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thread-8327 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8327 | Making myself an attractive candidate for a research lab (no prior lab experience) | 2013-02-28T23:41:48.230 | # Question
Title: Making myself an attractive candidate for a research lab (no prior lab experience)
I graduated with a B.S. in mathematics but have always had an interest in chemistry. In particular, I enjoyed the labs. In fact, in the near future I plan to become involved in a Food Science program. It would be greatly advantageous to me to be able to do work in a research lab. Unfortunately, my actual lab experience is weak (Gen. Chem, physics. My Organic chem had no lab section).
I'd like some suggestions on how to improve one's usefulness in the lab without *actually* working in the lab.
A couple ideas I had:
1. Learn Statistical analysis / database software
2. Practice identifying spectroscopy (NMR, Mass, ...)
3. Reading about technique or experimental set-ups anyway.
Is there anything else? Is identifying spectra even useful, or is it all done by computer now? Are there (free) online resources for any of this?
More specifically, for my case:
I'd like to work in a food science lab. So the main focus would primarily lie in organic chemistry, biochemistry, and microbiology. Possibly in flavor chemistry or food analysis, but I don't yet have a more specific research area in mind.
# Answer
> 4 votes
> I'd like some suggestions on how to improve one's usefulness in the lab without actually working in the lab.
This might not be possible, but I would love to be wrong.
Experience in the (chemistry) lab is about using your hands to perform specific and often complex tasks with dexterity and proficiency. Many of these tasks also have associated hazards, which through experience can be avoided or minimized.
I am afraid that if you are interested in pursuing a career in chemistry or another lab science, you will need to get some experience in the lab. The easiest way would be take a few courses. Given your interests, you should at minimum take and organic lab course and a microbiology lab course.
Let's take as an example a simple distillation, a common organic lab technique. No amount of reading about the technique prepares you for the many things that could go wrong. At least one of these has potentially disastrous consequences. If you take a course where you do several (as a good introductory organic chemistry lab should), you have the opportunity to learn how to do distillations in the presence of another person who will catch your mistakes. At the graduate/professional level, you are supposed to know what the common mistakes are and avoid them entirely.
Things that could negatively impact a simple distillation:
* The joints are not sealed and the vaporized liquid escapes.
* No means of encouraging nucleation during boiling is used and the liquid in the still pot bumps.
* Your still pot has a star fracture and shatters when heated.
* Your variable transformer blows a fuse, and you have no heat.
* Your variable transformer is set too high and you superheat your liquid (and it bumps) and apparatus.
* Your thermometer is not placed low enough into the neck of the 3-way adapter and you do not record accurate temperatures.
* You forget to turn on the water in your condenser and you collect no distillate.
* You (against someone's better judgement) try to distil something that thermally decomposes and the apparatus catches fire, explodes, or something otherwise disastrous occurs. At the very least you do not get the distillate you though you were getting.
* You distil to dryness, and the apparatus superheats.
* You distil an ether to dryness and the residual peroxides explode.
* You start to take apart your apparatus before it has cooled (hot glass looks identical to cold glass and has a high heat capacity so it does not radiate a lot of heat) and give yourself second degree burns.
* You fill your still pot more than halfway, which prevents there from being enough room to establish a good liquid-vapor equilibrium, causing the liquid to superheat and bump.
* You get the idea.
I don't want to be a total downer. If you had told me that you were interested in theoretical or computational chemistry, I would have told you to read up on analytical and physical chemistry and apply to a program in theoretical and computational chemistry. You do very little wet-lab work in those subfields of chemistry. However, since food science involves a lot of wet-lab work, you need to have some preliminary hands-on experience.
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Tags: research-process, science, chemistry
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thread-8349 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8349 | Position and prominence of 'Acknowledgements' in a publication | 2013-03-03T16:17:11.200 | # Question
Title: Position and prominence of 'Acknowledgements' in a publication
What is the appropiate position for the 'Acknowledgements' in a paper? Are there policies by (mathematical) journals where to put them?
Furthermore, is it common to make acknowledgements a \paragraph (in Latex), rather than a \subsection or a final \section?
# Answer
I generally make acknowledgements their own `\section` and place it at the end of the paper's body, before the references or any appendices.
But I really don't think it matters. The referee is not going to care, and it won't affect the acceptance or rejection of the paper. If the journal has a preference, you will hear about it from the copy editor when the time comes to correct the proofs.
You might as well check the Instructions for Authors to see if it addresses this, but otherwise, just pick something reasonable and don't worry about it.
> 10 votes
# Answer
Acknowledgements generally go a separate section after the conclusion. You can see the Elsevier advice on acknowledgements sections here. If you have a specific conference or journal you are submitting to, and want to know what other authors have done, browse some of the previous volumes' papers or proceedings.
> 7 votes
# Answer
I am sure the position may differ slightly beween journals but commonly it is placed after the conclusions and before the reference list. In some cases the Acknowledgement may be a note at the end of the paper. The journal would hopefully clearly indicate where they want such information in the manuscript. Please refeer to the "Instructions for Authors" (equiv) for any journal you are considering. If you are unsure, ask the editor.
As for the (La)TeX question, the formatting will obviosuly differ depening on the instructions for the specific journal you are targeting. Many journals also have specific (La)TeX classes for manuscripts which may provide further insights into hpow the journal wants the paper structured.
> 2 votes
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Tags: writing, acknowledgement
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thread-8106 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8106 | How to gain research experience after master program? | 2013-02-20T13:21:15.097 | # Question
Title: How to gain research experience after master program?
I just finished an MBA in the UK. It included a research dissertation (about 18,000 words) and a research methods module and adviser to go with it. However, my adviser made it clear during my research that it was my project and my responsibility and not his. It was clear that he was happy to mark my dissertation but didn't want to be bothered by actually helping me to learn much about research.
In the end, I did the research on my own and got distinction on the paper, which I was happy about. However, now I'm thinking more and more about pursuing a PhD, perhaps in intercultural management, and I feel like a highly respectable school would not consider me because I do not have much research experience.
So, my question is: What can I do to gain research experience, now that I've finished my MBA, with an eye towards getting into a good school for a PhD?
As I have read, publications will help a lot but I feel like I don't have the experience to do the kind of research to get into a good publications. I really think I need to build my research skills...and would like to know how to do that.
Another related problems is when doing business research (I get the feeling most people here are from the science/math side of academia) is gaining access to companies (to gather data) and I'm not sure how to do that without an adviser.
I have read this, this, and this question but I think my question is different from each of them.
# Answer
> 9 votes
I am only familiar with the UK system, but here are some points about getting research experience in the UK.
**1) Find a supervisor for your PhD.**
A lot of UK departments prefer to admit PhD students who has found a faculty member who is willing to supervise and has a research proposal written together with that member. If doing a PhD in the UK is part of your goal, you could start by looking at departments/people you want to work with and contact them as a prospective student.
Some patience is required as they might not be looking to supervise a student at the moment. But I have found that most are willing to give prospective students a research project to work on before admissions or while working on the proposal. In fact, all those who were willing to supervise me ended up offering me a research project.
**2) "Cold calling" for projects.**
You might find that some professors, lecturers, postdocs or research fellows etc are very happy to have students with the experience to work on their projects. You can try emailing people with a very short version of your academic CV, asking for research opportunities. I have successfully gotten projects this way too.
**3) Official Internships/Studentships.**
Some UK universities have official internships or studentships for someone to work on a research project for 3-6 months. These may not be advertised so you need to do point 1) and 2) or simply ask. I have successfully gotten these before and they were willing to at least help pay the rent (400-500 pounds I think) or given you a token sum. I cannot be more precise about the pay because I turned down the payment in order to keep my part time job. Do note that getting paid or being in an official position will come with the requirement/expectation that you report to work daily and stay in the office for some minimum number of hours.
**4) General advice.**
Academics are incredibly busy people, especially famous tenured professors. Also, they might have a steady stream of students to work with. I think I was quite lucky to get around 30-40% respond rate when emailing people asking for research experience. Most of them are because I am asking as a prospective student. So please do not be too disappointed that people don't get back to you. And don't spend all your time trying to get just 1-2 famous faculty to give you research opportunities.
You should be prepared to travel and meet them, paying for all the travel fees yourself. You should also not talk about reimbursement/payment first. In my humble opinion, you need to be prepared to work on a project for free, making it clear that you want the experience on your CV and a possible paper. Then, they might arrange for payment for you. It is your responsibility to show that you are serious and trustworthy and not a waste of their precious time.
I think it helps a lot (with regards to funding) if you are from the EU as funding in the UK is usually restricted to EU citizens.
I hope this helps.
# Answer
> 8 votes
This is not an immediately short term solution and would require some time:
Try to get in touch with a professor who does what you like to do for your Phd. Like here clearly explain your situation. If you get a response continue the discussion, you might be offered to go and visit the lab or if after a couple of exchanges you feel it’s the right time offer to go and see them.
Try to see if you can do some work for them part-time. If they say day don’t have money etc. if you can offer a day or two of part-time unpaid if it works for you from home/weekend etc. If you get lucky they might offer you paid work if they get money later. From the beginning discuss publications and research experience and hopefully over time you can get a paper or two under your belt and get recommendation letter as well.
Who knows they might offer you a Phd position after some time as well if you work well together. We have done this before and in fact this happens a lot. Someone with a master does some paid or unpaid work and if we are happy with him or her and money comes in later we will get in touch and ask if they are interested. Now that I think about it is quite common with many of the PhD students we have.
# Answer
> 3 votes
> I feel like a highly respectable school would not consider me because I do not have much research experience
In terms of research experience, there is a big difference between much and none. Most grad schools I know of are wary of applicants with no research experience, but do not go so far as to require "much". Yes, more is generally better, but some is often enough. I would generally classify an MBA with a research dissertation as being enough to be considered, especially one awarded distinction.
The best way to get more experience is to volunteer in a research group. Most research groups need someone to do data entry/analysis and general lackey work. You need to be prepared to enter as low man on the totem pole and do some boring tasks to get access to better tasks. Even boring and menial tasks in a research group can be good experience.
# Answer
> 0 votes
If your MBA dissertation had some scientific method to **validate** the research results, then leverage that in your PhD application. Try to publish the results on your own in a peer-reviewed conference or workshop. To me, lack of that kind of culture is the big risk when taking on a non-research master's student for a PhD.
Research methodology courses are mandatory for research master's students at my university, and PhD supervisors can force PhD candidates to take this course if they didn't get it elsewhere. There are some decent textbooks on the subject. See if you could audit such a course someplace. However, to make up for the experience of a research master's, you will need to focus the methodology on a specific area of expertise (few textbooks do a good job explaining this, and it's where a supervisor is crucial in my opinion). From your original question, it almost sounds like you did this already, but with little guidance.
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Tags: phd, publications, research-process
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thread-8340 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8340 | Stating PhD scholarships that I turned down on my CV | 2013-03-02T18:51:40.337 | # Question
Title: Stating PhD scholarships that I turned down on my CV
This is probably only relevant to the UK, because in the USA, PhD funding usually come from the department/university through fellowships/TA/RA.
I applied for PhD at a UK university and got admission. The university also runs an extremely competitive named scholarship competition (for example, this one \- not the one I got, just an example) that offer holders can compete in. I was fortunate enough to have won the scholarship. However, I am going to turn it down for a funded PhD at another school.
Is it alright to state that I won this scholarship on my academic CV but turned it down? If this was a typical USA PhD funding offer (fellowship/TA/RA), I would not consider stating it on my CV.
**Edit:** This is a similar but slight different question from the "duplicate" because I am not asking about the "typical" PhD fellowship/TA/RA that is awarded to candidates admitted to PhDs in the USA. I am talking about competitive/prestigious scholarships like Rhodes and Gates-Cambridge scholarships that one has to apply for outside of the regular admissions process.
# Answer
> 11 votes
It might be worth mentioning this while you are applying for PhD positions. But after you have obtained a PhD position, it will be fairly meaningless, as what will matter is how you perform in your PhD studies (ie, number/quality of publications).
# Answer
> 4 votes
Having easy access to your complete funding application history is critical in the UK. It is not uncommon for funding agencies to ask if you have every applied before. Some of the research councils are now tracking the number of unfunded/triaged applications you have made. As part of my annual review, my university wants to know how many funding applications I make every year (both funded and unfunded). Since I need information about both my successful and unsuccessful applications, I need a place to keep it. For me, the obvious place is the long version of my CV where I keep every piece of information about my academic life. My feeling is if something doesn't make my "long" CV, it gets forgotten.
It is also important to remember that most people don't want to see an unedited version of your long CV. You haven't said which version of your CV (you have more than one right?) you are thinking about including this information on. If you are talking about a 1-page summary CV for promotion to full professor, hopefully you have many more relevant things to include. If you are applying for a research support job where your job might be to help students apply for PhD fellowships, then it is probably of critical importantance.
# Answer
> 3 votes
If the award is sufficiently prestigious then you should list it, otherwise you should not.
If you declined a Rhodes scholarship you would be very foolish not to list it on your CV. In the US you should list declined NSF or DoD graduate fellowships. However, you do not want to look like you are padding your resume with extraneous information, so I would advise against listing more than one declined award, and would advise against listing any declined awards that are not well known. In most circumstances the declined scholarship isn't going to give any important information that couldn't be gotten from just listing the scholarship you did accept.
# Answer
> 2 votes
I think that the information that you have won several competitive PhD scholarships is by itself meaningless: you have won one, this is enough information to ensure that you have a potential.
The real interesting information is why you chose one specific scholarship amongst the ones you won. If you state on your CV all the scholarships you won but didn't take, be prepared to answer to the "why this one" question. And be very careful on your answer if you don't know the profile of the asker.
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Tags: cv, funding
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thread-8364 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8364 | What is the etiquette about the length of a visit when giving departmental seminars? | 2013-03-04T09:59:10.920 | # Question
Title: What is the etiquette about the length of a visit when giving departmental seminars?
If you are invited to give a departmental seminar and the department offers to put you up for up to two nights, how long should your visit be? I find it a little rude when our speakers arrive an hour before and leave an hour after the seminar. Do you have to spend a full day at the host department?
# Answer
In my opinion, it is not rude to make only a brief visit, especially if you accept with, e.g. "I would love to come, thank you, but I'm afraid I can only come there for the afternoon - I hope that is okay?"
Certainly I agree that it is as great idea to stay for the whole day if you can.
I've noticed that perception of etiquette seems to differ a lot from person to person. Whether or not it is okay to recommend a taxi from the airport (as opposed to picking up the visitor yourself), whether or not to take visitors out for a late drink (or karaoke!), whether to put them up in a hotel or your house, how long to encourage them to stay... these are all aspects where I've seen things done differently. But a small minimum of communication beforehand and flexibility during the visit seems to suffice to guarantee a good visit.
If you're the one visiting, I would certainly recommend at the very least hanging around the department some and going out to dinner with your hosts (assuming they invited), but it's more or less up to you.
> 16 votes
# Answer
Think of this as an opportunity, rather than an obligation.
Find people in the department who are doing interesting work and try to organise a short meeting with them. Volunteer to hang around after your presentation to talk to PhD students (and ensure that your presentation has some appeal to keep people around). Ideally, try to have a fairly full schedule to maximise the benefits gained from the opportunity, though avoid having every minute planned so that you can have spontaneous extended discussions with people, should the opportunity arise.
Planning ahead is probably key, as not everyone will be able to accept an unannounced visitor for a lengthy discussion.
> 18 votes
# Answer
People who give invited seminars are quite busy. It is frequently the case that they may have to come late or leave early. However, unless the guest is local, it is usually considered normal for a guest to spend a day visiting the department. The reason for this is that many times there are people who wish to meet with the visiting speaker, and thus an extended schedule is necessary. Cutting the visit short may also deprive *you* of meeting people who might valuable future collaborators for your work efforts.
However, in circumstances where the visit does need to be curtailed due to length, the more important it is to communicate this with the host organization *in advance*.
> 5 votes
# Answer
If you are the one organizing the trip, telling the visitor that you are covering one or two nights' stay is enough of indication that the department wants to host a long enough visit that would allow meeting with other faculty, post-docs, and possibly grad students. If the visitor does not take the hint, you may have to ask them, "So basically you are refusing to meet with our department?" -- and you can actually take it to the chair and ask whether it would make sense to withdraw the invitation, as this visit is the event that is supposed to benefit the department, not just hit the financial bottom line. Basically, whoever is paying for the trip should be fine with an abridged visit. If the department is paying for it (the round-trip ticket will be a fortune for the same day trip), it has all the rights to have the visitor to themselves to ask questions and promote the young researchers of the department. If somebody's grant is paying for the trip, then let have them waste the money. I ran a department colloquia series for a year, and never had an issue like that with any of the visitors, including some biggish wigs. (We are sort of ways away from big airports in a US midwestern college town, so there is little physical opportunity for the visitors to escape; it's not like you are taking a train ride from one university in Boston to another.)
If you are the one visiting... well, if you don't take the hint, you will lose respect of that whole group. If you are a young researcher, that may be a big hit to take: people talk, and in a year or so, the rumor may spread to half of your discipline about your rudeness. If you are a named prof with $XX million of external funding, you don't have to give a s$%t about anybody, and by now everybody else in the discipline knows that much about you already.
> 0 votes
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Tags: etiquette, seminars
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thread-8369 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8369 | How to write a research statement for a math postdoc position? | 2013-03-04T18:28:17.713 | # Question
Title: How to write a research statement for a math postdoc position?
I am a graduate student in mathematics working on functional analysis of quantum information (basically using matrix techniques in some well-known problems). I am presently applying for postdoctoral positions (in both Mathematics and Quantitative Physics departments). However, I am not getting any reply from most of the places and got a few rejection letters as well. Since I am from Mathematics, I cannot apply to experimental groups (where there are more openings). Again, being a Mathematics student and working in Physics (even though there are obvious connections between them) is not seen as a good example among certain parts of the physics community and the majority of the Mathematicians in this part of the world (personal opinion based on certain bitter experiences). I do not know whether it is the same in other places as well.
I feel that I have not projected myself by writing a good research statement. I have written it after reading the first few entries of Google search results as well as advice from the AMS. I have mostly highlighted my present work, with only a short discussion of future ideas.
To make my life more complicated, I want to move out of the present problems which I am working presently and choose some new problems for my postdoctoral research. I have a peripheral knowledge about the works of different groups. However, modifying my research statement according to the research work of each group is, I think, difficult (as I need to spend time to read their works and spot exactly where my knowledge can be used in their problems and so on). The reason for not having time is I am simultaneously working on some research problem as well as writing my thesis, which I need to submit in the coming months.
In this situation, how do I write a good research statement? I want to convey the message to potential employers that, while I have not done research on their problem yet (though I know them to certain level), given an opportunity I can learn and do work in their areas.
# Answer
> 26 votes
Writing a postdoctoral research statement should not be a huge exercise. Unless you are applying for a major postdoctoral fellowship, I would not necessarily expect a huge research statement. In many cases, in fact, you may not need a research statement at all to apply for a postdoctoral appointment; a cover letter, CV, and list of references may suffice. (When I hired my current postdoctoral associate, those were the materials I asked for.)
Now, that said, your statement should provide a few pieces of information:
* A brief description of your current project, and any major research skills or tools you have acquired as a result of your training.
* A brief summary of the kinds of problems you would like to study as a postdoctoral associate. If these are aligned with the interests of the group you are applying to, this is even more helpful.
