success. As for a 3rd letter writer, you need to think about what the perceived weaknesses are in your application and who can best comment on them. For example, if you have limited teaching experience, you might want a letter from someone who has seen you teach or at a minimum given talks. Maybe your research is weak, then a letter from a research superstar might be useful.
> 4 votes
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Tags: postdocs, job-search
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thread-7270 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7270 | Applying to graduate programs unrelated to undergraduate degree | 2013-01-16T17:54:30.780 | # Question
Title: Applying to graduate programs unrelated to undergraduate degree
Is it possible to enroll in a graduate program completely unrelated to one's undergraduate degree? Additionally, in my case, my undergraduate degree (computer science) is from outside the USA, and I'm applying to graduate programs (in English Literature) within the USA. Will this be a problem?
# Answer
> 5 votes
You should definitely apply. I have seen many cases where individuals with degrees in tangentially related fields not only are accepted to, but excel in, graduate programs in different fields.
Do note, though, that if you're applying to be a PhD, it's expected that you'll be doing research in the new field, and you'll have to demonstrate to the application committee that you're up to the task. You may have to be creative about this, given that your background is very different from what they're used to seeing; consider emphasizing any possible applications of computer science to literature (ngrams, maybe?) or anything else which may strengthen your application.
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Tags: application
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thread-7252 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7252 | What are the main differences between undergraduate, master's, and doctoral theses? | 2013-01-16T08:06:34.530 | # Question
Title: What are the main differences between undergraduate, master's, and doctoral theses?
When I did my undergraduate thesis, my adviser was expected big on students expecting them working really hard, so it ended up as a reduced master's thesis (most of the reviewers said that it was an overkill for a B.E).
So because of this, I did my master's thesis pretty much in the same way I did my bachelor's thesis; the PhD dissertation was a different story.
What are the principal differences between these three pieces of research?
# Answer
In a Bachelor or Master thesis, you have to show that you are able to apply the knowledge of your field to solve a typical problem in your field.
In a PhD thesis, you have to show that you are able to extend the knowledge of your field to solve new problems.
The distinction between a Bachelor and a Master thesis may be a bit subtle. Generally I think a Master thesis should show a significantly greater level of independent working. While for a Bachelor thesis your advisor could tell you which methods to use to solve a specific problem, for a Master thesis you could be expected to choose the methods on your own, and maybe adjust existing methods to better fit the problem at hand.
These are the principle differences I see, but of course its also depending on the specific student. A good Bachelor thesis can be better and include more independent work than a bad Master thesis.
> 33 votes
# Answer
I would see the differences as follows:
* Undergraduate thesis demonstrates the capacity to apply basic research skills in an area of interest to you. At this level, the focus is on gaining broad competencies (akin to an overview of what research is all about).
* Masters thesis demonstrates the capacity to apply advanced research skills (i.e. move beyond basic research skills) in an area of interest to you so that you are able to incorporate some critical insights in your study. At this level, the focus is on developing critical thinking in a subject area.
* PhD thesis demonstrates the capacity to apply specialised research skills (i.e. expert knowledge of a particular concept or method) in an area of interest to you so that you can make significant and original contribution to knowledge. At this level, the focus is on identifying a 'gap' in knowledge and addressing it, hence you advance knowledge in a field of study.
These are are arbitrary descriptions as there are overlaps (i.e. all levels require critical thinking); however, the three levels are distinct and require difference level of competencies.
> 18 votes
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Tags: phd, research-process, thesis, masters, bachelor
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thread-7284 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7284 | CS PhD Addmission: Contacting prof about unpublished work | 2013-01-17T07:20:32.913 | # Question
Title: CS PhD Addmission: Contacting prof about unpublished work
I have applied to PhD programs in US in the area of TCS for FALL 13. I have two unpublished work in the area of theory which was part of my master thesis. I have other published work but they are not in theory. Also it appears that these univ have started contacting their successful candidates.
Recently one of the unpublished work has been upload on arxiv however the other work is still not there. I can't put it on arxiv as I am not the sole author. Should I mail these two papers as pdf attachments to my potential list of advisors? (3-6 per univ) What should be done? I have mentioned the titles of my work and their contributions in my cv : e.g. this paper improves on paper X and gives 3 approx algorithm using technique Y. However why should anyone believe me if it is unpublished. Or how to gauge the amount of research done/involved in that work.
Any suggestions?
# Answer
> 4 votes
As I understand your question, you did already submit your application, but didn't include the unpublished papers nor any reference to them? Because that is what I would have suggested: if you have an unpublished paper with high relevance to the field of your application, you could include it with your application documents.
In your case, since you didn't include it in the application, I wouldn't send it unsolicited to potential advisors, especially not if you didn't send your application directly to these people. Rather, you could ask the contact where you submitted your application whether you could amend it with a recently finished paper relevant to the proposed research topic. You would have good arguments if the paper was only finished after the application deadline.
I wouldn't expect too much though. If decisions are already taken, it's unlikely that they will be reconsidered. Anyway, since you mentioned the papers in your CV, I don't think it would be a major factor for your application whether they are included or not.
Note that these suggestions would only apply to unpublished work which is already submitted for consideration in a journal of conference. If it is not yet submitted, I wouldn't send it with the application nor to potential advisors.
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, email, computer-science
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thread-7273 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7273 | Publishing Same Research Paper on a National Conference as well as International IEEE conference | 2013-01-16T19:18:34.683 | # Question
Title: Publishing Same Research Paper on a National Conference as well as International IEEE conference
I submitted my final year research paper for a national level conference as well as international level IEEE conference. I was notified that my research paper has been accepted for the national level conference before 2 weeks ago. And I submitted camera ready papers, registered and ready to present the paper next week on the national level conference.
But yesterday I received a mail from IEEE conference by mentioning my paper is accepted for the conference and asked for camera ready papers based on their template.
Is this situation normal? Can I publish my paper on national level conference as well as international level IEEE conference?
Please note that there will be proceedings for both conferences.
# Answer
> 14 votes
You cannot publish the same paper at these two conference. For an IEEE conference publication, you have to transfer copyright on the paper to the IEEE, which precludes publication in another proceedings.
You shouldn't have submitted the same paper to two places simultaneously. It's clearly against ethical standards in academics. It is not your fault, if there wasn't a clear indication on the conference submission site, and your advisor hasn't intervened (he should have). Still you have to deal with the consequences now.
And the consequences are that you have to withdraw your paper from one of these conferences. If you have the choice, it would probably be better to withdraw from the national conference. Call yourself lucky if you don't get into deeper trouble from this.
# Answer
> 1 votes
In Japan, they have a loophole for this, and is based on what Silvado mentioned on preclusion. They basically say in the website that the conference is not indexed, and they only give handouts and digital proceedings with no ISBN number.
The document the IEEE holds the copyrights of is the document you have submitted after doing all of the modifications the reviewers suggested, that is the reason some authors get to publish their papers in their own webpages, as long as it is not the same document.
I would advice against doing any modifications to any of the papers, since it has already been accepted and it is not the papers the reviewers choose, it would be unethical and you can get in more trouble.
I do agree that you should withdraw one of the papers.
Edit: I forgot that the IEEE updated its copyright policies, you actually cannot do that anymore
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Tags: publications, conference, paper-submission, ieee
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thread-7269 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7269 | Is a good GRE score evidence of merit? | 2013-01-16T17:47:51.603 | # Question
Title: Is a good GRE score evidence of merit?
If a student acquires a good score in GRE, does it guarantees that he has a good merit to earn a good grade in a taught graduate program?
# Answer
> 7 votes
**Short answer:** No, not at all.
**Long answer:**
> What I understood from the official GRE manual:
GRE, just like any other multiple choice exam, requires fairly specific preparation. You need to understand how to go about analyzing their standardized types of problems, methods of elimination of the answer choices, and even sometimes think like the person who's writing the question. Getting a good score means that you've acquired these skills and can use them rather efficiently in the 3 hours you took the exam. This is what I understood by reading their official manual.
> My personal opinion:
Doing well on GRE does probably also mean that you can, in fact, learn how to do other things, given that they are presented to you in "standard packaging". But so does an undergraduate degree where you get to take classes and prove by taking exams that you can efficiently use what you learned in those classes.
However, none of these (and no other single thing) actually "guarantees" that you will do well in graduate school, regardless of what program you go into. It's just a metric that you should be able to do well, if you are passionate enough to do well in graduate school.
# Answer
> 3 votes
My answer would be depending on which GRE are you referring to?
If it is a specialized GRE, like the one of Computer Science, I do agree that it shows some merit, since it test basic knowledge the students should have in order to start doing useful things as soon as they start their PhD.
If you are talking about the general GRE, I think it does not reflect well in some abilities like problem solving and scientific comprehension, since its math part evaluates how fast can you make calculations, not how deep is your knowledge of basic math.
Again, there are a plethora of factors that will affect whether you get in or not in a Grad Course, as far as I remember GPA also affects in some extent, since top universities want people that were at least in the top 1%
# Answer
> 3 votes
The problem I see with the GREs is that the scoring range is highly compressed. The difference between scoring in the bottom quartile and the top quartile tells you a fair amount. The difference between the 90th percentile and the 99th percentile, where the vast majority of graduate students score, tells you very little. It is the difference of a couple of questions.
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Tags: degree
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thread-7307 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7307 | How to collect data for dissertation if the work wasn't published | 2013-01-17T19:03:21.247 | # Question
Title: How to collect data for dissertation if the work wasn't published
I'm starting my dissertation in which I'm creating a mobile application for public use.
My problem is I need evidences to support my hypothesis and I was informed that I will only be allowed to collect data from users inside the company for which I'm doing the app, since the application won't be released in time of my deadline.
I think this might invalidate my data since these are users who are aware of the application development.
I thought I could do some quizzes and try to have "outside" people to fill them but I'm not sure if this enough to support my hypothesis since these people didn't had any contact with my application.
So my question is if using data from quizzes about a possible solution (like mine) is enough to support my dissertation since I can't let people try my app by themselves.
# Answer
Very hard to answer without knowing the details of your work, the app in question, more background, and **what other contributions you can make part of your dissertation**. But… even if a formal release isn't possible by the deadline, couldn't you **arrange for testing on outside people but on your devices** (instead of theirs)? That way, you can load the app on a series of say, 10 devices, then have people test it (sort of a focus group)…
> 1 votes
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Tags: research-process, thesis
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thread-7278 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7278 | Does my work in industry carry any weight in academia? | 2013-01-16T23:00:42.543 | # Question
Title: Does my work in industry carry any weight in academia?
I have no academic (peer-reviewed) publications to my credit but close to 6 years of industry-based experience. I have just completed a PhD in sociology.
Does my work in industry carry any weight in academia?
My work in industry included activities such as developing codes and operational manuals in a particular field to be used by operators in that field (e.g., a health and safety manual).
# Answer
Weight in academia is carried mostly by peer-reviewed research publications, published in academically reputable venues such as research journals, conferences, books with reputable publishers, reputable preprint servers, ... If you get these publications from industry research, you get academic weight. A famous example for prominent research in electrical engineering done in industry are the Bell laboratories.
Codes and operational manuals are not academic publications, and typically carry little weight. In order to get that, you have to publish academic papers about the codes and manuals, or publish papers about research results obtained with them.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Does industry research carry any weight in academia? It varies. It varies by subject, by institution, by the individuals doing the hiring.
Are there subjects, places, people where industry research can get you a post even with no journal papers? Yes. Are such appointments common? Not anywhere I know of.
A good employer (those are the ones you want, right?) will be able to look past the traditional indicators of a good researcher (PhD, journal papers, career in academia), and look at other, non-traditional ones. But that takes time and effort, and hiring can be a drain on those as it is, so you'd need to give a potential employer some really good reasons up front why they should put the effort in to establishing your abilities.
A personal recommendation from a senior academic, or from a retired senior academic - one who's already trusted and respected by the employer you're targetting - is the sort of thing that can help open doors for you.
> 6 votes
# Answer
The problem here is with your use of the phrase "industry research". Writing codes and manuals isn't actually research.
Research is research: if it is good research, it counts and definitely carries weight in academia. Research is evaluated by its merit (e.g., intellectual depth, correctness, importance) and its impact (how has it changed practice? how has it changed the course of research done by other researchers?). The names or affiliations of who did the research is irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether the work was done in a university or in a company. It doesn't matter whether the affiliation on the title is a university or a company. What matters is the *content* of the paper.
If it's good research, it carries weight with academia. It also carries weight with industry research labs.
However, writing health and safety manuals is not research. You shouldn't call it "industry research". You should call it "writing health and safety manuals". And if it's not research, it doesn't count towards your research record and doesn't carry weight.
A good indicator of research is that it is (a) novel, and (b) published in a highly regarded, (c) peer-reviewed forum.
(The question gets more interesting if we are talking about people who do novel, scientific research that could have been published in a peer-reviewed forum, but isn't, because the company wants to keep the results secret. This kind of research is harder for academics to evaluate, and thus might not carry as much weight with academia, because it isn't published. In that case, it's not that the research was performed in industry so much as that the research was never published. In any case, it sounds like that's relevant to you, based upon what you've told us here. Writing health and safety manuals is most likely not something that could have been published in a peer-reviewed conference or journal.)
> 3 votes
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Tags: career-path, postdocs, industry
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thread-7316 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7316 | Is it advisable to mention the dollar amount for grants on a CV? | 2013-01-18T01:39:32.600 | # Question
Title: Is it advisable to mention the dollar amount for grants on a CV?
I'm a soon-to-be post-doc and am currently sending my resumes to people and applying to places. 4 years ago, I applied for a grant and got funding for 3 years for *everything* — meaning my tuition, pay, research, travel expenses, university overhead and then some more, all of which totals to a large $ amount.
My question is: Is it advisable to put the actual $ amount on the CV (to show I'm capable of getting and handling funds) or would that seem like showing off? I've seen some people (usually folks with more experience) list it, but they're also ones that have won several grants and fundings, so there's stuff to list. In my case, this is the only thing so I'm afraid of it standing out and attracting unwanted attention.
# Answer
> 20 votes
If you're applying for academic jobs in the US, your ability to acquire funding is one component of your viability as an academic. So definitely add in the information about the amount of money. It will stand out (in a good way)
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Tags: postdocs, cv, funding
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thread-5170 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5170 | What systems are most effective for monitoring student attendance? | 2012-11-06T14:37:27.503 | # Question
Title: What systems are most effective for monitoring student attendance?
I work in the Computing and Mathematics School at my university (UK). This year the School has adopted a fairly aggressive policy regarding student attendance. If a student has a poor – or zero – attendance rate, the student is contacted and a dialogue opened. This has many benefits including identifying those students who have possible undiscovered or undeclared learning difficulties.
If a student’s attendance rate remains poor following a first intervention, a process of issuing formal warnings commences, culminating with the withdrawal of the student if the student does not start to engage with their course.
Attendance is presently monitored at all laboratory and tutorial sessions. Attendance is not presently monitored for lectures.
Our current system comprises a series of shared Google spreadsheets which contains the details of all students for all classes. Staff members enter attendance manually into the spreadsheet for their class.
The difficulty with this system is that there is presently no automatic link between the existing official university student record database and the attendance register spreadsheets. This means if students change groups, enrol late, withdraw, change course or units, all this information must be dealt with in a robust manner. Currently, such changes are implemented manually. This means errors are likely to be introduced into the attendance register.
I notice that there are a number of commercial attendance monitoring solutions available which are based on hardware, e.g. Telepen. I would be interested in anyone’s experience with such systems, however I don’t forsee these to be ultimately workable in my case owing to the large cost.
I am interested in software solutions. If your institution monitors student attendance, do you use any specialist software? If so, what do you use?
Another option – a preferable one – is to work within the existing university data systems. All the necessary information regarding student details and activities is available. The problem arises when we try to ensure our ad hoc attendance register contains up to date student information. Ideally we’d use our Virtual Learning Environment to enter attendance data. Our VLE is Moodle. Are there any Moodle users out there who use Moodle to record attendance?
# Answer
Following eykanal's comment to the question, I have researched the possibilities via Moodle. For the record I have found that Moodle has an attendance module. I haven't learnt yet whether this module has the complete functionality that we require, but it's a start.
Moodle attendance module
> 8 votes
# Answer
My institution does not monitor student attendance. That is my job. However, we have adopted Blackboard as our Course-Management System of choice across campus, and the student roster in Blackboard is updated every day by the Registrar's Office. We additionally have access to up-to-date course rosters through our implementation of the PeopleSoft productivity software. Presumably, the Registrar's office at your institution keeps up-to-date rosters and should be willing to share them with instructors. Otherwise, what's the point of having them?
There are two methods I use to enforce / verify attendance in a large lecture course, and both require comparison of my data with the roster in Blackboard or PeopleSoft. I could write a short program to sort through both files for matches, but I would rather do it manually to help me remember students' names.
1. Quizzes - I give short (and simple) quizzes randomly, but at least once a week. **Fully half** of the points on the quizzes are for showing up and putting your name on the quiz. For this reason, quizzes cannot be made up for **any** reason, but I will drop three or four of the lowest quiz grades. Since the quizzes aren't hard and the quiz average counts for at least 10% of their final grade, students want to be there for the quiz. I like this method because it allows me to do random point assessments of different topics and to start associating student names with performance. The grading is not unbearable, since i write quizzes that are **simple** enough to be graded at a rate of 10 seconds per student.
2. Clickers - If you use clickers, make each student buy their own clicker (About $40 US these days). At the beginning of class, they have to register their clicker with your software, which records the clicker's ID number. If you have a list matching clicker IDs to student names, then you take attendance every day automatically. It is easy to cheat this system, since a student can also bring their friend's clicker and sign-in for their friend also.
If you want to **ensure** attendance, I would use JeffE's approach:
> Isn't the most effective way to ensure attendance is to make the lectures compelling and useful?
> 10 votes
# Answer
I work at a university which is very low tech (no software, or anything else, for teachers - teachers want it, they bring it). Student lists are passed around on paper. So, I wrote my own (simplistic) app which I use at the start of class calling out names (did I mention it's a bit low-tech?). I can easily print out a report that looks like what the admins need to do their paper-oriented job (and I can get a soft copy from them to import so I don't have to type everything). No clickers, no website, just my laptop.
We, by the way, have a policy that any student missing more than 20% of the lectures automatically fails the course but they do get a chance to enter a 'redo' class...which has the same attendance rules.
One benefit is that I can see (while taking attendance, every session) who is 'at risk' and I can deal with that as I see fit.
Integration is handled manually - far from ideal - but if the school ever wants to change things, it's easy to change what I wrote.
> 6 votes
# Answer
If the goal is to identify individuals with poor attendance, paper and pencil is the way to go. Just have students sign in on the way in. After a few sessions hold the stack up to the light and find the empty boxes. Those are your potential low attenders. Email them and ask if any have switched sections. Those who haven't are your actual low attenders. It seems much easier than dealing with an on line system especially if the class size is small.
> 3 votes
# Answer
I have a simple solution. Depending on class size, set up one/two laptops on the teacher desk, have every student sign-into a simple web interface with their school login and password, this will automatically feed either a spreadsheet or blackboard. With this system it is unlikely that a student will sign-in an absent student. If a student forgets to sign in its his/her fault. You can completely lock the computer so the only thing it can be done is run this login screen. This will also force freshman to use their college id login name. You can also add a beep when a login is done, preventing someone from doing more than once. Late students have to sign in after class, this will put them on the spot and their login time recorded.
> 3 votes
# Answer
Sounds like something pretty simple. Have you considered just using something like Excel to keep track of this information?
I wrote my own attendance system but it is for tracking everyone, not just the late/absent students.
> 2 votes
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Tags: attendance
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thread-7320 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7320 | Wrong article submission | 2013-01-18T06:01:54.833 | # Question
Title: Wrong article submission
I submitted an article in a Reputed journal in mathematics. It is in review process. After 4 months, i realized that there are some trivial mistakes... Article is still under review with journal. What should I do?
1. If I have a corrected version, should I send that one?
2. Or should I share this situation with Editor?
I am feeling very bad because of me editor and reviewer are (will be) wasting their time with wrong article...
# Answer
You should do both. Namely, send an email to the editor, explain the error and how you fixed it, and attach a revised version, and ask them how they would like to proceed. They might
* Send the revised version to the referees
* formally "reject" the incorrect version and consider the new version a resubmission
* reject the incorrect version and the corrected version.
In any event, you must contact them.
> 32 votes
# Answer
I think it depends to some extent on the magnitude of the error, and the complexity of the correction.
If you have found a serious error in one of the results, and the correction involves major changes to the proof, or requires a significantly stronger hypothesis or weaker conclusion, then I agree with the other answers that you should contact the editor and ask that the corrected version be sent to the referee (include a list of the changes you made). Otherwise the referee may waste a lot of time sorting it out, or just reject the paper.
If you have found some typographical errors, or a stray factor of 2 in a constant, or omitted an obvious hypothesis in a lemma, then I would not bother the editor and referee with it. Minor errors like this should not affect the acceptance of the paper; the referee should have no trouble realizing what you meant (or may overlook it completely). If the paper is accepted, you can include the correction with any other revisions requested by the referee (as before, include a list of all changes). If the paper is rejected, it wouldn't be because of these errors, and you can simply fix them before submitting to a new journal.
You'll have to decide where your corrections fall between these two.
> 16 votes
# Answer
Do not worry about this situation. It happens to best of us. The best strategy is to write a note explaining the mistakes and the modifications you have made to correct them. Then send the note and the revised version to the editor.
Please note that it is very important to list all the modifications of the revised version.
> 6 votes
# Answer
First of all, when you send a Journal to review, is not a trivial matter, and you must be sure all the math is correct, that is the reason you are supposed to have it checked by colleagues and people who can give you thoughtful insight, it would come as unprofessional to an editor if suddenly an author says: "sorry I made a mistake, lets do it all over again"
In the best case scenario, the mistakes will be so trivial that the reviewers will realize it and accept it given that you correct the mistakes.
In the worst case scenario, is because of these mistakes that the journal would get rejected.
You can always try and resubmit, put I would try a different journal.
> 0 votes
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Tags: paper-submission
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thread-7300 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7300 | Familiarizing oneself with state-of-the-art at the beginning of a PhD | 2013-01-17T13:57:59.083 | # Question
Title: Familiarizing oneself with state-of-the-art at the beginning of a PhD
From my research internship experiences (my previous University didn't really focus on research much) and what my current advisers told me, a *general flow* of a PhD is like any other long(er)-time project:
* familiarize oneself with state-of-the-art on the subject
* generate your own ideas (by trial-and-error) and integrate with current approaches
(with this phase becoming a lot fuzzier the more advanced your "project" is)
* write it up for the world to know.
As a fresh PhD student, I'm currently in the middle of familiarizing myself with the state of the art, following the advice of many older students (*"be a brave soldier in the beginning and do and read everything your advisers throw/send/e-mail your way"*). And I do understand the importance of it (in fact, more often than not, I love it). But, it does give one an impression of self-uselessness sometimes (I have a talk with myself every few weeks or so to remind myself of my motivation and resolve the "uselessness" issue).
So, my question is: **Typically, how much time would a fresh PhD student spend on going through state-of-the-art at the beginning of his/her PhD?**
And some sub-questions:
* is it expected/typical to produce some kind of output (articles?) *during* this period?
* what kind of output is expected at the end of this period?
* what would be some indicators that this period is ending which a student himself can notice
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In the end, just to provide some context: I'm doing a PhD in Europe, and we have a limit of 3 years for a PhD (sometimes extended for up to 6 months) and I'm studying Computer Science.
# Answer
> 6 votes
Your question likely indicates that you need to work on your communication with your advisor. Hasn't he told you what is expect and how you are progressing?
I will try and keep this answer focused on the question, but I apologize if it strays.
Some indicators that your are becoming familiar with the field:
* When you talk to your supervisor you are familiar with some of the references mention and names start to mean something to you. Better familiarity is when this holds when you talk to colleagues and go to talks and seminars
* When you have read/glanced at most of the references in articles that you read. Better is when the most exciting thing about reading new literature is finding a reference to something you didn't know about
As far as output, ideally during the course of your dissertation you should become familiar enough with the relevant literature to write a literature review article. You should feel like you could write a review at the end of the familiarization stage. Actually writing a full review is probably a bit premature, since you want the review to tie in with your eventual dissertation. I would suggest that a useful output is a dissertation proposal with a strong literature review based motivation. This is not a publishable output, but it is tangible.
# Answer
> 10 votes
I don't think there is a clear transition between “familiarizing oneself with the subject” and “being an expert in this topic, and generate new ideas and approaches”. **The transition is gradual, and it's called “the PhD”**.
However, there are ways to quantify this evolution. For example, ask yourself: in a discussion with your advisor and a few other experts on a topic related to your PhD, how able are you to make useful comments and suggestions? How often do you come to your advisor saying “I have tried to do X because I read about it and I think it can apply to my issue”?
Regarding the written “output” of the beginning of a PhD, it pretty much depends on you and your advisor. Mostly, the output is knowledge in your mind, but it can also be useful to make notes (both for yourself and your advisor) on each subtopic you discover. For myself, as an advisor, I ask students to contribute bibliographic notes (written or orally) every now and then, for me and other students of the group who work on related topics.
# Answer
> 8 votes
I'm hesitant to make broad generalizations across disciplines, but I've seen this pattern a few times in a number of fields, so for what it's worth:
* You can expend to spend the better part of a year (or more) familiarizing yourself with the field itself.
* You can expect to spend *another* better part of a year (or more) familiarizing yourself with the state-of-the-art in that field.
* You can expect to spend the rest of your life staying up to date on what's being done.
* While you're doing all this, you will also be implementing some of the research you're reading about, doing coursework, teaching, grading, writing grants, and doing actual research. This will take time away from simply reading up on stuff.
# Answer
> 5 votes
Initially, you should really just seek to understand. Thousands (or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands) of brilliant people have been working on problems for many years. If you're going to contribute, hadn't you better understand what some of them did, and why? So read, think, ask questions. Your initial goal is not to produce anything except familiarity with the core concepts and techniques. Or, to put it another way, you should be producing ideas and questions, hopefully to talk about with another lab member or your mentor. If you skip this phase, you'll either be slavishly following your mentor's directions without understanding why; duplicating work that's already well-established, probably (though not necessarily!) in an inferior way; or working on something that is fun for you perhaps, but not particularly relevant for anything. (Many Ph.D. students, in my experience, do end up falling afoul of one or more of these.)
Now, you ought not expect at the end of this period that you'll have as keen a grasp of the field and directions as your mentor; the point is to start getting the perspective you need to understand why, for instance, your mentor suggests using a bayesian analysis of job-completion times to help with load balancing.
At this point--unless your mentor is highly concerned about this--I wouldn't fret too much about producing papers. Get yourself in a position where you can produce good papers. Once you're there, then work out the next part of the plan (you'll very likely find that it depends heavily on what you're planning to do, which you won't know until you understand the literature and appropriate techniques).
# Answer
> 2 votes
My advice: don't read everything otherwise you will never finish! Finishing your PhD should be your goal.
Become familiar with the dominant themes in your field and continually think how your PhD fits in the scheme of knowledge.
Focus on what is relevant to your research.
# Answer
> 1 votes
The problem with the general outline you describe is that it's top down, and doesn't reflect the bottom up nature of doing research. In other words, while it's useful to familiar with the state of the art, you shouldn't necessarily start by assimilating the state of the art in the field. That's too overwhelming !