Ultimately, however, when you are applying for a postdoctoral position, you are applying to a specific individual, who will be the one reviewing the applications. What I am looking for is someone who has actually responded to **my** job posting, not just *a* job posting. That means I want to see a clear statement that the applicant has thought about what we do in my group, and how her skills will contribute to the project for which I'm advertising. If there's no such indication, I'm much less likely to take the application seriously, *unless* there are mitigating factors (lots of publications in top journals, strong recommendation letters from colleagues I know, and so on).
Finally, I should also point out that the quality of your written English could be improved. While this might seem to be a minor issue, a poorly written statement can be enough for me as an advisor to think twice about hiring someone, simply because I would worry about my ability to communicate with the candidate. (Furthermore, someone whose communication skills are somewhat deficient will have a harder time finding a position than someone proficient.)
# Answer
> 21 votes
*"I have written \[my research statement\] **after reading the first few entries of Google search results** as well as advice from the AMS."*
I haven't read your research statement but I would suspect that reading the first few entries off of Google may have been insufficient to fully support your consideration for a post-doc position.
Also, get someone to test read your research statement. Get some feedback on how to improve your documents and revise-revise-revise. Best of luck.
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Tags: career-path, postdocs, research-statement
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thread-8374 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8374 | Disabilities in the Classroom | 2013-03-05T00:42:19.097 | # Question
Title: Disabilities in the Classroom
Are there any special provisions provided for students who have schizophrenia (for example)? Is there an "adjustment" to grading? Or perhaps there is no adjustment to the grading process *per se*, but only to the due dates? Is there anyone here who has been in this type of situation?
# Answer
Every university I have been affiliated with (in the U.S.) has had an office of disability services, tasked with evaluating individual cases and making (binding) recommendations to instructors.
If your university has such an office, then you should refer this case to them and avoid judgement calls of the type you ask about.
> 15 votes
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Tags: professorship, disability
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thread-8376 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8376 | How much does the impact factor vary from year to year? | 2013-03-05T06:14:46.160 | # Question
Title: How much does the impact factor vary from year to year?
Journal impact factors are averages of samples of a power-law distribution (most papers are not cited, lots are highly cited). Wouldn't you expect the year-to-year impact factor to vary widely...? At least for journals publishing few papers? What is the catch?
# Answer
For completeness, I will start by stating the underlying calculation for the impact factor (source):
1. total cites in year X
2. Year X cites to articles published in the two year prior to year X (this is a subset of (1.))
3. number of articles published in the two years prior to year X
4. = (2.)/(3.) = impact factor for year X
For most journals the number of papers published per year is relatively constant (item 3.). This means that what in most cases really changes the impact factor is item (2.), how many times papers in the years prior have been cited. This number will vary according to how successful the journal is to attract good papers that can accumulate citations. Under normal circumstances the influx of papers probably follows some form of distribution in terms of "quality" (whatever that is).
If we accept this as the model (deviations are likely to exist), then a journal with a small number of papers per year will likely be more sensitive to changes in citation rate of a few papers whereas a journal with a large publication rate will likely be less sensitive.
To change the citation rate of papers in a journal is not easy. The reputation of a journal takes time to build and can be destroyed in a minute. To increase the index is therefore likely more difficult than lowering. Being editor of a small to medium international journal, I have seen that introduction of thematic issues can significantly raise the index. This comes from the fact that such issues constitute a concentration of paper on the same topic which will strongly help each other to attract referenceing; as opposed to a single paper "hidden" in melee of other unrelated papers. So there are means (strategies) to change the index, but for business as usual it will vary but not fluctuate widely. If you find journals where the index varies strongly (more than on the decimal level) it might be interesting to take a closer look and see what factors have influenced the changes.
> 7 votes
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Tags: bibliometrics
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thread-8388 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8388 | What is academic degree after PhD? | 2013-03-05T21:31:31.080 | # Question
Title: What is academic degree after PhD?
Does your country have any academic degrees after the PhD? If yes, what is it called and how graduating this degree?
Additionally, what is a Post-Doc? Is it a degree or something else? I have seen some people refer to a post-doc in their CV as they would a degree. Is this acceptable?
# Answer
> 8 votes
In general, a PhD is the highest degree you can get. A postdoc is simply a research position that is not permanent, i.e. no fixed contract or tenure. There are some exceptions, for example in the German system where you can get your Habilitation, which is a degree after you get your PhD. But in most systems there is nothing beyond a PhD in terms of degrees.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Many countries have higher degrees than the PhD.
In the UK, there's
* Litt.D Doctor of Letters / Literature
* DSc Doctor of Science
* LL.d Doctor of Laws
* D.D. Doctor of Divinity
Each of these typically requires the submission of a body of work - a research portfolio - together with a critique of the work. Or they may be awarded as honorary degrees; see the links above for the requirements for the degrees from the University of East Anglia (Litt.D, DSc, LL.d), and the University of Oxford (D.D.), accordingly.
A post-doc is just an academic research job that's typically done after attaining a PhD. It's not a degree in its own right
# Answer
> 0 votes
As @Paul Hiemstra pointed out, the highest degree level is a Doctorate (Dr) however, with this in mind, there are different academic titles that you can gain if you work at a University or high-educational institute. Here are a few:
* Senior Lecturer (Usually appointed to a academic with a level of experience, this is usually how many years they have been at a University).
+ Master Lecturer (This is usually a rank about a Senior Lecturer)
+ Reader (This is someone who usually has a vast amount of knowledge and a strong academic background who is employed by the University not so much to lecturer, but, to carry out research for the university).
+ Professor (*I believe this title is different in the US* but this title is given to an academic who has an outstanding background in research and has published books, received a lot of funding for the particular University.) A Professorship is not something that can be studied for, it is something that is achieved and you are selected for by a special panel.
You can find more about titles here
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Tags: phd, postdocs, science, degree, international
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thread-8399 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8399 | Supervised self-study | 2013-03-06T09:17:57.880 | # Question
Title: Supervised self-study
Imagine an education model in which teacher/supervisor/mentor does not teach the syllabus to students. Instead, just pushing them towards key topics, and students must study by themselves. The teacher only control/supervise students to keep studying in right direction, but no professional teaching.
This is something like supervising academic research projects at graduate level.
I am curious if there is a pedagogical model/category/method of this kind for education (at lower levels)? For example, is there any example for teaching by this method in any school or university around the world? If yes, what is it called? I had no appropriate keyword to search for it.
# Answer
Problem-based learning is one approach that fits your description. From wikipedia
> Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of problem solving. Students learn both thinking strategies and domain knowledge. The goals of PBL are to help the students develop flexible knowledge, effective problem solving skills, self-directed learning, effective collaboration skills and intrinsic motivation. Problem-based learning is a style of active learning.
A related approach is inquiry-based learning, which allows the idea to be used on a much smaller scale than problem-based learning, which, based on what I have read, tends to be rather resource intensive and require vast amounts of planning from the teaching staff.
> 12 votes
# Answer
At the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY, USA. There are two ways in which this can happen. We have an independent study in which the student will learn about a topic with some guidance from a professor and write a paper about it, this has a broad variety of possibilities only some may fall into your category. One thing that everyone does is a senior design or capstone project where there is generally a faculty adviser but the student works to apply what you he or she has learned and present at the end of the year. This is in many ways similar working on a thesis, but as an undergraduate will take less time and be less intense. This is used in at least in the engineering school and physics department.
There is somewhat a third way, but does not contribute to the students transcript unless the student specifically does an internship for a research group. This is undergraduate research, and the student will contribute to research projects ongoing at the university that have faculty overseeing. In this scenario you may be mentored more by graduate students than faculty or staff.
> 5 votes
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Tags: teaching, education, mentoring, advisor
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thread-8408 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8408 | How to balance application for a faculty position between exceptional and ordinary? | 2013-03-06T12:27:41.433 | # Question
Title: How to balance application for a faculty position between exceptional and ordinary?
Following the opposite factors described in answers to the question What makes securing faculty positions difficult?, I came to conclusion that an application for an academic position should be balanced. It is understandable that there is a high competition for faculty positions, and a qualified applicant may be not even invited for interview; thus, everyone tries to even overestimate his/her achievements.
However, the interesting points in answers to the above-mentioned question was that too good application might scare the committee, then preferring not to take a risk. Thus, an exceptional application will be simply ignored.
In addition to obvious evidences in the CV, how to highlight exceptional features in the cover letter? For example, potential research achievements, which are not obvious in the CV, promising plans, etc.
Or the strategy must be in this direction to convince the committee that this *superstar applicant* is a good chance for your department!
# Answer
> 7 votes
One non-surprising way to help your application rise to the top is to have your advisor or another letter-writer contact a colleague they know at a school you're interested in and give you a good word in person (obviously not always an option).
If you are really in the position where you are "too good," then you should follow the advice in the other thread you mentioned, and explicitly spell out in your cover letter why you want to work at a particular institution.
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Tags: research-process, professorship, job, job-search, university
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thread-8402 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8402 | How is US law on equal opportunity enforced in academic recruitment? | 2013-03-06T10:28:30.217 | # Question
Title: How is US law on equal opportunity enforced in academic recruitment?
Almost every US university states on its job advertisements that the university is an equal opportunity employer. Based on federal law, this means that applicants not be judged by their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
What is the guarantee for this fair strategy in action? If the committee is influenced by negative personal views to underestimate the qualifications of an applicant, how can s/he prove/appeal/claim/complain?
For example, certain criteria are given for an academic position. If an applicant believes that the winner of this competition (the one who is finally appointed) is less qualified than her/him, how can s/he claim that the selection was not *equal opportunity* in practice?
How can one detect/prove this violation?
How does one proceed in case of a possible violation?
# Answer
> 22 votes
Being an equal opportunity employer means that the institution abides by the US federal law on Equal Opportunity \- basically that the employer cannot consider race, color, religion, sex, or national origin when making personnel decisions. Additional protected classes, such as age, have been added to Equal Opportunity over the years. Equal Opportunity does not force an institution to hire someone they would rather not hire on the basis of being a member of a protected class, but it means they cannot artificially exclude that candidate. **Equal opportunity means that all applications must be evaluated fairly.** It does not mean that the best candidate on paper always gets the job.
This is in contrast to Affirmative Action, which in the US is "positive discrimination". In other words, the institution is forced to artificially maintain diversity in its staffing if it does not happen naturally. Affirmative action can mean that you would have to hire your second (or third) choice over your first choice to maintain diversity.
**Edit** \- to address some comments.
From the perspective of an applicant, EO violations can difficult to prove, and the burden of proof is usually on the applicant. Most of the information collected during a hiring process is not (and never will become) public. It is shredded/deleted once the position is filled. An applicant's on paper qualifications are nearly impossible to know, unless you are a close acquaintance of the person. The CV that person posts on their website might be abbreviated, incomplete, or out-of-date.
Additionally, most hiring committees often consider important intangibles that are assessed during the interview. Academic positions are different from positions elsewhere. Most academic committees are assuming that they are hiring a person who will stay at that institution, get tenure, etc. They need to assess if the candidate is likely to do so, if the candidate is likely to thrive in the current culture of the department, if the candidate will get along with the faculty personalities, if the candidate is likely to start looking for something bigger and better five-ten years later, if the candidate is likely to survive the tenure process, if the candidate's specialty/expertise fill a current void in the department, if the candidate is likely to meet service expectations with enthusiasm, if the candidate is amenable to the crappy teaching load he or she will get the first semester, if the candidate's research plans are feasible given other expectations and institutional resources, etc.
You may have more awards, publications, conference presentations, fellowships, grants, letters after you name, or whatever on-paper metric you are using, but you may not have met the needs of the department or institution as well as the other candidate. You may feel more qualified, but someone else was a better fit overall for the position. This question and the answers to this question suggest that applications that look too good may not be considered seriously because hiring committees are afraid of a bad fit.
Alternatively, as may happen, the department you applied to may have always intended to hire the person they hired, but to meet legal and institutional requirements they conducted a search. They interviewed several other strong candidates from diverse backgrounds to satisfy EEO requirements, and then they hired the person they wanted to hire. I won't pretend that such behavior isn't shady, but it can be common, especially for administrative positions, and it is legal. The best way for a hiring committee to prove they are following EEO guidelines is to interview a diverse array of qualified candidates.
To allege that your application was artificially rejected because of your membership in a protected class, start by getting a lawyer. Don't risk jeopardizing your case by inadvertently proceeding without one. Then, do whatever your legal counsel advises. That is what they are for. The only real proof that the hiring committee discriminated against you is if no members of your protected class were interviewed. If you were interviewed, that means they either 1) considered you a strong candidate or 2) went out of their way not to exclude you. Either way, you have almost no case. It may make you angry if the second thing happened, but there is little you can do except to warn people you know away from applying at that institution. If they discriminate against you because you are not the one person they really want for the job, it is not illegal, it just sucks.
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Tags: job-search, legal-issues, recruiting, diversity
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thread-8380 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8380 | Importance of GPA and GRE scores for grad school admissions | 2013-03-05T15:16:34.200 | # Question
Title: Importance of GPA and GRE scores for grad school admissions
I was reading the following article by Mathew Might. HOWTO: Get into grad school for science, engineering, math and computer science
I saw the following the paragraph
> What doesn't matter
>
> GPA? I don't care if it's 2.0 or 4.0. I won't even look at it. The school you went to? I'll judge you the same whether you went to Nowhere State U or a top-ten school. Transcripts? Never seen one. GREs? Irrelevant. Where you work/worked? Unless it's a research lab, it's not important. I don't think these items have much predictive capacity as to whether or not someone can complete a Ph.D.
Is Mathew Might telling the truth? For me it's very hard believe that GPA, GRE scores and undergraduate school don't matter. I used to think that they play an extremely important role in grad school admission.
# Answer
I am not doing my PhD in CS or maths but based on my experience, I believe it's a **yes** and a **no**, more specifically:
> I don't think these items have much predictive capacity as to whether or not someone can complete a Ph.D.
... is an accurate assessment of the situation. Being a grad student is sort of waking up in a different world, what you have done previously isn't really indicative of what you are capable of doing during your PhD. Most PIs are aware of that...
> GPA? I don't care if it's 2.0 or 4.0. I won't even look at it. The school you went to? I'll judge you the same whether you went to Nowhere State U or a top-ten school. Transcripts? Never seen one. GREs? Irrelevant.
Sadly, I don't think this is all that common. How a professor chooses a student varies a lot, and I don't think your GPA etc will be irrelevant to some profs. Especially not if you are in a number-driven, cold-heart-competitive place...
What's more common however is that your grades won't be the only criteria. They will most likely not be a deal-breaker. You will most likely get a chance to explain why you did good on some courses and worse on others. Primarily you will get a chance to explain what you *like* to do with your career.
> 9 votes
# Answer
It is highly dependent on the program. Two programs that I applied to were polar opposites and demonstrate the variety in a very succinct way, I think.
School 1:
* GPA south of 3.5? don't bother applying.
* GRE quant scores south of 700(1)? don't bother applying.
* Never published or fewer than 5 years professional experience? Seriously, why are you wasting our time.
School 2:
* GPA north of 3.3 are preferred, GPA north of 3.5 will get preference, but we can work with you.
* GRE scores should be submitted if you have them and they are still valid.
* It is strongly recommended that you have relevant academic or industry experience
The only real difference between the program admissions is that school 1 accepted baccalaureates on a straight path to PhD and school 2 requires a recent masters degree in one of a few rather specific fields.
This was my experience but your mileage may vary. As I say, it's very dependent on the program.
(1) I don't claim to understand the new-fangled system, sorry.
> 7 votes
# Answer
The more popular the school and program, the more likely it will use test scores and transcript grades as "screening tools" to weed out uncompetitive applications. However, there are probably reasonable thresholds that exist on both measures; exceed those, and your exact GPA and GRE scores probably won't be taken into much consideration.
Ultimately, though, GPA should play a much stronger role in GRE, if only in the sense that somebody who does outstandingly in the core classes but struggles in "general education" classes that don't pertain to the field will probably have an easier time than somebody who has a better overall GPA, but weaker grades in the major. GRE scores are only correlated with performance in coursework; I don't think it has much to do with actual aptitude for research (although it may have some correlation).
> 3 votes
# Answer
This depends greatly on the field. I have been in graduate admissions committees in two different fields.
Field A: the subject GRE in this field is a joke. The committee doesn't look at it, and doesn't look much at the regular GRE's. It's all recommendation letters and grades in the relevant courses.
Field B: the subject GRE in this field is very difficult. The committee is very reluctant to take anybody who scored less than the 90th percentile on the GRE. (Of course, you have to have good grades and recommendation letters as well.)
> 3 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, graduate-admissions
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thread-8416 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8416 | Formulating research interests — context/motivation or not? | 2013-03-06T17:13:47.530 | # Question
Title: Formulating research interests — context/motivation or not?
How do I formulate research interests in my CV? When talking about my field, I like to include some context, such as:
> The climate of planet Earth is a complex system. Detailed observations are needed for improving our understanding of individual components and their interaction. Additionally, long-term, large-scale monitoring is required to study the climate system in its entirety. Observations from space are important for both kinds of observations. I am particularly interested in applying space-based observations the atmosphere, for example, for the hydrological cycle. Additionally, I think foo is important because of bar, and would like to research foo deeper.
But on a CV, space and attention are scarce. An alternative would be:
> * Space-based observations of the atmosphere
> * Foo
But this appears a bit bald to me. I think the context, the motivation, should be relevant: *why* are my research interests as they are?
What is a better alternative for describing research interests on a CV?
# Answer
Don't even use bullets; just provide a list of keywords/phrases identifying your subfield. At least in the US, departments ask for a separate research statement in addition to your CV. That's the place to explain your research interests in detail and give them context; there's no need to do that in your CV, too.
For example, when I applied for faculty positions, my CV included the following lines between my contact information and my education history.
> **Research Interests**
>
> Algorithms, data structures, and lower bounds; computational and discrete geometry; computer graphics
I've served on the faculty recruiting committee in my (top-10 US computer science) department for several years; this approach seems both standard and effective. Personally, when I read a CV, I only spend a second or two on the self-declared research interests and jump straight to the publication list.
(Posdef's answer suggests giving more context in your cover letter, but I think this is pointless. I don't know anyone who has ever read a cover letter.)
> 9 votes
# Answer
An advice I got when I started worrying about how to form my CV was to include a short paragraph under the title "Profile" which would practically be the only freetext bit of the CV, where I *describe* myself in short and to-the-point sentences. The rest of the CV was supposed to be sort of an enumeration of what I have done, what I can do etc etc.
So I think if you want to have your research interests in your CV, it would make sense to purify the core of what you want to say and plug that into such a "profile". Alternative, or rather a complement, to that would be to mention your research interests in a cover letter which you would most likely need to write for any position you'll be applying to.
I guess it all depends on what kind of a CV you are going for.
> 3 votes
# Answer
> What is a better alternative for describing research interests on a CV?
1. **include a brief (1-3 sentences) free form blob, basically a research statement**. Something like this:
> I work to remedy the effects of human air pollution of natural environment. I focus on monitoring quality of air and water quality in urban areas, especially XYZ. My main achievements include A, B and C.
2. **include a list of keywords of your research interests** underneath the blob.
The blob and keywords should fit to the first page of the CV package.
> 3 votes
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Tags: cv
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thread-8440 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8440 | Research proposal for a pre-defined PhD topic | 2013-03-07T13:45:32.973 | # Question
Title: Research proposal for a pre-defined PhD topic
A school that I am applying has a list of available topics, along with their descriptions, which I can choose from. I already select one topic which matches my interest and background, I also contact a professor who will supervise on that topic and he encourages me to go for it. However, as the application process, I need to write a research proposal. It makes me confused as the topic and research description are already defined. I can add some comments on the topic and then relate my background to it, but it will be a personal statement instead of research proposal. So, I wonder in other universities, what students are expected to write in their research proposals when they select a pre-defined topics.
# Answer
> 6 votes
I would ask the professor who encouraged you to apply what the best strategy is.
In any case, a good idea is to take the topic proposed in the list you mention and write about that. Make it your own. Try to develop your own approach to the topic. Elaborate more on what needs to be done. Explore some related work a find out what has been written. This will help demonstrate that you have what it takes to be a (top) PhD student.
Avoid simply writing a personal statement on top of the research proposal. They probably want to see how you think about the research topic and would approach it.
If possible, get the professor to help you out. Not by doing the writing, but by providing comments and possibly related work. (Note that professors are busy, so s/he may not have time to do this.)
# Answer
> 5 votes
A research proposal should address several things, whether the topics are predefined or not. Yes, you propose a topic but you also want to address: why you selected your topic, any background you might have in that area, how you intend to approach your research, methodologies you intend to employ, relevant standards and rigor, and (possibly the most important) how your research on the chosen topic will advance the related body of knowledge in your discipline. Of course this would all be at a very high level but it should all work toward advancing your argument. I think it also helps to keep in mind that any research proposals or statements that you write are intended to be persuasive in nature. When the reader finishing reviewing their proposal there should be no doubt that you're the best person to do what you want to do, and if you don't do it there will be a potential void of knowledge in your discipline. All you have to do is convince them of that.
Final tips: edit often, get lots of test readers, revise-revise-revise, and when you submit it - let it go and don't let it get to you. I've seen people drive themselves nuts waiting to hear back.
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Tags: phd, application
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thread-8443 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8443 | I have two papers in an up-coming conference. Is it appropriate to cite one in another? | 2013-03-07T15:34:05.043 | # Question
Title: I have two papers in an up-coming conference. Is it appropriate to cite one in another?
I had two papers approved for a workshop in a IEEE conference and I'm going to send the camera-ready version soon.
Is it OK to have one paper cite the other? If it's OK, do I have to reference the other paper as "to appear"?
# Answer
This is acceptable, and fairly common. You cite as usual, and the citation itself would be identical to a standard citation with the exception that the date and page numbers would be replaced by the phrase "in press".
From the American Historical Association's "Professional Standards" page:
> The AHA suggests the following lexicon.
>
> * "In Press": the manuscript is fully copyedited and out of the author's hands. It is in the final stages of the production process.
> * "Forthcoming": a completed manuscript has been accepted by a press or journal.
> * "Under contract to . . .": a press and an author have signed a contract for a book in progress, but the final manuscript has not yet been submitted.
> * "Submitted" or "under consideration": the book or article has been submitted to a press or journal, but there is as yet no contract or agreement to publish.
> 13 votes
# Answer
It is okay for each paper to cite the other.
It would be better if more accurate publication details were given. Sometimes the published will add this information (this happens at Springer for LNCS volumes). Perhaps you can alert the editor of the fact, and they might be able to make sure that you have the right information for the citation or they can ensure that the publishers do the right thing.
> 4 votes
# Answer
Yes, it's fine. I would probably cite it as follows:
> First Author and Second Author. This is the title of this paper, which is also found several times in the paper itself. These *Proceedings*, 2013.
> 0 votes
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Tags: conference, citations
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thread-8468 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8468 | Math PhD application process | 2013-03-08T15:17:03.307 | # Question
Title: Math PhD application process
I expect to be graduating with a maths BSc (with an honours year, in Australia) in the not-too-distant future. I’d like to pursue a PhD in pure maths, with the view of becoming a research mathematician. I’ve found it quite difficult to find information on what exactly the application process entails, and when I need to start worrying about it. I have some specific questions, but what I’m really interested in is if there’s a compiled source of advice and information for math PhD applicants internationally.
1. It seems that many universities have a specific (December in the USA) deadline, does this mean PhDs have to start at a particular time of year?
2. I see that occasionally people advertise a particular PhD position they’d like to fill, on some particular research topic. Is this kind of PhD different from the “generic” kind and have a different application process?
# Answer
There are two main models of organizing doctoral programs:
* The American system: graduate students proceed through a combined master's and doctoral program, usually starting with coursework, then taking some sort of "qualifying exam" to become doctoral candidates within the department. Admissions are handled at the department level.
* The "German" system: doctoral candidates are *employees* rather than *students.* Candidates for a position must apply directly to the group of the professor who is sponsoring the project. There is no coursework phase, as applicants are expected to have already completed their master's degree. (However, they can "audit" courses if needed.)
I would suspect that these represent the "poles" of the spectrum; most other systems I'm aware of fall somewhere in between. \[Note that even the German system is adopting some features of the American system, and is thus starting to become a hybrid.\]
> 5 votes
# Answer
> 1. It seems that many universities have a specific (December in the USA) deadline, does this mean PhDs have to start at a particular time of year?
Usually, students apply on December for the Fall entry (August/September of the upcoming year).
> 2.I see that occasionally people advertise a particular PhD position they’d like to fill, on some particular research topic. Is this kind of PhD different from the “generic” kind and have a different application process?
Really can't ansnwer and it is case specific but usually such advertisements contain information about how to apply, expected time to start, minimum requirements and expected stipend (if there is any).
> 2 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, career-path, international
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thread-2558 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2558 | What to do when PhD is becoming hell due to non-cooperation from supervisor? | 2012-07-23T07:50:34.137 | # Question
Title: What to do when PhD is becoming hell due to non-cooperation from supervisor?
I have a nightmare adviser, who is also the head of the Department. The problems are:
1. he has too many students,
2. never reads my chapters,
3. he is trying his best to sabotage TA or RA opportunities that are my only source of funding,
4. he discourages me from attending conferences, and
5. refuses to introduce me to anyone in his network.
The worst thing is that I am an international student in the social sciences in Germany where professors have too much power, and there is no system of redress.
I have a second supervisor from another university, but he does not want to get involved as he is not the primary adviser.
I am three years into the program and have a nearly completed thesis. Without his comments on my chapters, I fear that I will end up with a lower grade (PhDs are graded here) which marks an end to my academic career. I was the top student in the Masters program and that is why I was offered a fully funded PhD. My adviser was very happy with me until I spoke to him about trying for a job in Germany or in Europe. Since then he is distant because I think he expected me to go back to my Third World country and create links for him.
* What can I do?
* Should I drop this PhD and apply for another one in the US or Canada? (I am not sure he will give me a recommendation)
* Should I complete this PhD in a multi-disciplinary field (Global Studies/Global Integration) and start another one in a related discipline such as Political Science or Geography or another traditional discipline, in Canada or the US?
* Should I apply for post docs and hope he will give me a recommendation?
Any other ideas. Please help. I am severely depressed.
# Answer
My 2 cents :
1. Graduate as soon as possible, The fact that this is with high or low grades is not relevant here
2. Apply for a postdoc position in a place where PhDs are not graded (France for instance)
3. Publish the (very good) stuff that you intentionally kept hidden until your graduation
After step 3 your record will be clean, and all this "hell stuff" will be far from you. To obtain a position in academy, the only thing that matters is the quality of your research (that can be seen in the papers) and of your teaching (for that you requires references), nobody will care about what happen during your PhD.
> 12 votes
# Answer
> I am three years into the program and have a nearly completed thesis. Without his comments on my chapters, I fear that I will end up with a lower grade (PhDs are graded here) which marks an end to my academic career.
You won't miss anything. Trust me.
> I was the top student in the Masters program and that is why I was offered a fully funded PhD. My adviser was very happy with me until I spoke to him about trying for a job in Germany or in Europe. Since then he is distant because I think he expected me to go back to my Third World country and create links for him.
Which third world country ?
> What can I do? Should I drop this PhD and apply for another one in the US or Canada?
No. You are too far in the thing to pull out. Complete it, get the money and the title, and then reconsider your path. Career is not something you pursue, it's something that happens. There's nothing wrong with it, and academia is not that paradise so that you will miss it.
> Any other ideas. Please help. I am severely depressed.
If you are depressed as in depression, seek medical help. If you are in a bad mood, just finish and look for something else. Life is more than that.
> 9 votes
# Answer
Do you only have a single supervisor? In Sweden, we always have at least a primary and a secondary supervisor. I know some people where the primary supervisor has little time, and the secondary supervisor(s) actually spend a lot more time in helping out. If it's for publishing a paper, you could offer co-authorship to other faculty if they can contribute to helping/advising on the paper.
> 7 votes
# Answer
First, I have questions for you.
Your (1): "he has too many students." Why would you be bothered? Is it because he is too busy to pay attention to you? If so, why (3) (sabotage)?
Your (4) and (5): "he discourages me from attending conferences", and "refuses to introduce me to anyone in his network." Can you talk to your secondary adviser to help you? Do you really need your primary adviser to introduce you to people? Do you need his approval to attend conferences?
Your (3) "he is trying his best to sabotage TA or RA opportunities that are my only source of funding" is a problem. You need funding to support your study. I am not familiar with German. Can you find a job somewhere to support yourself? Would it have to be TA or RA?
Your true problem is (2) "never reads my chapters." You need him to finish your dissertation. For that, you need to talk to him.
I do believe there are some serious misunderstandings between you and your adviser. Generally speaking, a student and his adviser are on the same side. Do you believe he would be proud of your failure? I would like to tell you this, if you fail, he fails, too.
I would urge you to have a sincere talk to him. Tell him what you want to achieve. Tell him what you'll do and where you will be after you get your PhD is really your own decision. Ask what he thinks of you and what kind of problems he thinks you are having so that you can improve yourself. Maybe he thinks you have not done research in depth enough so your chapters are not ready yet. So on and so forth. Once you two can have an open talk and clear up the misunderstandings, it will be a happy ending.
> 5 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, research-process
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thread-8481 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8481 | How to invite potential collaborators for personal visit? | 2013-03-09T09:15:19.533 | # Question
Title: How to invite potential collaborators for personal visit?
No starting point for scientific collaboration is better than face-to-face conversation. Conferences are good places to meet potential collaborator, but another way is to invite them to visit your institute/group and negotiate for possible collaborations.
However, when inviting a colleague from long distance (e.g. crossing the Atlantic), it is difficult to cover the cost of the flight (particularly as it significantly varies and hard to justify its necessity). Sometimes, the visitors has better access to available fund to cover his/her trip. Of course, it is easier to cover the cost of accommodation.
How do you invite a potential collaborator to visit your institute when you cannot cover his/her flight cost? Isn't it rude to invite someone and quote you must come on your own expenses as we cannot cover it? Note that the relationship is quite formal with least personal acquaintance (no joint work yet).
# Answer
1. Some schools do offer certain amount of money to help in invited speakers' expenses.
2. If you do not have any sufficient fund to cover this, you can ask your colleagues (i.e. other faculty members) to help you out. Note that if they won't benefit from the speaker then most likely they will not participate in this.
3. Meet him/her in a conference; this seems to be a very realistic option. Actually, I think it is a better idea to meet him/her in the conference even if you are able to cover the expenses. Meet over cup of coffee and discuss the potential contribution and if needed settle another appointment at the hotel lobby.
> 8 votes
# Answer
With apologies, and a firm understanding that lack of funding may be a dealbreaker.
It would certainly help if you can cover part of the expenses: "If you are ever in \[Country X\], I hope you will also visit \[my institution\] and we would be happy to pay for your hotel \[or else do you have a couch?\] and pay for around \[small number\] towards your travel expenses. You are of course very welcome to make a special trip but I regret that funding is tight and we would be unable to pay your international travel expenses."
... or something like that.
> 12 votes
# Answer
**Try to arrange their visit close to a conference in your field that is held on your continent** (domestic or intra-European flights are cheap, so you can probably cover that). Either have the visit just before or just after a big conference which the visitor will attend anyway means easier funding *and* easier scheduling for them (most people can only schedule so many around-the-world business trips per year). I have used that “trick” a lot, both when inviting people and when visiting other groups.
Also, look for binational grant programs that may be awarded for such purposes, there are some (but it obviously depends on the countries involved).
> 3 votes
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Tags: research-process, professorship, collaboration
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thread-8487 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8487 | Unsolicited CVs from grad school applicants - ignore or try to help? | 2013-03-09T16:37:36.330 | # Question
Title: Unsolicited CVs from grad school applicants - ignore or try to help?
I am a graduate student in physics and every other month or so I get an e-mail from someone who wants a grad school or even postdoc position. These e-mails often start out "Dear Professor (*my name*)," (I'm not a professor) and go on to explain that they are a motivated student looking to do a PhD with me, sometimes referring to a position that I am supposed to have advertised (I didn't). In the past I have often sent a reply in which I try to be disinterested but helpful, pointing them to the jobs section on our website which explains clearly who to contact.
I'm asking because today I got another one:
> I would be pleased to join for the PhD Studentship position into your institution for (*field that has nothing to do with my institution*) research.
Oddly specific and inaccurate at the same time. I don't mind just deleting it. However, I'd like to help if I can.
* Why do people do this? To me, it seems counterproductive.
* How can I help them onto the right track?
# Answer
I think we all get these emails and being famous and more senior probably means getting more of them. I am not famous or senior so I get one/two of these a day. **I reply to them all. I am not sending man to mars and and can spend 30 seconds to reply to someone who sent an irrelevant one or spend a bit of time helping someone who was genuine and/or had a high calibre and went and studied my work. Naturally the quality of my reply depends on the quality of the email I have received.** Thats the least that I can do. I must confess at times it has been a one liner saying "at least do a bit of research and see what I do instead if this generic meaningless email and have attached my boilerplate text explaining why this is not helpful and what they should do" but also sending a three pager, correcting mistakes I have seen in CV, cover letter and/or proposal and calling people I know to help somebody out.
Why do I do this? Yes it takes time and we are all busy but I enjoy the fact that I am in a position to guide someone and help them out in bettering themselves. **Many have done this for me before and believe it or not those guys who replied were really helpful**. I do the same in hope that it might inspire someone, help him/her succeed and give them the sense that people do care about you and want to have your back. Same way many people are in this community who give their time and help strangers they don't know.
**Now answer to the question:** Write a boilerplate text for the ones who send you random stuff. This is not the last time you will get something like this. Explain why this is not going to help and what is the correct way. You only have to do this once and whether they take your advice or not is their choice...
In future if you become an academic please do try to help people and don't see their efforts as SPAM if you feel they are genuine and have tried. Also give the benefit of the doubt to the ones who send random emails. They might just be desperate and need some help. Preparing some text to explain the above might actually help someone. It might be that he/she has got bad advice about how to go about finding positions etc.
> 32 votes
# Answer
What you describe is a form of academic spam. As any spam, people do it because:
1. the cost appears low
2. you can do it in bulk
3. the success rate is indeed horribly low, but if the number of emails sent is large, the product of (success rate) x (number of emails) can be non-negligible.
While the above analysis is probably true if you're selling sildenafil citrate, I think it does not hold in academia, because hiring decisions are typically a well-controlled process, and not an “on the spot” decision by a single person in power.
My policy regarding such emails is: my time is precious (in fact, it is most probably the main limiting factor in my scientific productivity). So, if there is at least one blatantly untrue or gross discrepancy in the email I receive, I do not reply. (That can include: getting my affiliation wrong, getting the research field wrong, referring to a position I didn't advertise, etc.)
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*Added for clarification:* getting the title wrong does not, in my own system of value, consider a “blatant error”. Obviously, emailing a graduate student with “professor X” is weird, but you have to consider that honorifics, titles, etc. depend on country/research system. Thus, many people use “professor” when they refer to permanent staff, when they are not sure if the actual title is “Dr.” or “prof.” or whatever… It is, in my view, a really minor issue.
> 31 votes
# Answer
I see a fair number of these letters as well. Some see more genuine than others but as you state some do not even hit the main subject in which my department work. I see these as desperate attempts to get a foothold somewhere. In some cases, and I must emphasize that I cannot support his with hard proof, it seems having some form of official documentation may provide enough basis for persons to get the necessary background for visas and hence possibility to travel.
I am sure there are all kinds of reasons for these mails ranging from the perfectly honest, however misdirected, to the pure opportunist with alternative motives. The true tragedy is that the genuine contacts may become rejected because of the sheer number of mails.
I would recommend that each department/graduate school set up some form of standard reply, perhaps pointing at a web page stating how to apply. In our case PhD positions are offically advertised so contacting the department (me) is of no use.
> 13 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, graduate-admissions, application, cv
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thread-8427 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8427 | How to arrange sabbatical leave? | 2013-03-06T23:33:11.977 | # Question
Title: How to arrange sabbatical leave?
Sabbatical leave is very common as it is nice to spend a year as a visiting professor in another university and experience a new environment.
It is very beneficial for the host university to have temporary faculty members free of charge (no salary is normally paid by the host university). **(1) How do host universities attempt (if they do) to attract visiting professors?** Of course, there are job advertisements for hiring visiting professors, but I think they are paid positions and different from normal sabbatical leave.
Visiting for research purposes should be arranged with the leader of the host research group. Thus, the arrangement is at a personal level (somewhat similar to hiring a postdoc researcher.
Visiting for education purposes should be arranged at the level of the department chair.
**(2) How can a professor find a visiting professor? Is it chancy? to meet a colleague interested to host?** Or s/he must contact many professors and department chairs to find a vacancy?
***(1) & (2) Who should actually initiate this process? The guest professor or host university?***
(possible 3) Is there a system to facilitate this process, as it is of mutual interest, or everything is left to chance? For example, European Union emphasizes the mobility of students/professors through different programmes. Is there such a system for sabbatical visits (in its classical form of completely working at the host university for a period of time, not guest lecturing as it is common in Europe).
# Answer
I do not have direct experience with sabbaticals, however the professors I've known that have taken them have been explicitly sought out for the respective sabbatical at a particular institution (as a visiting professor), by colleagues that they personally know professionally (i.e., from being in the same field and interacting via conferences, collaborations, etc.).
In other words, it boils down to networking, and almost certainly doesn't come out of nowhere. If a professor is planning a sabbatical, he or she will probably already have colleagues willing to host, or will start the process by calling up a colleague and pitching the idea. I would gather that it isn't likely that there are too many successful cold-calls to departments that lead to sabbaticals.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Each time I've taken a sabbatical, it has started with an email (or, in years past, a letter). Write to the person (or people) you would like to collaborate with, and let them know you have a sabbatical coming up. Of course, knowing them already will make it much more likely to be successful.
> 6 votes
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Tags: research-process, university, professorship, visiting, sabbatical
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thread-8490 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8490 | Getting into PhD programme when having not the best grades due to personal issues | 2013-03-09T17:20:31.620 | # Question
Title: Getting into PhD programme when having not the best grades due to personal issues
I have studied Physics (Diploma) and since 3 years I work as a Software Engineer.
But I am starting to miss the high degree of intellectual challenge. So I am thinking to go back to academia. Unfortunately my Diploma grade was B (German 2), likewise the grade of my in-depth elective Theoretical Particle Physics. I think I could have done better, but my mother died of cancer during my Diploma thesis and this didn't leave much focus and time for me. Plus I started working on a Web App in the last 2 months of my studies. Other grades were better, my Math elective (Functional Analysis) was A+, likewise Theoretical Physics. My undergraduate studies' grades were mixed, between A+ and B-.
My thesis also does not look so well. Because of a lack of time it has orthographic errors, discussion of results is too short and the source code snippets in it look ugly. Once I applied for a job through a head hunter and after they saw my thesis they completely lost interest in me as a candidate.
So question: how hard is it in such a situation to apply for a PhD Programme and is it a good idea at all? What would be a good strategy when applying? I am interested in Mathematics, Theoretical Physics, Mathematical Physics or Computer Science.