The best approach early on is to start small, and work on something concrete. Doing a Ph.D is really like doing an apprenticeship to hone the craft of doing research. Starting with assimilating the state of the art is akin to reading lots of books on music theory before touching a piano.
So start with a small problem. Try different approaches. Talk to lots of people. Read papers that might have ideas to help you with the problem. Talk to lots of people again. Try more ideas. Solve a piece of the problem. Discover it's been solved before ! Realize that you've been able to recreate someone else's original research. Realize that **this is a good thing**.
There will come a time when you suddenly realize that you're familiar with most of the state of the art. And that you've been adding to it.
And then it's time to graduate :).
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Tags: phd, research-process
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thread-7326 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7326 | What's the correct order of writing for a MSc. and a Dipl.-Ing. degree? (e.g. on a business card) | 2013-01-18T13:38:36.433 | # Question
Title: What's the correct order of writing for a MSc. and a Dipl.-Ing. degree? (e.g. on a business card)
I finished my (german) Dipl.-Ing. (FH) degree after 4 1/2 years of studying. After that I started to work and studied parallel via a correspondence course. I'll now shortly (hopefully ;-) ) have the additional title of a MSc. That took me 2 1/2 years but only in part time, so the amount of time I invested was much less, than that for my Diploma.
So in order to reflect the increase in qualification I'd put the degrees like that:
> **Dipl.-Ing. (FH), MSc.** Firstname Lastname
But as the Master is sometimes regarded as a higher form of qualification than the Diploma, it might be correct like this:
> **MSc., Dipl.-Ing. (FH)** Firstname Lastname
**What's the correct order?**
---
edit:
Like it was pointed out the MSc. is written after the name. So the choice is between:
> **Dipl.-Ing. (FH)** Firstname Lastname, **MSc.**
>
> **Dipl.-Ing. (FH)** Firstname Lastname
>
> Firstname Lastname, **MSc.**
# Answer
> 12 votes
You should notice that in Germany academic titles such as *Dr., Dipl.Ing, Mag* are writen in front of the name, whereas titles such as *M.Sc., B.Sc., M.A., etc.*, a written behind the name (see here). So if it all I would say the correct order is
> **Dipl.Ing (FH)** Firstname Lastname, **M. Sc.**
However, I would just ignore the *Dipl.Ing (FH)*.
# Answer
> 5 votes
It seems there are not strict rules for this (speaking about Germany). There are few ways to deal with this:
* do not use titles at all except for documents like your CV. Why to list them anyway, isn't it just vanity issue at play here?
* if you want to use titles still (well, it's Germany, right?) list only the highest title you achieved as if it superseded all the lower-grade ones. In the case you have several on the same level, choose one. Should be good enough to get all the respect you are after (since you decided to use titles)
* if you should list the titles of different academic levels, then list them in the order of importance/level: \[honorary titles\] \[prof equivalents\] \[dr. equivalents\] \[MSc. equivalents\] \[BSc. equivalents\] \[whatever else\] Name \[whatever comes after the name\]
+ well, now it comes to my mind, that how the ordering "after the name" should look like is even more confusing.
* if you live in Austria, list everything you want and need in any arbitrary order (half-joke, of course)
For references check also here, or here, or here (part Anrede).
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Tags: masters, degree, titles
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thread-7335 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7335 | What licensing concerns are there for using content from Stack Exchange in an academic paper? | 2013-01-18T17:34:01.340 | # Question
Title: What licensing concerns are there for using content from Stack Exchange in an academic paper?
All content under Stack Exchange is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Does this mean that any academic paper that uses content from Stack Exchange must also be licensed under said Creative Commons?
If not, what is the actual rule on this part?
# Answer
**Making a reference** to CC Attribution-ShareAlike content **is always okay**. In fact, referring to *any* work is okay, regardless of the copyright status. Only content is copyrighted, not bibliographic elements (including author names and title). For example, the U.S. Copyright Office says:
> Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases.
---
Quoting is a more complex matter. It depends on copyright laws, and thus your country. In most cases, if the material is quoted raw and the quote is kept short, most academic use should fall under the doctrine of **fair use**. By contrast, read also the article on **derivative work** to get an idea of these two extreme cases.
This is mostly a theoretical question, however: the scope of fair use is grey are in US Copyright Law, and provided you do it for academic purposes and in a good faith, you won't get into trouble.
Finally: **if you really want to quote in a bulletproof way**, either (a) consult with a lawyer or (b) **ask the copyright holder for a waiver to relicense his content to you.**
> 9 votes
# Answer
For quotations that are covered by "fair use" of the copyrighted work, you don't need to get a license. Even if you already have a license to use the work (such as a CC license), you don't need to stick to the terms of the license for this type of usage.
So, even if your paper may be a derivative work, you don't have to apply the terms of the license, and you wouldn't have to put your work under a CC license. As soon as your quotations go beyond fair use, you would in fact have to put your work under the required license.
> 4 votes
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Tags: copyright, creative-commons
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thread-7297 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7297 | Is it okay to use students as a reference when applying for a teaching position? | 2013-01-17T13:05:48.397 | # Question
Title: Is it okay to use students as a reference when applying for a teaching position?
On one hand, this seems like the obvious thing to do: no one is going to be able to better testify to your teaching ability than a previous student. On the other hand, I've never heard of anybody ever doing this, and for some reason, it seems a bit silly.
So what does the academic community large think about this? Is it okay to list previous students as references when applying for a teaching position in academia?
# Answer
I don't see why you couldn't do this, as long as you made it clear what you were doing, but I think it would probably be a mistake unless it is in addition to the usual documentation (teaching evaluations, teaching letter from a faculty member).
At the very least, you would have to choose an unusually thoughtful and articulate student, someone who could discuss what's distinctive and valuable about your teaching. Even if you did that, there would be some concern that the student is not someone with a letter writing reputation they have an incentive to protect, or that you may have chosen a student because you couldn't find faculty willing to vouch for your teaching. However, I think there's a more fundamental difficulty.
Any half-decent teacher can find at least one student every few years who really thinks highly of their teaching. Maybe it's because the teaching style is a perfect match for the student; maybe it's because the student deeply loves the class material and is somewhat awestruck by the professor. However, there's always someone, so getting a great recommendation from a student or two tells little about how the other students felt.
If you have broader evidence too, such as strong teaching evaluations from your students overall and a positive letter from a faculty member, then this would not be a difficulty. (However, if you have these things then the student letter would probably not be needed.)
> 11 votes
# Answer
I wouldn't recommend doing it, for a simple reason: you want your reference letters to be from indubitable experts, who can vouch for the quality of your work. However, **students are not experts in pedagogy**. True, they can tell the difference between a teacher who care and one who doesn't, someöne who invests time and those who don't, but that's it. A reference from a student would most likely comment on the
Yet, it's hard to find a good reference that speaks for the quality of your teaching. You could consider:
* asking the head of a specific program in which you have developed course material (or department dean)
* asking a colleague with whom you have taught a lot
* not a reference letter, but close: quoting from a professional evaluation of your teaching (if such exist in your educational system), done by an expert (professor in pedagogy)
In research, you would definitely consider having a reference from your supervisor. So, do the same for the teaching part!
> 6 votes
# Answer
Many academic jobs (and certainly ones with a focus on teaching) require a teaching portfolio and statement to be submitted with application materials. It is definitely appropriate to include any correspondence from students with this information. The teaching portfolio will also include student evaluations and any other material and thoughts relevant to experiences in the classroom.
I do not think it would generally be a good idea to use a student as an actual reference, however.
> 5 votes
# Answer
The look of horror by my PhD advisor said it all when I suggested I could be a referee for him.
This was in a casual conversation as he was applying to get to the next level and we were talking about our career pathways.
I hold a senior executive position in the industry so this was not far fetched in my mind.
Tell me about professional regrets!
> 3 votes
# Answer
One of the best references written for me was produced by an A+ student of mine. It featured a great level of detail about my teaching style, and clear explanations as to why he thought I was a good teacher. (This guy went on to work on a Ph.D. in the top US school in his field, computer science; no wonder his analytic skills were top-notch.) He wrote this letter half a year or so after having completed my class, and he mentioned some off-class interactions we've had afterwards when I helped him solve his CS problem, so it was clear that we had an effective work relation. Faculty who came to sit in my class to oblige with the required "peer review of StasK's teaching" would write some crap in their evaluation letters, frankly, as their reviews would be way more superficial.
When I was applying for the faculty positions, I would ask the search chairs whether they wanted the teaching letter from my former student, from my mentor on the tenure track, or from the director of a teaching training program I went to in my University (yes, I did have all three handy, and I cared enough about teaching to enroll in such a program). About three quarters said they wanted the student letter.
> 3 votes
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Tags: application, teaching
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thread-7338 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7338 | Funding for Belgian student to do a PhD in UK? | 2013-01-18T18:48:54.367 | # Question
Title: Funding for Belgian student to do a PhD in UK?
I am currently applying for PhD fundings in UK, but as the competition is rude, I am not sure to be accepted, even if I have very good grades and qualifications.
So, I want to look at other PhD fundings opportunities, that may be less obvious. For instance, I know that the European Commission proposed some PhD fundings (Marie Curie scheme or something like that), but I think it is no longer active.
If you could give me some advice, I would greatly appreciate.
Field of study : Theoretical Physics Country of origin : Belgium, EU.
I'm not wealthy enough to fund myself for my PhD, even for one year.
# Answer
The top universities often have a lot of reasonably obscure funding options.
For example with the University of Cambridge - if you go through the steps at this website they list *all* their funding options, you'll see for Physics there are fully-funded scholarships such as these that *might* be of interest to you:
* Leslie Wilson Research Scholarship (£17,427 per year)
* Winton Scholarship(s) in the Physics of Sustainability
* Thalmann Bequest (covers EU fees only)
* Schiff Fund (upto £20,000 per year)
* Gulbenkian Studentship (specifically for non-UK nationals)
* Gates Cambridge Scholarships
The equivalent website for the University of Oxford is here
and it reckons
> 35 Scholarships were found for a new student from Belgium studying Theoretical Physics (DPhil)
so I'm not going to list them all here!!!
Best of luck!
> 7 votes
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Tags: phd, funding, united-kingdom
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thread-7352 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7352 | should one add to the CV papers that appeared in conferences with no proceedings? | 2013-01-20T05:36:08.953 | # Question
Title: should one add to the CV papers that appeared in conferences with no proceedings?
Should I put on my CV papers (or "talks") that appeared in (peer-reviewed!) conferences that have no proceedings? Should I avoid duplicates if the same paper also appears in another conference (with proceedings)?
Should I make it clear that the conference has no proceedings, or just list it in the "Conferences" section? If it changes anything, my field is Computer Science.
**EDIT**: some conferences are peer-reviewed but have no proceedings. Call it workshops if you wish. You submit a paper, and a committee selects 30%-40 of the papers - each submission gets a slot in presenting the results during the conference/workshop, however no formal proceedings is issued.
(I'm surprised no one heard of such conferences; maybe I'm using the wrong terms; sorry for that)
# Answer
I would not put such a "paper" in the publications section. After all, there is no publication, apart from an abstract.
In my field, conferences usually *do not* have proceedings, and if they do, proceedings papers have very little value. Also, conference abstracts are not peer-reviewed. I've only heard of a single rejected conference abstract, and this was for political reasons.
If you have a dedicated *conferences* section, then I would put the "paper" there, as to not suggest that there is a publication.
> 8 votes
# Answer
I assume that you're in computer science, since otherwise you probably shouldn't list *any* conference papers as publications. So I'll answer as a computer scientist.
**No, you should not list such papers as publications in your CV,** because those papers are not actually published. Moreover, there is likely an expectation that the same paper *can* be published at a different conference. **You must not list the "same" paper at more than one conference.\***
I know of several conferences/workshops like the one your describe in computational geometry (my home field), including EuroCG, the Fall Workshops, and the Young Researchers Forum at SOCG. At all three venues, submissions are *lightly* peer-reviewed, only a subset of submissions are accepted, and a booklet of abstracts is distributed to participants and/or on the web. But no formal proceedings is issued at these events, because it is expected that accepted papers will later appear in more polished form at a *more formally* reviewed conference. (Some early iterations of EuroCG did have formal proceedings, despite the expectation of later publication, but other conferences were unwilling to accept papers that appeared in those proceedings.)
As others have said, it's perfectly fine to list those talks under "Unpublished Workshop Talks", especially early in your career. You might even include the acceptance rate if you want to emphasize that the venue carries some prestige. Alternatively, if you did publish the paper elsewhere, you might include the phrase "Also presented at ..." after the publication info.
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\*...but journals are different. In most subfields of computer science, conferences papers *can* be published later in refereed journals, usually in a more expanded/complete form. Even so, I recommend listing each paper only once in your CV, including all publication venues for each paper, rather than listing the same paper once under "conference papers" and again under "journal papers".
> 9 votes
# Answer
I don't quite understand what you mean by "appeared in conferences" but have "no proceedings", but I'll chalk that up to differences between fields. I'll answer your question of whether one should add this to their CV. In my opinion, you should absolutely add it if you're a grad student or in your early career phase. If it has a DOI, you can list it under the peer reviewed section, otherwise simply list it under conferences (or the equivalent).
At this stage in your career, a CV not only conveys what you've accomplished (peer reviewed publications, awards, degrees, etc.), it also is a measure of your "scientific activity". It answers the question: "Are you someone who is capable of doing research, publishing, attending conferences and presenting your results in front of an audience of your peers simultaneously or are you someone who simply holes up in their office and publishes in solitude?". It demonstrates that you (possibly) will be someone who networks with their peers, is capable of establishing collaborations, thus broadening their research horizon, etc. It doesn't matter if you've not done these already — it gives a better impression that someone who has done nothing at all.
If you're an established researcher, you probably might not worry too much about it, as by then there are several other metrics that more reliably demonstrate your scientific worth than conference publications/abstracts/talks. Nevertheless, even they have to indulge in this cat-and-mouse game — the difference being that now they have to tout every mundane activity (membership on department committees) as somehow demonstrating their "interest" in the university's affairs.
> 6 votes
# Answer
In that case, **the text you wrote as part of your submission is not published** (except maybe in some cases in a book of abstracts distributed to participants, but it doesn't count). So, in your CV or scientific production listing, you can add an item for your talk in the “conference talks” section, but not the same as a paper.
In the fields familiar to me (physics and chemistry), it is actually very common for early and mid-career scientists to list “conference talks” in their CV. Later in the career, you may list only “invited talks”, though you should still maintain somewhere a complete list of your scientific production, which includes all conference talks.
> 2 votes
# Answer
If the conference has no proceedings, it is indeed unpublished. Usually those kind of conferences do not have any problems with you submitting the same paper to a Journal or other conference that do have proceedings.
Be sure to check with the conference regulations, and if you never did any copyright transfer, there should not be any problem at all.
> 1 votes
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Tags: etiquette, cv
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thread-7345 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7345 | Is it possible to give too much praise in a reference letter that supports a green card application? | 2013-01-19T16:16:50.947 | # Question
Title: Is it possible to give too much praise in a reference letter that supports a green card application?
I am currently writing a reference letter for a colleague applying for a US green card. Given that I don't know much about the process and expectations of the immigration bureaucrats who will handle the application, I asked around for examples of such letter. Obviously, they are all glowing, and I started writing in the same style.
Now, don’t get me wrong: she is truly a great researcher, I wish her the best of success with her application and hope to help as much as I can (at least, not to let her down). But… at the same time, as I finished writing my letter, I wondered: **is it possible that I went over the top with praise?** Is it even possible, in such a case? And if so, how can I tell? I mean, I did not write anything factual wrong, but if read very literal (and outside context), it might sound more like the eulogy of a Nobel prize winner than the recommendation of a mid-carreer researcher (even a very good one).
# Answer
Letters written for a green card application are very differently structured to letters written for other purposes. As was explained to me when I went through the process, the structure of a green card letter is usually
* I am awesome
* here are all the ways in which I am awesome
* because I am so awesome, you should trust me when I say that this person should get a green card
* and oh yeah, they're pretty awesome, which I can tell because I'm awesome.
I'm only slightly exaggerating here. The point is that GC letters are not read by academics - they are read by lawyers who don't evaluate technical skills so much as achievements and strength of recommender. So there's no way to go over the top really.
> 33 votes
# Answer
There a few signs that you might have gone over the top:
* Have you used many *absolute* superlatives ("*the best*" rather than "*one of the best*," "the most dedicated" instead of "extremely dedicated", and so on)?
* Is your letter too long or too detailed, given the length of time you have known the person (four pages is probably too long for someone who worked for you on a summer project, unless you've known that person independently in other contexts before then).
and most importantly
* Would such a letter, if you were the one *receiving* it rather than *writing* it, cause you to have an unfavorable or skeptical reaction about the candidate?
In other words, if it makes you think "nobody's that good," you've probably gone over the top.
> 13 votes
# Answer
Having been the recipient of a few recommendation letters when applying for a US Green Card, I can assure you it is impossible to give too much praise. The letters I received from my colleagues were humbling and, to put it mildly, embarrassing!!
> 4 votes
# Answer
The purpose of a recommendation letter for green card application is to convince the application reviewer that the applicant is a person the US wants for its national interest.
As long as you don't lie, I think you're fine.
For example, you can say **you think** she is the best scientist you ever met. This would be your own subjective opinion. You think that way. Others may not think the same. No one can say you lie because it's just your opinion.
Basically, you can say anything you want. But, be careful. You don't want to step on your own toes. You better have evidences to support whatever you say in your recommendation letter. For instance, she'd better be good enough to be called the best scienist you ever met. The evidences would be something like, she received some outstanding awards from well known organizations, etc.
Remember, you'll have to sign on the bottom of the recommendation letter and send it to the US government. Would you be careful when you submit a document to any government?
> 3 votes
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Tags: recommendation-letter
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thread-7365 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7365 | What will happen to my IEEE conference paper if the status of the accepted paper is "AAR" | 2013-01-21T08:38:13.717 | # Question
Title: What will happen to my IEEE conference paper if the status of the accepted paper is "AAR"
I have been notified by the IEEE organizing committee that my paper has been accepted for their conference and requested to register. and the status of the paper is **AAR**. Please see the quotation below.
> \[AAR\]This paper need thorough revision to be accepted as a full paper for the conference.
I have attached an image of their review process.
What will happen to my paper after the submission of the camera-ready paper? Is there any possibility for my paper not to be published in the proceedings and IEEE Xplore? Or is it guaranteed to be published after the submission of camera-ready paper?
# Answer
If the Journal/Conference editor/chair has accepted your paper, it is guaranteed to be published, given that you make the changes. That is the reason they emphasize the "review" part.
Some papers have only minor revisions, so if the changes are not made, it won't affect that much the quality of the conference. But if the changes are major, it usually indicates that you have to step up the level of the paper following the suggestion of the reviewers.
In conclusion, as long as you make the changes, your paper should be accepted in the conference, but if you neglect to do them, probably it wont.
> 5 votes
# Answer
I think the flowchart in your question is pretty clear as to what happens next. But I'll break down the relevant part of the flowchart into words.
You have to make thorough revisions to your paper, and then resubmit. It will then be reviewed again. As a result of the review, it may be accepted, and it may be rejected.
**AAR**: your paper's current status - accepted after revising. It's now up to you to make the thorough revisions, and to then submit the revised paper
**REV** is the status your paper will have once you have submitted the revised paper.
**RVI** will be its status when the revised paper has been sent out to review. Judging by the flowchart, it will get sent to the same editor and reviewers as before, because a revised paper does not pass through the **WFR** stage of waiting for review, where reviewers and editor are assigned.
It may then be accepted (**ACC**), rejected (**REJ**), or conceivably, according to that flowchart, get returned to you once more as **AAR** for further revisions.
The flowchart also suggests that whether it's accepted or rejected, you still prepare a camera-ready version. That would seem to be very unlikely: I find it very hard to believe there's any use for a camera-ready version of a rejected paper; only an accepted paper would need a camera-ready version.
> 11 votes
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Tags: publications, conference, paper-submission, ieee
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thread-7371 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7371 | What is the perception of foreign Universities (Non UK) in the US for prospective academic positions (Postdoc/Tenure)? | 2013-01-21T09:59:59.393 | # Question
Title: What is the perception of foreign Universities (Non UK) in the US for prospective academic positions (Postdoc/Tenure)?
First of all, I know that your work speaks for you, and if you have really good papers, you have better chances, but just bear with me, and for the sake of argument lets assume that your research is only one of the points to consider.
I did my undergrad in what could be considered the best University in my Country (Mexico)and got a Magna Cum Laude.
And then, I did my Graduate studies in the University of Tokyo publishing a couple of Journal Papers (I'm really pushing for that 3rd one!)
This question is directed to people in the US, since I'm looking to find a permanent position.
What is the perception Universities in the US have of foreign Universities? I happen to know that UK Universities like Cambridge and Oxford have no problem (for obvious reasons), but a professor friend of mine told me that other Universities are just not that well known. And having a degree from the Hawaii University was better than having a degree from Tokyo University. (As a side note, he is a professor at Haw Univ, and he wanted me to apply over there)
I just want to know how true or false this is, and realistically speaking how hard/easy is to get a position as a postdoc and eventually a full time professor if you are not from a US univ.
For example, do I have the same chances as someone who graduated from a top University (your Ivy leagues, Public Ivy League, MIT, Stanford, etc) or do I least have the same chances as middle range Universities?
As a side note, I have a postdoc in the UCLA lined up, so I guess that'll boost my chances a bit.
# Answer
A postdoc in a US institution with letters from US faculty can "reset" much of the potential disadvantage from doing a PhD from a non-Us university.
Having said that, in addition to the "familiarity" issue that @aeismail brings up, there is also the issue of logistics. The effort involved in bringing someone who is outside of US over for an interview is high, so the potential expected payoff bar gets a little higher. In your case, since you'd be in the US, this would no longer be an issue.
But getting back to the basic question: There are a number of foreign universities that are "well known" in the US, and applicants from those schools will not be perceived as weaker in any way. Also, for specific subject areas this can be even more specific (i.e a weak university might have a strong specialization in topic X, and so students working in X will be highly rated).
As for how many PostDocs you need, since you work in machine learning (i.e computer science at large) you should read the "best practices for postdocs" document that the Computing Research Association just put out.
> 9 votes
# Answer
I don't think there's as much of a perception problem with foreign universities as you might think. I'd say the majority of postdoctoral associates are international, and most of them have *not* gone to universities as well known as Oxford and Cambridge. More likely than not, forging personal connections with the advisor you want to work for as a postdoc will matter *much* more than the university.
That said, individual professors may have a bias toward hiring people from "known" schools, because the risk factor associated with hiring them is presumably much lower than someone from a school they've never heard of. Such a bias is of course understandable, but it also means that they could lose out on some potentially promising candidates as a result.
> 9 votes
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Tags: job, postdocs
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thread-7360 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7360 | How common is it to inadvertently "reinvent the wheel" in academia? | 2013-01-20T23:57:28.913 | # Question
Title: How common is it to inadvertently "reinvent the wheel" in academia?
When engaging in research, I know its a good idea to read lots of papers and talk to others about what has been done before and what is currently being researched to avoid "reinventing the wheel". That is, to avoid researching/publishing a result that has already been discovered.
In fields where physical experiments are common, replication studies are necessary. But in theoretical/computational research, originality is key and duplication seems to be generally frowned upon. How common is it to inadvertently publish a finding that was already discovered? What do you when you happen to find yourself in this situation? Should you just scrap your work if your methods are too similar to someone else's?
# Answer
> How common is it to inadvertently publish a finding that was already discovered?
**Far more common than anyone realizes or wants to admit.**
Stigler's Law of Eponymy states that **No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer.** (Stigler's law was proposed in this precise form in 1980 by Stephen Stigler, who self-referentially attributed it to Richard Merton, but of course similar statements were made earlier by many others, *including Stigler's own father.*) I wouldn't go as far as claiming that *every* scientific discovery is misattributed, but there are hundreds of examples. Off the top of my head: Fibonacci numbers, Pascal's triangle, Gaussian elimination, Euler's formula (both of them!), Voronoi diagrams, Markov's inequality, Chebyshev’s inequality, Dijkstra's algorithm for shortest paths, Prim's algorithm for minimum spanning trees, the Cooley-Tukey FFT algorithm, the Gale-Shapley stable matching algorithm (for which Shapley recently won the Nobel Prize in economics), ...
> What do you when you happen to find yourself in this situation?
**Be brutally honest, both with yourself and with the scientific community.**
If your work has already been published, post a reference to the prior art in your web page listing your publications. (You do *have* a web page listing your publications, don't you?) If possible, publish an addendum to your paper. Email anyone who has cited your paper already, giving them the earlier reference. When asked to review papers that cite your paper, include the earlier reference in your report. Become a walking advertisement for the earlier work.
If your work *hasn't* already been published, try to figure out which parts of your work have actually been done before. Some of your results will appear verbatim in the earlier work, so you can't take credit for them. Some of your results will be easy corollaries of the earlier work, so you still can't take credit for them. But perhaps some of your results will take the old work in a new nontrivial direction. Build on that.
Also, if your results were previously known *in a different field*, there may be some value in bringing those results to the attention of your research community.
> Should you just scrap your work if your methods are too similar to someone else's?
**Of course not!** Now you have evidence that your methods actually work! Push them further!
> 80 votes
# Answer
Besides the excellent JeffE's answer, I would like to add one more point to the phenomena of reinventing a wheel. It touches more "research towards an already invented wheel", rather than "publishing a reinvented wheel".
You have a problem and need to crack it. Your problem is practical and novel, you know that. But in order to solve it you need to invent some machinery and you just do not know whether it already exists, or not - simply because you do not have a good feeling for all the subtle aspects and issues of your problem. In such a situation, it is often easier to steam ahead, learn as you go, invent something for your problem and then, when you already are familiar with all the quirks and dark corners of your problem, look around carefully to find out how's the thing you invented actually called. The odds are, it already exists in some form, most probably invented in a different niche for different purposes, but it happens to be very similar to your problem.
Of course the above does not work for everybody, because it can be a frustrating experience to find that somebody else already invented what you did too (usually already long ago and in a better quality than you). My angle on this is to be always proud of myself, because those early solutions tend to come from very smart people, so if I managed to independently come up with the same thing as they did, it's a reason to feel better.
At that moment, however, one should realize, his/her approach and angle to the whole issue is slightly different than that of the guys who invented it earlier. You simply came to the same junction from a different direction and you are heading elsewhere. At that point it's just great to proceed in your direction, because you can be almost sure, that your direction is original and unexplored territory - otherwise the earlier work would be cited and that's easy to find out.
The process I describe above also partially explains why inventions tend to be named after guys who arrived to the junction later. They simply had a perspective which took them farther in terms of social impact than was that of those who originally solved the problem. Often solutions get named after the guys who popularize them and make their applications bloom, not those who solved them originally.
> 21 votes
# Answer
Reinventing the wheel may be beneficial if you explain something better than the previous studies, release your code/software, etc.
In computers science it can be frustrating when people publish a summary of their methods, provide results, but no code so that others can apply this to other data sets. So you end up reinventing the wheel.
> 14 votes
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Tags: publications
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thread-7385 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7385 | GRE score submission | 2013-01-22T13:00:06.600 | # Question
Title: GRE score submission
I wish to apply for M.Sc studies in Computer Science to 3-4 universities. Only one of them requires the applicants to take a GRE (general test), and my question is as follows: is it a good idea to send the scores to the rest of the universities even though they do not specifically require it? Will it affect my chances?