# Answer
If you're serious about getting into a grad school, then you need to take the initiative. In your situation, just sending off applications is unlikely to be enough. What you need to do is to get someone on the inside of an institution to want to work with you. So -- contact individual professors and let them know that you are interested in working with them. This means you need to figure out who they are, what they work on, and, when you contact them, you need to make it about why you can be of help in their research area. It's a lot of work, but the process will probably be good for you as well, narrowing down what it is you really are interested in, what your abilities are, and what kind of work you want to do. Good luck!
> 1 votes
# Answer
In Germany even some renowned research institutes mention in the job offers that people with at least grade B should be encouraged to apply for a position. So I don't see here a major problem for you. No one looks on your pre-diploma grades, this is now different with the bachelor AND master degree. But you have to make a presentation of your diploma work for the job interview. I don't know what speaks against adding results that you worked out after that thesis to make the work more impressive, as you didn't have as much time as other students with a scholarship or rich parents and were forced to work besides your diploma work, especially as the diploma needs 12 months in germany. If they want you to send them your diplom pdf, than of course you have to look for another group.
The major problem I see is that you wrote your thesis now 3 years ago, and 2-2.5 years is also a deadline I saw several times in such german PhD job offers, as after some time you simply loose knowledge.
Nonetheless you should try it, write a few dozen applications and look how much invitations for a job interview you get and in what fields, but be clear what your motivation is. Your question does sound to me like you a bored and desperated in your current job, that is not the best reason for a Prof. to hire you, you should show interest in a specific topic, related to your diploma work would make your motivation to do a PhD more credible to me.
> 3 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions
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thread-8499 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8499 | How to anonymize a business in a paper? | 2013-03-10T12:54:43.250 | # Question
Title: How to anonymize a business in a paper?
I am assisting with a research paper about a single business. The business owners agreed to participate in the study on condition that their name remain anonymous. What is the proper or common way to anonymity the business? Should a fake name be used? Should readers be told that a fake name was used?
# Answer
> 12 votes
In your introduction you can explain the context of your study, and the research questions you want to treat. Then, in the last sentence of the introduction you can write something like:
> To answer the research question, we treat a case study dealing with a particular company. For privacy reasons we cannot give the exact name of the company, so we will simply refer to it as "the company" throughout this paper.
Then in the paper you can use sentences like:
> Productivity in the company was boosted by increasing the light intensity at the workstations
>
> The company that is the focus of our study is a tech company of 500 employees which has grown very much in the last 5 years.
In this way everyone is aware of the fact that a fake name was used.
ps I haven't written any papers that involved this kind of dilemma, but this is what I would do.
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Tags: publications, anonymity, business-school
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thread-8356 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8356 | How do I put industry research in an academic context? | 2013-03-03T22:53:32.360 | # Question
Title: How do I put industry research in an academic context?
I am an industry based researcher. I research and write policies mostly relating to workplace issues such as codes and manuals. I have just completed my PhD in a related field.
On my CV, I can include about 10 years of industry research (plus my qualification as above). As far as I know, industry research is not considered in the same light as peer-reviewed articles.
**Question:** How do I make industry research a selling point in my CV (in the academic world)?
**Note:** I have no peer-reviewed articles to my credit and there is no possibility of publishing my industry based research outcomes in the wider sense.
# Answer
Emphasize strengths that mirror what would be expected for a 10-year Academic career:
* No peer-reviewed publications? List instead all the internal white papers you've written.
* Mention any academic collaborations when describing roles. (No collaborations? List internal cross-departmental collaborations.)
* List trainees/interns you've mentored.
* List any important talks/presentations you've given related to your research. It won't be the same, as the level of discourse when talking to other researchers is different than when talking to senior managers, but it does demonstrate presentation experience.
* Get very strong letters of recommendation attesting to your strength as a researcher, communicator, and mentor.
> 5 votes
# Answer
The relevant issue is how to make your research meaningful to your application. Since this would typically not get much attention in a CV, the best place to do this will be either in your cover letter or in the introduction to your research statement.
If your industrial research has informed your choice of problems to study as an academic, or has expanded your skill set, this is information you should relate to the committee. However, if the work is completely unrelated, you may have a hard time convincing a committee that it's worth considering as related experience (beyond the traditional justification of industrial experience in and of itself).
> 4 votes
# Answer
I think there might be some confusion. If you write policies, codes, and manuals, that most likely does not qualify as (scientific) research as the term is generally understood by the research community (or the academic community). In our context, (scientific) research generally refers to systematic investigation that leads to new knowledge. The end result of (scientific) research is some new knowledge that was not previously known before.
I know that in other contexts, people sometimes use the word "research" in a different way. For instance, they might talk about "researching an issue", by which they mean, go find newspaper articles, scientific papers, policy briefs, etc. on the topic and read them to get up to speed on the topic as quickly as possible. That's a fine meaning of the term "research", but it's not research as the academic or research community mean it. That kind of activity generally is not a replacement for what academics call (scientific) research.
(Scientific) research is also usually published in a peer-reviewed conference or journal. Academics may give credit only to published work. There are good reasons for this. For one thing, academics value discovering new knowledge and making it available to humankind. If you haven't published, you haven't advanced that agenda. For that reason, if researcher X discovers something new but doesn't publish, and then a year later researcher Y discovers the new thing and publishes, we usually award credit ("priority") to researcher Y, because researcher Y published. Also, peer-reviewed publications are one of the ways that we evaluate the quality of work. Typically, folks on a search committee are not expert in your area and may find it difficult to directly evaluate the quality of your work. If it has been published in a peer-reviewed conference/journal, that speaks to its quality; and the more selective the conference/journal, the more of a testament to quality it is. If your work hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed forum, it's harder to know whether it's any good (and there may even be a suspicion that it wasn't published in a peer-reviewed forum because it wasn't good enough or would not have been able to survive peer review). So, publications matter for hiring. I'm not saying that unpublished work is never taken into account, but it's a much higher hurdle if none of the work has been published, and you need to be honest with yourself about the situation.
I noticed that you asked a similar question about a month and a half ago (Does my work in industry carry any weight in academia?). You got similar answers, and some very good advice, at the time. Perhaps it'd be worth starting by reviewing the answers you go to the earlier question, and then editing your question to provide more context and detail, taking into account what you've read there.
Also, you haven't given us much to work with: for instance, you haven't told us what field you are working in; you haven't told us why your work wasn't published and cannot be published in a peer-reviewed forum; you haven't told us what aspects of the industry research you think might be relevant to your application or what options for how to include it in your CV you have considered; you haven't told us what was the work you did in industry, or what the novel scientific contributions were, or what its impact on industry was. The less information we have, the less likely it is that we can provide useful advice.
> 1 votes
# Answer
Industry research experience, like almost all research experience, only counts if there is a tangible outcome (e.g., grant income, patents, or peer-review publications). In the absence of a tangible outcome, the research experience (industry or otherwise) and contact (industry or otherwise) are nice, but not worth very much. If you want to make you past experience a selling point, you need to create some tangible outcomes. If the experience is valuable in an academic setting, then 10 years of experience should allow you go generate a tangible outcome quickly. Maybe one of your industry contacts will fund a study or provide you with unique data that could be used in a peer-reviewed publication.
> 1 votes
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Tags: research-process, industry
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thread-854 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/854 | Keeping track of bibliography references for an entire research group | 2012-03-23T15:28:03.657 | # Question
Title: Keeping track of bibliography references for an entire research group
This is a related question to my previous one about keeping advisees aware of literature.
Given the relatively large number of papers that are out there, it's inadvisable to force every student to start from ground zero in building up a reference library. To me, this suggests that there should be some centralized ways of keeping track of bibliography references.
The low-cost but high-maintenance route to me would be to have an SVN repository to which people can update their own personal bibliography files. Are there other more time-efficient routes to manage this process when:
* people have different computing platforms and workflows (Windows with Office, OS X with iWork, Linux with TeX, etc.)?
* working with collaborators at other institutes?
* it's important (according to university/workplace regulations) not to have data stored "in the cloud"?
# Answer
I accomplish this using the groups feature of **Mendeley**. It works on all three major OS's, allows you to share bibliographies easily with both your group and external collaborators. It also allows something that I think is very important -- lots of bibliographies on particular topics within the realm of what my group does. See, for example
I should mention that Mendeley's web interface to bibliographies is awful. But the desktop interface is quite nice and (most importantly) can export Bibtex.
Mendeley does store your data in the cloud (if you consider a bibliography to be "your data").
*Update*: I stopped using Mendeley when it was bought by Elsevier. I haven't found a satisfactory replacement.
> 19 votes
# Answer
If you're using LaTeX, you can set up a .bib file on a shared drive and everyone can reference and add to it as necessary using whatever program they like. I'm a fan of BibDesk, personally.
> 9 votes
# Answer
If you have a PHP server running somewhere, I would definitely recommend Aigaion. From the website, they say:
> Aigaion provides a bibliography management environment that supports a user in just this: Organizing and managing a complete bibliography, from small personal bibliographies to bibliographies for e.g. a complete research department.
I've been using it in the past on a project, and it's really helpful to manage a bibliography for an entire group: you can define collections, you can annotate each entry, and you can export easily the bibliography at least to Bibtex and RIS (probably more, but I don't remember exactly, as I was using only Bibtex). You can at the same time manage references to be read by students, and publications generated by the group. Plus, it's open source :)
> 8 votes
# Answer
We used to maintain our own list on our (sadly now defunct) group website when I was a PhD student. The sources for the group website are in a shared (internal) version control repository to which we all have access. We maintained three shared bibtex-files:
1. one for internal references — everything any of us ever published
2. one for external references — anything not internal any of us has ever cited or found otherwise useful
3. one for new references; we go through them at our weekly meetings, then merge them into (2).
Simple, but works very well.
> 5 votes
# Answer
If you want to sync refs across multiple users but don't want to host in the cloud, you should check out sparkleshare. You'd set up a git repo on a local server to host a bibtex file, then have your users install sparkleshare on their computers and connect to the git repo. You would then use Mendeley, which has a bibtex syncing option. This will achieve a system that will distribute new refs added by any user.
> 4 votes
# Answer
For small scale projects, such as you and a few other authors working on paper(s), I would just consider plain text file (with standardized fields) in a location you can all access (plus version control). Bibtext would be an obvious solution (and most reference software that I know of can import bibtext files). Easy and minamalist to implement and update. Mike's answer seems like a better solution than this, but this is dependent upon all the members of the group utilizing such software, which sometimes isn't worth the effort to get people to convert.
For large scale operations (like you need to enter in over 1,000 papers for a lab) I would consider rolling your own database + user forms to enter in data. Fields you want from papers are fairly easy to delineate, so setting up the initial database is not too dificult. Here are a few other reasons this is nice;
* You can have flexibility to put what you want in the database. For instance if you were conducting a meta analysis you may want to extend forms to include relevant statistics.
* Querying on a variety of characteristics becomes trivially easy.
* If you are saavy enough with the database, you can write some scripts to export the data in whatever format you want. For instance, I use the one statistical software I am most proficient in (so not a true database, but several seperate tables) to write my bibtext library, plain text citations in approximate APA format, and VBA code to find-and-replace latex like citations in word documents.
Alot of flexibility with your own database, and if you are doing a very large project it might be worth the upfront effort to develop and customize to suit your own needs.
> 1 votes
# Answer
The solution is the open source `I, librarian` server. It manages bibliography for groups. You can try it out online here: http://www.bioinformatics.org/librarian/ Look for "demo"
> 1 votes
# Answer
Why not just use vanilla git ? Everyone sets up their private repo and you can use github for shared syncing as needed.
> 0 votes
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Tags: reference-managers, research-group
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thread-8502 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8502 | Difference between 'PhD by Published Work' VS 'h.c. PhD' VS 'Dr hab'? | 2013-03-10T16:50:08.907 | # Question
Title: Difference between 'PhD by Published Work' VS 'h.c. PhD' VS 'Dr hab'?
I have just learned of the 'PhD by published works' which appears to be a fairly common program for schools in the UK. Is this similar to an honoris causa conferral or is it some separate program?
After reviewing materials on the Oxford Brooks & Warwick sites it appears that the entire program is just preparing a defense, which sounds a bit like Habilitation at first pass but it also seems that these programs are not restricted to current PhD holders.
Can anyone shed a little light on this for me?
Thanks.
# Answer
> 8 votes
While it may be common for universities in the UK to *offer* such a degree, I'm not sure it's at all common to obtain a PhD in this way (i.e. 'by published works'). I think it is mainly aimed at people who have been involved in research for some time (especially as university staff members) without a PhD, but who have published material equivalent to a PhD thesis. (As you will have read, for the Warwick program one must be either a member of staff at Warwick or have graduated with a Bachelor's degree or equivalent at least seven years ago.)
Generally someone applying for such a program would have already published the works they are planning to submit, and therefore as you say the program will consist primarily of preparing for the oral examination (often called 'viva' in the UK). Although you probably have to prepare some kind of extra document as well (in the Oxford Brookes program this is a 'critical appraisal' of the works being presented).
This is, as Pieter has already explained, very different from either a habilitation (which is at a higher level than PhD) or an honorary PhD (which in general can honour any kind of accomplishment and doesn't require the holder to have done research at PhD level or indeed to have a university education at all).
# Answer
> 7 votes
A doctorate "honoris causa" is awarded by universities to recognize a person's outstanding contribution to science, or sometimes also society. It is a honorary degree (so you cannot apply for it), and not very common. Usually the people who receive such a degree already have a doctorate.
The Dr. habil. is a degree that only exists in some countries, such as Germany, Austria, France and Russia. Basically it gives you the right to teach courses at a university. You can only get it after getting a PhD, and usually requires writing another thesis and giving one or two lectures on topics in your field.
I do not know what a "PhD by published works" is, but it sounds to me like a PhD program where the thesis basically is a collection of published (presumably peer-reviewed) articles by the student.
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Tags: phd, graduate-school
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thread-8444 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8444 | Submitting the same paper to more than one conference in economics | 2013-03-07T15:38:27.307 | # Question
Title: Submitting the same paper to more than one conference in economics
I am aware of the post relating to this topic here. However, it doesn't say anything for the paper relating to the economics. I would be glad if seasoned econ colleagues could clear out the confusion in this regard.
# Answer
> 0 votes
If in doubt, ask the conference organizers about their policies. I have seen people give essentially the same talk at multiple conferences.
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Tags: conference, economics, paper-submission
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thread-8509 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8509 | Acknowledging a reviewer from a journal from which the paper was rejected | 2013-03-10T21:22:25.233 | # Question
Title: Acknowledging a reviewer from a journal from which the paper was rejected
My paper was rejected from a journal. However, remarks of one of the reviewers were useful, and I incorporated them into the next version of the paper.
Is there a general pattern of acknowledging such contribution (in the Acknowledgement section)?
Or should I leave it, not to advertise information that the paper was rejected from a particular journal?
(As a side note, this paper was rejected two times, each time with one positive review, and one of type "OK, but I think it is not of general interest".)
EDIT:
In my case (as in general in my field) reviewers were anonymous. (Otherwise I would just use their names.)
And in my case the helpful comments were in positive reviews (but I doubt whether it changes anything).
# Answer
> 14 votes
Piotr has asked that I add one of my comments as an answer. Please note that I am a fairly inexperienced academic, so don't take anything I say too seriously!
Firstly, I'll reiterate one of my comments on Peter Jansson's answer:
You really really should not mention journal names or the fact that the paper was previously rejected. The journal you are publishing in would not appreciate it! (It makes it clear they were only your second, or in this case third, choice.)
Since you say that the helpful remarks of the earlier reviewer were about grammar, typos and a few small changes throughout the document rather than something that substantially changed the exposition of your paper, I think that conveying your thanks directly to the reviewer via the journal's editor (which you say you have already done) is probably a more appropriate acknowledgment, especially given the difficulty of making it clear you are thanking a reviewer from a different journal while not mentioning any names or the fact that the paper was rejected.
# Answer
> 23 votes
First, I think it is good to acknowledge reviewers as you consider doing. It is the editor who rejects any papers based on the results of reviews so the reviews may still be very constructive and indeed helpful in improving a paper. So I would suggest something like the following
> We/I (gratefully) acknowledge the (critical) review by X on an earlier version of the manuscript.
There are many ways to express it and what words you wish to use is up to you and the way you wish to express your gratitude. I would not add the name of the journal(s) where the reviews were conducted (other than in the letter to the journal editor accompanying your MS submission).
I also would like to take the opportunity to add that the following issue, not that it applies to your case but more to point out some bad practices for the community. The poor behavior concerns when someone acknowledges a famous persons review just to gain leverage in resubmitting it to another journal. I have seen how persons have used reviews stating that the paper should be rejected because it is "crap" as a "most valuable input to help improve the manuscript". Since no-one typically knows what this review did, the gut reaction is to think it must have been valuable since the reviewer is well known. For this reason it is good to provide the review/revisions from the old MS when re-submitting it so that the review-revision work becomes obvious to the editor.
As a final point, I would not add the acknowledgement of any reviewers new or old until the time when your MS has been (hopefully) accepted in the new journal.
EDIT: Based on the good comments by Tara B on anonymous reviewers and how to distinguish reviews from old and new MS I would write something as the following
> We/I (gratefully) acknowledge the (critical) review by two anonymous reviewers as well as the (critical) review by another anonymous reviewer on an earlier version of the manuscript.
Words in parenthesis are optional and can be exchanged for others that better suit your needs.
# Answer
> 10 votes
I have been waiting for a chance to pull a prank like
> I would like to thank 15 anonymous referees from 5 journals to which this paper was submitted for their helpful comments.
but, as many people said, few journals will appreciate this sort of remark. It is true that this is what happens with most papers, so if we are to be honest and transparent, we should just state this sort of history. And it happens to the top researchers, too, although some people, judging by their productivity of 10+ papers a year, never get even requests for revisions.
May be a weaker form would be
> I would like to thank the three anonymous referees and the associate editor of \[THIS JOURNAL\], as well as several other anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments.
Sometimes, it happens that the most important revision was actually a couple of journals ago which really improved the paper, but that journal still did not accept the paper, so it cruised through another editorial board or two with just minor language remarks.
# Answer
> 6 votes
I use the phrase "I thank an anonymous colleague for \[providing an important idea\]."
This implies that the idea came from someone else, but it doesn't explicitly mention that the paper was previously rejected or reviewed.
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Tags: publications, acknowledgement
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thread-8540 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8540 | Semester units versus credit hours | 2013-03-11T19:46:14.533 | # Question
Title: Semester units versus credit hours
This graduate policy handbook states
> "A master’s student may transfer up to 4 semester units or 6 quarter units of course work completed as a graduate student at another institution."
In this context, does "4 semester units" refer to 4 credit hours or 4 graduate courses?
# Answer
"Semester units" are up to the definition of the school. Some people call a "unit" one course; some people call a "unit" a fraction of a course.
For example, just among the US schools that I have been affiliated with (or visited for an extended period of time):
> Yale: 1 semester course = 1 unit
>
> Harvard: 1 semester course = 1/2 unit
>
> Princeton: 1 semester course = 1 unit
>
> MIT: 1 semester course = 9 or 12 units
>
> UConn: 1 semester course = 3 or 4 "credit hours"
So you *definitely* need to consult the *individual school catalog* to see what system they're using.
> 7 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions
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thread-8547 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8547 | How to refer to a page number in a pdf? | 2013-03-12T06:26:13.537 | # Question
Title: How to refer to a page number in a pdf?
Many times, the page number in pdf is different than the printed page number. How to make sure the other person doesn't get confused when we say "it's on Nth page".
# Answer
> 8 votes
Refrain from referring to the printed/PDF page number at all, and refer to something more concrete, like "in section X" or, of course, a particular figure number if you're referring to a figure.
# Answer
> 14 votes
If you're talking about the PDF of a paper published in an academic journal, then the answer is unambiguously: *refer to the journal page numbers*, i.e. the numbers at the bottom of each page. Those are the ones features in (almost all) citation styles.
Otherwise, if the document is a random PDF found on the web (not coming from a journal), just avoid referring to pages. If you absolutely must, refer to the page numbers printed on the paper, as it is the only thing that makes sense to someone who would print the document.
# Answer
> 4 votes
In informal communication like email I use a notation along the lines of "page X (PDF page Y)". By providing both numbers, it is easy for whoever is browsing the PDF to figure out if X or Y is referring to the internal page numbers or the PDF page, and then use whichever one they want to find the content.
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Tags: language
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thread-8557 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8557 | What is an academic sabbatical? | 2013-03-12T12:29:05.247 | # Question
Title: What is an academic sabbatical?
The Wikipedia definition of sabbatical doesn't match how I think of an academic sabbatical. What does it mean to go on academic sabbatical, and does it depend on the country?
# Answer
The definition of sabbatical in Wikipedia refers to labor terminology rather than academic sabbatical leave. As a privilege to employees, they can have temporary unpaid leave (for any personal reason) without losing their job.
However, academic sabbatical historically is somehow different. When a scholar needs peace of mind to focus on a challenging issue, s/he will visit a new institute to experience a new atmosphere. While still being in the academic environment, not having heavy official duties.
There are several motivations for a sabbatical leave (at least as I have seen):
1. A manager finishes an administrative position (e.g. Dean), and wishes to rest in a different atmosphere, but not far from academia.
2. A researcher working on a new idea, prefers to focus on his/her work somewhere with less commitments on everyday responsibilities (e.g. teaching, advising, etc).
3. A researcher is exploring new possibilities and opportunities, spend some time in a new department to live with new colleagues for a while.
4. A researcher is collaborating with another group and spend a year in the host research group as a visiting scientist/professor while being on sabbatical leave from his/her institute.
5. A professor in a mid-level university finds a temporary position in a top university. This is the base for many visiting professors in the US universities, e.g. international professors can experience working in the US universities. Even there are associate/assistant professors who find a post-doc position in the top universities, and use sabbatical leave, not to lose their job at home.
In any case, sabbatical allowance mainly depends on the university employment rules.
> 35 votes
# Answer
Situations will depend widely on country and on the employer, because a sabbatical leave is something between you and them: **it's an arrangement between an academic and her employer that lets her “take a break” without fully losing the benefits of their position**.
**The nature of the break, the activities one has during the sabbatical, and the benefits retained during the length of the sabbatical can vary completely**. For example, a sabbatical can take the form of an unpaid leave for six months or a year, during which the researcher will sail around the world. However, in the modern research system, sabbaticals generally consist of periods where the academic gets time to:
* focus full time on a given research project (most often, an emerging project)
* visit another group to advance an existing project or help create a new collaboration
* spend part time or full time launching a research-related business
It is common for universities to support those researchers who are granted sabbaticals with some income, typically somewhere between half salary and full salary.
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You can browse the web to see sabbatical policies at various universities. Here's the description at U. Oregon:
> Sabbatical leave is a paid period of released time designed to reinvigorate and restore one's academic energies, and to provide a base for future intellectual development and achievement. During the leave period, a faculty member may receive between 50 and 100 percent of salary depending on the length of the leave and the school, college or other administrative affiliation.
> 15 votes
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Tags: career-path, working-time, sabbatical
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thread-2919 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2919 | Experiences with Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP) journals | 2012-08-21T08:31:56.947 | # Question
Title: Experiences with Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP) journals
Recently I've been receiving an increasing number of invitations to submit papers to several new Open-Access journals published by Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP).
Has anybody here had any direct interactions with any of their journals? If so, what is your opinion?
I googled around a bit and they do not seem to be an exceedingly serious outfit. Although I have no intention of publishing there, I think this discussion may be useful for others receiving the same, or similar, invitations.
# Answer
> 28 votes
This recent *Nature* news item would seem to suggest rather strongly that SCIRP is not a serious outfit. Given the ethical improprieties mentioned in that article, staying away from such journals with a ten-foot pole (or longer) seems advisable.
# Answer
> 21 votes
Yes, I do indeed have some direct experience with them. I've written about it on my blog.
Summary: The SCIRP journal *Advances in Pure Mathematics* provisionally accepted a randomly-generated nonsense paper. This seems a clear indication that their peer-review process is a sham, and that they are essentially a vanity press, and not a "serious outfit" at all.
# Answer
> 12 votes
Scientific Research Publishing is currently listed in Beall's List of Predatory, Open-Access Publishers, so it isn't a good idea to submit papers to their journals.
# Answer
> 2 votes
If you have preprints posted on a preprint server or on the arXiv, they will ask you to remove them before reviewing your work. I am unaware of other open access publishers who insist that all prior revisions of a work be removed before the current version is reviewed. Submission to a preprint server such as the arXiv is encouraged by some journals in some fields (e.g., mathematics). Removal from the arXiv is all but impossible after submission. The refereeing process does not strike me as serious, e.g., referees have been known to ask authors to remove citations to personal communications from submitted manuscripts. There is nothing wrong with citing correspondence; disallowing such citations is bizarre, goes against accepted scholarly practice and, at worst, encourages plagiarism.
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Tags: publications, journals, disreputable-publishers
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thread-8570 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8570 | How important is a online reputation for academics? | 2013-03-13T11:22:59.257 | # Question
Title: How important is a online reputation for academics?
I catch myself too often thinking about how to become more visible and present online instead of doing Great Research™.
But how important is it to be very visible online for academics and researcher anyway?
Here are my assumptions, numbered only for easy referencing.
The bad:
1. Tenure committees and such don't care for twitter follower
2. Public bodies that provide funding don't care how many people have you in your circle
3. Colleagues might look down on you, because your blog posts are not scientific enough
The good:
1. Writing a blog can be a good exercise in writing about your topic
2. If you are looking for a job or position, it can be helpful iff your potential boss is also an 'onliner'
3. It makes it easier to network and getting in contact with other people who work on the same problems
4. It might help you to get work, invited to talks and book contracts in the normal world.
5. (For CS) Uploading and advertising your code will make your research results more used
Are my assumptions correct? What did I miss? How do handle your online reputation?
# Answer
> 14 votes
Generally speaking, online presence is not so important *with respect to your career advancement in academia*. Your professional stature is based on your publications, presentations, connections, and ability to obtain grant funding. When you look for positions, you'll be judged primarily on these criteria; blogs and media appearances are a very minor factor, if considered at all.
That being said, it may be beneficial in other respects. A strong online presence can significantly boost your visibility to those *outside* the academic environment. This can lead to consultation opportunities, collaboration opportunities with those outside of academia (think business ventures), and possibly job leads in industry. To the extent you're interested in those, you may want to invest in creating a strong online presence to help you advertise yourself.
# Answer
> 11 votes
Consider the related question on having a web page. In some communities it would seem laughable NOT to have a personal web page (and in parts of CS it's considered silly not to have your own domain!).
My feeling is that the general issue of an "online presence", whether it be blogs, twitter, or other social mechanisms, will become a non-issue as everyone starts placing their material online by default rather than by choice.
We used to joke in our department that we only want to hire people with active blogs (because a few of us blog actively). But now that isn't even a distinguishing factor: more than not, people have personal blogs and other forms of online presence.
As a general rule, don't force it. Understand that an online presence is something you should become accustomed to having, but take advantage of the fact that it's not yet the norm. Experiment with what works for you. Don't write a blog if it's not something you find comfortable. Or try it and see if you like it before deciding to do it. An online presence is not An Online Presence: it's merely another method to express yourself. If you don't have things to express, it doesn't matter what medium you use :)
# Answer
> 7 votes
The first general answer that comes to mind is that it depends on what you do online. Adding professional material into the public domain will probably be very positive if it is good and useful. Engaging in academic discussions (through a blog for example) on what might be considered serious topics such as ethics, scientific fraud, pedagogics, your research etc. would probably not construed as negative either. At least as long as you treat the writing there as seriously as you would do any academic writing.
The "lightweight" activities such as Facebook and Twitter may have its points especially towards students and attracting students towards scientific activities and thinking. But, ones reputation in such medias would probably not be of much value unless one builds up a reputation that is leading. I suspect you may have to become a leading scientist before anyone really takes notice of your social media contributions.
What single persons find positive or negative of the points in your lists will likely be very variable but I think the different media have their (almost) separate audiences. Social media might be excellent to communicate science to the public. The problem is that it will always be your personal communication and not yours as a representative of your department/university etc. unless the activity is somehow endorsed.
The bottom line as I see it is that what is good or bad highly depends on what *you* communicate not in which way you do it. Keeping a high academic standard should not be negative anywhere.
Becoming buddies as you suggest in "Good 2" sounds almost bad to me since in the case of academic employment, that employer will likely be thought of as having a conflict of interest. On the other hand being visible and not "buddies" is probably only a plus in such a case. About "Good 3" and "4" I doubt anyone will hire you or invite you to give talks based on internet visibility unless you have something solidly academic to back it up. It is your core academic reputation that will open doors for you.
# Answer
> 3 votes
If you are looking for a job in academia, having a presentable website is a plus. If you put your website address on your CV and you also have Google Analytics for your website, you'll notice an explicit spike in your website traffic when (if) hiring committees are looking at your site (unless, of course, your site is popular enough to reduce the extra hits to noise). Google Analytics even has a fancy mapping tool so you can see, for instance, that the Cornell hiring committee is looking at your website when you see fifteen extra hits from Ithaca within a couple of days.
Additionally, having a website is a good place to put your publication listing (and, of course, your CV) with links to all of your papers. When someone meets you at a conference and wants to see what you've produced, searching for your name to find your website should be easy. Many faculty members also have their class listings and curricula on their websites, and those resources can provide other indicators to your hire-ability if you're looking for a job.
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Tags: career-path
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thread-8579 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8579 | How exactly does a conference abstract differ from an article abstract? | 2013-03-13T15:55:36.743 | # Question
Title: How exactly does a conference abstract differ from an article abstract?
I am currently taking a brief course in Technical/Academic Writing. At one point, in passing, the lecturer (who's a researcher in linguistics himself) mentioned that one should not confuse a conference abstract with an article abstract, with the exact phrasing "... that's a whole different story."
Unfortunately, at that moment in time I did not reflect on what those differences might be, but now I am writing a conference abstract I realize that I have never really paid much attention to the fact that I am not writing to a journal. Besides the fact that a conference abstract is preamble to a primarily spoken form presentation (poster/oral) instead of a written one, I don't really see why it would be "a whole different story".
Assuming that there are no differences in requirements and limitations, what are the fundamental differences, between a conference abstract and an article abstract, that one should be aware of?
PS: if it matters, the field I'm mostly concerned about is medical research
# Answer
To me an article abstract summarizes the entire article including the overarching questions through methods, results to the major conclusions.
A conference abstract will of course also summarize whatever is presented at the conference. The differences lie in several aspects of variable weight:
* Conferences are often focused on a specific topic so one can be less stringent with the background
* Conference presentations may involve work in progress and as such the final conclusions maybe quite hazy.
* The conference abstract may be written before most of the work has actually been done (this is quite common with some conferences in my field) and becomes an "advertisement" for what might come.
* The conference contribution may in some cases involve a paper but can also be a poster or an oral presentation. depending on which abstracts may contain varying levels of finalized conclusions.
> 9 votes
# Answer
I think your professor was talking about **extended abstracts** (see this question for more discussion). For many conferences, especially those that don't publish their proceedings, people submit an extended abstract instead of a paper. Thus, in that case the 'abstract' is basically a short paper that summarizes results you are working on or planning to publish soon. It is much more detailed that an abstract for a paper, but less detailed than a whole paper would be.
If your conference publishes its proceedings though (as many in computer science, do) then you should treat your conference submission like a journal one and write the abstract accordingly.
> 7 votes
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Tags: conference, writing, abstract
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thread-8578 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8578 | How to physically handle hundreds and hundreds of papers | 2013-03-13T15:35:45.193 | # Question
Title: How to physically handle hundreds and hundreds of papers
I have a bit of a meta-question about academics.
I am a graduate student and teaching assistant. I often find myself flipping, organizing, and searching through stacks of hundreds and hundreds of sheets of paper, whether I'm grading, reading, or doing research.
I seem to have an issue where my hands get dry quickly, and I find myself licking the tips of my fingers to get better friction. Sometimes I have to do this quite often, and I am wondering if there is a better way. I tried using hand moisturizer, but that wears off.
Are there special gloves, lotions, or anything that can help with flipping through huge stacks of paper?
# Answer
Some 20 years ago before all the electronics changed our ways of dealing with stuff, post and bank employees who had to deal with piles of paper (or banknotes) throughout day used a device which was essentially a piece of a wet sponge in a small bowl. They had this on the desk and whenever were about to touch paper, they would simply brush their fingers through it. Something like that could help you... To construct it, I would use a plastic travel-soap container and a small sponge for dishwashing.
**Later edit:** Indeed, this is what I had in mind.
> 25 votes
# Answer
An alternative to walkmanyi's wetting solution would be to employ rubber finger tips.
**On the plus side:**
They protect from drying out of the natural oil from your finger tips, and protect against paper cuts.
**On the negative side:**
Well you are wearing little caps on the tips of your fingers and you lose some tactile feedback. I imagine it would take some getting used to.
> 13 votes
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Tags: tools, grading
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thread-8581 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8581 | Should I make 2 applications to the same university | 2013-03-13T15:56:21.890 | # Question
Title: Should I make 2 applications to the same university
I applied for a PhD position, with my own research proposal, at a university and received an offer already. However, as I cannot fund myself, I have to wait for the scholarship decision which will be announced at the end of April.
In the meantime, the university is advertising an industrially funded PhD project whose deadline is end of March. My background matches the requirements for the project, which is quite interesting to me, too. I wonder if I should apply for this project as well. If I am accepted and receive a scholarship from the first offer, I have to choose one of them.
**Update**: I'm asking this question as I'm worried that making two applications to two supervisors from the same research group may impact the outcome of both applications, i.e. whether I receive a scholarship for the first application and/or be accepted into the 2nd project. I am worried because I believe both supervisors would not be very happy if they knew about me applying to both positions.
# Answer
There is no right answer to this and it depends on the institution that you are in and the people you are dealing with. You are the only one who can decide on this.
In principal I don't see any problem with this if you manage it correctly. IMHO talking with the first guy to understand the consequence of your action and then making the decision is the right course. Second guy has the money and that makes the situation entirely different for him. The reality is that if you are good people will always assume that you have your own interest in mind and will try to get the best offer. So thats not new. **What matters is how you play your cards and behave.**
So, what I would say is go to the **first guy** talk about the scholarship situation and your prospects, see what he says, if you feel its right bring up the other project **ask him "given the uncertainty of the situation and what would you do if you were in my shoes".** and take it from there...
If he says something on the lines of well i am not sure what will happen with scholarship and nothing is guaranteed then go ahead and apply for the second one but if he is saying its a tough situation and you have to make your own mind it kinda indicates that his is not going to be happy about it and is really not understanding you/caring.
I think right now you need to test the waters first and need to do it very delicately...
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, application, funding
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thread-8597 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8597 | How important is the publication venue for academic hiring and grant applications? | 2013-03-14T09:36:29.013 | # Question
Title: How important is the publication venue for academic hiring and grant applications?
A comment in this question says: *but spending some money to publish in a high rank journal can open more funding opportunities in future, doesn't it?*. In another post, JeffE writes in this answer:
> *Personally, when I read a CV, I only spend a second or two on the self-declared research interests and jump straight to the publication list.*.
If a candidate (either for hiring or for a grant) has good science but the publications are not in the most prestigious journals, but in slightly less known journals (but still journals that are not obscure), does that significantly hurt their chances? Or is it really the content that matters and is the venue of publication less important?
Note that my question is *specifically* about the *venue of publication*. These related questions do not answer my question:
# Answer
> 8 votes
There is probably not a single truth here but I would make the following statements:
*Having a good publication record is the basis for basically everything in academia*. The question is then what is good? As a fresh PhD student citations will be near zero (I am guessing in most fields). Having publications in citation index listed journals is therefore a definite plus. Having several as first author is a must (see What does first authorship really mean? for a discussion) I would also argue that having papers not part of the PhD (even if not first authored author) is a plus since it indicates activity.
As a new post-graduate you need to improve the publication record as best you can. You need to show that you do your own new work but also be part of collaborations in some mix. Building a publication record takes time and will partly be up to your own efforts and in some way also by chance (you never know what opportunities lie ahead).
To get employed, you can basically only compete with a good publication list. Everyone knows this takes time and I am guessing all fields have their own "standards" as to what is a reasonable publication rate. In my field where papers are based on field investigations, 2-4 papers per year is considered acceptable, the longer-term average should be towards 3-5. The rate is thus an aspect that should not be over-looked.
Typically you will have a dip post-PhD because it takes time to build or get into a new environment and to start writing new papers. Having something on the back burner for that period may thus be useful to bridge the gap.
As a final note, the citations will be more and more important after a few years. In my field it usually takes a few years to start getting citations because the results will inspire someone to apply for money, go into the field for new investigations, and then write papers. In a lab or theoretical environment such response times may be lower so check with seniors in your field what applies. A good question to ask is perhaps if there are ways to promote ones work to increase citation records, I do not have the answer to that question.
Bottom line: publish in as good journals as possible. Good quality counts but a reasonable publication rate is also necessary. Citations will come with time.
# Answer
> 4 votes
For what it is worth, this question is discipline specific. In natural sciences, you have to go through 5-8 years of post-docs, and the question of how to get a professor position is such a distant future that you shouldn't even bother at this point, and have to concentrate on getting into a productive post-doc position (rather than the one that will simply suck up all of your energy on 60+ hour work weeks, without giving much in return). In some fields, like economics or statistics, you get a tenure track position right after the Ph.D. In some other fields, like some branches of sociology or anthropology, there is no "research", but there is "scholarship" instead, and the first question you are asked is not "How many Nature papers do you have?" but "What is your book about?".
Having said that, my impression (I am a statistician, also worked with psychologists and economists) is that generally the perceived order of importance is:
1. The prestige of the top journals that you published in as the first or the solo author
2. Whether you have papers in top journals in the field, no matter what order author you are
3. The share of top journals in overall record: if you have 20 publications with only 1 being in a top journal, that's arguably a worse record than 10 publications with 3 top journals (although it depends on a particular university; in some academic incentive systems, you are better off publishing 5-6 crappy papers a year without every attempting top journals)
4. Citations will hardly come into play until you are about 5+ years into the game post Ph.D. (going for tenure in economics or statistics; going for tenure track positions in physics or biology, although I can only speculate about these fields). For some departments, citations may never come into play if you have publications in top journals, which are assumed to generate citations semi-automatically.
As a grad student, you are still learning the rules of the game. Treat academia as such; don't assume that good research will prevail -- it might, but it could be too late for you. You have to be aggressive in pursuing top publications, invited presentations, etc., and a lot of people just don't have it. You have to recognize whether your personality suits academia, and try to seek other venues if it does not. (I don't know if there are psychoanalysts specializing in placing people into academia, but that would be a golden niche for somebody :) ). In many disciplines, there is as much or even more good quality research being done in industry than in the university setting.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Despite the importance of hiring, many departments do not devote all that much energy to it (at least, not until the field is narrowed down to a handful of top candidates being invited to give job talks). For these departments, it can make a big difference if they know that you at least passed the (often considerably greater) scrutiny afforded by publication in a top journal.