FYI: I did one practice test and didn't get a good Quantitative Score (only 145), although I took the test without preparation, without paper (soon after taking the practice test I've read that is allowed scraps of paper) and after 4-5 years after finishing undergraduate studies. I think with 2 months or so of moderate studies I can get about 160. What do you think I should do?
# Answer
> 6 votes
A good GRE score *can* help your chances at admissions; a poor GRE score does not do anything to help your chances, but they can hurt you, particularly if you're already a somewhat "borderline" case.
However, if a school does not require GRE scores, then I would only submit them if they are strong (well above average). Otherwise, you're introducing at best a neutral "fact" into the conversation.
# Answer
> 2 votes
My philosophy in application processes is what you present should only serve to strengthen your case: *"that you should be admitted/accepted to .... "*. If you look at it with this perspective, I would say submit only what's required of you and what you think gives a fair but good image of your intellectual/social abilities. Anything else has the potential of raising questions in the admission officer's head.
Overall I agree with @aeismail's answer. Submit scores/GPAs/transcripts only if you are confident in them.
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Tags: masters, graduate-admissions
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thread-7401 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7401 | How to search for institutions/universities that have good contributions on a certain physics research topic? | 2013-01-23T07:40:50.963 | # Question
Title: How to search for institutions/universities that have good contributions on a certain physics research topic?
For example, I am interested in the research related with "Quantum Hall Effects", and want to have a list of institutions/universities that have good contributions in this topic, with number of publications during the recent years. Any idea how? Is there any website provide such searching service? Google scholar, arXiv?
I tried APS search by searching "Quantum Hall Effects" in Abstract/Title. It shows all related papers. But now I just want to know the statistics of the institutional contributions.
Any idea how?
# Answer
> 8 votes
Statistics on institutions should be taken with 14,000,000 grains of salt: some institutions have changed name over time (including many recently, e.g. in France many institutions were forking twenty years ago and are now merging back), and affiliation rules vary widely between authors (you'll see below huge contributions from state-wide agencies like “Russian academy of science” or “CNRS”, they are not the same as universities or labs). But, you can do it with many bibliographic search tools.
Here's how to do with *Web of Science*:
1. Make a regular search (here I chose “title”, but you can do something more complicated)
2. On the results page, click on the “Analyze Results” link
3. Choose your field of interest (here, organizations)
4. Enjoy!
# Answer
> 0 votes
This is not that good, but is the closest I can think of something like that.
Microsoft Academic is very good, and have tons of features like that.
Here is a list of the most cited institutions on Machine Learning
Here is a list of the most cited institutions in NeuroScience
However, I think it only works for preloaded topics.
Other problem is that MS database of indexed papers is rather small compared with Google's one.
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Tags: education
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thread-7389 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7389 | Valuing one field more than another | 2013-01-22T17:21:54.467 | # Question
Title: Valuing one field more than another
As my field, Computer Science (CS), has many sub-areas and specializations. I found myself having a *not-so-good* impression about different areas within CS. For example, I see working on Software Engineering as a waste of time while working on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is much more worthing an investigation.
This is not a field-specific question, I wish hearing whether this exists on other fields as well. Is it common in academia for individuals to find some subfields of a more broader research area more interesting and relevant than others? Relatedly, how does one avoid thinking that way?
# Answer
> 12 votes
Just like the grass is always greener on the other side, it is somewhat usual for people to think that their particular area of expertise is somewhat more valuable than others. I have seen it in all fields I have heard of…
And it's not restricted to academic life: I'm sure the cardiac surgeon feels that his work is so much more important than that of the family physician, while the later thinks that he's the one tasked with stopping epidemics and diagnosing the important stuff to save lives.
*But I'm sure you already knew that… so, what is your question exactly?*
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**Edit: *how does one avoid thinking that way?***
The most difficult part, for me, in thinking objectively about other fields is to be able to correctly identifying the challenges they face. I find that it is altogether too easy to think *“hey, that's a trivial optimization problem”* or *“know that they know the compound formula, I wonder why it takes them so long to synthesize it”*. Better overall understanding of other fields helps a lot avoid this way of thinking. It takes a lot of effort to acquire such a broad general knowledge: reading, listening to conferences outside your area of expertise, chatting with colleagues, …
# Answer
> 9 votes
It's important to distinguish "what I find interesting" from "what someone finds interesting" from "what I think is important" from "what is important to others".
It is perfectly acceptable to find other fields uninteresting - that's just the nature of subjectivity and personal preference. Or more poetically, "vive la difference".
It is less acceptable to go from "I personally find this area boring" to "this area is boring". At that point, as others have suggested, you need to understand why others in the field find it interesting. Ask them ! Put yourself in their shoes. (I will often say, "I'm glad someone is working in area X and I'm glad it's not me" :).
# Answer
> 8 votes
The same thing happens in many different fields, mathematics, physics, etc... Many in academia criticize computational scientists like myself as too interdisciplinary (i.e. we are jack of all trades, but masters of none).
I think it naturally emerges from the competitive nature of academia these days. We're all competing for precious resources, such as funding, tenure track positions, prestige and attention, etc. To be competitive, we must assert that our work is more worthwhile than others. In the face of criticism and competition, people of the same field sometimes are tempted to assert their worth by belittling the value of other fields.
There's no better way to avoid doing this than to distance yourself from others who engage in the "we're better than them" attitude. Unfortunately, it can be difficult if you're already surrounded by people with this mentality already. In which case, it might be worthwhile to just get out of your comfort zone and attend research seminars and presentations in completely unrelated fields. Sometimes, if you surround yourself with others who value a topic that you don't, you can learn how to appreciate it in ways you've never thought of before.
# Answer
> 7 votes
### Is valuing one field over another is a common behavior in academia?
The other answers clearly answer **yes**. There can be *subjective* reasons to such an observation (e.g., a cardiologist could feel more superior to a gastroenterolog), but there might be also an objective part to the observation (as you example goes, the results produced in software engineering are somewhat *shakier* than those in graph theory).
### How does one avoid thinking that way?
Besides an excellent point by other answer saying "you should try to better understand the challenges of the other field", I also argue that you should **better understand the dynamics of scientific pursuit in general**.
Kuhn, in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions argues that scientific work in any given field has three phases. The first, *pre-paradigm* and subsequent transition to *normal science* are relevant for this answer:
> The first phase, which exists only once, is the *pre-paradigm* phase, in which there is no consensus on any particular theory, though the research being carried out can be considered scientific in nature. This phase is characterized by several incompatible and incomplete theories. If the actors in the pre-paradigm community eventually gravitate to one of these conceptual frameworks and ultimately to a widespread consensus on the appropriate choice of methods, terminology and on the kinds of experiment that are likely to contribute to increased insights, then the second phase, *normal science*, begins, in which puzzles are solved within the context of the dominant paradigm. Etc.
Often we observe somewhat substandard results and works in fields which clearly fall into the category of those still being in the pre-paradigm phase. Your specific question is relevant to this due to the fact, that whole of computer science is still a young field and many problems we are solving are new, often vague, or ill defined, etc. This is is especially the case for the fields and communities tackling applications of applied-mathematics-style computer science to real-world applications, i.e., software engineering. Your reference to software engineering is clearly the case here, large parts of artificial intelligence fall into this category as well, and I am sure other fields and subfields too.
*Even if you find yourself working in a "soft" field, it does not necessarily mean the niche community is not tackling a sound problem (though sometimes it is the case, but you need to look very carefully into it). Sometimes working on such can be even more demanding/challenging/satisfying than routinely solving puzzles in the normal-science context.*
# Answer
> 5 votes
I think a part of being a human is assigning different values for different things (or preferring, or choosing something among other things). So I do not worry about valuing some field of study more than others.
I think the real challenge is to be realistic. I mean one should know his abilities, his interests and find a (scientifically rigorous) field which matches with his abilities and interests.
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thread-7397 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7397 | Does using a bibliography software actually save you time aside from when converting citation style? | 2013-01-23T03:04:36.500 | # Question
Title: Does using a bibliography software actually save you time aside from when converting citation style?
Does using a bibliography software actually save you time aside from when converting citation style?
I have used refworks and endnote for years and from 3 years ago I decided to ditch them both and do the whole referencing business by hand because of frustrating problems they caused many times (references showing up incorrectly, having to manually add papers, references suddenly missing etc.). I only dump pdf files in them to keep a record of the references. I have been doing fine and I think it has been pretty efficient in three years I have had two change citation style manually twice which was painful but that was it.
I decided using endnote today again because i am writing a major review article. And already its painful! After inputting 15 references manually as the pdf files that can not be identified correctly (beats me why! clear pdf with OCR) and spending 30 minutes inputting the references, and then searching them to add them back in the paper I am doubting my decision!
Can anyone give me some motivation on why to use these tools really? I mean yes style change and finding duplicates can be good. But is that it? I feel like going back to basic but think there must be something wrong with me as it seems everyone else is using them without going insane!
# Answer
> 10 votes
It depends what you mean by using bibliography software. I think of bibliography software as doing three things:
1. They help you organize, search, and find your references. While Pubmed and Google Scholar are quite efficient at finding references for my field, I often prefer to search my own library of papers I am familiar with when looking for a reference. I use JabRef for this purpose and it saves me loads of time even when not converting citation styles.
2. They help you create a reference list at the end of a manuscript/grant/etc. If you have a database you simply need to tell the software what papers have been referenced and what format you want the reference list in. This saves you time when you convert styles (and the first time you create a list). I don't think it really does anything else. The key is that in my opinion ALL bibliography software does this stage well for ALL styles. I see no reason not to use bibliography software to create a reference list at the end. This is the section where it is easy to make minor mistakes and can waste a lot of time getting the style correct
3. They help you with formatting in text citations. This is where most of the software falls down. In text citation styles have a lot of variability (book, chapter, article, first time citation, subsequent citation on a page, citation in a foot note, etc) that make automation hard. Defining an automated system that can implement an in-text citation style is no small task. Even if you can create such a definition, many publishers have small in house tweaks. Create software that is fully compliant with a style and allows for tweaks to be made easily, is even harder. If you are lucky enough that your software has the style you need, or that your target publishers are easy going enough, then using bibliography software for your in-text citations is a no brainer. If you are not so luck, you may not want to use that feature.
In summary I would always use bibliography software for 1 and 2, but only for 3 if I am lucky.
# Answer
> 7 votes
How easy it is to manage references depends a lot on your working conditions.
If, for instance, you're an academic in a humanities field, where the "standard" bibliographic style is the Harvard or MLA styles, where you just quote an author's name and the page number, then bibliographies are relatively simple, since citations are straightforward, and the bibliography itself is simple and can be created on the fly.
If, on the other hand, you are working in a field such as mathematics or physics, which uses the "numbered" style, putting together the bibliography can be a royal pain in the neck. You need to add a new reference at the beginning of the document, and now *all* of the reference numbers have shifted throughout the rest of the paper. Then having a tool that will do the referencing for you automatically is a major help.
IF you need to use a package, and your choice thereof is up to you—you should find one that best suits your needs. But the important thing is finding a method that works both for you as well as for any colleagues you might be working with in the near future.
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Tags: publications, tools, citations, reference-managers
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thread-897 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/897 | Travel grants for International students in the US? | 2012-03-26T23:58:44.887 | # Question
Title: Travel grants for International students in the US?
I am an international student in the United States (originally from India) and have been here for my PhD in Mechanical engineering since Fall ’06. I've attended a bunch of conferences all in the US and Canada and mainly the ASME or APS DFD (division of fluid dynamics) meetings. As I get close to finishing my PhD, my source of funding (NSF) is running low!
As an international student, I find it difficult to find institutions that provide travel grants for conferences in the USA conducted by organizations such as the APS, ASME, AIAA etc. It is also unfortunate that India doesn't have travel grant opportunities for Indians students **outside** India.
Does anyone have an idea on where I might look? I have two conferences coming up: the ASME Fluids engineering conference in July 2012 and the APS DFD in November 2012 that I'd like to get travel grants for.
# Answer
Usually the best place to ask for a travel grant is the conference itself. I see, for example, that the APS DFD 2012 meeting had a travel grant program (sure, now it's too late to be useful). Many big conferences have such programs and those that do not may have "fellowships", which give a reduced registration fee for select students.
Otherwise you want to look at framework programs in your field encouraging the mobility of students. It is true that it might have been easier if you were actually located in India, because of binational exchange programs and such, but you also have to realize that the travel costs would then have been greater!
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, conference, funding, travel
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thread-7408 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7408 | How to encourage seminar attendance? | 2013-01-23T10:49:36.687 | # Question
Title: How to encourage seminar attendance?
My research lab organizes monthly “internal” seminars, where we give the opportunity to talk to PhD students around the middle of their PhD, as well as newly arrived post-docs (who can talk about what they did before and present their project). However, attendance is a big problem, and it's the same people who never show up, unless the speaker is from their group. I suppose good team leaders encourage their whole team to show up, while a few others have told me point blank that they consider it “wasted time”, because it decreases the time students can work at the lab bench. So, while they cannot forbid them to attend, they just discourage them.
So, I am wondering what we can make to help increase student turnout. What do you use to attract people to seminars? We have tried coffee and sweets, which didn't work very well.
Some specifics, if it can help: research lab is about 25 permanent staff, and between 2 to 3 times that number of students and post-docs. Seminars are held every month, rotating between teams.
# Answer
> So, I am wondering what we can make to help increase student turnout. What do you use to attract people to seminars?
Short answer: **Make the seminars useful for the group members.**
*First, the diagnosis:* The group members are probably too narrow-minded and do not understand that getting insights from currently irrelevant topics does in fact become often very useful in the long-run. The group members seem to optimize in a greedy manner for their short-term interests, shooting themselves in foot in the long-run. It seems, they do not understand that **seeing connections between dots at some future timepoint is much much easier if you saw the dots and their contexts before.** But this does not come by direct explanation, they need to realise it by themselves. It's your task to set the example and at least showing how at least you benefit from the seminars. This is a long-haul task and has to do with your general attitude to world. In the short term, you can perhaps do the following:
1. push for *all* group members (including the professor(s)) giving **conference rehearsal talks** \- if you are in an area where going to conferences makes a difference. At the talks encourage giving the speaker not only content-relevant feedback, but more importantly methodological feedback on *how to speak*.
2. invite **external speakers** and **actively support networking** of the group members with the speaker. Especially in informal interactions (which are often started by interactions during, or right after the talk), people tend to find common interests and receive feedback on their own work. Possibly start even a small collaboration. The idea here is to, over time, show the group members that attending tangentially relevant talks is useful for *cross-breeding of ideas*.
> 21 votes
# Answer
In my university, we have the students seminar around 12pm with pizza at the end. Using a time slot when most people are free usually helps. And although sweets are good you can't survive on that, free lunch on the other side is always a plus.
Else we also have seminars friday around 4pm with snacks and beers afterward. It is a time when most people are not as productive as the rest of the week, and the ability to socialize afterward with the rest of the department is always a plus.
Of course, the best way would be to engage the *leaders*. Maybe invite them to give a talk and try to make it worth their while so they can see that the goal of those seminars is not only giving the talk but the discussions that can flow out of it.
> 12 votes
# Answer
> I suppose good team leaders encourage their whole team to show up, while a few others have told me point blank that they consider it “wasted time”
First I wouldn't put a quality judgment on the team leaders. Hopefully all the team leaders are "good". Further, hopefully all the team leaders have done a cost-benefit analysis of their staff attending and have simply come to different conclusions.
The problem does not seem to be the junior staff, but rather the example set by the senior staff. I would argue that you do not want to encourage the junior staff to "disobey" their team leaders by offering sweets. The permanent staff needs to come to a consensus as to whether or not these meetings are useful and who should attend. The possible outcomes are as follows:
1. The meetings are a waster of time and should be canceled
2. The meetings are critical for all groups and attendance should be mandatory
3. The meetings are useful for some groups but not others ant those that want to attend should attend
4. The meetings are critical to some groups and require participation from all groups and attendance should be mandatory.
Once a decision is reached, it is the lab director (the person responsible for the 25 permanent staff) to see that it is carried out.
> 4 votes
# Answer
**Identify the needs/wants of the people you want to attend.**
You are currently phrasing the benefit of these seminars from the perspective of the speakers (i.e., to provide an opportunity for PhD students and postdocs to present their work). This is a noble goal and I would keep it as a goal but if you are having attendance problems then perhaps the other members of the lab do not see this as a useful activity (you mention that some have clearly expressed this).
So you need to identify what they would want from the seminars. Perhaps more informal chalk-talk discussions, a journal club where each paper is based around the work of a student or postdoc, etc... would generate more interest.
If those that do attend are consistently talking about how useful the experience is, then attendance will go up.
> 3 votes
# Answer
One thing you can do is also use this time slot to present additional information that people will want to hear. For example, you can add a 5 minute "news cast" about the lab: who's new, who is leaving soon (and what they will be doing), general announcements, lab babies, whatever announcement people will have. We are doing this at my group.
> 1 votes
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Tags: seminars, attendance, motivation
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thread-7432 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7432 | Do I need to send e-mail to follow up a PhD interview day? | 2013-01-24T13:17:15.547 | # Question
Title: Do I need to send e-mail to follow up a PhD interview day?
I had an inteview day for a PhD program at a US institution. I met 4/5 professors and a few phd/post docs students. Should I send a thank you email to my host professor or not? What about the other professors?
I think the interaction we had that day was good enough so I am not sure if an email follow up is really that necessary.
# Answer
A polite and courteous thank-you email is never inappropriate. Also, if you've left anything out of your interview day (or promised to follow up on something), it's a good opportunity to do so.
However, you shouldn't turn this into an opportunity to go overboard and plead or beg for a spot, or oversell yourself. That is unlikely to go over well, and can undo the good job you did on your interview day.
> 14 votes
# Answer
It depends a bit, I guess... I personally think that it's always nice to send a mail and thank the person for the hospitality. I don't think it will increase your chances for the position but hey it's good manners :)
Whether or not you get a position is often related to not only how good you are as an individual, but also:
* whether or not you will bring some new expertise/perspective to the lab/group
* whether or not the group leader believes you will fit into the existing group (socially/culturally etc..)
* whether or not it will cause them an extra effort to get you there (in case you'll require work/residence permit, specific equipment etc)
* whether or not they already have a more suitable candidate in mind (it's pretty mean for the individual but also very understandable for professors to have interviews with other candidates when they have already made up their mind about a particular one. Motivation behind something like that could be to plan for future projects or bureaucratic reasons)
These are only a couple of factors I can think of. But to come back to your question; I think you'll have nothing to lose and if anything it'll show that you have appreciated the chance to visit the lab and talked to people, which is a positive thing. ;)
> 12 votes
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Tags: phd, interview
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thread-7436 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7436 | Is creating fully functional software considered to be a quasi experiment? | 2013-01-24T16:56:32.507 | # Question
Title: Is creating fully functional software considered to be a quasi experiment?
I'm sorry if this is a bit subjective, but I really don't know where to find the truth.
In my hometown, lecturers usually will only approve research in computer science & information system where the result is new software. The goal is creating a software that can be used directly by business. Usually, research that can't be 'seen' and used directly will be rejected and considered useless.
As in my university, lecturers said that creating new software is a type of research called a quasi experiment. Students are expected to perform the following activities: gathering requirements, designing UML models, and implementing the source code. In the seminar (final exam), lecturers will ask a lot about business process and customer satisfaction. No maths. Most questions are subjective and hard to prove.
Is it true that creating a fully functional software or web site like this is a kind of quasi-experimental research?
# Answer
As undergraduate research, you mostly don't have the time, experience nor support to create a full fledge project from scratch. By that I mean creating original work in you field. Thus, given the scope of the project, implementing a software is a valuable exercice that can also be really useful for research. For exemple, in my domain (bioinformatics) there is a special issue of NAR (Nucleic Acids Research) solely devoted to webservers. The latest issue can be found here.
I think one of the big issues you are facing (in almost every field) is that the amount of knowledge you get when leaving the bachelors has been pretty constant for the past 50 years. At the opposite, the level of new research has grown exponentially in these time. Thus, the gap to create something new is constantly growing.
> 3 votes
# Answer
Depends what your definition of an experiment is:
> 1. a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact
This covers scientific programming, but not a lot of other areas of software development.
> 2. a course of action tentatively adopted without being sure of the eventual outcome
Well, for sure all software development is done without being sure of the eventual outcome! You have hopes, you try stuff, you analyze its consequences, you find a way of improving the software or mitigating the issues, and you learn something.
> 2 votes
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Tags: research-process
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thread-7417 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7417 | What does "research university" mean? | 2013-01-23T16:02:27.857 | # Question
Title: What does "research university" mean?
For example, University of Maryland, Baltimore County is said to be a **research university**. (Same thing for Rice University, for example.)
Are there "non-research universities" also? What is the difference?
# Answer
> 13 votes
There are **research** universities and there are **teaching** universities.
* Research universities have graduate programs and their focus is on doing research. This means most professors teach one or two classes (some have 0!) but have other obligations.
* Teaching universities on the other hand don't typically have graduate programs (if they do, it is just a Master's program) and the professors have full teaching loads (I think 3-4 courses is the norm) with little expectations to publish.
* For example, Austin Peay State University, where I did my undergrad is considered a teaching university. Every professor has a full course load and not a single one of the professors I had has published in the past 5 years.
**UPDATE:** chronicle.com defines **teaching university** as one where professors have "a standard teaching load of four courses a semester", from Interviewing at a Teaching University.
# Answer
> 24 votes
In the US, the Carnegie classification is used to describe different kinds of academic institutions. The system changed in 2005, but under the previous incarnation, universities that had significant research components were called "R1" universities. Under the new system, universities with research components are called "RU/H" or "RU/VH" (Research University/(V)ery (H)igh research). It's most likely that the term 'research university' is an indirect reference to this.
**Update**: The Carnegie classification has many categories of institution: only three of them are predominantly research-focused. So there are many more "non-research" institutions than there are research institutions.
# Answer
> 12 votes
In the US context (and many other countries) the difference can be somewhat foggy. However, in the past (1900-1930's), US university landscape adopted that invented in Germany (c.f. here, Chap. 2), therefore looking how Germans do it can be indicative.
In Germany, Austria and Switzerland you would see a distinction between a Universität and a Fachhochschule (or sometimes just called *Hochschule*), also translated as *University of Applied Sciences*. Citing from:
> It (Fachhochschule) differs from the traditional university (Universität) mainly through its more application or practical orientation and less research. ... The Fachhochschule represents a close relationship between higher education and the employment system. ... Nevertheless, in Germany the right to confer doctoral degrees is still reserved to Universitäten.
I guess, the difference applies to different countries as well, though the nomenclature would differ.
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Tags: university, terminology
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thread-5327 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5327 | Is there an advantage of branching in version-controlled paper writing? | 2012-11-19T12:52:52.777 | # Question
Title: Is there an advantage of branching in version-controlled paper writing?
I use a version control system (formerly subversion, now git) to write papers, which for me works very well and is convenient. A few times, I even worked with branches for different logical versions of a paper, such as versions submitted to different journals. However, I found branching of little use for paper writing. When I used different branches for different journal submissions, I found myself working only on the "latest" branch anyway, since I can anyway only submit one version per time, and, if it is rejected, will not continue to work on that particular version at a later time. I didn't find any other good use of branching in paper writing, and later skipped it completely.
Is there any advantage of working with several branches when writing a paper with a version control system? How should one organize the writing process in order to profit from such an advantage?
# Answer
> 16 votes
I use HG, but it is essentially the same as GIT, in that branching is easy. I branch all the time when working with coauthors. The branches tend to be short lived and merged pretty quickly. Basically, I distribute a copy to my coauthors and each set of comments I get back form different branches. This lets me see each authors comments individually. I then work on merging the comments back into the main trunk. Sometimes the merge is easy and the branch is one commit long. Other times it might take longer if I need to work out something (e.g., math, model, or analysis) which might require a couple of revisions before it is ready to go into the main trunk.
# Answer
> 10 votes
Personally, I've never used branches (for papers), and would certainly *not* use branches for different chapters (WTF? like keeping different branches for different files in a programming project; except for the case when different collaborators edit different parts of documents, then - maybe), but maybe it may work for:
Related: git + LaTeX workflow at SO (so, use "advisor" branch):
> Branches are also extremely helpful if you are a graduate student. As any grad student will attest, the advisor is bound to have numerous corrections, most of which you don't agree with. Yet, you might be expected to atleast change them for the time being, even if they are reverted later after discussions. So in such cases, you could create a new branch advisor and make changes to their liking, at the same time maintaining your own development branch. You can then merge the two and cherry pick what you need.
;)
# Answer
> 6 votes
In principle, branches seem like a good idea. A potential use case would be:
* working on a draft of a paper
* as we get close to the conference deadline, putting the paper in the conference format and reducing to the prescribed size
* finding typos in this version and fixing them
* merging the typos back into the "main version"
In practice, I've never done this, because I'm not organized enough. Also, svn is not as friendly to this workflow as git is, for other reasons.
# Answer
> 4 votes
An alternative to branching in some cases, especially for short lived branches like for journal submission, is using patch queues. Mercurial has `mq`. I believe Git has similar things, but I'm not a git user.
As the question says:
> When I used different branches for different journal submissions, I found myself working only on the "latest" branch anyway, since I can anyway only submit one version per time, and, if it is rejected, will not continue to work on that particular version at a later time.
I have had similar experiences when using different (named) branches for submission to different journals. The problem is that one ends up having dead branches which correspond to journals the paper was rejected from, or perhaps journals you never ended up applying to. These live forever in history, which is annoying and sub-optimal.
The advantage of using patches, at least with `mq`, is that one can maintain multiple patch queues, each of these can be managed as a distinct mercurial repository, and they do not become part of the main repository's history unless you want them to, though of course you can push them to remote since they are regular repositories. Also, one can use them with general non-vcs tools like `patch` and `quilt`, which is occasionally useful.
However, when applied, these patch queues are a bona-fide part of a mercurial repository, and can be treated as (anonymous) branches. So, suppose one has two patch queues `Q1` and `Q2`. Then if wants to work with both versions simultaneously, one can make a clone of the main repository, thus resulting in two identical copies of the repository. Then one can apply Q1 and Q2 to the copies, and then work with them as one would with regular branches, using mercurial's merge machinery and so forth.
Another use of patch queues which is very useful, and not specific to paper writing, is to queue up small changes in the queue till one is ready to commit them. I usually just stick everything in one patch, though one could divide the changes into multiple patches. Then, when one is ready to apply some or all of the changes, one can do
```
hg qref -X . # apply the patch as local changes, making the patch empty
hg qpop --keep-changes # pop the patch
```
This results in
a) the patch being applied as local changes to the working directory
and
b) the mercurial queue patch becoming empty and being removed (popped) from the repository.
Since the patch is now local changes to the working directory, we can easily commit what parts of it we please. When done one can resync the patch with
```
hg qpush --keep-changes # push the patch back onto the repository
hg qref # put the local changes back into the patch
hg ci --mq # commit the changed patch (to the mq repository)
```
Then the patch is recreated with the portions of the local changes that were not committed.
See the loosely related questions What's the Git approach to publish a patch queue? and git equivalent to hg mq?.
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Tags: writing, version-control
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thread-7452 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7452 | Expiration of accreditation of the program | 2013-01-25T03:33:16.087 | # Question
Title: Expiration of accreditation of the program
In the university Master degree transcript, if it is written that accreditation of program is valid until Jan 10, 2016, then what does that imply?
# Answer
> 3 votes
* **For you, who hold the degree: nothing**. Your degree does not have an expiration date. It will remain valid for all uses after Jan 10, 2016.
* For the department: if they want to continue enrolling students in this program and handing out this degree, they will have to renew their accreditation. This means justifying to a local or national regulating body (depending on the country and local law) the value of the degree, the seriousness of the degree-granting process, and many other such assurances.
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Tags: graduate-school
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thread-7463 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7463 | PubMed RSS Feeds | 2013-01-25T09:47:43.030 | # Question
Title: PubMed RSS Feeds
I would like to be up to date with published articles on my research topic. I saw that pubmed allow to subscribe to a research (there is an RSS link just below the research box), so I added the RSS to my Outlook account. The problem is the new feeds seem not very frequent, and the articles are not even recent! (I added the RSS feed in November, today I got an update with a paper published in September 2012, which by the way I had already read). Do you subscribe to this kind of RSS? Is it a problem of Pubmed, or maybe of Outlook?
# Answer
In this case, it's a PubMed issue, but it's actually an issue that most of the online aggregators and literature databases share: for some reason, which I have never managed to understand, **databases update is slow**.
If I take a given journal indexed in PubMed, *Phys. Rev. Lett.*, let's see what are the most recently added articles:
You see that they are two months old (dating November 21, while I write this answer on January 25). Both the web search front-end and the RSS use the same database, which is not fast to pick up papers from some journals. Your mileage may vary, however: the most recently added *PLOS One* articles are dated January 16, a mere 10-days old:
---
I say that most databases I know have the same issue. From experience, *Web of Science* has the slowest update, while both *PubMed* and *Google Scholar* are better. For my field (chemistry), *SciFinder* has the fastest update speed.
> 2 votes
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Tags: research-process, literature
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thread-7482 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7482 | How important is the academic staff to student ratio? | 2013-01-25T19:12:30.450 | # Question
Title: How important is the academic staff to student ratio?
I've been looking at some universities abroad (I'm from Norway) like in Hong Kong (HKUST), but the academic staff to student ratio seems dreadful compared to others with 1:23. Still, people seem to think it's a really great place to go. Also, it's ranked 19th in the world in the course I want to take, Mechanical Engineering, despite this.
So, my question is, how much weight should I put in this ratio? Will it impact my education greatly when the ratio is so high?
# Answer
If the ratio is about undergrad students, I wouldn't worry too much: those figures may vary wildly without the quality of the education dispensed being affected. For one thing, academic staff may not be all teachers, proportion of research vs. teaching time may vary, degree of implication of PhD teaching assistants (which do not count as academic staff) is not included, …
*(The value given, 1:23, makes me assume that's what you mean)*
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On the other hand, if the ratio is about “grad students” and/or “PhD students” to academic staff, then yeah, you should give it a careful look. If the ratio is too low, run away fast! There are places that take too many grad students, if they can manage the funding, but won't have the human resources to advise/tutor/supervise them as they should. Trust me, you don't want to be in such a place.
> 4 votes
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Tags: professorship, learning
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thread-7501 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7501 | Which Internship should I take? | 2013-01-26T17:04:28.340 | # Question
Title: Which Internship should I take?
I'm a Chemical Engineering major in undergrad, and I currently have two internship offers this summer.
The first one is a 10 week summer research internship at a top-10 program in petroleum and chemical engineering. The internship concludes with a poster presentation of the work you've done. My work here could potentially turn into a publication. It's worth noting that I've technically already accepted this position. I didn't get the offer for the next one until after I had accepted this one.
The second offer is a full summer semester research internship at the uni I currently attend. I'd be working on the research I'm doing now all summer; as a result, I'd almost certainly be published by the end of the summer, possibly twice since my PI has a couple of papers that just need one more topic covered before they get fully published. It's worth noting that this internship would get me almost twice as much money by the end of it.
My question is: which should I take? I have a very good shot at the Goldwater next year, so I need to know if it would be better to be published, or to have a letter of rec/research experience at a top university.
I'm also meeting with my PI next week to see if I could possibly postpone the one at my school to next summer, so I'd have a chance at doing both.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
# Answer
This is a situation not many people find themselves in—having to choose between several very good options.
The basic issues to ask yourself are the following:
* Do you have *enough* **high-quality** letters of recommendation for your future needs? If you're doing fellowships, you will definitely need *three*, and may need *four*. Again, these should be people who can comment on your abilities *beyond* simply just reciting grades in lectures. These must be people you have had an ongoing working relationship with. Ideally this is a full-time research mentor, but realistically also can include people such as part-time research mentors (such as REU-like work during the semester), instructors for whom you've worked as a teaching assistant, industrial employers (for an internship), and possibly your academic advisor (if it's someone who's advised you for multiple years).
* Regarding the letter writers: are they all at the same institution? If so, then it might behoove you to find one at another institution. This will be helpful to you, as it shows you're not just a "system" product.
* Is the research that you're doing something that you *know* you want to do, or just *think* you want to do? You will in general be more likely to have real success if you enjoy the work you want to do.
* Will the pay for the "away" program be sufficient to cover your living expenses and needs? If so, then you should neglect the difference in pay between the two programs, and focus on the relative benefits of the two programs for you.
There's no right answer to this question; you just have to choose which option is easier for you to live with.
> 6 votes
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Tags: publications, graduate-admissions, research-undergraduate, internship, funding
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thread-7493 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7493 | How to deal with advisor not allocating time to me? | 2013-01-26T06:12:17.067 | # Question
Title: How to deal with advisor not allocating time to me?
One of my advisor's students asked me how frequently I have meetings with him. And since at that time we had very few meetings I replied:
> "We have a very few meetings and the advisor does not allocate time to me."
The advisor heard it and has started retaliating by reducing those few meetings to zero and complaining about me to other faculty, etc. Do you have suggestions about what I should do now?
# Answer
First, **do not assume bad faith** and **go talk to your advisor**. There is an issue which you feel threatens the successful continuation of your PhD, the natural person to talk to about it is your advisor. In this case, it so happens that the problem involves him too, which means you have to be diplomatic about it, but he's still the right person to hash it out with. **Behave professionally**, do not accuse him of anything, just state the problem factually (*“I need more involvement from you in order to successfully overcome this problem”*), and see what he and you can come up with.
Not assuming bad faith at first is good advice in most professional situations. In this particular case, the elements you mention are:
* lack of time, which could be completely explained by other factors such as the advisor being swamped (don't get me wrong, it still needs to be fixed somehow, but it doesn't necessarily mean he's being an ass)
* rumor (*“complaining about me to other faculty*”), which might be just that
Now, if after trying in good faith to solve the issue with him (give it a few tries), the situation doesn't improve *and* it is hurting you *and* you think he is of bad faith: I listed several possible recourses in this related answer (and another write-up here). **But don't jump the gun**, because a lot of the options on this list will mean burning a bridge.
> 25 votes
# Answer
On my first day of PhD school, our department chair said
> Never say anything bad about your advisor; he or she will hear about it.
We all laughed, but it's invariably true--people talk, and word gets around. I've found that the best ways to repair a damaged relationship with your advisor are
1. Talk to him or her directly about the problem
2. Produce the best research you can with frequent updates (in person or via email)
> 14 votes
# Answer
I agree with the others: **Talk to your advisor. Do not assume bad faith. Be professional. Be an adult.**
But do not expect the situation to be resolved in a single talk. The response you describe is completely out of proportion to your offhand comment; "threatening" a student is *never* appropriate. It's impossible to tell — **and it's none of our business** — whether your advisor is actually being childish and abusive, or you are just perceiving her (justifiable) annoyance as an attack. But in either case, your student-advisor relationship is dysfunctional. Even if you can resolve this particular situation, you may be better off finding a new advisor.
> 9 votes
# Answer
I go with the other commenters on approaching the matter diplomatically and courteously as a means of getting the feedback and support you need—up to a point.
My experience of academics is that though often bright and accomplished, they can sometimes be a precious lot, flinching from the mildest bit of constructive criticism, often taking things personally. If I could turn the clock back I would have seriously considered changing supervisors. I often think I got my PhD in spite of and not because of him. When you are just starting out in research you need the feedback, support and encouragement. So try not to be stoic about it, look for potential avenue out of your problem: have a chat and get it in the open, or change supervisors if your differences are irreconcilable. It helps to be on the same wavelength, personality-wise.
Nobody is saying they are not human beings. But if you are being neglected, then the issue needs dealt with sooner rather than later. If it is a PhD you are doing this may well seriously delay getting your research out in good time for your final viva.
> 7 votes
# Answer
I'm assuming you can't switch advisors. Have you tried having a heart-to-heart with your advisor about this matter ? Failing that, maybe you have members of your committee who can help mediate ?
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, masters
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thread-7486 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7486 | What are the main factors driving popularity of US higher education among international students? | 2013-01-25T21:32:47.250 | # Question
Title: What are the main factors driving popularity of US higher education among international students?
**Observation:** According to OECD stats, the number of international students at US higher education institutions is the highest in the world and still rising (see also Wikipedia here and a report here).
**Question:** *What are the main factors underpinning the observation above?*
I am interested in (partial) answers pointing to studies, or sources of statistical information on the topic, not solely opinions.
---
*This is a reformulation of this question*
# Answer
## Abstract
Firstly, the answer will tackle the question's false assumption that the US is the most attractive destination for international students. Secondly, I will cite some of the factors making a country/region's education system attractive to international students. Finally, to tackle some of the comments, I will present a chart showing number of international students per capita in selected countries.
## USA is not the most attractive destination for international students
According to the OECD Factbook 2011-2012: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics, the number one destination of foreign students among OECD countries is Europe followed by Northern American region:
> European countries in the OECD were the destination for 38% of foreign students in 2009 followed by North American countries (23%). Despite the strong increase in absolute numbers, these proportions have remained stable during the last decade.
To put the numbers above to global perspective, observe also that
> Foreign students enrolled in G20 countries account for 83% of total foreign students, and students in the OECD area represent 77% of the total foreign students enrolled worldwide.
## Factors driving attractiveness of higher education in OECD countries
Again, according to the same source (emphasis added):
> *Language* as well as *cultural considerations*, *quality of programmes*, *geographic proximity* and *similarity of education systems* are determining factors driving student mobility. The destinations of international students highlight the attractiveness of specific education systems, whether because of their **academic reputation** or because of subsequent **immigration opportunities**.
---
---
Commenters to the question cite the ratio of international students per capita as an indicator of attractiveness of education system for foreign students. While I do not see any direct correlation between attractiveness of an educational system and the ratio of foreign students per capita (countries can be arbitrarily protective, or non-protective w.r.t. their own citizens), I prepared the following chart from the OECD data (relevant to year 2009):
The chart was constructed by merging data from the OECD.Stat with OECD countries population data from OECD population 2009 as published in the corresponding section of the OECD Factbook 2001-2012. The computation is done on non-citizen students column for the year 2009, except for United States it is the number of non-resident students (due to lack of a non-citizen students datapoint).
> 4 votes
# Answer
Your question is interesting me so I did an hour or so of internet search for academic studies of the reasons behind brain drain in recent years. I will give here some results which I found. It is not a total answer to your question and I do not think anybody can completely answer your question because it is a very complex and highly studied issue. Reasons (driving factors) depend on each individual. Paper 2 makes useful distinction between PULL and PUSH factors and gives a list of useful examples of the two.
-- *Brain Circulation Replacing Brain Drain* at Science CareersBlog:
> "Brain circulation," meeting attendees noted in a consensus statement issued 6 September, is the "mutli-directional flow of talents, education and research that benefit multiple countries and regions and the advancement of global knowledge." In an era when many scientists and scholars move between several countries to pursue training and research, the statement suggests, "brain circulation" often more accurately describes international mobility than "brain drain," which implies a unidirectional flow that only benefits certain countries.
This is in agreement with Charles comment. Maybe the situation is not so disymmetric than it used to be.
-- *Analysis and Assessment of the “Brain Drain” Phenomenon and its Effects on Caribbean Countries* at *FLORIDA ATLANTIC COMPARATIVE STUDIES JOURNAL*:
> In order to understand how the “Brain Drain” happens, we must spend some time discussing migration and the reasons people leave their home countries in the first place. The reasons many Caribbean natives go abroad and fail to return home fall within two categories often referred to as pull and push factors. Push factors are circumstances or events in the home countries that result in persons leaving. Examples of push factors are the structural adjustment programs enforced by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on developing countries that increased unemployment and reduced government funding on social programs in these countries which then led to increased migration. Pull factors are the incentives in the receiving countries that encourage persons to seek employment opportunities there. Examples of pull factors are the immigration incentive policies of the receiving countries that tend to attract higher educated, skilled and trained personnel. For example, the H-1B visa system in the U.S. is often used as a stepping stone by immigrants who want to acquire employment-based permanent residence there. The current immigration policy in the U.S. enables those applying for the H-1B visa to have the dual intent of attaining temporary work status but intending to apply for permanent residency (Kapur and McHale 2005). Other developed countries have similar immigration policies that continue to attract highly skilled workers from developing countries. Currently in Australia, employers of immigrants are not required to prove that domestic workers will be adversely affected by the employment of foreign employees, in fact, all they need to show is that employing the immigrant will be, in some manner, beneficial to Australia (Kapur and McHale 2005).
-- *China's brain drain* is a report on a Gallup survey:
> This article argues that education, employment and family are the main reasons behind China’s brain drain. The article also provides useful statistics concerning the issue.
-- *Thai Diasporas and Livelihood Strategies in Thai Society* here:
> This article uses traditional definitions of Diaspora to examine the phenomenon of the brain drain in Thailand. It also considers the reasons for emigrating to another country in terms of personal livelihood
(last few examples are taken from here: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/cs181/projects/2010-11/BrainDrain/)
> 2 votes
# Answer
Not a full-fledged answer, but there was a post (by Marginal Revolution) pointing to a paper \[1\] that reports *alumni control* of the Board of Trustees as a key factor:
> All this is made possible by a model that transfers control to those who value it most, that is the alumni, who then drive competition for students, faculty, facilities, research, programs, global ties, sports coaches and rankings. Conversely, they also provide funds and guidance to maintain uniform excellence in all these pursuits. This maximizes the value of the degree or the “sheepskin” that the alumni are figuratively cloaked in for the rest of their lives.
\[1\] “Why is Harvard #1? Governance and the Dominance of US Universities” – Working Paper 2012, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
> 2 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, education, united-states
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thread-7473 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7473 | Does timing of emails matter? | 2013-01-25T11:29:41.710 | # Question
Title: Does timing of emails matter?
I wonder: everyone in academia handles a lot of email, on all aspects of their work. I mean, emails about conferences, emails about journals and papers, emails about research, teaching, supervized students, and so on. So if you have a big announcement to send to many people (eg seminar or conference) does it matter WHEN you send it? I mean, is it better to send it on Wednesday afternoon (middle of the week) rather than Saturday evening (middle of week end)? I imagine if people receive the email at time they are busy they possibly will overlook it.
# Answer
First, **I don't think it makes much difference.** Researchers deal with information, and a lot of that information is communicated through emails nowadays. So, most researchers I know are very careful about their emails and read them thoroughly. Especially if you write to people who know you, your name should be enough for them to read your email through anyway.
But, I can understand if you have an important announcement to make to a large list of people (who don't all know you personally), you may want to “micro-optimize” this. I have done it in the past: having a call-for-papers email ready on Saturday, and waiting ’til Monday afternoon (US time) to send it, thinking people who read it with a fresh mind, and not alongside the batch of “week-end email” that they might triage on Monday morning. (Some people stay connected during week-ends, of course, and for those it makes no matter.)
> 11 votes
# Answer
Marketing experts advise to send emails on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They also advise to send the email early in the morning, so that they will be at the top of the pile for those that check their emails right after waking up/arriving at the office.
Sunday afternoon is also a good choice. If the receiver reads emails during the weekend, you will be one in a very few, and if the mail is read on Monday, it will be at the top of the pile.
> 9 votes
# Answer
My short answer is that I only send important email within working hours avoid early morning late afternoon hours. I usually get a very high reply rate with this technique as opposed to send email at midnight.
> 5 votes
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Tags: email
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thread-5272 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5272 | How successful are publication agreement addenda? | 2012-11-14T20:33:40.803 | # Question
Title: How successful are publication agreement addenda?
I work in the field of chemistry, where some of the prominent publishers have very invasive (or restrictive) copyright transfer agreements. Thus, I'm considering the use of amendments (or addenda) to publication agreements, such as the one proposed by the MIT libraries. However, I don't really want to spend a lot of time on an unwinnable pursuit, so I was wondering: is there somewhere a decent review of the success of such amendments? I expect that it may vary from publisher to publisher, and from field to field, but is there *any* data at all? (My own searches couldn't turn much.) In particular, what about the “big names”, such as Elsevier, Wiley, etc?
# Answer
<sup>I finally managed to take a bit of time today to research this question further, so here goes:</sup>
First, there hasn't been much data compiled on the topic. Science Commons's FAQ on publication agreement addenda says:
> Anecdotal evidence from a variety of sources reveals that many scholarly authors have had success over the years in altering the terms of a publication agreement. Sometimes this has been done by marking up the publisher’s agreement; other times the change has been done through use of an addendum. **However, we are not aware of any statistical data concerning the success rate.**
while the more recent Creative Commons Science page fails to mention success statistics at all.
However, we can measure the “success” of such addenda (or its influence) by looking at the reactions of various publishers to it. The MIT Libraries actually maintain a list of publishers and their stance. In a similar vein, the useful (and by now, well-known) SHERPA/RoMEO online database maintains a publishers statistics:
If you look at these lists of publishers/journals, and you cross that information with the hottest and most common journals in each field, you see that things are **very field-dependent**:
* In mathematics, the status of publications is quite different from the other hard sciences listed below. I do not feel competent enough to comment on it, but it seems to be working okay, with most mathematicians able to publish preprints or postprints on their personal websites, or to publish outside the “conventional model” (read: arXiv). This summary of various publishers' policies in the field is quite good (and recent).
* Physics: due to the success of arXiv and the open-friendly stance of physics publishers (both American Institute of Physics and American Physical Society), physics seems to be one of the favorable fields for open publishing.
* Traditional biology journals tend to belong to the big-money editors, who don't favor open publishing. However, open journals seem to have made good progress in this field in the last few years.
* **Chemistry is simply a nightmare**. Most quality journals in chemistry are published by the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, Wiley and Elsevier. All four of them have taken a hard stance against the open publishing movement. Open access journals have very little (read: absolutely no) success breaking through in the field of chemistry :(
Above are the fields I felt comfortable enough discussing. I welcome edits (or comments) that add information on other fields (including humanities)!
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So, all in all, statistics pertaining to publication agreement addenda specifically are hard to find (if they exist). But, we can measure the success of the open publication model, and it varies widely between fields.
> 10 votes
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Tags: publications, copyright
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thread-7478 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7478 | Doubt regarding authorship | 2013-01-25T14:32:14.480 | # Question
Title: Doubt regarding authorship
One of the master's student is working on a research problem. I am a PhD student. I have an idea which I proposed to my advisor on the same problem. Now he wants me and the masters student to work on that idea and publish a paper. Would I be treated as a first author in that paper or would I be a second author?
# Answer
> 6 votes
You give a partial version of the story using pejoratives instead of trying to stay based on facts. So it is difficult to answer your question with that information.
What we can say is that authorship is something to be discussed with your advisor. It will be his decision, in the end. A good way to help yourself is to work hard on that idea, and clearly make your point. The best way to help yourself be first author is to write the paper, or at least the more significant portions of it! Start already with introduction and methods, and as soon as results are gathered, write it up and then submit it to your advisor. If you have done a large part of the work and wrote the manuscript, you should have no problem being first author.
# Answer
> 6 votes
A PhD student insisting on being the first author on a master project is something not welcoming sometimes. **Specially if the master student understands the problem and she can solve it by *herself***. In this case, unless you will bring a new major perspective to the solving method, you won't be the first author.
I have worked with master students and my role was very clear from the beginning. I was involved either as
* supporter to the master student
(i.e. checking the literature, suggesting improvements, studying the problem, brainstorming for better ideas, help with writing)
or
* the master student is supporter for me
(i.e. doing code implementation, graphic design..etc).
*If the research problem is the student thesis*, then most likely you will not be the first author (it is the student thesis, right?)
The authorship thing is the supervisor responsibility. If you are very concerned about it (i.e. you wouldn't work unless you are the first author), then you should speak with the supervisor before starting. Tell her why you want to be the first author.
This said, if you took the leading position as an experienced researcher you might be the first author without asking for it (unless alphabetical ordering took place).
# Answer
> 2 votes
Why not see this as an opportunity to supervise an able student? Prod them, needle them, cajole them. Do whatever it takes to get the student to generate a good result. It seems to me your adviser is giving you an opportunity to grow your professional capabilities.
If the master's student does all the research work, then they should be first author.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Authorship is always controversial, but the general rule is: **Contribution of authors determines the order of the authors on the scholarly publications**. The first author is the one who has contributed the most and usually writes the paper. The last author is usually a professor or senior researcher who leads the team, and his role is almost supervisory.
In your case, how significant was your idea to produce outputs? If you had a significant idea, you have designed the research. Even if the MS student has made many experiments, you can make a contribution by writing and preparing the manuscript.
Finally, you can ask a senior researcher to judge between you, if still there is any controversy.
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Tags: publications, authorship
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thread-7467 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7467 | How to arrange courses to timetable? | 2013-01-25T09:25:49.513 | # Question
Title: How to arrange courses to timetable?
I would like to ask if there is some algorithm how to arrange courses to timetable. I study at the university and we can choose a few different lesson times for each subject.
The problem is how to coordinate all subjects with student's requirements, for example to have school only 2 days a week and/or to select some hours based on capacity.
One subject - you have to select one from the first table and one from the second table (it's lecture and seminar). There can be only one table to select from (only seminar/only lecture):
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# Answer
Why did this get moved to https://academia.stackexchange.com/ ? This is an algorithm question!
Anyway, it so happens some friends of mine have one of the top timetabling algorithms, based on competition wins. Here is a link to the paper (which will include references to other state-of-the-art timetabling algorithms)
> An automatically configured modular algorithm for post enrollment course timetabling Chris Fawcett, Holger H. Hoos, and Marco Chiarandini - Technical Report TR-2009-15, University of British Columbia, Department of Computer Science, 2009. \[pdf\]
> 5 votes
# Answer
There are algorithms for timetabling, but I doubt that you would want to get into the level of detail required for understanding them and applying them to your - as I take it - one off situation. Timetabling is a difficult problem for a computer to solve when there are many activities and people to timetable. It is an NP-hard problem, and a hot topic of current computer science research.
Perhaps something like this would help you? I haven't tried it so I can't comment on whether it is a useful/competent solution.
> 3 votes
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Tags: university, time-management
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thread-7460 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7460 | What to do when your research interest changes to a new topic half way into your PHD? | 2013-01-25T09:26:09.887 | # Question
Title: What to do when your research interest changes to a new topic half way into your PHD?
I had started my PHD last year on a topic that has several interesting problem to solve in the area, however I don't find the problem interesting enough to spend 4 to 5 years. As time went by and I came across a new problem through my course work and interactions with various professors. I have started liking a different topic that is not very related to the original.
What would be a wise thing to do in such situation? Is it a common situation (changing topics midway)?
# Answer
First, I've yet to meet a single PhD candidate that actually did what he proposed in his research plan in the first place. Unless he entered for some particular project (and still)
Is not uncommon to look for different topics and think that it may suit you better, and in all fairness, you should be doing something you like, not some topic other person imposed on you.
Now, switching topics, specially if they are unrelated, will have the consequence of delaying your PhD graduation considerably. I switched topics on my PhD 2 year, but I mostly changed the application, while the most fundamental part (in my case, it was the math) was pretty much the same, so I got to use most of the foundations I learned over the first couple of years.
I hope it helps.
> 7 votes
# Answer
My advice is to talk about it with your advisor (naturally).
When I was narrowing down subjects I, too, was struggling with how much *interest* I had in various topics. I got some advice from someone who was working at ABB and had recently finished a PhD. It went something like this:
> *A PhD is as much a long process as it is becoming an expert and contributing in a field. If you pick a topic you're enthusiastic about at the beginning, chances are, you'll become tired of it before you finish. If you pick a topic that seems less interesting, after working on it for a long time, you probably will come to love some things about it you didn't see at the start.*
In my case, the latter was true. I was more interested in finishing on time than having the topic of my dreams. But I finally enjoyed my topic a lot, even though at first it seemed boring and not up my alley.
> 4 votes
# Answer
To me, the only *wrong* answer to this question would be, "throw everything away and start over", and there may even be some (rare) situations where that approach is justified.
Everything else is basically varying shades of "right", depending on your specific situation.
* Talk to your advisor about pursuing your alternate interest as a side project, with the ultimate goal of a few publications on that topic.
* Work with your advisor to identify other labs doing similar work, do a collaborative project with another lab with the goal of publishing.
* On a similar vein, if your program allows it, do a `x`-month (`x` \< 1 year) rotation in a different lab that focuses on your new-found interest, with the goal of familiarizing yourself more with the intricacies of that field, readying you for a postdoc or professorship role in that subfield.
* Write down your ideas as possible ideas for grant applications for the future (postdoctoral tenure, professorship positions).
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, research-process
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thread-7586 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7586 | What is a good checklist for last minute changes before submitting a PhD thesis? | 2013-01-29T20:17:21.113 | # Question
Title: What is a good checklist for last minute changes before submitting a PhD thesis?
I have finished my thesis, it's been proofread by my advisor and myself, yet I have 24 hours to make last-minute changes to it. What should I be looking for? I will not make any substantial changes to the content, but what about the form? For such limited amount of time, where should I focus my effort? Or, said another way: what’s in your last-day check list for a thesis?
*Major modifications to the original question. Thanks to F'x for the advice.*
# Answer
First, if you've already proofread it recently, a second try will most likely not help. You won't see the typos and weird sentences anyway :) I'll advise to focus on specific short parts that can make a difference in the reading. It's also the right time to get someöne else on board to give these specific items a second look (with fresh eyes).
Without further ado, I suggest you limit yourself to checking the following items:
### Text
The main check here is not really for typos (although be sure to fix those you will see), but rather for *clarity*.
* General introduction, general conclusion
* Introduction and conclusion of each chapter
* Summary/abstract, if one is included (sometimes it's written in 10 minutes in a haze, in which case it's worth extra checking in the end)
* Acknowledgments, if it's already present (some people only include it after the defense is over). Make sure you're not forgetting someöne important, like your wife or your bonsai.
### **Figures and figure captions**
* Quality of the graphics
* Do color and symbols mentionned in the caption match the figure?
* If you intend to have black and white figures in print, are the figures understandable in black and white? Do the captions make sense for both version (color and B&W)?
## Equations
Check your equations. Again. Typos there are typically hard to find.
## Numbers & tables
All tables, all inline numbers: make sure they include units, make sure the number of significant digits displayed is reasonable and consistent.
## Bibliography
Do not care to much about the formatting: if most of it is okay, noöne will really complain about one or two missing page numbers or lack of italics in one title. However:
* If references are hyperlinked (using DOI number), click on each to check that they match the right online paper
* If a paper is “in press” or “accepted for publication” or something else, check if it has been published since and update its status
<sup>*(The starting point for this was my answer to “Examining paper proofs”, but it is now significantly different)*</sup>
> 20 votes
# Answer
Your goal is to present a viable thesis to your examiners so perhaps there is a need to change your thinking about not making "substantial changes". I know this is a difficult call at this late stage but if you discover a gap in your thesis, it is better to address it before submitting it to your examiners, rather than getting the examiners to point it out to you. If the latter happens, you will have to substantially revise your thesis and this will tax you emotionally to say the least.