Not having publications in top journals will not necessarily sink your chances, but it will *limit* your chances to those places that don't make it a de facto requirement. Check out the publication records of recently hired faculty members at institutions you're interested in to get a hint of what your CV ought to look like.
(Note: getting a good postdoctoral fellowship is typically much less publication-dependent, at least in those areas of the biological sciences with which I am familiar.)
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Tags: publications, career-path, job-search
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thread-8584 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8584 | Is ABET accreditation important for a bachelors degree in software engineering? | 2013-03-13T16:42:00.033 | # Question
Title: Is ABET accreditation important for a bachelors degree in software engineering?
Would getting a non ABET accredited degree in Software Engineering put a person at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to employment, or applying for graduate school? I ask because I was accepted into San Jose State Universities Software engineering program and have learned that it's not ABET accredited.
# Answer
> 8 votes
My experience is that ABET accreditation is generally not very important, in the fields of software engineering and software development.
If the University program is well-regarded by employers, ABET accreditation is not important; their positive impressions will outweigh any accreditation. If the University program is poorly-regarded, ABET accreditation is not going to make up for their poor impressions. If the University program is unknown to employers, they will probably look at other measures first (like past projects you've done, your performance on a phone interview, etc.) before they care about ABET accreditation.
What *is* important is the quality of the undergraduate program. Since you are choosing among multiple universities, you should be looking carefully at the quality of their programs. While it's true that ABET accreditation is potentially a signal or indicator of quality, I don't think it's a very good measure of quality. (I know of some extremely high-quality computer science programs that are not ABET-accredited.) Instead, to decide where to study, I'd be looking closely at the programs, to assess their quality in as many ways as possible.
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Tags: undergraduate, education, accreditation, abet
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thread-8621 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8621 | Is it necessary to include and update the status of a paper on arXiv once it has been accepted for publication in a journal? | 2013-03-15T05:08:00.343 | # Question
Title: Is it necessary to include and update the status of a paper on arXiv once it has been accepted for publication in a journal?
Let's suppose you write a paper and you post it on arXiv. If a paper is sent to a journal for peer-review, should you always include this information in the paper comments (including the name of the journal where the paper was sent)?
If the paper is accepted, is it necessary to include in the comments that the paper has been accepted for publication in... (and include the name of the journal)? Or it is better to wait until the paper is published and then include in the comments "Published in... \[name of the journal\]."?
I understand that it may take some for a paper to be published once accepted.
# Answer
My practice is to replace the initial preprint with the postprint as soon as it is accepted. After it is published (electronically), I go back and add the DOI and such. The reason for this is that the paper is often significantly improved during the refereeing process, and I'd rather have people reading the improved (postprint) than the original preprint.
> 11 votes
# Answer
I believe you should never include "Submitted to Journal of Blah"; it conveys no information and it's tacky. (And just because Terry Tao does it doesn't make it okay.)
I won't post a new version of a paper just because it has been accepted. However, if I do upload a newer version, I'll include in the comments "Final version, to appear in Journal of Blah" (here is an example from one of my papers).
Once the paper is published, with page numbers and everything (which can often be years -- my paper above was accepted in April 2010, published January 2013), there is a form you can use to add the journal reference and DOI to the arXiv page. Conveniently, this does *not* generate a new version, so there's no reason not to (you can see this on my paper above -- the reference and DOI were added last week, but no new version of the paper was generated).
> 7 votes
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Tags: publications, journals, arxiv, preprint
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thread-5440 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5440 | What does "Contribution to Knowledge" mean? | 2012-11-25T13:43:11.297 | # Question
Title: What does "Contribution to Knowledge" mean?
We've been having this discussion about what actually formulates 'contribution to knowledge' when doing a masters or a PhD in a particular field.
For an example from my field (Computer Science), say an MS student finds a particularly good algorithm that has not been used to solve a problem in disaster management. He then goes ahead and builds a solution that uses this algorithm to find position of a cell phone in a disaster situation.
However, while the student has solved a problem of high interest to many people, he has not contributed to the field of Computer Science, per se. Or has he? Some say that since he didn't contribute to Computer Science as a field, he should not get a Masters degree in CS.
# Answer
> 12 votes
**Contribution to knowledge means creating new knowledge based on the previous available knowledge by doing extensive and innovative research.**
Look up this related illustrative post by Matt Might on what is a PhD.
And for the said MS student, he should get his degree ***without any problem***, because he showed a new & original application of the CS algorithm in a new field. Hence, new knowledge generated.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I think of a contribution to knowledge as being a body of work that could be published as a journal article.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Finding a new and good way to solve a problem in the field of interest is definitely counts as a contribution. What makes it as an *official* contribution is publishing it and making it visible to the peers.
# Answer
> 1 votes
When a researcher uncovers an evidence hitherto unknown to a large number of people within and outside the Academia, this could be seen as a contribution to knowledge because it is a discovery or an uncharted course made possible
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Tags: graduate-school, degree
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thread-8629 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8629 | PhD Research under guide/advisor of a different department | 2013-03-15T12:23:40.323 | # Question
Title: PhD Research under guide/advisor of a different department
I am a physics undergrad, who is also interested in pure mathematics. I am not very sure what I want to pursue for my PhD. Though I have specific interests in each of the two, and also inter-linked interests, in general I am very confused. My question is it legally and practically allowed for you to chose a guide from another department different than that which you are affiliated to? If not, can someone from another department become a co-guide? In particular, I am looking for laws and practices in the US and Europe (may differ from country to country).
# Answer
> 12 votes
## Yes.
At least in the US, it is quite common for PhD students enrolled in department X to be advised by faculty in department Y, either alone or with a co-advisor in department X. Off the top of my head, I can think of PhD students in my (computer science) department who are advised or co-advised by faculty in electrical engineering, mathematics, and industrial engineering. Similarly, faculty in my department who advise PhD students in mathematics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and biology.
That said, if you enroll in the PhD program in department X, you will have to satisfy the degree requirements (courses, comprehensive/qualifying exams, etc.) for department X, even if your advisor and your eventual research interests are in department Y.
# Answer
> 7 votes
I have seen co-advisors a number of times. At least three of my computer science colleagues were co-advised by biologists who were working on projects that needed complex and novel data manipulation and/or novel algorithm design (see, for instance, LUMPY: A probabilistic framework for structural variant discovery). There aren't any specific *laws* regarding this (at least in the U.S.), but specific university departments may have guidelines or rules regarding the practice--you would have to check with the schools you are applying to for individual policies.
If your interests bridge two departments, you should probably figure out which department you'd most likely fit into, and contact professors in that field to ask for their opinion on being co-advised. It may turn out that you need higher level mathematics to inform your physics research but that you won't be *creating* new math (for example), in which case you probably wouldn't need separate advisors.
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Tags: phd, research-process, graduate-admissions, advisor
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thread-8638 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8638 | Standard for figure description in main text and its placement in a report/paper | 2013-03-15T18:09:44.490 | # Question
Title: Standard for figure description in main text and its placement in a report/paper
I heard of this rule/recommendation (or may be its opposite) - `Always let the figures come after they are described in the text.`
What is the correct rule? What's the logic? Is it always followed?
What if (in a single column format) there are two smaller figures side-by-side and second figure's description comes later in the text?
# Answer
> 4 votes
The following applies:
1. Figures should appear at the first possible place after they are referenced in the text and thus also in the order they are referenceed in the text. (the physical placement of the figure follows typographical rules).
2. A figure may be placed before its reference if they are on the same page. Figures are normally place at the top of pages.
3. Figures must be ordered according to the order in which they are first referenced.
4. The same system also applies for tables. It is however, not necessary for figures and tables to be placed in the order they appear relative to each other, they are two independent series of inclusions and placement depends on typographiccal rules.
The logic is that the order figures are needed in the text also determines their location. Having such a rule makes the location predictable. Thse rules are followed by all journals typeset by professionals.
The case of the figures is dealt with as follows. If a figure has two panes, they would count as one figures but be labelled (a) and (b). thus one can reference figure Xa in one place and figure Xb in another. Combining panes into larger figures is a way to save space but most importantly to group plots that relate to each other in one place. ths is one way in which the order of figures according to the list above can be circumvented.
The important aspect is that figures should make sense and provide the reader with as much information as possible. Placement is done according to a logical and predicatable rule so that we all know what to expect.
# Answer
> 2 votes
I've had it as a requirement by an editor at a journal (after mention in text). I guess the rational is that figures are catchy, if you see one, you will probably want to know why it is there and parse the text to find the reference in the text. Doing so, you might omit reading part of the paper.
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Tags: publications, graphics, formatting
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thread-8658 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8658 | Do academic seasons matter post-PhD? | 2013-03-16T17:07:40.837 | # Question
Title: Do academic seasons matter post-PhD?
Master studies start per semester, and in some places PhD studies do, too. What about post-docs or other positions that do not heavily rely on teaching? Does the time of year make any difference for openings?
# Answer
> 7 votes
This is based on my experience in mathematics in the United States (other cases may differ):
In principle, a postdoctoral position could start at any time if grant funding is available. In practice, it is generally tied to the academic calendar the same way other positions are, and any deviations from that schedule would be unusual. If you are doing an advertised search for a candidate, then there are enormous advantages to timing it with the usual job market cycle (at other times of year very few applicants will be available), so off-season hiring typically takes place only when a perfect match is made through personal connections. The other issue is that most Ph.D. students get their degrees at the end of the spring semester, and most faculty positions start in the fall semester, so academic-year-based postdocs are convenient for most applicants.
# Answer
> 4 votes
At our institute, post-docs can be funded almost any time of the year, but it depends generally on when funding agencies hand out their funding. There are three or four periods in the year where that occurs (January, March, September, come to mind), but generally positions remain open until they are filled by a good candidate. In any case, the timing of these hiring periods are independent of the academic semesters.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Because many labs have limited space and/or funding for people, postdoctoral hiring is influenced by Ph.D. program cycles at most institutions. Thus you tend to see the most openings in the summer/fall (in the northern hemisphere), but the trend is not as strong as for Ph.D. programs.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Yes. They will operate on whatever system (quarter, semester) the university operates on. So pre-docs and post-docs (at least in my field) are awarded and start at the beginning of a semester.
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Tags: postdocs
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thread-8617 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8617 | For a postdoctoral/Ph.D. position in Mathematics in Europe, can I make this somewhat irregular request? | 2013-03-15T02:07:56.523 | # Question
Title: For a postdoctoral/Ph.D. position in Mathematics in Europe, can I make this somewhat irregular request?
I am not sure whether this question is suitable for academia, if not it would be great to know the site where I should ask this. I am a finishing Ph.D. student in Mathematics at a decent school in the US, and my postdoctoral job applications so far have gone in vein, although I do have published paper in recognized journal. Also, I had to switch my advisor and subject in the middle of my Ph.D., so I think I would have been better off with more experience in the field I am working on or a related field. That would mean even if I get a postdoc, I would feel a little bit inferior to other postdocs or might seek a little more help from my mentor.
I noticed the postings by some European Universities for postdocs where they mention that they are looking for postdocs and Ph.D. students both. Although I will be applying for postdocs in these universities, I was thinking of having your opinion on the following, somewhat irregular backup plan:
Say University U in Europe has a postdoc position P for salary x for 2 years, and Ph.D. position D for salary y for 4 years, where x\>y. If I can get P, great, but if not, can I also talk to and try to come to an agreement with the university (e-mail them with explanation etc.) for a visiting position where I will be learning some more stuffs and will be researching as well, but may be with less salary than P but the same (or little more) salary as/than D? In other words, I feel like I need to gain more knowledge in my area, so if I don't get P, I will be happy with almost the same salary y as D, but will try to bend the rule from 4 years to just 1 year? So it will be like a visiting position with less salary, of less time period, but I will like to be treated like a Ph.D. student (that means less independent research, more learning compared to a postdoc). Will that be a ridiculous thing to try? So, I will be somewhat like an advanced Ph.D. student but not expert like a postdoc and so I am willing to negotiate with the salary, I won't need another Ph.D. since I will have had one(if they give another, fantastic!) Do you know whether it might work or create complications enough so that the hiring committee will be offended? Should I try to send an e-mail explaining this situation and see whether they will negotiate with me on this?
Thank you very much in advance!
# Answer
In several European countries, for example Germany, Switzerland, or Austria, it will be possible to fill positions in part-time. Whether you then actually work only part-time or not is a different question. In these countries, there is in most cases not a big difference between PhD students and post-docs regarding organizational details of employment, or even salary on a full-time position.
So the way I see your plan possibly working is as follows: A professor has funding to employ someone full-time for 2 years. You could then try to argue that in addition to working on the particular project, you also need time to educate yourself further and get only a half-time position, but stretch that to 4 years. You may want to communicate that it still means that you are working or studying full-time on project-related topics. If the funding is flexible regarding the year when it is spent (which is sometimes, but not always, the case), then I'd guess you have good chances that people are willing to make that deal.
This plan is probably best discussed with the professor offering the position, informally before you apply for the position, or when you go for an interview.
> 8 votes
# Answer
For France, this will likely not work : for administrative reasons we cannot pay a postdoc with a PhD salary (or a "little bit more than PhD salary"), in fact we must follow some strict salary guidelines. However, there exists a position in between PhD and Postdoc, this position is called "research engineer". This is not officially a postdoc position, but it could be unofficially a postdoc position, with a lower salary.
But, because there is always a but, I advice you not to tell a person that you are ready to work for less money than the salary offered by this person. This is not likely that you will obtain any position if you follow this strategy. When I have money for a postdoc, either I don't really "need" (=for a specific project) a postdoc and then I will hire someone who is independent (and it is unlikely that this kind of person is ready to work for a lower salary because independence comes mostly from experience); or I really need a postdoc, and in this case there is no way that I will accept someone I refused previously, even for a lower price.
> 6 votes
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Tags: job, postdocs, job-search, mathematics, europe
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thread-8633 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8633 | Pumping up my GRE score, or getting some publishing under my belt? | 2013-03-15T13:35:02.293 | # Question
Title: Pumping up my GRE score, or getting some publishing under my belt?
I took an nontraditional track to academia. I went from the professional world, to full time community college educator (media/communications). Now as I plan to go forward, I realize that I NEED a PhD to move on. Problem, my GRE scores is awful and my Masters was a tacticians degree rather than a theoretical one. So I have no publication history.
So in order to get into a decent PhD program (I will have to change fields from Communications to Education since there are no PhD programs in my field in proximity to my tuition reimbursing institution), should I focus on pumping up my GRE score, or getting some publishing under my belt? While the second sounds like a lot more fun, I wonder if a good set of publications would matter if my GRE is abysmal?
# Answer
I suppose you mean the GRE general test, as opposed to the subject tests. The general test is easy enough to study part time, and there are openings to take the test almost everyday. Plus, you get to send only the best score now, via "Score Select". So, there shouldn't be a problem doing both at the same time.
IMHO research experience greatly trumps GRE scores. Great GRE scores won't help you get admitted and bad scores won't necessarily cause your application to fail. Good research experience, from my experience applying to grad school twice and speaking to professors, is solid gold.
Bear in mind that during the PhD, you will have to juggle coursework, teaching and keeping up with research in order to find an adviser during the first 1-2 years. In comparison, studying for the GRE while doing research is almost trivial. One trick is to not spend too much time actually studying for the GRE. Instead, get a book like Princeton Review, learn the tricks and game the system.
Tl;dr - Do both at the same time!
> 4 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school
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thread-8649 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8649 | I'm going to start my PhD with weak foundation in research | 2013-03-16T00:29:53.787 | # Question
Title: I'm going to start my PhD with weak foundation in research
I did my masters in Computer Science last year and it was a taught masters so I didn't do any type of 'Research'. The problem that I encounter now is that I'm going to start my PhD in the next few days and I don't have any idea about how to do it (I don't know how to write a literature review, for example.)
So, Is it possible to do it or will be very difficult in my case? And do you know any books that can help in building the foundation for me to be able to do the research?
Cheers!
# Answer
> So, Is it possible to do it or will be very difficult in my case?
Unless the faculty in your new department are negligent sociopaths, they would not have admitted you to their PhD program without a firm belief that you could succeed.
Your lack of research experience could make your PhD more difficult than for other incoming students, but mostly because it will take you *more time* to settle into a research pattern. If you want to speed up the transition, **get involved with research as soon as possible.** Do *not* fill your weekly schedule with standard homework- and project-heavy classes. Sign up for independent study/research credit. You're unlikely to produce publishable research in your first semester, but that's okay; your primary goal is to develop research *habits*, not research *results*.
In fact, I'd suggest getting in touch with faculty in your new department **now** to arrange for independent study time in the fall and to ask for reading suggestions. If you know who your new advisor/supervisor will be, ask them first.
> 8 votes
# Answer
Even some of the most clever students are completely lost when it comes to starting out with research.
There are plenty of good books out there that provide general guidance on how to get a PhD and conduct research. These are of course no substitute for first hand experience, but they will provide you with a framework within which to conduct your research. As disciplines differ, it is probably a good idea to find one that is written by someone in a discipline close to yours.
Here is one general one that Amazon (and its reviewers) recommends:
> *How to get a PhD: a handbook for students and their supervisors* by Estelle M. Phillips and Derek S. Pugh.
There seems also to be such a book devoted to Computer Science:
> *The Art of Getting Computer Science PhD* by Emded Ahmed.
Amazon has no reviews, so who knows what it is like. From what is available on Amazon and Google books, it looks like rubbish. (The title isn't even grammatically correct.)
> 2 votes
# Answer
Let me say what I believe in here. Doing research is a skill you gradually acquire over years of reading, experimenting and criticizing others work. ***There is no magic here***. If you are dedicated to learn, you will be able to do research. The main keyword here is *critical thinking*
> 2 votes
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Tags: phd, research-process
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thread-8595 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8595 | Is there anything to do while waiting for results of a thesis examination? | 2013-03-14T01:27:55.193 | # Question
Title: Is there anything to do while waiting for results of a thesis examination?
I handed in my PhD thesis for examination. From reading the examination instructions it appears that if I get my degree, it could be between 6 weeks to a year. It all depends upon the comments I get back from the examiners.
My plan during that time was continue work on my research, get more results and publish more papers. Also, help out other PhD students in their research.
Considering the time-frame is so variable, is there anything else I should be doing or planning? The only advice I was given, was don't take a holiday.
BTW: I am quietly confident that the examination results I will get back will be positive.
# Answer
> From reading the examination instructions it appears that if I get my degree, it could be between 6 weeks to a year.
Have you talked with your advisor about the time frame you should expect? University policies often allow for a wide range of possible schedules, to account for differing circumstances. The advisor generally has a clear idea of which part of the range a student is likely to end up in (although of course there are no guarantees).
When you reach the point of graduating, there should be little uncertainty left about the quality or value of your work, because your advisor should have been offering feedback and guidance along the way. If your advisor is genuinely unable to predict whether it will be closer to 1.5 or 12 months more, then it is a worrisome sign (suggesting inexperience or negligence on the advisor's part, or that they suspect something may be wrong with your dissertation).
> Considering the time-frame is so variable, is there anything else I should be doing or planning?
I agree with the comments above about job applications. In the cases I am familiar with (mathematics in the U.S.), academic job applications are due around December, which is typically about six months before graduation occurs. This includes both faculty and postdoc applications. Practices may differ in other fields or countries, but it's almost always a good idea to begin looking substantially before you actually graduate.