As for the checklist, I have the following suggestions:
1. Check that you have really built up your case for the research. Your examiners will not be convinced if you present a flimsy case. Ensure there is a strong reason why you conducted the research (i.e. define the gap in knowledge that you are addressing).
2. Check that you have actually answered your research questions. I am unsure in which field you are situated but in sociology the answer is often not that clearcut. However, you can still make a strong case for or against your research proposition.
3. If you have done statistical analysis, make sure you demonstrate that you have a good understanding of what you did (i.e. you understand the assumptions that underpin the technique, for example Pearson's r is for linear relationships).
4. Check that you have a section (in the concluding chapter) that spells out in black and white what contribution your thesis is making in your field. Often we just assume that the examiners will understand the contribution. We know our research so well (after doing it for 3 or so years) that the contribution is apparent to us, but it is a different story for the examiners.
5. Demonstrate critical thinking with a blend of personality. This is a bit controversial but your thesis is a reflection of your interests and a little bit of personality in your thesis will not hurt (only a little bit, though as this is academic writing). In my case, I incorproated my experience as an immigrant to explain why I chose to study what I studied.
Remember, you will not get a poor result because of typos (though many typos will create a poor impression), so focus on the bigger issues if you can. All the best!
> 4 votes
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Tags: phd, thesis
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thread-7599 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7599 | Will a paper in A help PhD application in B? | 2013-01-30T01:48:04.810 | # Question
Title: Will a paper in A help PhD application in B?
I understand that as an undergraduate student, when you apply for a PhD degree in the US, you have to demonstrate adequate research capabilities, such as publications. But will areas matter?
Let's say that a undergraduate student Q has been working on a networking project and she published a paper about that work. But Q is applying for PhD study in human-computer interaction. Will that paper help Q in getting the HCI PhD she wants?
# Answer
## Yes.
Admissions committees are looking for evidence of research potential. Having a research publication in *any* area is direct evidence of that potential.
(One of the first hurdles that I encourage my own PhD students to jump early is *publish something*. *Anything.* The point is for them to see the publication process — writing, editing, submitting, reading reviews, revising, resubmitting — and to kill off any doubts in *their* minds that they *can* do publishable research.)
> 19 votes
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Tags: publications, graduate-admissions
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thread-7596 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7596 | Chance Of Getting A Research Internship In US/Canada For Non-US Residents? | 2013-01-30T01:26:07.637 | # Question
Title: Chance Of Getting A Research Internship In US/Canada For Non-US Residents?
I completed my undergraduate study in computer science outside of the US. I hope to obtain a PhD degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in the US, but I don't feel that I am qualified enough (in terms of research experience). So I am hoping to find a research internship opportunity in US/Canada.
I could probably find relavant projects in my own country, but I feel that trying US/Canada first is more straightforward. After all, it's in US/Canada where I am looking for a PhD degree.
I have a few HCI professors in mind, with whom I would like to work very much. Should I contact them for internship opportunities? What are my chances and more importantly, **how can I improve my chances**?
Some facts that I think are relavent to the question:
I am not a US resident so I will need a VISA. I don't expect assistantships (it's up to the professor). I have already learnt the basics of HCI and I know the fundamental research methods (through reading and auditing classes). My undergraduate university is not *the best*, but it's surely one of the best universities in my country.
# Answer
> 4 votes
You should simply **send an email** to the supervisor you are interested in. Your **best** help to be accepted to any program is to have the support of a professor. In US/Canada you should just start by, *Dear Mr/Mme, X*.
Now, to convince the professor that you are a good fit, you need to convince him that you are have **research potential**. This is what the university will be looking for too.
You could talk to him about your interests, and how they recoup his (assuming they do by OP post). If you have done any research in that field you could mention it.
If you can find and read first a relevant paper he wrote and have questions about it, ask. I you can't because they are too complicated (which may really happen), or behind a paywall to which you don't have access, you could ask for a few classic references to get started.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Assistantship is upto the professor (Research Assistantships) as well as the department (Teaching Assistantships). It is highly likely that you will be supported by both over your phd life. That being said, I don't think US universities make distinctions among PhD applicants based on their nationality (in general) in terms of funding or admission. Best of luck for your application.
You might mail professors who you have in mind, but do check in their website whether they explicitly prohibit that.
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Tags: phd, research-process, internship, international-students
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thread-7594 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7594 | How much time should someone take to respond to a PhD admission offer? | 2013-01-29T23:26:15.443 | # Question
Title: How much time should someone take to respond to a PhD admission offer?
I have received an admission offer for a PhD at a prestigious US university. However I am also currently working in another lab outside the US with a potential to also receive PhD admission there.
I think the deadline to respond to the US school is April 15 but the professor asked me politely to give an answer within a reasonable amount of time, also my former supervisor (which has no interest in the matter) suggest not to string along the US school and try to make a decision well before the deadline.
I feel it might be unethical to wait the last minute because I respect the professor and he might lose good potential candidates. On the other hand I want to wait and see if there is a concrete possibility of pursuing a PhD at this other place.
# Answer
> 16 votes
**As soon as you are sure, or April 15, whichever is sooner.**
You have *no* ethical obligation to answer before the April 15 deadline, especially if you are waiting for an offer from another department.
On the other hand, it would be *nice* to answer earlier if you can. So it would be *nice* of you to contact your current department's admissions committee (either directly or through your lab director), tell them that you have another admission offer but would prefer them, and ask if they're likely to offer you admission. If they haven't decided, it would be *nice* of you tell them about your April 15 deadline and ask them when they expect to make up their mind.
(I'm assuming that you prefer to stay in your current lab. If you'd rather accept the pending offer, even if you got an offer from your current lab, then what are you waiting for? If you're not sure, then what more information do you need?)
# Answer
> 3 votes
In Europe there is no 15th of April deadline and nobody cares about US deadlines (if anything the top institutions would want to put pressure on people to make decisions quick so that they don't loose them as good PhD students are not that many (yes its sad but true)). There are many early cycles e.g. Oxford and Cambridge give people offers before the application deadline date for many US departments. And lets say if you get a funded offer in November if your supervisor is keen you can arrange to start by Trinity term in April.
Also this can be the case if the offer was made in irregular time of the year which is not that uncommon (e.g. in Sweden you can start Phd anytime during the year as soon as the guaranteed funding is available for the entirety of the PhD).
In many places you will be interviewed and asked whether you will accept the offer or not just to make sure you are not going to waste their time for a long time. You might say this is unethical behavior and I agree but it has happened to myself a couple of times. You will be expected to make a decision within reasonable amount of time and that is specific to the institution and how they run their business. Back in the day I had offers that gave me less than a month or ones that were open for a couple of months. If the position is funded and there is an expectation to start ASAP especially if there is a company behind the project you might be called in and be given an ultimatum and I have seen offers being retracted.
Advise: talk with the institution that has given you the offer, explain the situation, and get a date by which you can reply. If it is close enough you might be able to stretch it a bit by asking politely for a week or two more time.
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions
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thread-4888 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/4888 | How exactly does submitting an interdisciplinary NSF fellowship proposal affect your chances at winning it? | 2012-10-21T17:08:06.503 | # Question
Title: How exactly does submitting an interdisciplinary NSF fellowship proposal affect your chances at winning it?
I've received differing answers from many people on this. I'm proposing a planetary atmospheres project and while I'm submitting it to Geosciences - Climate Dynamics, I'll also probably include "Physics and Astronomy - Astronomy" and "Physics and Astronomy - Theoretical Physics" as part of the "% of program for Primary Field of Study". I'm in a geoscience department, but my adviser is a theoretical physicist and I come from an Astrophysics background. I'm slightly hesitant about including panels beyond geoscience though, since the physics/astronomy applicant pool is *far* stronger than the geoscience applicant pool, and there may be much bigger expectations expected from people in physics/astronomy.
One person told me that they might just average the scores of the reviews from both panels, while someone else told me that it can't hurt at all.
> *Is your proposed graduate program interdisciplinary?*
>
> Note: Interdisciplinary research is defined as a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of research practice. Please provide an estimate of the balance among the Fields of Study represented.
# Answer
> 2 votes
According to the NFS
> Your application will be assigned to the field of study you list first in the Proposed Graduate Program section. ... Therefore, you should choose which field you list first carefully, with consideration of which panel has the most appropriate component fields. ... All interdisciplinary applications are clearly marked as such during the review process. Many panelists have interdisciplinary expertise and are capable of evaluating interdisciplinary applications. Additionally, if necessary, the panel can transfer your application to another panel for either a full review or for commentary and feedback.
While in some cases they might average the scores, this does not appear to be a requirement. I would suspect that in most cases they would do the review within a single panel and rate you accordingly and only seek expertise outside the panel if absolutely necessary.
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Tags: funding, nsf
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thread-7615 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7615 | How to stay on top of recent literature? | 2013-01-30T12:00:13.220 | # Question
Title: How to stay on top of recent literature?
When I started my Masters thesis one advice I got for getting good material to read was to subscribe to several journals' alerts system, so that I would get mails with eTOC (electronic Table of Contents).
This was pretty cool then, for months I could stay on top of what's been published out there and was up to date in my own little narrow area. Now almost 3 years later that list of journals have expanded a bit, and the more work I have at the lab more mails that accumulate in my mailbox. What used to be no more than 10 unread mails is now about 900. The output is more than I can handle, what more restrictive method can I implement?
I guess it is pretty clear that this way of following literature is not sustainable in the long run. So I wonder if there are other and perhaps better ways of staying on top of recently published articles?
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Please note that I have checked the following two questions prior to asking this one. I do feel though my question differs from these two in its essence.
# Answer
During my PhD, I subscribed to the RSS feeds of the journals I would regularly read (started with 6 of them, ended up with a dozen). I would skim through titles of all new articles, and read abstracts of those whose title drew my eye. I then found out that some journals (*J. Chem. Phys.* in that particular case) offer specific RSS feeds for each of their sections, in addition to the “whole journal” feed. That helped reducing the number of journals I was skimming through.
Now, after the end of my PhD, my research interest are broader, the number of journals I like to watch is larger but my time is more limited. This system didn't work anymore, and I set up a new system, which has worked well for a few years. I use bibliographic databases (*SciFinder* and *Web of Science*; but I'm sure Google Scholar and PubMed have the same features) to create **publication and citation alerts**. Here's what I have set:
* **Citation alerts for all my own papers**: if someöne cites my work, there's a good chance I'll be interested in their paper. This one has two additional “strategic” bonuses: you get to keep an eye on your competition, and you can suggest newer work to other authors when relevant (*“hi there, I saw your recent paper citing my 2008 article on X, I thought you might be interested on a new extension of this algorithm that we published this year”*).
* **Publication alerts for major players** in the field of interest: I have 10 to 20 of those, watching all papers these people publish.
* **Citation alerts for some seminal or high-impact papers** by others in the field: a good way to see how a new idea is adopted/improved by the community. Those tend to trigger a massive number of cites, so you may want to get rid of them after some time. I have between 5 and 10 of those alerts at a given time.
The only drawback to this method: database updates tend to lag somewhat behind the RSS feeds of the journals themselves, so you get papers that are 2 to 8 weeks old.
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In addition, use **conferences** to stay on top/catch up with the literature:
* Look at contributions made, see what's new and go check the relevant recent publications.
* Even if you're not at the conference, look at the online program and see what looks new.
* If you're attending, talk with people… you can also use that opportunity to ask some people (whom you do know well enough):
> Have you seen that new technique by the team at MIT? it seems to work really well… I was wondering: what has caught *your* eye in the recent literature?
> 33 votes
# Answer
I subscribed to the math arXiv, i.e. I signed up to be sent an email every day about the articles posted to the math arXiv (the email contains titles and abstracts).
When I first did this, I got very excited and subscribed to lots of areas that were interesting to me - geometric topology, general topology, algebraic topology, group theory, etc etc. and I swiftly got completely swamped and ended up reading nothing. I decided that this wasn't getting me anywhere, and I unsubscribed from everything except one subtopic (geometric topology) which was most relevant to me.
I also made it a part of my morning schedule to go through the arxiv email (usually sent around 5a) - wake up, read my morning webcomics, go through the arxiv emails, make a note of anything that sounds relevant to me to read later in the office.
In summary then:
1. Subscribing to the arxiv instead of a journal gives me a manageably small list of articles per day (as opposed to a long list of articles on a more spaced-out schedule)
2. ArXiv allowed me to focus in on a small field of research - this might not be possible for journals, since they potentially include articles in a range of subject matter.
3. Making it a part of my daily schedule (particularly for a time when I'm potentially procrastinating from making the bikeride to school) made me more likely to actually do it.
4. At least in mathematics, it might take quite a bit of time for a paper to make it to the publishing stage, and reading the arXiv lets me be more up to date.
> 9 votes
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Tags: reading, literature
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thread-7624 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7624 | Business cards for graduate students | 2013-01-30T16:11:08.680 | # Question
Title: Business cards for graduate students
It's come up in our lab that we should probably have business cards for when we attend conferences, however, we've been given very little guidance for what is appropriate for a graduate student.
Some questions that have come up:
1. Should we be trying to standardize the cards to look like the official university's cards? (e.g., with the university logo, etc)?
2. Related to the first question, should we be going for standardized or for something that will make us stand out?
3. Should we be putting our current status on the card? It seems like if we haven't hit ABD yet then it might be counterproductive because then we'd have to buy new ones each time we made progress.
4. Should we be adding our research interests directly on the card? What about advisor?
5. Any other information (other than contact/website) that we should be including or tips on this?
# Answer
> 11 votes
I would standardize them and simply put the most relevant information on them. My (dated) business card looks like this:
Now I think it has a little bit more information than needed; fax is almost certainly not needed, but there might be circumstances where it's handy to have the mailing address. But important are:
* University + department
* Academic homepage
* E-mail address
* Perhaps phone number
* The fact that you're a PhD student.
I wouldn't add too much information on them. Business cards are for core info, nothing more; they might get crowded otherwise.
My own business card is outdated: a university reform means I'm no longer at the *Department of Space Science*, but at the *Department of Computer Science, Electrical and Space Engineering, Division of Space Technology*. But I don't care, because the e-mail address is still correct, and the new department/division wouldn't even fit on a business card ;)
# Answer
> 11 votes
You should check with your University's communications/pr department before printing up anything that reflects the institution's trademarked materials but I think it sounds like a pretty good idea. You just want to make sure that you don't step into any legal quagmires. Anytime that you produce collateral that associates you to an organization you can get into dangerous territory. For example- if you hand out your Awesome U. business cards at a pro/anti *whatever* rally, then you associating that activity with the institution. Obviously, they have reason to control such materials.
This sounds especially for nice for full time students that are attending conferences and the like.
Alternatively you could have personal business cards that say what ever you want and just say "Grad Student". I'd check first but that seems like a reasonable compromise.
# Answer
> 4 votes
Everywhere I have worked so far, there have been standard templates from the University for how their business cards should look, so I've simply used those, ordered through the University press.
My titles have been:
Project Assistant (during my undergrad)
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter / Research Assistant (during my PhD studies)
Postdoctoral Scholar
Scientific Officer
Postdoc
and everything else has been dictated by the University graphical manual and policies.
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Tags: graduate-school, conference
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thread-7636 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7636 | Can I use tools in beta version in my research? | 2013-01-30T23:23:34.527 | # Question
Title: Can I use tools in beta version in my research?
In my actual research work, I need some functionality that is not supported natively by any existing solid tools. So I have two choices: rather I implement this functionality my self, or I use an emerging tool which is in beta version. So, can this have a negative impact on the acceptance of my results by the research community? (I mean when I publish it in a scientific paper)
# Answer
At the end of the day, the main requirement is that you can trust the tools you're using. If you're using open-source software, then you may want to double-check that the algorithms are written correctly. If you're using proprietary software, then you may want to consider verifying results with other software for at least some samples.
Note that this is true with any open-source package. For my thesis work, I used a particular open-source analysis toolkit which was very popular in the community. They were regularly releasing updates as people investigated the software and found small glitches. During my regular use, I even helped uncover and report a moderately serious bug that would have resulted in bad output — and possibly erroneous conclusions — in a particular edge case. Always know the limits of your tools.
> 12 votes
# Answer
There's no simple rule about what sort of software is acceptable. What you do needs to be reliable, publicly documentable, and justifiable. Some beta software satisfies this, and some does not. Ultimately, you need to be able to make the case that your methodology (including the software you use) is trustworthy. Even assuming it is, you need to be able to convince other researchers. If you aren't sure, then you should consult with experts about the particular software. If you're a grad student, then asking your advisor would make sense.
> 6 votes
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Tags: research-process
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thread-7611 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7611 | Is it possible to measure/evaluate one's progress or development in quantitative terms? | 2013-01-30T11:30:24.653 | # Question
Title: Is it possible to measure/evaluate one's progress or development in quantitative terms?
I often end up frustrated over the pace of my work, or rather the lack of "worthy" results. During my feedback talks with my colleagues and superiors I usually get good feedback but I find it distressing that most of it is qualitative arguments.
I sometimes feel like I have not progressed as much as I would have liked to, but not sure how to assess whether or not I have developed "enough" over time. Which led me to wonder if it is possible at all to measure how well a PhD student is progressing.
The usual measures in the community appears to be:
* number of publications
* which journals the publications appeared in (or rather the impact factor)
* number of hours in the lab (regarding how "hard-working" one is)
* number of credits taken from courses during phd studies
I personally find none of the above to be a good measure. Publications are a fact of research, or the goal rather. But they should not a be measure of how well a PhD candidate is doing in research. I believe the pragmatic demand on "more publications" has essentially lead to overall lower quality and novelty in individual publications. But even without that subjective comment, it should not be a revelation to anyone here that the amount of publications (and especially in which journals they are published) is more dependent on the seniors on the paper rather than the grad student who wrote it.
As for the other two measures I point to, they are just too naive variables to mean much. I mean you can be in the lab for 18h a day, but not learn much new or even worse not even remember those things you have learned. Besides one can also argue whether or not it's actually better for a grad student to be obsessed with number of hours in the lab, or courses taken.
**Summary:** Is there a good way to measure your progress through-out your studies? How can I evaluate my development as a scientist, in quantitative (and unbiased) terms?
# Answer
To reduce anything to a quantitative score, you need a valid metric. There are very few valid metrics you can use in research, as you state in your question. The only other half-common metric that you didn't list above is **Papers read/annotated**. We all know reading is really useful, and you should definitely aim to read X papers a week (where X is some random number that makes sense in your field). That said, the goal of reading is to gather information, and how much information was gained (and retained) is a lot harder to measure.
That said, I have two half-answers:
* Make up your own metric based on **hours of productive work.** At the end of each day, just write down in an excel sheet or something how many useful hours you worked that day. You can use some service like Rescuetime to help you in this, or the Pomodoro technique, or just simply buy a stopwatch and keep track yourself. At the end, do a simple `# useful hours/total hours worked` to see how productive you think you're being. That'll probably be more useful than anything else you'll come up with.
* Make **task-specific metrics**. I tracked my progress on my thesis using a custom shell script I wrote that tracked how much text I added in a given time period and plotted it out. (Yes, I probably spent more time making the shell script than I gained in motivation from using it. Whatever.) I tracked progress on one of my projects by how many datasets I had analyzed. I tracked progress on another project by how much coding I completed each day. These are much more useful than broad, overarching metrics.
> 5 votes
# Answer
posdef, this is something that I've struggled with as well. Instead of knit picking over what the definition of 'is' is, I would like to offer the approach which I have used. Your mileage will vary but I've found this approach to work well for me and it may work for you as well.
First, the crux of the problem for me was that progress is either analog or digital, qualitative or quantitative, right? This is what we are led to believe and I think that in the case of education, it is not true. There are discrete quantitative measures by which you can, and have, gauged your progress. 40 classes to get your Bachelor's degree. If you complete 20 classes, you're half way there. Quantitative progress. If you're half way through and your GPA is 3.5 then you can make a qualitative assessment of your empirical data. 50% complete, doing well with room for improvement. So throughout our undergraduate work there is a pretty consistent set of standards and metrics by which to measure our progress and the quality of our work.
Graduate school, for me at least, has been somewhat different. With a Masters program you've usually have either seven-eight classes and a thesis or ten-twelve classes and some kind of a project. For the first portion of the program you can track as before, but then you get into the core of your research or development and encounter something, which I think you are alluding to, 'the perception of quality'.
* "How many papers did you write?" 10 - High(Quant)
* "How good did people think they were?" 4 - Low(Qual)
* "How many hours did you spend in the lab?" 100 - Low(Quant)
* "How good was your lab output/finding?" 10 - Exceptional(Qual)
I haven't started the doctorate yet, but I can make an educated guess that this only intensifies with candidate work.
What it really boils down to at this point in your academic career, at least in my experience, is 'how well is your work received?' and how to do you track that to evaluation your own progress. What I've done is to take a two pronged approach to each aspect.
On the quantitative side I've set up a simple database with my course work, grades, number of publications, number of lectures, number of citations, everything I can think of to track my progress. You could also do this with a spreadsheet pretty easily. The basic tenet of this approach is 'What do I have to accomplish & what have I accomplished."
On the qualitative side I've asked professors, facilitators, leads, reviewers, even peers in some cases, to evaluate my work against the task objectives. Usually you get something like "*you're doing fine*" but if you can get more detail, do so. A question that I like to ask is "*Would you feel comfortable with me teaching your syllabus?*" This seems to get their attention. It's interesting because it puts the qualitative assessment back on to themselves and forces them to think of your mastery of the material in terms of dissemination rather than assimilation. "*Do you feel comfortable with me teaching this material/running this lab/managing this team that has your name on it?*" Good bad or ugly I write it down and give it a 1, 2, 3. 1=no faith. 2=some faith. 3=complete faith. If, after 6 courses (for sake of argument) you have a qualitative score of 15+ then you know that more than half of your superiors have faith in your mastery of the content that you are consuming or presenting.
To be fair... I'm a bit of a numbers junkie and this may not be the kind of system that works for you but it has worked for me so far.
Best of luck.
> 4 votes
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Tags: research-process, evaluation-criteria
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thread-7650 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7650 | How do I remove myself from academic mailing lists? | 2013-01-31T15:18:39.577 | # Question
Title: How do I remove myself from academic mailing lists?
When I was a grad student, I participated in a bunch of conferences, and sent papers to journals and the like.
But now I'm no longer in academia. I've been out for more than three years, and I still get a few emails a week notifying me of new conferences, hotel discounts for those who register, extended deadlines and the other usual stuff.
The thing is that none of these emails offer contact information or ways to unsubscribe from the mailing list. And it's not like they're from organizations I previously interacted with, but they are certainly about my former line of research. They are probably worse than spam, because I don't even think you could report them as spam.
I removed myself from all site registrations I can remember, such as IEEE and ACM, but these keep coming and coming and coming and coming.
How can a former academic get himself removed from all these mailing lists?
# Answer
> 8 votes
Sadly, that sounds like spam, and you should treat it however you'd treat spam.
I'm not sure you should assume good faith on the part of the people sending you those e-mails. I'm an active academic with an e-mail address accessible on my university website, and I receive:
1. Legitimate conference announcements over e-mail lists used by people in the area, which I could unsubscribe from if I wished.
2. Announcements from people who actually know me.
3. Unsolicited announcements from scam journals and conferences.
I receive several of the last category every week (and more, unsurprisingly, than any other category). I do *not* get legitimate mass e-mails that are not in the first two categories. It's possible that in other fields there are some legitimate announcements sent the way you describe, but I'd guess very few.
In other words: spam is spam, and you should feel no compunctions about treating it that way.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I also get these mails, and I have the impression there is no way to cancel these kinds of emails. Your email address is associated with an academic context, and available in public. This makes it fair game for all obscure conferences and journals who want to lure you in.
The solution I see is:
1. Get a new mail address
2. Try filter out any mails mentioning conferences and such. Gmail has facilities for this kind filtering based on keywords.
3. Use a spam filter and let it train on filtering this kind of mails. Thunderbird and other mail programs, and probably gmail have these kinds of self learning spam filters. You just keep flagging it as spam until they are automatically removed from your inbox. Do check your spam box once in a while to catch errors.
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Tags: conference, email, spam
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thread-7655 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7655 | Paying for page charges after a grant ends | 2013-01-31T18:13:18.470 | # Question
Title: Paying for page charges after a grant ends
Often publications resulting from funded research are published after the grant ends. It seems nowadays more and more publishers are requiring fees (submission fees, page charges, and open access fees). How does one pay for these fees after a grant ends?
# Answer
> 2 votes
The way it works here in Japan, is that each professor has an amount of money called "discretionary spending", from there, they get money for these kinds of things. And is usual that if a professor has his name in the paper , he should use part of this money to pay for the submission.
That money does not comes form a grant, but the University's endowment, so I guess it depends on that.
# Answer
> 1 votes
**I refuse to publish in a journal that charges me for publishing my years of sweat and labour for their financial gain and asks me for money as well. Its against my principles.**
Once I was asked to pay 500 dollars for color pictures. I asked them to revert them back to black and white and just have them in colour online.
Open access is a different story and I see it as being legitimate on their part to ask for money for it. It you don't have the grant money =\> no open access. Put a preprint somewhere and publish somewhere that allows preprints or at least turns a blind eye.
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Tags: publications, funding
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thread-7679 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7679 | Unable to defend and graduate because of advisers fickle mentality | 2013-02-01T12:37:44.063 | # Question
Title: Unable to defend and graduate because of advisers fickle mentality
I am an international student at a US university and I have a fantastic, caring and supportive adviser who I find fosters a happy work environment for all his students to grow in.
Here's the drawback to this happily unfolding story:
1. He advises 9 students, 5 of who are PhD students (I am one of them).
2. 4 out of the 5 PhD students are in the final stages of their PhD program (me included).
3. 3 out of these 4 PhD students have families and should have graduated at least about 5-6 months ago but because of "family pressure" they haven't. I don't relate to that because I don't have a family and **I want to defend and graduate**
My adviser has always had goals that are generally considered unattainable in my group. I had been given 3 weeks to finish my dissertation in 2012 with the dangling carrot that I could defend and then focus on writing papers perhaps.
I met this goal one whole week short of the 3 week goal. However, my advisor has been postponing my defense for a variety of reasons (all of which are true) and is being pulled in several directions at the same time because of an important position in the research area of fuel cells.
So these constant vacillations have led to my defense being pushed to the end of Feb 2013. Now I'm told they don't know when I'll defend.
I find that this is rather unfair and considering that I generally have a good rapport with my advisor I am unsure of how to broach this topic. Why am I so worried? I come from a country where demanding things from your adviser is sinful and gets you kicked out of graduate school.
I'd really like to say that I want to defend and figure out the next step in my life! I am not talking getting a job necessarily but just life in general — get married, have kids, find a job, move to a different place (in no particular order) what have you.
Any advice or similar experience that I can draw from?
# Answer
> 27 votes
**Talk to him** (I'm gonna make a template out of that one)
Be professional, stay fact-based, don't say it as a criticism (veiled or not) of him, and you should be in the clear. Say something like:
> I wanted to ask you, given your experience on this matter: I had expected that the final period of my PhD, between finishing the thesis and defending, would be quite short. Given that it's not the case, I was wondering: what is, in your expectations, a typical schedule? Am I doing something that hurts my ability to defend sooner? Could I do something to speed the process?
That should open up a dialogue about your expectations, his expectations, your constraints and his, and possibly help unknot the tie you're in.