> 6 votes
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Tags: phd, thesis
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thread-7425 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7425 | How hard is it for a graduate from Canada to find an employment in the US? | 2013-01-24T07:17:13.350 | # Question
Title: How hard is it for a graduate from Canada to find an employment in the US?
I'm an international PhD student currently at a university in the US (F1 visa). My professor is moving to the University of Toronto, and has invited me to move as a part of his research group. While I understand that my decision to move should depend on the advisor and not on the school, the following question bugs me since the school is in Canada.
How easy or difficult is it for an international student in Canada to find an internship or employment after graduation in the US? I'm interested in CS companies such as Google, IBM, Microsoft Research and start-ups in Silicon valley. If its difficult to get work in the US, what are equivalent opportunities in Canada?
# Answer
Not exactly an advice, but just based on what I know of my friends working in US.
I am not familiar with international visa issues, but I have at least 2 Canadian friends (as far as I know they don't have US citizenship) who graduated from Canadian schools and now work for Google and Twitter (actually one of them has BSc). So I agree with scaaahu's comment to your question, that it is much more important to have the skills that your potential employer wants.
> 2 votes
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Tags: computer-science, united-states, international, internship, canada
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thread-8681 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8681 | What is a "diploma mill"? | 2013-03-17T22:49:33.710 | # Question
Title: What is a "diploma mill"?
I recently deleted a response on Academia.SE because many people thought my response was supporting the idea of a 'diploma mill'. My understanding of the matter was that a diploma mill is simply a business that provides a piece of paper, and possibly some kind of shady verification service, for a fee. That's it. Money in, diploma out. This does not seem to be the case for many of this community, however.
I've done a bit of research, cursory to be fair, and the most clearly defined line that I can find between a "real" school and a "fake" school is that of regional accreditation. Beyond that it appears to be a subjective melange of opinions, ultimately boiling down to the idea of 'second class schools'. Clearly, I am out of touch with the general consensus on this matter so I put it to you SE.
**What are the defining characteristics of a 'diploma mill'?**
# Answer
We should start with the Wikipedia definition:
> A diploma mill (also known as a degree mill) is an unaccredited higher education institution that offers bogus academic degrees and diplomas for a fee. These degrees may claim to give credit for relevant life experience, but should not be confused with legitimate prior learning assessment programs.
If a student doesn't have to do any academic work for a degree, or the student is given credit based on "life experience," it qualifies as a diploma mill. Another key indicator is whether there are actually any *teachers* that work for the business. While it is probably not illegal in most cases to claim a degree from such a company (and I deliberately do not use the term "institution"), there have been many cases of employees being disciplined or fired for using the degree to either get a job or to obtain a higher salary based on claiming a degree from a diploma mill (esp. teachers whose salaries are based on the level of a degree).
As the Wikipedia article notes, there are legitimate schools that have a system for awarding credit based on other formal education, such as military education obtained while on active duty or in the reserves (see, for instance, this guide to transferring credit). This type of credit transfer is rare for graduate work, although certain rigorous post-baccalaureate programs in the military, such as the U.S. Navy's Nuclear Power School, may qualify for some post-B.S. programs. This type of credit should not be confused with work obtained at the military's post-graduate schools, such as the Naval Postgraduate School or the Air Force Institute of Technology.
Diploma mills should also not be confused with for-profit education, such as the infamous University of Phoenix. Arguments over the merits of for-profit education are not really within the scope of academia.stackexchange, but for what it's worth, degree-granting institutions of this type do require students to follow a curriculum, take actual classes (many times online), and give grades based on assessed performance (and charge a good bit of money per credit-hour).
Bottom line: if you have to pay a nominal fee for a "degree" that requires no official classes or research, you got your degree from a diploma mill.
> 25 votes
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Tags: education, degree, cheating
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thread-8686 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8686 | Contributions of indirect research toward getting a post-doc | 2013-03-18T03:00:51.477 | # Question
Title: Contributions of indirect research toward getting a post-doc
I am an engineering student, however, my graduate research is more inter-disciplinary (computational science). Which is good for me in some ways, because one of my better skills is programming, since I've been doing it avidly as a hobby for a very long time. Because of this, it would be much easier for me to create a widely used computational science software tool rather than a highly-cited journal article.
With the specific aim of getting a post-doc at a top-ranked university, how does creating a useful piece of software (like an original, optimized quantum monte carlo implementation for example) compare to a widely-cited journal article? In other words, if done well, both would be highly-cited, but do frequent citations of software carry the same weight as top-tier research articles?
# Answer
*The following applies to the neuroscience and the biological sciences.*
In almost all cases, the article will win. This is typically due to the attitude that writing software isn't research; it's implementation. In some cases, you will have to overcome technical challenges when implementing the software, but for the most part you'll simply be coding up techniques that were developed and iterated upon by a different research group.
Note that there do exist labs that both developing analytical techniques and then have a team as part of the group who translates that into software development. The Wellcome Trust Center in UCL comes to mind here; they have developed a number of techniques used for detecting brain activity, as well as brain mapping, and they maintain a software suite that allows researchers to use their techniques. There are a number of similar groups in different fields (e.g., medical image analysis (project)(group), MEG analysis (project)(group)). These labs have typically demonstrated over time their strength in developing research software, and are able to obtain grants to specifically support development of their software.
> 7 votes
# Answer
There's a thresholding effect for software. If you create a piece of software that has a huge number of downloads and has visible impact, that will count for something. However, with papers, you wouldn't need to have the same level of impact to have the same effect on interviewers.
The problem really is that academics don't know how to evaluate the impact of software development, and would need help doing so. I imagine that if your potential post-doc advisor has used your software, you won't need to do much explaining. But if not, and your research credentials are otherwise weaker, it might be difficult to justify.
> 11 votes
# Answer
Attitudes are slowly but surely changing--here is an indication. As of January, the NSF required that the *Publications* section of NSF biosketches be changed to *Products*. It is remarkable how important names are to bureaucrats; in this case, the change reflects the awareness that the publications category excluded much of the work of scientific programmers, inventors and the producers of data sets (data sets are routinely referred to as products in the geo and social sciences). The previous biosketch format tended to make the inclusion of software and data sets (not to mention other contributions) under Publications often seem forced. The practice of citing technical reports and papers on software instead of directly citing it ought to be questioned. Given the ever increasing importance of software and data set production for many kinds of scientific research, it is a welcome development not to have to diminish significant and specialized contributions by citing published reports on products that could be cited directly (in contrast to certain inventions) or by hiding them under Synergistic Activities. In time, administrators will get the message that software production ought to count more than it does.
> 3 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, research-process, postdocs
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thread-8675 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8675 | How does the acceptance rate affect papers decisions? | 2013-03-17T11:07:24.873 | # Question
Title: How does the acceptance rate affect papers decisions?
Some conferences do maintain a percentage for the number of accepted papers to the total number of submissions.
Does this mean some good papers will be *inevitably rejected* just to maintain the acceptance rate? How conference chairs deal with the acceptance rate? or it is not related at all to the acceptance/rejection process.
# Answer
## Yes.
But it would be more accurate to say that conferences have a fixed budget of papers that they can accept, due to scheduling constraints.
At most computer science conferences, every accepted paper is presented in a 20-minute talk; for a three-day conference with no parallel sessions, this practice imposes an upper bound of about 50 accepted papers. Of course larger conferences have parallel sessions, but program committees generally do not have complete freedom to add another parallel track, partly because of *space* constraints at the conference venue (which is planned long before the submission deadline), and partly because major changes to the conference organization usually require input from the community.
So inevitably, if a conference attracts a large number of strong submissions, it must reject some of them. This is generally considered better than the alternative, which is that the conference must necessarily accept some bad papers.
*This answer is specific to computer science.*
> 18 votes
# Answer
In very large number of conferences, acceptance rate is not really important since authors are paying high for getting their works published. In general, acceptance rate is used as a metric to claim/show reputation and popularity to encourage authors for more submission. I came a cross situations where authors write to the program committee to inquire if the paper is in the scope or not and they are encouraged to submit. Once submitted, they get quick rejection. By doing so, the conference is getting lower acceptance rate which is likely collecting more credits for future. The more submission, the better visibility, the less acceptance rate and higher competition for the next year. I personally believe the acceptance rate is more like a business trick to tempt researchers to submit. Because, if the conference organizers are bound to certain number of publication, they can simply - in plain language- announce the number of papers acceptable for publication rather than saying, we have only 10% acceptance rate. By putting rate, authors are encouraged to submit. If the limit exceeds, the organizer rejects the likely good works and the authors of rejected paper have an excuse that the acceptance rate was very low and nothing wrong with my paper!!! So try harder for next year and this circle goes infinite. Who wins? orgaznier ;)
> 2 votes
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Tags: conference, peer-review
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thread-8606 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8606 | My advisor wants me to reinvent the wheel | 2013-03-14T13:54:48.497 | # Question
Title: My advisor wants me to reinvent the wheel
My advisor introduced a model 15 years ago, published a lot of papers (including PNAS). Now, he makes me incorporate this model into well-established model from the neighboring field of research. I think he just tries to stay in the known waters (cite his own papers, etc). Of course, he is well aware (but not proficient) that everything we try now to research was already published in this neighboring field.
What should I do?
1. Continue to reinvent the wheel with minor modifications (people from the neighboring field will probably laugh)
2. Try to switch the project (although it will be hard)
3. Freelance in the "spare" time ;)
Edited after Piotr's remark. Hope that nailed it down a bit.
# Answer
> 16 votes
The issue seems to be that your advisor isn't willing to acknowledge that the problems he's attempting to work on have been solved. I would recommend bringing the relevant papers to him and discussing with him how his proposed projects differ from what already exists in the literature. This way, either (1) he'll clarify how his projects are different from the literature, or (2) you may be able to demonstrate to him that the problem is indeed solved.
# Answer
> 10 votes
If this is early in your PhD studies, your adviser could be giving you this task knowing that it is solved to test your capabilities. Generally, when you are new to research methodology, you will want to try to repeat previous work to make sure that you know that you are doing it correctly. A test where the correct answer is unknown is a poor test. Your adviser could be taking this approach with you while not explaining his purpose in doing so.
If this is the case, none of your three alternatives are really appropriate, although the first is the best. If you are being evaluated on how you solve a known problem, then you need to solve it very well. Then you will be given better and more exciting work.
If your adviser genuinely thinks this is a worthwhile novel problem to pursue, then see the other answers.
# Answer
> 3 votes
If you are already very far along in your PhD (which I assume you are doing) I would finish the PhD. If you are still at the beginning, and feeling like this is not where you want to go, and it does not teach you the skills you need, I would consider trying to switch.
But first and foremost, try and talk to your supervisor about your frustration. Of course, keep it civil and professional. You might be able to give your current research a twist that makes it more appeal to you.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Some of the answers presuppose that your advisor knows what he is doing and that perhaps *you* need to change your attitude. Perhaps they are mistaken. No good advisor would waste his or your time by "testing" you on well-covered ground. There are some stubborn people around who may have a distinguished publication record and who may lead the peripatetic life of the in-demand speaker, but have an acute Achillies heel when it comes to having underlings implement the superannuated visions they cannot implement themselves. The important point is that this is academically low-value work for them, but your time is not valuable. This situation is more likely to arise if your advisor is not paying your salary; it's less likely if you are on soft money. I don't know what advice to give you, except to say that I have been in this position, have rolled with the punches, and in the end there were no publications. And this was a case where the advisor announced to his team that others (better funded and staffed groups) were implementing the kind of thing he wanted (with some minor differences). No matter--he still wanted his team implement his "vision." It was professionally damaging for all parties involved. I decided it was pointless for me to work supporting professors and their students on low academic value, poorly remunerated work if I was not getting published, and made plans to leave. I hope that others in similar situations do likewise.
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Tags: graduate-school, research-process
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thread-8709 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8709 | What is wrong with continuing to publish with my PhD adviser? | 2013-03-18T20:25:57.483 | # Question
Title: What is wrong with continuing to publish with my PhD adviser?
I have heard that it is 'bad' to continue to publish with your adviser after you get your PhD. Or is this something that is debated in the academic community?
In my situation, after my PhD, I can get a job in industry, but I am allowed time (half a day a week) to continue my research at my local university. This allows me to continue researching something that I am interested in, rather than researching something that someone else is interested in.
I can understand that every publication should not be between myself and my adviser. And I can understand that I should show that I am an independent researcher. But does that mean I should stop publishing with my (ex-)adviser?
# Answer
> 24 votes
By continuing to publish with your advisor, you are not showing that you are an independent researcher. People will always question whether it is possibly your advisor that is doing the work, coming up with the ideas, guiding the research plan, and simply by looking at your publication record, there is no evidence that this is not the case.
If on the other hand, you publish papers alone or with different coauthors, and you have a clear research plan, independent of your advisors, then you will start to demonstrate your independence.
But it is okay to continue publishing with your advisor – I still do – as long as your record says **I am independent**.
# Answer
> 27 votes
There's nothing “wrong” with continuing to publish with your (ex-)adviser. You have correctly identified the issue to avoid: **after getting your PhD, the next step in your career is to establish yourself as an independent researcher.** Thus, of course: *depending on the context,* publishing with your adviser might send the wrong signal!
So, you should continue to publish with her, but you should make sure that it's not 100% of your research (and publications). Another point that makes a big difference is if you can, maybe now or maybe after some time, take the lead in that collaboration.
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Tags: industry, independent-researcher
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thread-8708 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8708 | How is a new academic journal born? | 2013-03-18T19:51:04.830 | # Question
Title: How is a new academic journal born?
We have witnessed (heard or read) about the birth of new academic journals many times. I have a vague idea how that happens:
* A scientist or a group of scientists recognize the need for an academic journal in a specific field or a new scientific society considers to publish a journal,
* they choose a group of experts as founders and/or chief editors,
* they determine a scope and some basic rules for the journal,
* they decide about the number of issues in each year and similar things,
* they find a publisher or decide to publish the journal entirely on web, they establish a web site for the journal,
* and then they announce the new journal in the related scientific community.
Did I miss any stage? But I suspect there are lots of discussions, negotiations, arrangements and cooperations behind the curtain, which public (the rest of the related scientific community) doesn't know. So my questions are:
1. What is a typical procedure for establishing a respectful academic journal?
2. Do financial considerations play a key role?
3. Should the founders be top experts (to some degree) in the field?
4. Is it important the new journal be affiliated to a scientific society or be published by a recognized publisher?
5. Why are some new journals published only on-line?
6. What are the influential factors for the success of a new journal?
7. How do the founders choose the editors?
8. What else should one consider for initiating a new academic journal?
Please share your partial answers too if you don't have all the answers.
Disclaimer: I am just curious and I don't intend to initiate any new journals in the near future.;)
# Answer
> 13 votes
Here is a first attempt at providing some short suggestions:
1. You need to identify the scope of the journal and it is best if it does not directly compete with others. Competition is more detrimental if the scope is narrow, it is unavoidable if the scope is wide. You need to make sure it has an international audience (a local journal would probably not end up prestiguous). Find a set of editors that is international in composition, preferably with well known active researchers at the helm. And then you need to look for publishers. I would say that Open Access is what you should go for. Many government funding agencies in Europe now request researchers to publish in Open Access.
2. Financial in what sense? If you manage to get a commercial publisher to publish your journal they will most certainly set up a budget of some sort. This question is the most difficult to answer. You need to get some finances in to support review systems, type-settings (and by the way, LaTeX would be your way to produce consistent high quality journal papers most easily; you also need someone to design the journal for you). In Open Access journals people usually pay to submit papers, in commercial cases, published papers are charged per page. Many review systems take a fee for each paper submitted. So there will inevitably be some finances involved but they will be determined by the systems you chose.
3. Yes, without having the journal stamped as serious by established scientists, it will not be easy.
4. Scientific Society would help but they will probbaly then take over the journal. A publisher/distributor (commercial, society, other body accepted by the community etc.) is a must. You need systems for submitting, managing and publishing manuscripts as well. Getting branded through a publisher is a good way to become recognized.
5. I would argue that it is only a matter of time before all journals are on-line only. Printing is no longer necessary and really only a waste of time and funding (not to mention resources). Any new journal will almost certainly be on-line only.
6. A strong line-up of editors and then try to get established scientists to commit to publish in the journal to set a good base-line. You need to work up citations to make the citation index, which takes effort and some time. The citation Index, whether you like it or not, is a hurdle that will make or potentially break any effort. In the long-term people will not published in journals that are not ISI listed.
7. Chosing the editors should probably be done as publically as possible. I can imagine getting names of persons that are willing to run together and then put them up for a public vote within th ecommunity. This way everyone (who will hopefully send their papers to the j) can feel they are part of the process.
8. Just make sure it is a communal effort and not a private enterprise. Get as many as possible involved by starting discussions early on in public. Use conferences and listservers (if the community has one) as vehicles for this. Facebook, twitter etc. might also be possible to involve.
EDIT: The journal The Cryosphere is a good and successful example of a new journal (Open Access). It became ISI listed after a very short time because it received the support of the community in terms of good papers to establish it. It is now a key publication in the field. (and I am not paid to say this!)
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Tags: publications, journals, publishers
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thread-7849 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7849 | How to deal with non-cooperative team mate? | 2013-02-07T18:49:41.000 | # Question
Title: How to deal with non-cooperative team mate?
I just started a research position coming from the industry. I am supposed to work on an ongoing project and branch it out to a new direction.
There is one member of the research group that did quite a lot of work on what I am supposed to modify. So I asked him if he could share his work and code with me. He told me that it is still unpublished work and there is no way he is going to give me his code. He said this is the way he does research.
I'm sort of stumped and don't know what to do. He told me that I should go and do it on my own what he has done for about a year now. My supervisor agreed to my suggestion that I should work with this person, but when I told him that he wouldn't share the code with me, he was just laughing nervously and didn't say anything.
Is there a way that I can persuade this person to collaborate with me, or am I banging my head against a wall?
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So just to clarify. My supervisor is (one of) the project lead. I first talked to the supervisor suggesting, then talked to the person who rejected, then to the supervisor again. This project has been going on for a year. There are about 5 people working on it in this lab. I joined the lab to extend on the work done here and to contribute in the final stages of the project. To my surprise, there is no shared code repository, but rather each person does their own thing and in meetings discuss it.
I told the person that I will not steal his code. He replied to me that he doesn't share the code because I will not understand it. I told him that it helps me understand the work by looking at the code. He told me that no.
So my plan is to read the draft papers again and try to understand it that way, then try again in a few days. I don't want to re implement the same thing he has done...
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I was given access today to the research group server and I could view everyone's work (around 15 people) and all project material... except his directory and implementation which is permission denied. I talked to him again, and clearly he is afraid that I will steal his work and possibly has to put one more name on his paper if I find something interesting, thereby diluting his achievements. He kept telling me that this is his work, and he is the first person on the paper and I should do something else or re-implement the whole code on my own.
# Answer
> 20 votes
This attitude is very common in academia, as the academic environment is often highly competitive. That said, I've never seen someone do that *within a team*. I agree with seteropere that if this person is indeed on your team, you will likely have to raise this issue with your supervisor.
Still, there's likely a reason why he's unwilling to share, and if you can find the reason for that you may be able to convince him to be more of a team player. Is he worried that giving you access will hurt his publication chances? You can work with your supervisor to convince him that he will still get authorship even if the code is shared. Is he afraid you'll ruin the code? Suggest using some sort of versioning to keep track of changes. Is he just being a jerk about it? If so, then it just comes down to seteropere's answer, and you'll have to hope your boss has enough of a backbone to help you out.