---
However, you're not giving us much information about the exact nature of the core issue:
> he has been postponing my defense for a variety of reasons (all of which are true)
If all the reasons given for postponing the defense are valid (I assume “true” here means “valid”), I don't see why you expect to defend. Do you think he's setting the bar too high? Is it merely a scheduling/timing issue? You say that your thesis is ready, has he gone over it, commented, critiqued, discussed it with you? Is the problem with putting together the committee?
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Tags: phd, advisor, abuse
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thread-7630 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7630 | How should I deal with a professor whose weak language proficiency is disturbing our paper's writing quality? | 2013-01-30T20:42:04.077 | # Question
Title: How should I deal with a professor whose weak language proficiency is disturbing our paper's writing quality?
I am a first year PhD Student, writing a conference paper with an Italian Professor, very senior and renowned in our field. Every commit he makes to the SVN is riddled with spelling and grammar errors. I have been fixing the errors and also trying to improve the expression but I have this impression he is not very happy about me doing it. (Maybe something to do with him having dozens of publications and me having a total of Zero)
On occasion, he actually reverted my changes to stick with his wrong or inferior-quality expression. How to deal with this? I would hate to see this paper go with an inferior quality language when I could have improved it.
# Answer
> 9 votes
As a French native speaker whose English was gradually improved over the years, I've been on both sides of this kind of situation, and there are different aspects to consider:
* If your collaborator does not like you fixing *typos*, then there is a real problem;
* It is usually accepted that papers are not written in British-English, nor in American-English, but in *Global*-English, and being a native English speaker yourself might not be strict advantage. If your collaborator has successfully managed to publish dozens of papers, then either his style is somehow accepted, or all his papers have been written by others, in which case he wouldn't mind letting you write the paper in your own style;
* The style of an author is personal, and changing it can be seen as touching the ownership of the text, and can also be seen as offensive, especially when the gain of the modification is not immediately perceived (which might be the case for non native speaker, a "better" expression does not necessarily strike as an improvement). This is particularly true if you only change one expression: if you were to rewrite an entire paragraph, to change to some extent the content, it would probably be easier, since you've clearly improved the text.
* At least for me, there is a clear notion of trust of people I'm working with. There are some people I completely trust, and I don't care a second if they modify my text, but I would be reluctant to see my text modified by someone I just started working with, especially if it's only for cosmetic purposes, like picking the best expression or word when the original one is understandable/correct, or changing a notation, or reformatting the paper, etc. I'm not saying I would be against, but I would need to understand and agree with the gain. In my opinion, this is mostly a notion of trust rather than seniority.
In summary, let it slide, as long as it does not impact the overall clarity of the paper, especially in the first stages of the paper (some expressions you don't like might disappear naturally after a while, replaced by new content).
# Answer
> 5 votes
You have better things to do like focusing on getting that PhD and the first paper. The guy is renowned as you so at this stage it doesn't matter for him that much. No editor is going to reject a paper you write with him because it had mistakes. At most people will say that the language should be improved etc.
Practical advise:
1. Don't piss the guy off its not worth it. Be more politically savvy.
2. I don't know your field but in some fields you have to write in a very specific manner and what might seem inferior quality to you might be the standard way to write in that field.
3. Only raise the issue if its a titanic of a mistake! Do it gracefully. Next time don't change it put a polite comment.
# Answer
> 2 votes
I have learnt very fast not to be a perfectionist! So perhaps you can be less judgemental (not saying this in a bad way).
However, you still need to be rigorous and if there is something that is dramatically wrong, you can then discuss it with your professor.
Perhaps giving him two or three correction options may help. Let him choose which version he likes. In any case, you would be preparing the options, so whichever option he chooses will be ok for you.
As F'x said, talk to him.
# Answer
> 2 votes
It is always better to be diplomatic in academia, especially when you are a first year graduate student, and your advisor is a well-known person. That is "never piss off your advisor".
He can do whatever he wants if you piss him off. After you work with a professor for 2-3 years, your will only have two reasonable options: (1) quit the program, or (2) suffer and somehow get the PhD. The other option is to switch advisor, but if you are in the middle of the program, that is almost a no-option. Note that, even if your advisor doesn't become angry when you point out language mistakes at the moment, he may choose to stay calm, and find a way to react to you in future. My high level point is: be diplomatic. That is how academia works. If you piss off your advisor, you are not going to succeed in getting a PhD or a good job after that.
Coming to your specific question, may be you should leverage the fact that your advisor is well-known. After you submit the article to a journal (they may see his name and may be they won't be harsh), the editors will likely ask for improvements to the language, and may be then you can tell your professor that you will handle improving the language/grammar. Then it will show up as "taking responsibility" and he will appreciate you.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Other answers assume that the professor is OP's advisor, which seems not to be the case. I would advise to avoid working with this guy in the future (if he's stubborn on such small matters, it's unlikely to end well), and if he was your advisor, the standard JeffE's response would apply: "Don't walk, run!"
I am somewhat appalled that most answers seem to recommend the "play safe, don't mess with powerful people" approach. The language errors themselves might not seem like a big enough deal to pick up a fight, but by choosing to be "politically savvy" now you make it easier for yourself to compromise in the future on more serious matters. Yes, to fight over such issues requires lack of self-preservation instinct, but by choosing to do a PhD instead of an "honest job" you've already shown that's not a problem ;). Sorry if this is a bit off topic/argumentative, but I've seen this kind of answers also in other threads and I think the advice goes in exactly the wrong direction - there is a lot of excellent jobs outside academia, so contrary to other answers in this thread you are actually full of options (being smart enought to be doing a PhD gives you a very strong hand).
# Answer
> 1 votes
I'm also a first year, non-native English speaker PhD, but I've been doing some writing with my Master thesis adviser (native speaker of my language, not English, but very well versed in English and ~2 more languages). In any language, I often have long causal (is that the right word?) sentences, and he sometimes wouldn't agree with my style.
Even though I was the one doing most of the writing, I still feel like I can offer some useful tips. And, before the list, I *support everyone arguing strategy and being careful that your actions aren't **misinterpreted** as disrespectful*
* if it's just *typos (spelling)*, or *obvious grammar* ("It's advantage" vs. "Its advantage"), just correct it on your own and *accompany it with an SVN comment* ("Ran text through spellchecker", "Spotted and corrected few minor spelling mistakes")
If you feel like your professor has an easily-bruised ego, make it sound like not a big deal. Just some routine check-ups and tune-ups you did, nothing major you changed.
* request **in person meetings**, or (in case it's not possible to meet in person) **video-conference/phone-call meetings** or at least ask the guy (nicely!) if it would be okay to **collect and send** your opinions and confusions on the paper **via e-mail** once or twice a month or so
* **keep track of** passages and expressions that **you would change**. Rank them if you want, from the ones that are just plain confusing you and which you can not understand, to the ones that sound strange language-wise to the ones you just think you have a better expression for.
If you sit on that information for a few days, you'll come to terms with some of them, realize that some are really a matter of personal style, and which parts are just simply confusingly written and hard to understand.
* **communicate with the professor**, respectfully and diplomatically expressing your concerns. Some suggestions that I would feel comfortable with.
*"I'm not sure if I understood what you meant in this passage here (...). I have interpreted it as (...), is that correct?" (slip your suggestion here)*
*"As a non-native English speaker, I am not too familiar with this expression or weather it can be used in this context. Do you think it would be a good idea if we / I checked for an alternate expression?"*
*"I had a very hard time to understand this part (...). After going through it and understanding it, I have re-written it in a way that sounds clearer for me. Would you have time to go through this and offer your opinion?"*
*"Would you mind interpreting this couple of sentences for me? I do understand the gist of it from my practical work, but I can't seem to put the pieces in place after reading it."*
* this way, you're not imposing your style or writing, and it can not be misinterpreted as "I think my writing is better than yours." But, as papers are written to be understood by others, **you expressing your concerns might prompt him to re-think the part of the text**.
If he tries to explain on the spot, and looses himself in the explanation, that should be a clear hint even to the professor that it's not really clearly written.
There is no chance of you changing the meaning of something you misunderstood. Also, you showed that even though you would write something differently, you respect his style, reasoning and opinion. My ex-supervisor always told me, it's always okay to have an opinion of your own if you can back it up and defend it. If you can both concisely explain to each other how and why you've written a portion of text, it will be easier to reach an understanding.
* always offer him the chance to do it ("we might" -- it means you) but say that you can implement the changes yourself ("or I can write the potential changes" -- it means you again).
Offering them to do it shows respect of their opinion, and offering to do it yourself shows commitment and respect of their time. Very diplomatic :)
* **never** say you think **there is a problem**. Saying you have a "problem" is a sign of weakness in academia \- so you definetely shouldn't accuse a professor of having one. Look through my post, go ahead: I never used the word "problem" before this paragraph. Not once.
So, shortly, I strongly advise diplomacy. But also, **talking to your supervisor**. If you offer your suggestions in a way that tell your professor that you value what he's written, his opinion, and his work, he shouldn't have problems doing the same with you. And if he still does have a problem with it... **Don't walk. Run!** (by @JeffE)
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Tags: publications, writing, etiquette, language
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thread-7656 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7656 | Resources on how to overcome writer's block, especially for non-native English speakers? | 2013-01-31T18:17:04.317 | # Question
Title: Resources on how to overcome writer's block, especially for non-native English speakers?
One of the issues we have at my English-language institute is the problem of getting our doctoral students to write papers in English. For some, writing isn't a big challenge. For others, however, the process is about as pleasurable as pulling teeth or a lobotomy (without the benefit of anesthesia).
What we've found is that there are a few problems that tend to creep up:
* Students don't know how to commit their ideas into paper
* Students are afraid of writing poorly, so they don't write at all
What I'm wondering is if there are any resources available that can help—particularly international students—with overcoming the "academic" version of writer's block.
# Answer
Of course there are plenty of resources about how to overcome writer's block, however for different people different techniques work. The advices I always found very useful as a PhD student (although I cannot find the original sources, it's been years) were these:
1. **do not aim high at the beginning. Crappy and hasty first draft is perfectly fine, iterative improvement will come later**: as the author here points out, inexperienced writers tend to have too high standard on themselves. Since I am in a formal field, I therefore refrained to start with the paper's motivation, but rather tried to work out the mathematical flesh first. That one is easier in terms of language since the form can be copied/learned from good papers of others. But this differs across disciplines.
2. **block time every day for writing and do nothing else at that time, even if you should stare at a blank wall**: this is my way to kill the procrastinator in me. Simply three hours every day a week for writing. Even if during that time one would really just stare at a wall and write nothing, it's better than procrastinating. Eventually the boredom is so high that writing becomes welcomed activity. It is imperative not to do anything else, especially not to study, read or otherwise consult any literature, also get disconnected from Internet and colleagues, etc. The best for me was to go for this to the department's library where was no wifi connection. I read somewhere that this technique is used by some novel writers, but can't find any source of this advice.
3. Another powerful technique is **use public commitment wisely**: that is, publicly commit to delivering an artifact at a precisely specified deadline. E.g., first draft of the paper next Friday. Tell to your boss, tell to your office-mate, whatever. The higher the authority you tell, the better. For many people this has a magic effect, because we tend to value our commitments, however painful it sometimes is to stand up to them.
But again, different techniques work for different people.
> 29 votes
# Answer
I don't really see this as a problem specific to non-native English speakers. I know plenty of first-language English speakers who are absolutely rubbish at writing.
The problems I've personally witnessed go much deeper than correct use of the language: It's mainly about organizing your thoughts and what you want to say, and then saying it in the clearest way possible. This usually does not involve any in-depth knowledge of the English language. In fact, being *too* good may make your writing worse.
I use and preach an incremental writing approach which consists of the following steps
1. Start identifying the **one statement** that your paper will make, e.g. "*here is a new method to solve problem X*", or "*method X is better than method Y for problem Z*".
2. Once you're clear on what the message will be, write a rough sketch of your paper in terms of the statements you will make. This should be the **main story** of your paper. Each statement should really only make a single point, e.g.
* Solving problem *X* is very important.
* Most people use method *Y* to solve problem *X*.
* Method *Y* has this/that weakness.
* Method *Z* avoids this weakness.
* Show on an actual example that *Z* is better than *Y* for problem *X*.
At this point you should start worrying about *consistency*. What you have to look out for is dependencies between your statements, i.e. have you really stated everything you need to state such that I can make the next statement? Will you be using words/concepts/methods before introducing them? It is important that you get these things right at this early phase, where ironing problems out is still relatively easy.
3. Once you've nailed your story line, you can start *fleshing-out* your individual statements. Here too, I would recommend sticking to bullet points and making only one statement of fact per bullet. The first statement above, for example, can be expanded as follows:
* Introduce problem *X*.
* List several instances of problem *X*.
* Give a concrete example of where solving problem *X* is important.
* State benefits of solving problem *X* more efficiently.
Here again, dependencies are crucial! Make sure you don't use any information without having given it in a previous statement. Also try to keep dependent statements as close together as possible. Remember that you're trying to tell a story and need to keep your reader on track.
Also, note that I haven't said a thing about sections. It is usually only at this point that I would start placing section headings and grouping different statements. Doing so too early may cramp your story-telling.
4. You should now have a somewhat complete story-board of *what* you're going to say, and you still haven't had to worry about *how* you're going to write it. What you need to do now is turn the **bullets into text**.
The way I usually go about this is to turn every statement/bullet into a paragraph of text. The first sentence of said paragraph should be the statement, followed by at most one or two sentences either explaining it in more detail or giving an example of what you are saying. If you need an example, almost every paragraph in this answer was written this way.
5. The final phase is **refinement**. Your paper, at this points, will probably consist of a large number of very short paragraphs that don't necessarily flow into each other. This is where you start merging paragraphs and using connectors between them, e.g. "Thus", "However", "Furthermore", etc...
This final step is not something you do once, it's something you repeat until your paper looks, feels, and reads like a regular paper. I usually go through a paper with a red pen and fix things by hand while reading, then implement the corrections, and then wait a day or two before iterating again.
In summary, the process I've just described is **completely mechanical** and does not involve any in-depth knowledge of the underlying language. The only language ability you need is to formulate clear statements. If you do anything fancier than that, you'll risk loosing any reader whose level of English is below your own.
I am very much aware that there are many people who can just sit down and write beautiful, precise, consistent, and easy to read papers. Good for them. For the rest of us, I suggest using the approach I describe. At least it works for me.
> 17 votes
# Answer
As an international student, I have suffered a lot from writing academic papers. I believe **It is an advantage to be English-native speaker in the academia**. Well, I mean mastering the language not necessarily a mother tongue. Each time I submit a paper, I expect some comments on its english. I remember first time I submitted a paper it was rejected because of what so called bad english on it. Now after five years of writing and submitting and with the help of the supervisor and continuing reading papers, I got minor comments (in most cases its the reviewer style more than the language itself).
I believe it is up to the students, If they want to have a career in academia they should push themselves by reading and writing in English. They will notice their skills will be developed over the time. Also, proofreading ,*to know your mistakes*, is a good thing specially in the beginning.
> Students don't know how to commit their ideas into paper
This is why you should push them. You want them to have successful careers after PhD, this will be very difficult without a good sense of writing academic papers.
Ask them to write first draft and hand it to you. You can comment on it and send it back to them. This is how it worked for me.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Rowena Murray is very good on this:
MURRAY, R., & MOORE, S. (2006). The handbook of academic writing a fresh approach. Maidenhead, England, McGraw-Hill.
MURRAY, R. (2006). How to write a thesis. Maidenhead, Open University Press.
MURRAY, R. (2005). Writing for academic journals. Maidenhead, Open University Press.
Understanding perceptions and fears about judgement (external and internal) and the difference between performance/learning orientations are sometimes useful conversations to have.
> 5 votes
# Answer
Thank you for asking this question addressing what appears to be a sadly widespread problem in academia. I'm an international student (from India in US) myself, and it's been a great boon for me to be able to communicate fluently in English.
Particularly re: international students, our Office of International Students organizes (spoken) English classes, which are free for all international students and scholars. In addition, at Rice we used to have a group of grad students get together for lunch on Fridays and converse in English (this was a registered student organization called 'English Corner', and they had funding from various sources for the lunches). I realize that you were referring to resources for writing as opposed to speaking, but I believe that particularly for non-native speakers confidence in speaking can translate to confidence in writing. In terms of the actual writing process, there are some online resources, such as Englishforums
As for resources for a more general audience, in certain departments around here I've heard of a thesis-writing class that grad students are required to take for credit. Our Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies has recently been trying to put together some professional development workshops and courses, which often focus on the 'communication' aspect of academia. Another possibility is that the beginning courses in the doctoral program (1st and 2nd year classes) could be made to have a strong (or at least non-trivial) writing component. For example, one might require students to write an expository term paper or something along those lines.
I realize that roughly everything I've mentioned above has to do with resources available at my university, so perhaps my answer consists of 'Here are some resources that might already exist at your university, or might be put into place there'.
> 3 votes
# Answer
There is a strong line in professional writing that suggests that there is no such a thing as writer's block.
Writing for a Journal should be something mechanic, not some work of art that should come from the depths of your hearth, at the end, it is a skill, and a skill that you have to work on.
Many professors are really bad writers, because their own professors were also very bad, there are few writing courses in a grad student's curricula.
These and other very valid points are presented in "How to write a lot" by Paul Silva, I find it to be a very useful book, and full of great advice both for students and professors alike.
Link to the book
> 2 votes
# Answer
I recommend beeminder. It allows you to set goals publicly. If you go "off track", it penalises you in a few ways you can choose (charges you money, posts to your facebook account, ...).
For me it has been very effective to get me to write. I use it according to the following rule: I count writing sessions, where a session is at least 5 words. In fact, most of the time, I will end up writing hundreds of words, and beeminder just forces me to go over the activation barrier and start typing.
> 2 votes
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Tags: writing, language, motivation
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thread-7684 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7684 | Six-month post-doc on J-1 Research scholar visa, can one apply for another J-1 if physically departing before end of contract? | 2013-02-01T13:20:01.810 | # Question
Title: Six-month post-doc on J-1 Research scholar visa, can one apply for another J-1 if physically departing before end of contract?
Someone I know (nationality French) has accepted a six-month post-doctoral fellowship in the United States. The hosting institute will sponsor a J-1 visa; my understanding is that J-1 visas are much quicker to process than H-1B visas, and since she should start as soon as possible, they opt for J-1. A J-1 Research Scholar visa has the following limitations:
> Professor and Research Scholars must:
>
> (...)
>
> Not have participated in a J-Visa program for all or part of the 12-month period immediately preceding the start date of a professor or research scholar program unless they meet one of the following exceptions:
>
> (...)
>
> The participant's prior physical presence in the U.S. on a J-visa program was less than six months in duration
If she *physically* leaves the United States one week before the end of her contract (having been in the US for 5 months, 3 weeks), for example to attend a conference in Europe or for working from home, can she still apply for a *new* post-doctoral fellowship (*NB: I'm not talking about an extension of the existing post-doc*) at a new J-1 research scholar visa, or will a H-1B visa be the only route still accessible for a new post-doc?
# Answer
Yale University has a very nice explanatory page for those 12 and 24-month rules, which are more complicated than the excerpts you quote:
This seems to contradict your quote. Note that it says specifically *“for any amount of time (one day to five years)”*.
> 6 votes
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Tags: visa, united-states
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thread-7688 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7688 | Verifying that cited results are still current before publishing | 2013-02-01T13:41:44.823 | # Question
Title: Verifying that cited results are still current before publishing
Assume you are knee-deep in a project, going through a series of papers that are seemingly relevant to your project. You found this ~10 year old paper, which looks very promising indeed. A lot of interesting results, good discussion, etc.
At this stage, I think it's obvious that you should check whether or not the results and conclusions in the paper are still valid by searching for any correspondence related to the article (e.g., pointing out that some claims do not hold, etc). However, I have yet to find anyone that digs into such information. You normally find a paper, read it, find more interesting papers through references and keep on digging in this manner until you have accumulated "enough" articles to form an educated opinion.
My questions are as follows:
* Is this (or any other) type of quality assurance process, when it comes to cited literature, common practice?
* Is there a way to streamline this process? PubMed does not seem to include all correspondence related to each article.
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<sub>I should perhaps note that, if you are in biomedical sciences (especially related to complex diseases), about half of the publications turn out to be wrong or misleading after some years, and perhaps a quarter more are shown to be incomplete in its findings. I believe it's in the nature of biology, in contrast to more human defined sciences like mathematics or computer science. There are no formulas or calculations to check the integrity of the work published.</sub>
# Answer
> 10 votes
I think what you're looking for are the papers that cite a given paper. This is often listed as "Cited by" in various databases. If paper B shows that paper A is incorrect, paper B will almost always cite paper A. In that vein, you can look at all the works that cite a given paper to see if any disprove the results.
More typically, though, if a paper published 10 years ago is still relevant today, there are other more recent papers on the same topic which will either cite that paper or derivative works thereof, and you would use those more recent papers to ascertain the current state of the research. Old papers, particularly in quick-moving fields, tend to either fade away pretty quickly or serve as foundations for other research. If no one else has cited it in the interim period, it's probably worth taking a very critical look at why that is the case before throwing in all your chips on that single paper.
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Tags: publications, literature
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thread-7643 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7643 | What does it mean to accept a job offer | 2013-01-31T09:12:51.730 | # Question
Title: What does it mean to accept a job offer
Related to this question: How to buy plane tickets for job interviews?
What does it mean to accept a job offer? Or maybe more accurately when have you accepted a job offer?
The latest and most conservative might be when you sign a contract. This seems a little late in the game as often contracts, especially in the States are slow to be generated. The earliest might be when you go for an interview. In the UK it is pretty standard for universities to not reimburse candidates to whom offers are made and subsequently turned down. Middle ground might be when you enter contract negotiations or verbally agree to the terms of your contract.
# Answer
It sounds like customs depend on the field and country, but here's my experience based on mathematics in the U.S. I'll answer based on customs rather than laws, since that's generally more relevant: one can get a bad reputation for doing something perfectly legal, and one can get away with things that aren't legally justified if nobody is willing to enforce their rights in court.
**The short version:**
Acceptance is understood to be a final decision that commits you to showing up for a year. You can ask to be released from that obligation, but you shouldn't just announce you aren't coming. If you give a good enough reason for your request, they'll grant it. If your reason isn't compelling to them, they won't try to force you to show up but you'll really damage your reputation (not just at that university). Saying you got a better offer afterwards is not considered compelling, and you are expected to withdraw other applications upon accepting an offer.
**The long version:**
Negotiating does not imply accepting an offer, and in fact you should always try to negotiate over whatever you care about before you accept, since your leverage will never be higher. (Some candidates don't like the idea of having leverage, but you can think of it as a benefit to the department as well: it's much more effective for the department to tell the administration "We need to do X to get our wonderful candidate to accept" than "Our wonderful new hire wishes we would do X".)
Accepting an offer just amounts to saying you accept it. In principle, this could be tricky: people's memories of an oral acceptance could be disputed later, and it's possible to write things that sound like an acceptance but might not be meant that way ("Great, I guess we'll be colleagues next fall then"). Of course I'd strongly recommend avoiding anything that might be ambiguous or confusing, just in case, but in practice I've never seen this actually cause a serious problem. Any sensible department will follow up to get an unambiguous answer in writing, so if the situation remains ambiguous it's because both sides screwed up.
The real question is how binding an acceptance is, assuming both sides agree the offer was accepted. In the communities I'm familiar with, you cannot unilaterally change your decision once you have accepted. You could presumably get away with it, since the department isn't going to sue you if you don't show up, but that would be very bad for your reputation. Instead, the standard approach is to explain how things have changed and ask the department for permission to withdraw your acceptance.
In certain cases, this is perfectly straightforward. Suppose an unexpected problem has arisen in your life: for example, one of your parents was just diagnosed with cancer and you want to live close to them for the next year or two. Surely any reasonable department would understand and approve.
Of course, most cases are less clear cut, and amount to personal preference. This is more likely to arise after a deferral, where you accepted a job but then went on leave for a year first, since the extra time allows for more things to change. In general, departments will be pretty unhappy if you defer and then change your mind. It's important to ask to be released from your obligation rather than simply announcing you won't come; the department will often agree, since they understand you would likely leave after a year anyway. It's not good and you should try hard to avoid this situation, but occasionally it happens. If it does, you should feel a little guilty for making it harder for other candidates to get deferrals, by contributing to the impression that people with deferrals might change their minds in the meantime.
At the other extreme, you might simply change your mind within a single yearly job market cycle and decide you prefer another offer you already had at the time of your decision. This is probably not even worth asking about: when you accept an offer, it is understood to be a final decision, and you can't just re-evaluate your options. You should officially decline all your other offers when you accept an offer; if you aren't ready to do that, then you aren't ready to accept a job yet.
Of course, the trickiest case is when you get an offer with an early deadline and have to make a decision before other universities you might prefer can make an offer. Most departments don't want to pressure people into making this kind of decision, and it's always worth asking for an extension of the deadline. Many departments will agree, but a few will not (I know of one department that strategizes about how to put time pressure on people).
If you are caught negotiating with a department that is trying to pressure you in this way, then you should be as tough as they are. On the other hand, their behavior does not mean your acceptance becomes non-binding, and unilaterally changing your mind will still look bad throughout the community. If the department refuses to grant an extension or show any other flexibility, then they are clearly indicating they want a definitive answer now, and you'll have to give them one. It's worth considering whether you even want to work for a department that would treat you that way.
As soon as you have accepted an offer, you should withdraw all your other job applications. Partly this is so they don't have to waste time evaluating a candidate who is no longer available, and partly it is because if you don't withdraw them, then it looks like you are still hoping for a better offer. That is what will really offend people, because it will look like you tricked the department whose offer you accepted by giving them what was understood to be a final decision while still staying on the market to see what other offers you could get.
> 7 votes
# Answer
There are many different takes. “Accepting” a job offer is pretty much that: **if you tell the person who offered you** (your HR contact, the hiring committee, any person of authority in the hiring process) that you accept their offer, that you take the job.
**Does it mean there's not turning back? Of course not!** The question then becomes: how binding is that agreement? And again, there are answers on many different levels: legal, moral, diplomatic…
* Legal: as always, better ask a lawyer, union representative or knowledgeable and trusted friend. Everything depends on the local law, the type of offer made, what you said and/or wrote, etc. It may sound logical that nothing's set in stone until you have signed a contract, but that may not always be the case. Some institutions might, for example, require you to write and sign a binding letter of engagement before the contract is drafted (which, as you said, can take time). In some jurisdiction, the simple fact of showing up for work on the first day of the contract *is* a binding, implicit contract following the terms of your offer. (Though I would say it should be obvious to all that actually *coming to work* is pretty binding.)
* Moral: that's the most variable of all. Turning down an offer you had accepted orally, because you now have a better offer from some other place, is not *wrong* in itself. The important thing is: being of good faith, and being diligent to inform them that you have changed your mind. If it turns out that you have accepted the offer, knowing all the while you would end up turning it down, that would be unexcusable.
* Diplomatic: people understand the position you're in, as they have most probably been through it themselves some year back. So, they will be sympathetic, as long as they feel you are of good faith, diligent and show acceptable contrition (not sure that's the right term for what I'm trying to describe… let's say you look/sound apologetic enough). Otherwise, well, you risk make enemies and that may not be the best thing to do early in your career.
The fact is: the game is played by both sides. Hiring committees don't dismiss all other candidates immediately when they offer you a position, and they know that Stuff Happens. In a competitive environment such as academia, they surely have a plan B (and probably C and D).
Finally: if that's a tenured or tenure-track position, you'll probably stay very long (life?) there. It's an important choice, and thus you shouldn't find yourself bound by promises made too fast, or you may come to regret it.
> 14 votes
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Tags: job-search
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thread-7708 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7708 | Author title for ex-student in research paper | 2013-02-02T10:02:10.767 | # Question
Title: Author title for ex-student in research paper
I have graduated from a Masters program recently. After graduating, my Masters thesis supervisor and myself decided to write a paper based on my dissertation. I have a question about the format in which my name should appear in the paper, given that I am now an ex-student of the university. Is something like below acceptable?
> John Doe, MS in XYZ, University of ABC, Current Residential Address, me@gmail.com
Do I need to remove/add anything?
# Answer
For a definitive answer: check issues of the journal you will submit to, see what they do. If you still have doubts: contact the editor (I would wait until after acceptance of the paper, because it's not such a big deal).
My take on it:
* First, it's very rare to mention the diplomas hold by the authors. Even the titles (Dr, Prof, etc.) are often not listed at all. The exceptions seem to be (at least in my field) some journals edited by German societies, academies or publishers (*Angewandte Chemie* lists all titles, for example, in a footnote along with full affiliations). So, I'd remove the “MS in XYZ”.
* Secondly, your main affiliation is the institution where you carried out your work (or most of it). This means, list “University of Nowhere, Department of Procrastination” as your main affiliation.
* Thirdly, you can indicate your “current address” in the author list. Depending on journal style, it might be a footnote or listed as other affiliations. It will start with: “Current address: University of Big Name, Department of Corrections”. But… given that you don't have a new institutional address, I would advise you to skip it altogether. Simply don't list your home address in the paper, it's not really useful for readers. If they want to contact you, they will use email anyway.
* Finally: if your former university didn't provide an email address that will last, using your gmail address is perfectly fine.
I hope this covers it!
> 18 votes
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Tags: publications, conference
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thread-7702 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7702 | How should I deal with a colleague talking on my behalf? | 2013-02-02T01:46:41.487 | # Question
Title: How should I deal with a colleague talking on my behalf?
Our Chair is writing a major proposal and me and my colleague are on-board (both non-tenured)... Chair has asked for a meeting next week to work on the bid for a centre and this colleague of mine has replied back to both of us accepting the meeting and on our behalf and has suggested working two-three full days for the Chair.
I replied to the Chair saying "sure lets meet" and didn't acknowledge anything else that was said. I am tempted to write to the my colleague and say I know they had the right intention but please never ever talk on my behalf again as its not professional. Is this the right thing to do?
I am worried if I don't react this will continue as I am new in my current job. On the other hand I am worried if I react by sending an email or verbal communication and asking them not do it they might just forward/talk with the Chair with some lame excuse like suggesting that I am really busy and unhappy and they will do it themselves to make me look bad or with the genuine intention of correcting their mistake which in both cases will make me look poor!
What should I do?
# Answer
> 11 votes
I'd suggest putting in those days - they may or may not be lost, but losses occur\*. No use crying over spilt milk. Writing the time down as lost means, you can be happy if something good comes out of them at the end. OTOH, aking a fuss creates a serious risk of a trench war that would cost much more time.
However, I'd also talk to him in a calm minute. I may be taking a line saying that he luckily foresaw the way my opinion went, yet I'd wish him to quickly ask me beforehand in the future.
Talkin calmly may need that you know *exactly why* you are so angry that you have to post in a public Q&A site.
* partiuclarly in writing proposals. There's a rumour here in Germany that the Bundesrechnungshof once estimated that for different kinds of public grants from a national economic point of view (i.e. including all proposals that are written: accepted as well as rejected) about as much money/effort goes into writing grants as is distributed by the different grant programs (estimates ranging from 1 : 2 to 2 : 1 are mentioned).
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Tags: collaboration, workplace
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thread-7711 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7711 | Why is the admission process centralized, when the professor who is actually funding may not be in the committee? | 2013-02-02T11:17:58.863 | # Question
Title: Why is the admission process centralized, when the professor who is actually funding may not be in the committee?
<sub>This question is based on some observations which could be wrong (in that case, let me know).</sub>
I am applying to PhD program in various universities in US in theoretical computer science (TCS). Some of the things that I heard is that getting admission in TCS in top 15 theory universities is tough. The toughness is obviously due to the large volumes of applications that these universities receive (I don't know how much?). However one of the big factors is limited funding available with professors.
So who funds the students? Professors or universities? In some cases I heard, that it is the professor who funds the student. Then in that case, why is the admission process centralized (the professor who is actually funding may not be in the committee)?
# Answer
> 15 votes
I'm a theoretical computer scientist currently serving on the admissions committee of a large top-15 computer science department.
> Some of the things that I heard is that getting admission in TCS in top 15 theory universities is tough. The toughness is obviously due to the large volumes of applications that these universities receive (I don't know how much?).
This year my department received about 50 PhD applications from people whose *primary* interest is theoretical computer science and probably another 50 with *secondary* interest in theory, out of 750 PhD applications overall. We've offered admission to about 10 theory PhD students (out of about 200 PhD offers total). We realistically expect three or four theory PhD students to accept our offer (out of about 80-100 total).
> However one of the big factors is the limited funding available with professor. So who funds the students? Professors or universities?
**It's complicated.** A typical PhD offer from a strong department includes guaranteed funding in some form. My department promises five years of funding to every incoming PhD student, assuming they make steady progress toward their degree. (Do *not* accept a PhD admission offer without funding. If they really want you, they'll pay for you.) Most of our students take 6 years to finish, but in practice, (100-ε)% of our students are funded for their entire stay. A typical theory student in my department is a TA for 2-4 semesters and an RA of fellow for the rest.
When a student is admitted, the *department* is making a contractual commitment to funding that student, assuming they make adequate progress toward their degree. In practice, most of that funding comes from individual faculty grants, most of the rest comes from the department's budget for teaching assistantships, and a small fraction comes from fellowships (university, NSF, DOE, NDSEG, Hertz, etc.).
The *number* of students that each group is allowed to admit depends primarily on three factors:
* **Advising capacity:** How many students can each faculty member in the group reasonably advise? The limiting resource here is faculty *attention*, not *money*. Theoretical computer science faculty tend to have relatively small groups, compared to some areas in CS. Steady state in my group seems to be about 3 PhD students per faculty. This is the most significant factor, in my opinion.
* **Funding capacity:** How many students can each faculty member reasonably expect to fund? This isn't just a function of the faculty's *current* grants; a typical grant lasts only 3 years, but each student needs 5-6 years of funding.
* **Teaching demand:** How many TAs does the group need to support its teaching responsibilities? Conversely, for how many semesters are students in the group expected to be TAs, as part of their PhD training? The ratio of these two numbers basically determines how many students the department is willing to pay for on its own dime.
> In some cases I heard, that it is the professor who funds the student. Then in that case, why is the admission process centralized (the professor who is actually funding may not be in the committee)?
In US computer science programs, *departments* offer admission, not individual faculty. Students are completely free to change advisors or even research areas, even if their existing advisor is funding them. (Of course, they have to fulfill their funding obligations, but that's an orthogonal issue.) Formally, students in my department do not even choose their thesis advisors until the end of their first year. (One of my recent PhDs entered the department as an RA in distributed systems/sensor networks; he switched to algorithms at the end of his first year.) For that reason, it's crucial that the admissions decision does *not* rest entirely with a single faculty member.
# Answer
> 8 votes
There are several models for funding graduate students: often times the professor is responsible for funding. However, in many cases, the system has "joint" sponsorship—at first the students are sponsored by the department (while they do teaching service or are taking classes, for instance). After that, they are then paid for by their advisors.
The role of centralized admissions is to cut down on the cumulative workload. Especially with the ease of submitting applications electronically, if each professor were responsible for selecting his or her own students, faculty would be swamped by applications. Having a central pool makes the process simpler for everybody.
# Answer
> 6 votes
> \[...\] then in that case why the admission process is centralized (the prof who is actually funding may not be in the committee)
This is because the top universities (you said top 15) want to maintain their high standards of admission into the graduate program and would not *generally* want to allow a candidate with rather poor qualifications on paper into the program just because someone is willing to fund them.
Remember that a top university will also most likely have a very rigorous curriculum, which the student will have to successfully complete (at least in the US) before they can advance, and this is independent of the student's research work with the faculty that is willing to fund them. So if a candidate's qualifications do not convince the committee that they are capable of advancing the program after 2 years, they will most likely not admit them because it will then be a drain on the university's resources.
That said, it is possible for such candidates to still get in, but the faculty and their references will have to make a *really strong* case for them and they must have some redeeming quality/ability elsewhere.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Depending on the university, funding for students can be allocated in different ways. From what I've seen in Computer Science, you can be guaranteed funding, which usually means that your tuition will be covered to some extent and you may receive a living stipend. You can receive no funding, which means that you have to pay your own tuition and your own living expenses, or you can receive partial funding which is some subset of guaranteed funding.
Some universities or departments don't admit graduate students unless they are guaranteed funding by either the department or by a professor. In these cases, sometimes the department/school might have some money set aside to fund graduate students, usually as TAs, but professors will have their own funds through grants. This allows professors more latitude in choosing graduate students that they think are promising and who share the same research interests.
Other universities/departments will admit students without guaranteed funding. Students that are admitted without guaranteed funding will need to find their own funding sources through scholarships, fellowships, or finding their own paid positions (e.g., research assistants, project assistants, or teaching assistants). If the student is unable to find any of these, footing the bill for tuition will fall directly on them. This can be very stressful and can lead to students needing to drop out because they can't find funding or a mad scramble/funded positions being very competitive.
My observation, and your mileage may vary depending on university or department, is that if the university does not offer all graduate students guaranteed funding, they still try to limit the unfunded students that are admitted to be balanced against the number of funding opportunities that may become/be available. Departments also tend to admit slightly more students than they have positions for in anticipation of some students choosing to go to a different university after they receive all of their admittance letters.
As to why it's centralized, what people said about uniform standards and saving on administrative costs makes sense, and there's also an argument that many universities like to keep statistics and information on how many students are applying and being admitted to each department, what their demographics are, etc.
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, computer-science, funding, united-states
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thread-7668 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7668 | What can I do to recover from a short term burnout? | 2013-02-01T07:57:14.870 | # Question
Title: What can I do to recover from a short term burnout?
Over the past few days, my advisor and I had been going really hard. We got a really good idea and the preliminary results looked good, so I started spending long days in the lab, going home only to sleep. My advisor saw this and he started spending a lot more time with me and we had long meetings whenever I requested. This has been going on for about 4 weeks and although I loved it while I was in it, I feel burnt out now. There are still really exciting things I need to try but I don't know why I can't get myself to do any of them.
What is a good strategy to escape this burnout phase?
I have already tried:
* Playing an instrument I was good at
* Just taking some time off
* Limiting my work hours
But none of these and others seem to work.
# Answer
> 55 votes
For a true burnout you will need to stop working, rest, and seek counseling/medical help. You need to lower your expectations of yourself and virtually eliminate what others expect from you. Ultimately, because work is about expectations (either self-imposed or set by others), I doubt that you can continue working and recover from a burnout.
Given that you state that the burnout occurred over a short period, rather than a sustained year-upon-year effort, my advice is to take a vacation. Three weeks should do the trick.
Just remember, life is about enjoying it, not earning money, because in the end you will take nothing with you.
# Answer
> 22 votes
I find burnout a reoccurring effect, and to some extent it comes with academic research as you are continually trying solve problems and come up with new ideas. In this respect I find doing science like doing art - if I am not in the mood for doing it then the results won't be good and productivity is low, so the only solution is to stop completely. If you have got the research 'bug' (you normally love research and it preoccupies pretty much every waking hour of your day) then when you are ready you will come back to thinking about it and want to get back in the lab.
My advice is to do nothing until you are ready - don't think about the lab at all or worry that you are not doing anything, just rest completely - go for walks, watch moves, kill zombies, whatever.
As a post doc I have learnt to organise better, and back off if things get too hectic, taking an afternoon off for example. I still suffer a little at the end of the year, where I take a fortnight off but usually I am itching to get back after a week.
# Answer
> 13 votes
Burnout is a word of many meanings. But basically, it is characterized by a very strong physical exhaustion, a general anxiety and the feeling that you are a failure at work, that you will never meet the expectations of the persons you work with/for. This last feeling is strengthened by the fact that a person in burnout thinks she owes something to the others. A last symptom is depersonalisation : you have the feeling of living outside you and the world, you are a spectator of your life, not an actor of it anymore. If you have this last symptom, you should go to the doctor right now, not asap, now !
Most of the time, a burnout becomes a real medical problem (as a strong anxiety syndrom) and needs that a medical doctor takes action.
Besides giving a medication, a MD will give life advice such as :
* Stop completely working for a while, do a sleep cure
* Avoid any activity that relates to work (you're in academy, don't read complicated stuff, you're a plumber, don't do any home improvement)
* Change your environment : go visit your old uncle who is a farmer in Ohio (or a fisherman in France, or ...)
* Modify the way you live, be more involved in your own life. Sometimes, we (=people in academy) don't take the time to cook, to do sports, to rest without activity. Even if one can live happily with a 100% focus on work, it increases the odds of being burned out.
* And my last advice : at first try to avoid seeing people from work. It is necessary, so that you can realize that they don't really need you and you don't really need them.
# Answer
> 12 votes
As an addition to the current suggestions, I can highly recommend adding some exercise to your daily life. Lab life, especially when intensive, makes as sedentary life style. You sit in front of the pc, by the wetlabs... etc
What kind of exercise you do is a preference thing, I personally love high-tempo ball sports like football (soccer) or squash. There's nothing like the endorphine high you get after wearing yourself completely and take a shower afterwards. It will help you get troubles off your mind as well. I can highly recommend squash for this purpose; when playing with an even opponent, an hours workout will get you to a point where forming shorter sentences is as complicated of an intellectual task as you can manage, which means no time/place for daily worries.
Another important thing is to get good sleep. Not just the hours in bed but the quality of sleep. If thoughts and worries about work are haunting you in the sub-conscience, it really doesn't matter how long you are in bed. In this aspect you'll have a positive synergy between physical workout and better sleep.
Hope it helps, and you'll start feeling better soon.
# Answer
> 10 votes
First of all, noone here can know what is really the matter with you. So we all find it rather alarming, because
"Not getting yourself to do exciting things" *can* be a symptom of serious medical problems.
However, after a "work-sprint" you may just be exhausted in a perfectly normal way. E.g. after I had handed in my Diplom thesis, I needed two weeks of basically doing nothing and sleeping a lot (incidentally and very typically, I got a cold as well). It's just paying back your debts in recreation, in the very literal meaning of the work.
### Things to do:
* Talk to your advisor. From what you wrote, you have a very good relationship. If you think you are in the normal need-for-holidays, tell him, and get the holidays.
* During the holidays,
+ Sleep much
+ Spend much time outdoors. Sun (in case it's winter now where you are) and excercise is good for everyone and you may need to catch up due to the work sprint. Doesn't need to be real sports, for me personally it would be better to do "excercise" on a non-exhausting level, but longer. 5 - 8 h of walking, biking or slow cross country skiing would sound good to me, but your marks may vary of course. I'd say, a good amount of fresh air is when you fall into your bed at 8 pm and sleep till next morning...
+ Make sure you eat lots of vitamins
* If you are afraid (i.e. you are not 100% sure that it isn't) something more serious may be the matter:
+ **Don't wait until you know it is serious!** By then, it will be *very* serious, and you may not be able any longer to seek the help you need.
+ Also talk to your advisor. If you think, holidays may help, take them. However, here are two additional "saftety lines":
+ Schedule a meeting for after your holidays to discuss whether you are again in working condition. Ask him *now* that he should get you to medical help if you are not in working condition after the holidays.
+ Ask him to *come and get you to medical help* if you don't show up after holidays.
In addition (before the holidays),
* find out whether your university has some kind of psychological counselling (not sure about the correct English name), examination offices usually know that.
* Alternatively, find out a psychological clinic (university hospital?) with emergency counselling hours (again, someone please correct my English)
* If you don't get yourself to doing this *now* (till Monday noon), go to your advisor (or very good friends/relatives), tell them you have a psychological emergency and that they should get you to medical help immediately.
### Normal exhaustion after intense work:
Personally, I know and love these exciting periods of intense work. However, they are exhausting, and you need the recreation afterwards as you'd recreation after a mountain tour of several weeks. Also, they don't happen every day (I think one couldn't survive that, even though they are incredibly good). BUt from what I know from fellow researchers, these a serious driving force for quite some of us. Welcome!
* Even though you are now exhausted, remember how good it is. I think a healthy balance is if you are exhausted like you are exhausted after a big physical effort. I remember them like physically strenuous tours.
* They are not an every-day experience, but odds are that this wasn't the last experience of the sort :-) And, while this one may have been too much of the good, you can learn knowing when it is enough (and/or to plan for recreation afterwards). For me, this got easier once I had the experience that new such spells of incredibly good work do come.
# Answer
> 5 votes
For me, having a structure is usually something that brings a good balance.
One of the reasons PhD students can get very disorganized and end up wasting a lot of time is the lack of a fixed schedule, this is both needed to have a productive life and a balance between your work and personal life.
Just try to keep by an schedule, and you'll see you will get more relaxed.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I agree with a lot of the other answers, but I have a few additional ideas that haven't been suggested yet.
Do you find yourself thinking about this project at odd moments, even when you're supposedly resting or doing something else? You need to reset your mind by clearing out this project and replacing it with something else for a while. It needs to be sufficiently compelling to get your attention away from the thing that has filled your mind for 4 weeks. Then, after a bit, your enthusiasm for your old project will regenerate and you can be excited about it again.
When you get sick of working on a particular project, one thing that can sometimes be helpful is to spend some time (perhaps a week or two, maybe more) working on a very different project of some sort.
Another possibility is that you are not actually burned out. You may instead have conditioned yourself to associate this project with working very long hours. Now, whenever you think about working on it, you subconsciously feel like if you work on it, it will consume your life again and you don't have the energy for that. This is a bit harder to deal with. To continue to work on this, you have to break the conditioning. If you can force yourself to work on the project, but with more reasonable hours, that may help.
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, motivation
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thread-7733 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7733 | Is there any chance for a person with BSc in mathematics to get into good graduate level theoretical physics program? | 2013-02-02T21:46:59.417 | # Question
Title: Is there any chance for a person with BSc in mathematics to get into good graduate level theoretical physics program?
I am a mathematics major without any undergraduate level courses in physics. I am lately interested in physics. Is there any chance for me to go into good theoretical physics graduate program without any background in physics?
I am not sure if this kind of question is acceptable here, though.
**ADDED** My concern is do Universities even accept students with math majors into physics department without physics courses?
# Answer
There are students with math major (and other major) go to physics graduate school, but I think all of them have taken physics courses. The first question you should ask yourself is that *why you are interested in theoretical physics*. If you were the admission committee and see an applicant said that they are interested in physics but taken no physics courses, what do you think? You must explain it in somewhere in your personal statement.
The first thing you should do is to take physics courses and get good grade on all of them. Also, you should try taking few graduate courses. There are no need to take courses on all topics, you should only have strong interest in few topics such as QM, EM, SM, QFT and string theory. Some of them are very mathematical (that good for you). Doing so can demonstrate your interest in physics.
Second, you might try to apply for master program in physics. It is easier to get in and after 1 or 2 years you can apply for PhD in physics to continue your study.
One more options is to apply for math department, in particular, you should look for applied math. There are usually few professors studying mathematical physics. It is particular true for some countries that the theoretical physicists stay in the math department and experimental physicists stay in physics department. Assuming you have good background in mathematics, it should be the easiest option for you to get in those school and start studying theoretical physics.
> 11 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, mathematics, changing-fields, physics
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thread-7696 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7696 | How to avoid identifying myself in a review? | 2013-02-01T22:08:27.970 | # Question
Title: How to avoid identifying myself in a review?
Occasionally I find myself currently reviewing a paper where I find that many of the criticisms I have are addressed in papers in which I am an author (and often as lead author).
I don't want to make my identity known to the writers of the papers—but how do I make my points clear without breaking the "anonymity" of the review. Even if I cite a bunch of papers each time, it will probably be obvious what's going on.
# Answer
I recently reviewed a paper in a similar situation. The paper was good but some relevant publications I was aware of (not mine) probably should have been cited. When writing the review I simply suggested the specific topic which should be referred to, rather than specific papers. That way the suggestion is there and all they have to do is look. They got a couple of papers that I had in mind, and some others, so all was well in the end.
I don't personally agree with suggesting citation of your own papers directly in a review since as you point out this leads to suspicion of the identity of the reviewer, but also because reviews should be impartial as far as possible. If a paper that I authored is the most relevant work then any proper search will find it, if not then something else equally suitable will probably be ok for most readers.
> 9 votes
# Answer
If you believe that there are papers that the author should cite, list them in your review. Yes, I mean the specific papers, with complete bibliographic information. If you include some of your own papers in that list, the author of the refereed paper may *suspect* that you're the referee, but so what?
On the other hand, if you believe that the *only* papers that the author should cite were written by you, you're probably wrong. Look harder.
> 15 votes
# Answer
> I don't want to make my identity known to the writers of the papers
Why?
(Yes, also in my field reviews are supposed to be blinded on one side. But often very good guesses to who was the reviewer are possible. Sometimes it is obvious, and oftentimes I believe I could track down the reviewers at least to their groups because of the specific use of certain terms. And, yes, you could probably track me down because I also have typical questions. Personally, I'd prefer receiving review swith the reviewers' names (it is useless to thank reviewers A and B, as those two review all my papers, and everyone knows it - but I'd like to acknowledge reviewers by name) and to write reviews under my name as well.)
I see several possibilities here.
* As was suggested already, **name the issue, not the paper**. You can also **guide the authors to search terms** that will lead to relevant papers.
* There may be **valid exceptions** to this:
+ Sometimes one wouldn't know from title and abstract that the paper is relevant, e.g. when some methodological point was presented in a paper about an application.
+ Sometimes it is impossible to dig out relevant papers between other papers that use the terms differently or some combination of search terms happens also in irrelevant context\*
* Your question sounds as if you are well-known for the topic which you found missing in the paper.
+ **If you are The Big Guy** for this topic, **pointing to your publication does not compromise your anonymity** \- any other reviewer who is aware of the issue would have done it, too.
+ If you are not The Big Guy, but maybe the only one in that field looking into this topic, odds are still you were asked to do the review *because of this expertise*. IMHO, the quality of the review matters much more than semi-existent (see above) anonymity.
In that case, I'd **write the review so the authors can understand and address the issue easily**. If you really think that this compromises your anonymity, you may **write to the *editor*** that you think your review is not anonymous, because ..., and possibly that he may decide to give your email to the authors and that they could contact you in case of further questions (IMHO it is much less work to answer a few questions that to have to review an additional time).
* e.g. "soft classification" in remote sensing is used ina certain way, which I took over into chemometrics. However, one very important classification method in chemometrics is SIMCA, the "S" for soft. It could be used as as soft classifier in the remote sensing meaning. But is usually isn't. So I got tons of hits with SIMCA. No hits excluding SIMCA, and after looking into a certain number of them and never finding it used in this "soft" way, I gave up and had to say that I didn't find any such application. If anyone knows such a paper, please tell me the proper citation. I don't mind if you're the author.
> 3 votes
# Answer
If the author is an unknown nobody, then you don't need to worry about hiding your identity. The author probably has a lot to learn from you anyway, your papers will help him, and the author might even be happy to learn that his paper was reviewed by such an experienced expert in the field. (The number of relevant publication which you authored clearly indicates that you are an experienced expert in the field.)
The story is different, if you know the author quite well. In this case, the author might have been well aware of your publications, but intentionally didn't cite them. In such a case, I would rather avoid reference to my own publications.
The conclusion is, if you think your publications will help the author (and that he will take at least a cursory look on them), then reference the publications that you think are relevant. If you just want to complain that the author didn't cite you, then let it be.
> 2 votes
# Answer
This is a great question. I've run into this situation several times, and I'll tell you what I do:
* **First choice: Post a comment visible to authors.** If I'm lucky, the program chairs have chosen reviewing software that allows me to post comments (which are separate from my review) that will be made visible to the authors. Then, I mention that the citation in a comment that's visible to the authors. This way, the citation/comment can't be linked to my review. The authors might guess that I was one of the reviewers, but they won't know whether I was one of the folks who wrote a positive review or a negative review.
This is the best case, but sometimes you get unlucky and the program chairs have chosen reviewing software that doesn't support this feature. In which case, my second choice is:
* **Fallback: Contact the program chairs and ask for their help.** I contact the program chairs, explain the situation (that I have a comment I'd like to share with the authors, but I don't want it to be linked to my review, because it might identify me), and ask for their help. Often they have a way that they can accomodate this. For instance, most online reviewing software these days can accomodate external reviewers. In that case, the program chair can send me an invitation as though I were an external reviewer, and I can supply an external review whose only content is the citation. As another example, the program chairs might be willing to manually send an email to the authors mentioning this additional comment, or they might be willing to submit a review of their own mentioning the relevant citation.
* **Last resort: Don't mention it in my review.** If none of the above options are available, then I do *not* mention the citation in my review. I believe reviewers have the right to remain anonymous, and don't have any obligation to the authors that supersedes that. Instead, I mention the related work in a comment to the program committee, to justify my recommendation on whether to accept or reject the paper. Then, I might include a general comment in my review that the authors have not done sufficient review of the literature and that they should do a further literature search; and I might even include some tips, like the conferences or journals that they should be reading. This is not as helpful to authors as I would like, which is why this is my last resort. And, if I'm forced to this last resort and the program chairs aren't able to help me get my message through to the authors, then I tend to view that as a shortcoming of the arrangements that the program chairs have made.
I think it is great that you are thinking about these issues and doing your best to provide authors with detailed comments and reviews. Kudos! That's the kind of spirit we should all applaud and encourage.
> 2 votes
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Tags: peer-review
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thread-7723 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7723 | Is checking the format of a paper an expected part of the reviewing process? | 2013-02-02T21:41:04.870 | # Question
Title: Is checking the format of a paper an expected part of the reviewing process?
I have some papers to review and I am wondering whether I should do an ***in-depth inspection*** over the whole paper format? I see nothing major but there might be some tiny format errors here and there..
* > Does the organizing committee *expect* reviewers to check submissions
> against the conference format?
# Answer
> 10 votes
I would say the responsibility of the reviewer is to judge the content of the paper. So, checking if the format of the journal/conference has been followed is not part of this job. Very large and obvious deviations can be pointed out, but for example spotting that the font of the caption is in size 11 and not 10 is not part of a reviewers task.
# Answer
> 5 votes
In general I agree with the other two answer but somehow in every paper that I have ever received a review for there has been some sort of comment on something formatting related from at least one of the reviewers. These have ranged from suggestions for changing the fonts of the formula or captions to spotting that font for footnotes should be 9 instead of 10 for that journal etc.
I think there is some sort of a code that if you find something you don't neglect it and ask for correction but in general that's not your job and you don't actively seek them you just "catch" them.
# Answer
> 4 votes
Reviewers check content. Copy editors, prior to publishing, check format and adherence to publication style guides.
Your Milage May Vary based on the expectations of your committee. If you have a question about what you are supposed to be checking don't be afraid to ask.
# Answer
> 1 votes
As grauwulf comments, your job is to focus on the content. However, when poor formatting clearly affects your ability to understand the scientific formatting, it should be commented upon. For instance, when somebody writes "x^2", but really means "x (Ref. 2)", that's a problem that should be commented on (because a copy editor might *not* catch that!). Similarly, if the way a graph is formatted makes it difficult to interpret (labels or legends too small to read, or are garishly presented), then it behooves the reviewer to mention it.
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Tags: conference, peer-review
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thread-7752 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7752 | Contract versus ongoing positions in academia | 2013-02-03T22:29:59.837 | # Question
Title: Contract versus ongoing positions in academia
**Why are a majority of jobs in academia offered on a fixed term basis?**
I have noticed that most teaching or researching positions have a contract term (e.g. 3 year contract). Some contracts may be renewed, subject to additional funding, while others simply end.
I am wondering if there is an **academic reason** for this system (akin to the system being designed to compel the incumbent to continually publish in order to remain in a position).
# Answer
> 3 votes
I agree that there are many positions in academia that are fixed term. However, I would question your claim that a "majority" of positions are fixed term. Presumably this varies a lot by country and other factors.
From my casual observations in Australia, some positions tend to be fixed term or casual. E.g.,
* Post docs
* Research assistants
* Positions filling teaching gaps (e.g., related to maternity leave, short term increases in demand for subjects, filling-in while)
* A selection of lower-level teaching positions
* Research only positions funded by external grants or contracts
while others tends to be continuing positions most notably
* Standard faculty positions that combine both teaching and research
Standard faculty positions are often funded broadly out of revenue from teaching even if there is an expectation that you will secure additional sources of research funding. Teaching revenue is generally more stable than research funding that tends to be linked to particular grants of particular duration.
Continuing academic positions in Australia typically have a probation period lasting several years as one means of encouraging performance. That said, the promotional system means that there are other extrinsic rewards to continue performing well once a continuing position is acquired.
As can be seen from the earlier list pure research and lower tier positions tend to be fixed term. This can be because the funding is inherently uncertain or perhaps because the employer feels that they can recruit an adequately skilled employee without incurring the additional costs associated with continuing positions.
# Answer
> 7 votes
This is a product of various reasons that are academic, economic, legal and institutional:
In many jurisdictions, it's easier and cheaper to remove staff at the end of a fixed contract: it can be very very expensive to remove staff on a permanent contract.
Enough able people are willing to work on fixed contracts that universities don't need to offer permanent contracts for every post.
Track record, CV and references are not enough to tell how good someone really is, nor how productive they'll be in your team; that needs an extended probation, which a fixed-term contract effectively functions as.
Funding tends to come in bursts, with no guarantee of follow-up funding; so while it can be possible to ensure a post can be funded for 6 months or 5 years, at the end of the funding, there may not be the money to fund that post. On a permanent contract, the resulting severance can be very expensive for the university. The fixed contract gives clarity to both employer and employee.
Productivity changes over time. Some employees are more productive when they have a lot of job security; others are more productive when their future employment depends on the current performance. I'd love to see some studies on the impact on productivity of needing to repeatedly apply for funding: oddly, it seems to be one area where we academics don't take a scientific approach to analysing!
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Tags: career-path
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thread-7645 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7645 | Article "communicated by" | 2013-01-31T12:50:13.110 | # Question
Title: Article "communicated by"
What does it mean when it says under a journal article that it has been communicated by "XYZ" where XYZ is not the author but some other scholar with a very strong reputation? What is the relationship to the actual author and/or the content? Is this some sort of seal of approval to get results out and known quickly? (I am specifically wondering in the context of mathematics and mathematical physics.)
# Answer
Generally, XYZ refers to the editor that handled the paper at the journal.
> 29 votes
# Answer
See this question on Mathematics.SE and its very good answers for full details, which I will summarize below. It should be noted that this information is part of the journal format, and added by the publisher itself (along with the publication timeline).
* Some journals published by learned societies or national academies require that “communications” be presented (or sponsored) by a member of the society. This was the case, for example, of the *PNAS* (*Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*) until July 2010; the top of an article looked like this:
* Some journals use this formulation to denote the handling editor: the one who makes the editorial decision (or recommendation to the full editorial board), after having selected referees and received the referees' reports.
This is not common practice: most journals do not indicate who the handling editor was for a given article.
> 20 votes
# Answer
It is important to note that "Communicated by" can mean a direct submission of a paper by a scientist who is not (in most cases) directly involved in the paper itself. It was designed as a way for established scientists to give a "leg up" to their younger colleagues by allowing them to circumvent the normal review process. This means you may have to give these types of papers a bit more scrutiny as a reader.
PNAS is the publication where I have most commonly seen "Communicated by" publications, but this feature was phased out in 2010:
> Until July 1, 2010, members were allowed to communicate up to 2 papers from non-members to PNAS every year. The review process for these papers was anonymous in that the identities of the referees were not revealed to the authors. Referees were selected by the NAS member. PNAS eliminated communicated submissions through NAS members as of July 1, 2010, while continuing to make the final decision on all PNAS papers. (wikipedia)
> 5 votes
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Tags: publications, peer-review, terminology
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thread-7698 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7698 | "Telecommuting" in academia | 2013-02-01T23:39:40.387 | # Question
Title: "Telecommuting" in academia
In business (e.g. IT industry) remote work (aka "telecommuting") can be relatively common (see e.g. a recent StackOverflow blog post). It is exceedingly rare (or even nonexistent) in academia, even though most part of academic work consists basically of thinking and writing, which can be done in any environment. Are you aware of any successful implementations of "remote work" in academia?
Of course, there are many factors making it less feasible - an academic employee usually has other duties (e.g. teaching) which can't be done remotely, there is also the social aspect of research, meetings etc. (although this is not that much different from similar aspects in a programming job, unless we argue that doing science is "more creative" than mere programming and thus requires more physical presence). Also, currently available tools still make e.g. making a web seminar or math meeting difficult (no blackboard), although this too is changing (see e.g. G+ Hangout seminars: TCS+). However, given the scarcity of jobs, "N-body problems" etc., it seems to me that the potential for remote work (even part-time) is, as of now, underutilized in academia.
# Answer
> 5 votes
Doing it part-time is rather common at least in places i have worked. At moment me and most of my colleagues work from home two days of the week (usually Mondays and Fridays for most and Thursdays and Fridays for some) on the days that no teaching is involved. If there is an important meeting we will show up otherwise we skype. I think i generally work on average 6.5 days in a 22 day work month from home.
# Answer
> 5 votes
While there are advantages to remote working for individuals, my feeling is that it is used too much and leads to a bad work environment. Unlike industry, academics are not evaluated as frequently or in as meaningful of a way. When some people work remotely and others don't this can lead to resentment and a feeling that they are not pulling their weight. Academic departments are often on the verge of dysfunctional and generally have cliques each representing their own interests. Extensive remote working exacerbates these problems. Problems can often be solved much more efficiently over a coffee/beer than the telephone.
# Answer
> 4 votes
In my subject area (computational physics) telecommuting is certainly possible, and in fact I am very lucky to be able to spend a significant fraction of time working off campus. As a post doc I generally find that when it comes to research (in terms of developing and running code and writing papers) I am much more productive working in an isolated environment without distractions. However, it is also very important to maintain links with other researchers and students in the group and department. This can partly be done with tools such as Skype, but the importance one-to-one interaction should not be underestimated, as well as just 'being around'. Many problems are solved over coffee, and this interaction is a critical part of collaborative research.
Overall though I think that telecommuting, at least for researchers for some of the time is a good thing, particularly in conjunction with flexitime for those with families.
# Answer
> 2 votes
> Are you aware of any successful implementations of "remote work" in academia?
Yes: quite a few people I know are (or claim to be) more productive working from home than going to campus; they only go there for teaching, when they need a lab or when they need to talk to someone.
But of course, it depends on the area where you are working; engineers will eventually need labs, test equipment etc...
# Answer
> 2 votes
Good science starts from good definitions. You have not given your definition of `remote`, and I personally can think of at least three different scenarios:
1. Work in office some days, from home some other days, but the office is withing commuting distance. It is true that academia does not care which computer you write your papers on, especially if you work is only on a computer (pure math, theoretical sociology, may be some computer science). Many companies allow their staff to work like that, especially if their roles are well defined and can be performed off-site.
2. Collaborate remotely: you write a paper together with somebody in another university, in another country, etc. At the extreme, you meet the person with whom you published that paper only a couple years later at a conference where you are presenting it. I think nearly every paper with more than one author is written that way... although in some disciplines, a team of 10 authors means the personnel of a single lab.
3. Work from home full time, with the nearest office being a few hours away. (My worst commute was get up at 4am, drive 2hrs to the airport, take a flight with a connection, total 4 hrs, spend 3 hours in meetings, take an 8pm flight, drive back, back home 1 am next day. Don't want to do this very often, thank you.)
All the responses so far addressed options (1) and (2). To me, "remote" means (3): I am sitting at least a time zone away from the rest of the company (I work in a private sector). There is absolutely no freaking way this could work in academia even if your work only involves a computer. (Obviously, if you are a biologist with a lab to attend every day to look at your mice, your question simply does not make sense.) If you raise a question like that in a job interview, you can bid it farewell, pack and go: there are dozens Ph.D.s waiting in line, and nearly each of them will take a job on any condition. (Yes, there's overproduction of Ph.D.s, which they probably did not tell you when you applied for that highly coveted degree. If there were no over-production, there would be no point to have this website, as university managers will be hunting Ph.D.s, not Ph.D.s hunting jobs.)
While you what you seem to see from your Ph.D. student perspective about academic work seems to be research (which is of course doable across continents if needed), you will HAVE to teach, and you will HAVE to do some service (department committees, qualifying exams, colloquia, campus involvement, etc.), and then later on take graduate students that you are supposed to pamper and educate. If you are thinking about post-doc options, then again the expectation is that you learn from your mentor, their lab and their department by being present there and working with them. You can't do this remotely.
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Tags: university, collaboration, tools
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thread-7775 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7775 | Authorship allocation - is it common to grant equal credit to two last authors? | 2013-02-04T17:20:27.893 | # Question
Title: Authorship allocation - is it common to grant equal credit to two last authors?
I am working on a project in which I have a direct supervisor in addition to the head professor of the lab. The direct supervisor only agrees to being written first or last on the article we are writing. Needless to say, my professor won't agree to be anywhere but last. He also feels that I deserve to be written in the first place. Is it possible to write both of them in the last place as co-last authors?
# Answer
> 13 votes
> Is it possible to write both of them in the last place as co-last authors?
**No**.
As expected, an author list is not a tree or a weighted graph, but a simple flat (one-dimensional) list. There is exactly one last author. Possible solutions or mitigation of the issue include:
* **Alphabetical author list**. This happens in some field, and is totally unheard of in some others (including chemistry and biology, which is your field, so this might not be a possibility).
* Having **two contact authors**, or have the professor who is not last author to be the contact author. In the past I have used this as a way to “pacify” a co-author who wasn't happy with his spot on the author list. (Needless to say, it's a perversion of the system, and should only be done if the author can actually act as contact author.)
* Have a **statement indicating the contributions of each author** (“X and Y contributed to this work equally”). Some journals require such statements, some will refuse to include them, so your mileage may vary. **I doubt this will pacify your reluctant supervisor**, though: people who are worried about their rank in the author list are most probably thinking about how it looks like on a publication list or CV.
* **Have the head professor take responsibility for the final decision** (as senior professor and project instigator). That's the most sound solution, but it does not mean it's an easy one.
Good luck with your negotiation! And remember that they're not yours to handle (see my last point)!
# Answer
> 4 votes
This happens in biology quite frequently. Take a look at this example:
> <sup>§</sup> Both authors contributed equally to this work.
In this case it can be any two authors on the list. If the notes are on the first two or last two authors, then this is often viewed as the two primary and equal collaborators.
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Tags: authorship
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thread-7780 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7780 | What are the key points in short descriptions of research experience? | 2013-02-04T18:27:27.663 | # Question
Title: What are the key points in short descriptions of research experience?
When writing short descriptions of research experiences as a student (undergrad or postgrad), what are the key points that professors, potential collaborators and admission committees would like to see?
These might be very short descriptions in a space constrained academic CV, or slightly less short descriptions on an online profile or research statement. What are the key essentials (in the CV case) and the additional points (statement/website case)?
# Answer
> 3 votes
In a one-sentence statement, I want to state as precisely and concisely as possible as much relevant detail about the project I was working on. For instance
> Analysis of Widget Manufacturing
doesn't tell me much about what you did. On the other hand
> In-situ XYZ Experiments and Numerical Modeling of the Parametric Influence of Temperature, Humidity, and Cooling Time on the Strength of Widget X under Load-Bearing Conditions
tells me much more about the problem you're working on.
If you have perhaps a paragraph, then I went a short summary of your work. You should provide: a motivation for the problem, an overview of what you did, and a summary of the main methods, results, and conclusions of the work.
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Tags: research-process, application, cv
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thread-7768 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7768 | How should I cite something learned second-hand (eg, from Wikipedia) when I haven't seen the primary source? | 2013-02-04T14:36:36.883 | # Question
Title: How should I cite something learned second-hand (eg, from Wikipedia) when I haven't seen the primary source?
I want to cite something that I have learned from a Wikipedia page. However, I'm loathe to cite Wikipedia because of the perception of it by my tutors, so I try to cite the original source.
What should be the correct thing to do when I'm unable to have sight of the primary source myself, or find it in a collection (for clarity, I should add that I have the details of the source - I just can't find it in collections available to me)? Should I just cite as much original information as I can, or should I defer to citing Wikipedia? I'm hesitant to do that, because a glance at the citation would suggest that I was 'too lazy' to source original material or just dig deeper.
For additional clarity - I *know* that citing Wikipedia is 'bad' etc. The emphasis is on how to cite something that has been learned via Wikipedia (as an example) but for which the original material cannot be seen or retrieved from available collections or searches.
# Answer
What you're referring to is an *indirect source*. In general, you should always work as hard as you can to find the original source. If that is not possible, all of the major style guides include a way to cite indirect sources. Note that you should not cite Wikipedia (see the "do not cite Wikipeida" note at the end of this answer). If an indirect citation is absolutely necessary, it should come from a reputable, peer-reviewed journal or other academically respected source.
1. According to Purdue University, the **MLA rule** is to name the author of the indirect source in the text and cite the work you have in-hand:
> For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted. For example:
>
> > *Ravitch argues that high schools are pressured to act as "social service centers, and they don't do that well" (qtd. in Weisman 259).*
>
> Note that, in most cases, a responsible researcher will attempt to find the original source...
Williams College further clarifies that the indirect work should be included in your Works Cited list:
> ...include the indirect source in the Works Cited.
2. The **APA rule** (also from Purdue University) is to *exclude* the indirect source (called the "original source", below) from your reference list and only include the work you have in-hand (called the "secondary source"):
> ...name the original source in your signal phrase. List the secondary source in your reference list and include the secondary source in the parentheses.
>
> > Johnson argued that...(as cited in Smith, 2003, p. 102).
>
> \[...\] Also, try to locate the original material and cite the original source.
3. The **Chicago rule** (once again, from Purdue) is to cite the indirect source, followed by the in-hand resource:
> ...Chicago discourages the use of \[indirect sources\]. In the case that an original source is utterly unavailable, however, Chicago recommends the use of "quoted in" for the note:
>
> 7. Ian Hacking, *The Social Construction of What?* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 103, quoted in Manuel DeLanda, *A New Philosophy of Society* (New York: Continuum, 2006), 2.
That said, ***do not cite Wikipedia*** in a formal document (unless, perhaps, you are actually writing about Wikipedia or collaborative editing techniques). I love Wikipedia, and I believe it is reasonably well-maintained and has a lot of good information. However, you have no way to verify if the information in an article is true -- or, if you do have a source to verify it, you would just cite that source. Aside from the tired, "Anyone can edit it!" complaint, two severe issues with Wikipedia as a citation source are:
* You get whatever version of an article stands at the exact moment your web browser fetches the page. No matter how hard Wikipedia's editors work, they can't stop a bad edit from reaching your web browser if it was made seconds before you fetched the page. Wikipedia doesn't undergo any kind of pre-publication review; all review is post-publication, which means you may see totally unreviewed information. (You can mitigate this by citing a specific past revision, but it still stands that a post-publication review process means that any given revision of an article could have claims that have been reviewed by absolutely no one except the author.)
* In order for a reader or reviewer to ascertain the usefulness of a source, it must have an identifiable set of authors (or, for anonymous works, at least a consistent, reasonably small set of authors). Wikipedia makes that requirement incredibly difficult to satisfy. (Again, it's *possible* to satisfy this requirement if you cite a specific revision of a page and find out what contributors wrote each part of a page, but it is still difficult since a potentially huge number of contributors have helped build that revision.) It's hard for a Wikipedia article to be *reputable* where there are no clearly identifiable authors to which a reader could attach a reputation.
> 22 votes
# Answer
First, I would **try harder to get the primary source**. Really. But, if that isn't possible (price, availability, etc.), you may have to do without. In that case, a few solutions:
* **Find another secondary source**, possibly one that is more “academically acceptable” than Wikipedia. For example, try to find a textbook on the topic that make mention of the fact you want to source, or a review article, a book, etc.
* If not possible, what I have usually seen people do is cite the primary source anyway. That's bad, but people do it. If you write for a journal, where the reviewers might not allow a reference to Wikipedia, you might not have any other choice.
* What I would recommend, if the format and/or editor allow it, is to cite both the primary source and the secondary source, possibly indicating the relationship:
> J. Doe, *Journal of Failed Experiments* **10**, 1024-1028 (1971); as cited by *secondary source*
> 18 votes
# Answer
*Note: This is written from the perspective of a postgraduate student in applied mathematics.*
**1) Do not cite Wikipedia.**
This is not about perception or laziness but rather, your thought process as a researcher. Suppose I read about a mathematical fact that might be useful to my research. I need to verify that the fact is true and have some ideas about why this is true.
By stating that the mathematical fact has been published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal or in a reputable textbook, I demonstrate that I have at least verify its authenticity, and perhaps even read technical details about it.
However, if I cite Wikipedia, it demonstrates that I accept facts off the internet without verifying or having technical understanding about it (Wikipedia usually don't go into deep technical details). This does not bode well for my reputation as a researcher.
**2) Try to find an academically acceptable source to cite the same information from.**
Suppose I want to use an equation. Random example: Kullback-Leibler Divergence. But lets pretend there is no source or citations on Wikipedia.
What I will do is to search directly for "Kullback-Leibler Divergence" using search engines like Google, Google Scholar or Google Books. I will also try to search for the term in my university or local library's search tool.
Assuming this fails. Then, I would look at topics that the Kullback-Leibler Divergence is in or is related to. For this specific example, I would look for textbooks or materials on "Information Theory" and look up their index or table of contents for "Kullback-Leibler Divergence". If this fails, I will dig deeper: think about what this equation does and search for similar topics. For this example, it compares two probability distributions. I will then look for ways to compare two distributions in Information Theory.
Once I find a paper or textbook talking about it, it shouldn't be too difficult to locate the source or pick a suitable paper/textbook to cite the equation from. If after all these searching and perhaps asking my supervisor/professor, I cannot find anything acceptable to cite from, I would ask myself these questions: Is this equation valid? Why should I believe in the authenticity of this equation?
> 9 votes
# Answer
I don't think you can cite something to which you have no (original) source. I mean anyone can edit Wikipedia (or any other similar webpage) so that would practically be citing a random person, without any way for a third party to check up.
Luckily Wikipedia articles usually have references you can check (to see whether or not they are actually accurate and relevant) and cite accordingly. If there is no reference then you should probably not be citing (or trusting) that piece of information.
> 7 votes
# Answer
In addition to many good points made in other answers: while I agree that Wiki is not an acceptable *final* "authority/source" for nearly anything, the better articles do give external references that can put one onto the right track for more primary sources, as well as giving internal links via other keywords... As to how-to-cite, I have gotten more and more into the habit of at least footnoting that I *found* a reference (to a primary source) via Wiki.
Yes, of course, in one's primary "specialty", one should have better pointers to the "official" literature than Wiki, but with regard to necessary but peripheral topics for one's work, often Wiki can provide hints, which can then be *verified* afterward, after one has become aware of them.
So I use Wiki to begin to get a grip on keywords and vague ideas in things unfamiliar to me, to get started. Also, sometimes historical pointers are more readily accessible there, and then subsequently verifiable on MathSciNet, *after* one knows what to look for.
I note that "peer-reviewed" stuff should also be viewed skeptically/critically, especially with regard to recognition of prior art, and also simple correctness, since except for significant results, often referees are encouraged to *not* worry about certifying correctness, but more "novelty" and "interest". And history and prior art are often either omitted due to disinterest or ignorance, or pushed out by editing-down considerations, so that papers often do not give an effect look "backward".
Finally, in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due: when I find Wiki useful, I don't pretend that I didn't! Not that I view it as authoritative, either. A new category of information, perhaps.
> 2 votes
# Answer
Note that if the Wikipedia article doesn't have the original source for a claim, then that section of the article is a work in progress that is below the Wikipedia standard. It requires a `{{citation-needed}}`, otherwise it could be "original research" which properly doesn't belong there.
It's probably a bad idea, in your academic paper, to quote Wikipedia material which the Wikipedia itself disavows!
There should never be a need to cite the Wikipedia, since anything credible is supposed to have references to the outside. In serious work, you always borrow the citations from the Wikipedia, not the text. Citing from the Wikipedia itself is good for cafeteria arguments.
When you make any kind of citation, you are basically expressing trust in the author. This is because you are not reproducing all of the research, such as experiments. You trust that the data haven't been falsified and so forth. There is some safeguard in that the paper appears in some trustworthy publication, and that it has been peer reviewed.
Suppose that the Wikipedia is actually the only source for some paper. Firstly, that situation is wrong and blatantly violates the Wikipedia's rules about original research, so the page will probably be deleted. Secondly, the Wikipedia isn't a journal that reviews and publishes material, so you would have to take that paper completely at face value. The Wikipedia cannot lend any credibility to anything, according to its defined mission and scope.
> 2 votes
# Answer
If you consider citing Wikipedia, *don't*, as others have explained, but IMHO you should at least acknowledge it as being helpful, either with just a mention like that or a list of "non-cites" that could be used as starting points for others wanting to review Wikipedia's (latest) views on your topics.
> -1 votes
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Tags: citations, writing-style, wikipedia
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thread-7756 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7756 | Will a self-designed major lower my chance of acceptance for graduate school? | 2013-02-04T05:25:43.963 | # Question
Title: Will a self-designed major lower my chance of acceptance for graduate school?
I am in the process of designing a major. However, I am worried that using a self-designed major can make an application look bad. As it stands, this potential major is about 70% computer science classes, 30% psychology and neuroscience classes. As such, this leads me to the questions:
* Are these self-designed majors seen as "weird" or simply unacceptable?
* In general, are self-designed majors unattractive for graduate admissions?
* For computer science specifically, do majors matter?
# Answer
> 9 votes
The disadvantage of having a "made it myself" degree is that in situations in which you are being compared with your peers (i.e. graduate admissions), you are comparing apples to oranges, and the admissions committee only know apples. A committee sees two applicants with CS degrees, even if they come from different universities, they can be somewhat certain that both have covered a certain number of bases. In these situations, your degree compared to a CS degree can look like 70% of a degree vs. 100%, even if you have a higher GPA (and this may read as "they have a higher GPA because they took psych classes instead of Operating Systems, Databases, Compilers, Networks, Computer Architecture, and Theory of Computation").
Admissions committees are less concerned with whether you took classes "related to your interests" than whether or not you passed or exceeded the same thresholds as your peers. If you're worried that people wont give your transcript a good look, most won't (especially if you end up entering the workforce). Don't get a degree in anything that will take more than 30 seconds to explain.
Look at all of the people who are doing the work that you some day want to do. Look at all the professors that you might someday want to work with. What did they get their degrees in? (here's a not-so-big secret: most professors hire students who remind them of themselves)
Get in touch with professors at research universities, admission committees, grad students, and get their opinions. Ask "What are you looking for in an incoming student?" People will be pretty forthcoming with you. Ask your professors if they have any contacts at research universities that you could talk with. Also, your professors all got into grad school - ask them how they did it. Find the youngest ones, they'll have the best idea what admissions are like these days.
# Answer
> 6 votes
> * Are these self-designed majors seen as "weird" or simply unacceptable?
> * In general, are self-designed majors unattractive for graduate admissions?
> * For computer science specifically, do majors matter?
Having a self-designed major is definitely *not* a problem for graduate admissions in computer science. We don't care what your major is; that's a stupid administrative hurdle. We only care what you've done.
On the other hand, an undergraduate transcript that does not cover the foundations of a computer science major **might be** a problem. My department commonly admits graduate students with non-CS undergraduate degrees, but if they haven't taken at least the core of a computer science degree and a few advanced CS classes, we're more likely to admit them to one of our master's programs instead of to the PhD program directly.
Your transcript will look different to different departments. The mixed major you describe might actually give you a slight advantage in departments with research programs in HCI and/or some branches of AI, or with interdisciplinary programs in (say) psychophysics or cognitive science. It might also hurt you at departments without researchers in those areas.
But the real issue, at least for PhD admissions, is whether the admissions committee is convinced that you have **strong potential for research in computer science**. At the top CS departments, what classes you've taken really a second-order concern (unless your grades are bad or there are glaring gaps). Your research potential and experience, as described in your statement and recommendation letters, are much more significant. If an applicant has a strong research record, and their research interests match our faculty, we may admit them without even looking at their transcript.
# Answer
> 1 votes
If you intend to go into an interdisciplinary grad program, it may actually help your chances of being admitted. For example, my Ph.D. is in Human-Computer Interaction and Computer Engineering. My research had a heavy psychology component. A hint of neuroscience in my background would have certainly benefited me. In HCI, the combination of CS, Psychology, and Neuroscience could make you a quite attractive candidate. Importantly though, it depends if you see yourself applying to one of the truly interdisciplinary programs vs. just applying to a CS program to research HCI. There may be other interdisciplinary programs out there as well that would be interested in such a combination, though HCI seems to be a fairly perfect fit with that background.
The concern I would have is that you are still early in your academic career and your grad school plans may change by the time you are done earning this degree. In this case, a traditional major would probably be a better choice. Keep in mind there are also options for double majors and minors that are well-known degrees as opposed to a build-your-own degree.
# Answer
> 0 votes
I believe this would hurt your chances. From the point of view of the admissions committee, there's no guarantee that the 70% of CS (or 30% of psych/neuro classes) that you chose to include in your custom major covers everything you'll need in graduate school, and you may have large holes in your fundamentals that would give you a distinct disadvantage.
A much better approach would be to simply choose a standard major and fill all your electives with a concentration of psychology and neuroscience courses. This would still give you multifaceted knowledge while still providing the admissions group a way of measuring you against your peers.
# Answer
> 0 votes
If you're at a school where self-designed majors are fairly common, there may be records of what sorts of jobs people with self-designed majors have gotten (and whether/where they went to grad school).
# Answer
> 0 votes
I'm just a grad student with no real insight into admissions processes, but I do believe that this wouldn't hurt you if you wanted to go into cognitive neuroscience. The reason is that neuroscience is such a multidisciplinary field that everyone eventually needs to learn something outside their field. Having that hurdle out of the way before beginning graduate studies would be seen as a plus (in my opinion), but it would be wise describe the combination of courses a bit in your letter of motivation.
Extrapolating from this, perhaps self-designed majors are less of a problem in multidisciplinary fields.
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Tags: graduate-admissions, undergraduate
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