# Answer
> 12 votes
> My supervisor agreed to my suggestion that I should work with this person,
Why you suggest someone who is not willing to collaborate with you?
Since you had the initiative and suggested his name, I think its clear that **your mate is not motivated for your project** so not giving the code is an expected behavior.
Your mate is either
* **Part of the project team**. In this case, his role should be very clear. is he supposed to supply the code? if yes raise it to the supervisor and ask for help. If supplying the code is part of his project contribution, then the supervisor should play his role here and ask the student to do so.
* **Not Participating in the project**. In this case, he's doing a favor if he supplied the code to you. You should do the implementation yourself but make sure not to include him in the project later on!.. or **try to convince him that *it is beneficial to him*** to supply the code (i.e. co-authorship in the resulted paper).
Either ways, it is the supervisor responsibility to scope/assign work to students in team projects.
# Answer
> 5 votes
At this point I am a broken record: this is one of the situations I found myself in. None of my colleagues have been forthcoming, with techniques, code, documentation--nothing. One of the team members insists that he does not document code because it should be evident how his code works by reading it. This is patent nonsense--he has forgotten what his code does or else does not want to say. He absolutely refuses to provide a conceptual overview of his system--even the postdocs complained that he wastes their time with the minutia of command line options and stories about the old country instead of describing the main algorithms and the necessary configuration to get his model to work. I have been forced to reproduce or rewrite code. It turned out to the PI's surprise that my code was better, but I must say I intensely disliked being in this situation. The other comments suggest being optimistic in the face of intransigence. I myself decided (details are scattered around this site) to get out, for several reasons:
* my colleagues were not forthcoming and preferred that I duplicate their work.
* in the once case that I managed to persuade my teammates to share some work they did, they were gratuitously patronizing as they grudgingly handed it over, although it was completely obvious they should simply have shared the work
* the work was essentially unpublishable and of low academic value
* I was misled about my role within the research group
* the pay was abysmal
* it was pointless to continue working for little money without being included in any of the group's publications. I might as well work in industry for more money and no publications.
The first applies in your case--be prepared not to receive any cooperation from your team members.
# Answer
> 4 votes
Talk to the other person. Yes, talk not email. Find out what his or her concern is. Perhaps his or her concern is that you may just use his or her work and not give him or her credit. Assure the person that this would not be the case. This is the right and ethical thing to do. Prepare to put this in writing if it could save 1 year of your life.
I think it is important to acknowledge that there may be other people who could also assist you. Ask. This is part of the learning process.
If all fails, be pragmatic and modify your project scope if you can in consultation with your adviser. There is no point wasting your time in anticipation the cirumstances may change.
# Answer
> 1 votes
As you said you sit next to him, I would suggest you to be patient with him and wait for some days...
Start your research work as you are supposed to do, and in the mean while try to be helpful and good in behavior with him. During your research if you would require some small help then surely consult him and he will answer you... I am quite sure after some days of being helpful + good behavior to him + asking and sharing some knowledge with him will surely change his attitude towards you!
I would avoid suggesting you to consult your supervisor for the same again and again because you will eventually bother him and spoil your impression. Handle things by yourself, Be cooperative. Be patient for few days and there is a chance to save one years effort.
Good luck.
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Tags: research-process, collaboration, interpersonal-issues
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thread-8690 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8690 | Asked to Apply to another Program | 2013-03-18T05:01:04.047 | # Question
Title: Asked to Apply to another Program
I recently received a rejection letter from one of my top colleges for graduate studies. In addition to the standard rejection letter(for Program 1), I got another note from the chair of another program(Program 2) at the same university, suggesting that I opt for that program.
The difference between the two programs is that Program 1(which I was rejected from) usually gives out funding while Program 2(while being identical in all other ways) strictly says no funding. Is this usual in US colleges? I always thought that if you're going to get an admit without funding, you will at-least get an admit letter or is there any other reasoning behind this?
# Answer
There is no golden rule that I've heard of that since you're not funded that you would be automatically accepted. There are not-for-profit and for-profit institutions, and each may receive public and/or private funding to do x, y, and z.
Sounds to me you were going for a program where you'd receive a stipend, and are being coerced to apply to the program that you would have to pay out-of-pocket (not really clear from the way you wrote it above). In any case, there are some things to consider:
* How competitive is the program?
* What about your transcripts or personal profile can you improve?
* How about applying to more than one school?
* If you received an offer, should you take it and see if you can receive a stipend in the near future?
You haven't provided much information, yet it will be hard to tell you what to do because there's an absence of the representation of what it is you want to do, and how much you want it. If it's something you've already spent your entire adult life to work on and have the acceptance letter, maybe it's worth considering taking the opportunity. Conversely, if you're right out of school and would benefit from some work experience and improvements to your transcript then it may be worthwhile to take a step back and try again soon.
> 4 votes
# Answer
The golden rule in getting fund is to demonstrate and ensure that you and your background knowledge and works are good enough to successfully undertake the project or work. Bear in mind that there are always better or worse competitors around. In funded positions, usually there is a tight competition, no matter if it is in US, Asia or Europe. Moreover, the person responsible for final funding decision is always looking at a person he/she knows well (in terms of achievements and commitments) because he is responsible to the funding agency in case of failure. If there is no applicant familiar with, he/she may look after others. Whereas in non-funding positions, the competition is not high and if the applicant has minimum requirements, he will be given the seat. Don't blame anyone except the competition, luck, and your achievement. Try to increase your networking with influential people and raise your visibility by taking part in public talks, organize a workshop (if you have certain knowledge or proficiency), publish a conference paper and so on. I was listening to a radio station few days ago about recruitment, they revealed the result of a survey conducted among 300 worldwide recruiters. The recruiter (work or study) are always giving better chance to volunteers, I suggest to do that as well. By doing so, you will be given very high chance of getting position with good stipend next time. You should be a glorious competitor to shine among others. If not, no luck.
> 1 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, graduate-admissions
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thread-8720 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8720 | What if my research does not give the expected results? | 2013-03-19T06:01:33.677 | # Question
Title: What if my research does not give the expected results?
I'm working on my Computer Science thesis. I have a two solution proposals until this moment, and I've been wondering about the following:
Sometimes **you know** that if you implement it correctly, it **will** work (eg. when building a website or a desktop app for some trivial purpose, etc), but some other times you try to solve your problem with some specific solution proposal. A few examples:
* I will do some preprocessing, I'll represent the documents that way and use this metric, and then I'll apply this clustering algorithm. Theoretically, it **should** work.
* I will use *this* computer vision technique for breaking the captchas, and then... In theory, it **should** work.
but when you implement it, you don't get the expected results (eg. bad text classification in the corpus you're using, low-rate successfuly captchas solved, etc.)
In those cases, **is it a valid work?** I mean, is it good to publish your work, saying that **your solution proposal doesn't seem to be good when solving some specific problem**?
# Answer
I'm not sure what you mean by "theoretically it should work". The examples you refer to are cases where you're positing some kind of model for the data. That the experiments failed suggests that the implied model is wrong. The question then is: what is a good model, and what went wrong with the model you tried.
It's that kind of investigation that will set you on the path to a paper.
> 8 votes
# Answer
> In those cases, is it a valid work? I mean, is it good to publish your work, saying that your solution proposal doesn't seem to be good when solving some specific problem?
At least two advice:
1. Don't worry
2. Don't succumb to the urge to publish immediately
There is always a venue to report about your work, however little significance it bears. Workshops collocated with conferences are places where you can honestly report your work, including dead ends.
I recognize a more important thing going on here. You embarked on a research, from what you wrote, it seems you are convinced that the problem is sound and worth pursuing, but so far performed an experiment in the field only to find out you reinvented a wheel, or the thing is not good enough. One way of seeing what happened is that it is a kind of a failure. That's what you seem to suggest. Another optics applicable on your situation is that you embarked on something worthwhile, but since it is not an easy problem, the first approach did not yield a result. There are two observation to make here:
1. your problem is probably a good one. Easy problems, or non-problems yield a result usually very quickly (any approach is good enough);
2. you are on the right track to discover something. Eventually. Realize that the path from nowhere to the bleeding edge of human knowledge (state of the art) is never an easy one. You started and did not arrive to the edge yet. Expect few more experiments of "reinventing a wheel" flavour. After a while you'll get to the boundary and since you walked the path the hard way, you will have all your weapons sharp and enough insight to push the boundary. That's the positive message about your situation.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Not every solution method is a valid approach for solving every problem. When you believe you have a tool that is universal, then you start running into the "hammer complex": when all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail, even if it's actually a screw.
What I mean by this is that this is a reasonable finding. Acknowledging the benefits and disadvantages of your strategy is an important part of open science. It makes it easier for others to follow on, adapt, and adopt your work. If you declare a problem "solved," it makes it much more difficult for others (including yourself) to continue to work in the same "problem space."
> 3 votes
# Answer
**Getting unexpected results is not problematic**, it happens more times than you think. Note that with these test results you have achieved something, even if different from what you expected, but it is something that may be relevant to your research.
> 3 votes
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Tags: research-process
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thread-8732 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8732 | Is it acceptable to decline to review a paper due to lack of familiarity? | 2013-03-19T18:46:01.097 | # Question
Title: Is it acceptable to decline to review a paper due to lack of familiarity?
I have recently started my PhD studies. My advisor, as member of a program committee, has delegated a the review of a conference paper to me. This is my second peer review.
Since I have not done research in the area of this paper, I find it very hard to review. Not only does it require much effort for me to grasp the content. First and foremost, I do not think that being able to understand the content of a paper is sufficient for reviewing it. Ideally, reviewing would mean *judging* the paper for its scientific merit as a peer, considering content, presentation, relevance and relation to other work in the area. Especially the latter aspects I feel unable to judge.
I consider declining to review, but this seems like a drastic step with conflict potential. Certainly, there is an incentive to formally complete the assignment and write a review of little value to the authors, the venue and the scientific community in general. Would it be acceptable or prudent to decline?
# Answer
In addition to gerrit's answer (which I completely agree with), if you are in the situation where it would be hard to decline (conferences sometimes have very short deadlines), you might review this paper as a "non-expert".
It's indeed quite common (at least in Computer Science) that the review should indicate both the score (i.e., reject/accept) and the confidence of the reviewer. If you indicate a low confidence score, then your decision has a lower weight than those with higher confidence. In that case, you can review the paper from a more global point of view (like any non-specialist reader would see the paper): is the problem well explained, does the solution seem consistent with the problem description, is the language correct, etc.
Ideally, it would be better to decline the review, but if the paper is also reviewed by two or more experts, then your review could bring a good non-expert vision. If the paper is reviewed only by non-experts, then either the paper is off-topic, and it's the author's problem, or the PC chair didn't do the job correctly.
> 14 votes
# Answer
**Yes**. It is much better to decline as soon as you realise you're not up to the review, than to write a useless review.
Normally, you first get an abstract based on which you accept or decline. If you accept, the editor may be annoyed if you decline based on seeing the manuscript, but sometimes it's inevitable; only so much can be judged from the abstract. If you do decline, however, you should let the editor know as soon as possible.
I recently read a publicly reviewed paper where both reviews clearly did not really understand the topic, but still handed in a review. To me it was quite clear that the paper needed a statistician, which neither of the reviewers were. One reviewer didn't get much further than pointing out that the introduction was too long, with not a single comment on 10 pages of detailed description of advanced statistical methods. When reading the reviews, I found it a bit embarrassing that the peer review was so clearly insufficient, and the paper virtually got published without proper peer review.
I know someone who accepted his very first paper review, only to discover when he received the manuscript that it had *130 pages*. He returned it to the editor.
> 22 votes
# Answer
Since your advisor assigned the paper to you, I suspect that your advisor believed that you were either able to do the review, or capable of getting the information you need to do the review, or simply wanted a second opinion.
It's rather normal for advisors to assign to their students papers they get from being on committees. A conscientious advisor will also review the paper by himself/herself though and double-check the student's work, as well as providing feedback to the student about how to write good reviews.
Thus, in your case, your review may not actually go back to the authors - your advisor would take your review and his/her own review and integrate them (or write a new one). In that case, I would do your best to review the paper and then speak with your advisor about how to improve.
If however you still feel extremely uncomfortable about reviewing the paper, I would speak with your advisor about it. Your advisor may have some advice about where to look or what to consider; alternatively you might get a different paper as well.
(Note: If you were reviewing as a PC member or as a journal reviewer, I would instead agree with gerrit above and decline the review.)
> 11 votes
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Tags: phd, research-process, peer-review
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thread-935 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/935 | How to act as an editor? | 2012-03-29T07:32:26.547 | # Question
Title: How to act as an editor?
I have been on both the author and the referee sides, but I was wondering how editors approach their task. In particular, to what level of detail do you read the paper you assign to referees, and when (i.e. before or after receiving the reviews)?
# Answer
From conversations with a mentor who was the editor-in-chief for a major journal, if you take the responsibility seriously, you need to have enough of an understanding of the papers assigned to you to figure out which referees will be suitable for a paper, while not taking so much time to read it that you can't process all of them for lack of time. As mentioned above, you need to at least a "high-level" read of the paper before assigning it to the referees. If the paper comes back with mixed reviews, it probably requires a careful re-read; if the reviews are uniform in recommending for or against publication, then it may not be as critical.
However, the editor will want to read papers when revisions come in, so that may mean going through a paper several times during the course of the review process.
> 8 votes
# Answer
In addition to the reply from aeismail to which I agree you need to add several other aspects. First, let's emphasise that good indepth knowledge of the field is vital.
The first stage for an editor is to assess whether the paper is appropriate for the journal, that it follows instructions for authors and is of reasonable technical quality to go to review (figures in order, language ok etc.)
The second stage for an editor is as was already stated to identify and assign referees based on the content of the papeer and reviewers speciality.
The third stage is to assess the reviewers comments and provide the author(s) with an educated summary of the reviewers work and possibly help by providing guidelines as to how to handle the reviews, emphasising some comments and possibly de-emphasising others. It not uncommon that reviews differ widely and in such cases the editor must be able to mediate, alternatively assign additional reviewers. This means apply objectivity and evaluate reviews. It also means you need to understand (at a deeper level) the paper and the comments that go with it.
The fourth stage concerns the revised work. Once the revised version is back from the author you need to evaluate the authors response to the reviewers comments. The author may not agree with the reviewers comments and it is the editors job to judge the revisons and make appropriate decisions (for additional review or accept/reject).
It might be appropriate to point out here that the editor is not just an evaluator but also a mediator. Disagrements between authors and reviewers are common. Some reviewers may have good points but terible ways of conveying them. In such cases the editor must place him/herself above the infected views and convey the essential points being made to the author.
The fifth stage concerns final decisions. This can be a formality but to have an editor sign off on a paper for publication means it has gone through peer review/revisions in a satisfactory way and is sound. So it is an important final step.
> 6 votes
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Tags: publications, peer-review, editors
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thread-8738 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8738 | What sources of funding do faculty in Computer Science dept. in US universities have other than NSF? | 2013-03-19T22:07:50.660 | # Question
Title: What sources of funding do faculty in Computer Science dept. in US universities have other than NSF?
I made the question a bit more specific (location:US, discipline: CS) as I'm interested in answers pertaining to those details, but I can make it completely generic if the community so suggests...
By funding, I mean grants awarded to faculty as PI/co-PI for supporting Research Assistant-ships, travel to conferences, equipment acquirement etc.
*My motivation behind the question, if its relevant, is whether I can use the NSF website as an exclusive source for looking up whether a particular faculty can support more students - if there are other sources of grants, doing just that would not paint a complete picture! As to my reasons for looking up faculty funding, its just so that I can answer emails from prospective applicants to the PhD program which ask "Do u know if Prof. X in your dept. has funding for new students" with a one-liner - look it up on the NSF page!*
# Answer
Off the top of my head, I can think of American CS faculty who have been supported by grants, contracts, or gifts from each of the following:
* US funding agencies: DARPA, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, National Instutites of Health, Department of Homeland Security, Office of Naval Research, Army Research Office, Department of Education, NASA, ...
* Foreign funding agencies (usually in concert with NSF, for international collaborations): Deutsche Forshungsgemeinschaft (Germany), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France), Israeli Science Foundation, Danish National Research Foundation, ...
* Private foundations: Sloan, Packard, Simons, Fulbright, Guggenheim, ...
* Industry: Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Cisco, Boeing, Adobe, NVidia, ...
> 10 votes
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Tags: professorship, funding
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thread-8737 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8737 | Can I allow my personal life to influence where I do my PhD? | 2013-03-19T21:27:18.077 | # Question
Title: Can I allow my personal life to influence where I do my PhD?
I am about to become a Ph.D student in mathematics. I am having some doubts about where I should do my Ph.D and I would appreciate some advice, or anything really.
1. I could do research with a very competent professor that is internationally well-known and is also very interested in me succeeding, having helped me with much already. He is also a really kind person. The area he is working in is one of the most fascinating areas in all of mathematics to me. However, it is in a different city from where I live now. As I live now, I have a really good apartment and a girlfriend too who lives here. She would be OK if I moved, although a bit sad. I am afraid of moving to a new city, and more than that, also somewhat scared that if I am not as good as my advisor belives me to be, it will all go terribly wrong.
2. I could do research where I live. However, the advisors are not as competent as he is, nor as interested in me (so far, I am not their student yet). Further, the areas are not as fascinating (although very fascinating!). I could continue with living my life as of now.
So, what should I think about regarding these choices when it comes to making a future career? I am a bit vague here, since I want general advice to think about.
# Answer
So I'm just some random stranger on the internet, but you asked for advice, so here it is. Given only the information in your post, I think you have a difficult choice ahead of you:
**Move or propose.**
From a strictly professional standpoint, you make a *very* strong argument for moving. Having a more competent and more supportive advisor, and working in a field that excites you more, will have a *tremendous* impact on your several-decades-long mathematics career. As Dan C writes elsewhere, if you want to do math for a living, you should enroll in the strongest PhD program you can. (I'm assuming here that you actually *want* a career in mathematics; otherwise, getting a PhD in mathematics is kind of stupid.)
From a personal standpoint, you make a much weaker case for staying put. It's just another city; you'll be fine. You can always find another apartment. Do not listen to the Impostor Syndrome; *everyone* is afraid that they're not good enough. Your girlfriend is OK with your moving. There's some possibility that your current relationship won't survive the move, but the fact that you call her your *girlfriend*, and not your *wife* or even *fiancée*, suggests that you don't really think of the relationship as permanent anyway.
Yeah, I know, that's harsh. And maybe I'm totally off-base. Maybe your current relationship really *is* more important to you than the rest of your professional life. If that's true, tell her so.
Who knows? Maybe you can do both!
But whatever you decide, **don't base your decision on fear**. Instead, ask yourself: What do you really want? What really matters to you? Fear of change and Impostor Syndrome are completely natural, and *far* more common than most people think, but they're just voices in your head. Letting them control your decisions is not healthy. You have people in your life who believe in you, who support you, who want you to succeed and be happy, and who know you far better than Some Random Stranger on the Internet—**listen to them!**
> 14 votes
# Answer
You mention your "future career", and the answer to your question also depends on how you consider your career *after* your PhD. If you don't want to stay in Academia, and go for instance working in a bank or in some international organisation, then it's likely that the content of your PhD or the quality of your advisor does not really matter. In that case, if you think you can reasonably enjoy working where you currently live, it might not be worth changing location.
On the other hand, if you want to stay in Academia, then it's very likely that you will keep facing the problem you're facing now. Perhaps you'll be lucky, and the best PhD topic will be in the place you are, and then the best Postodc, and then the best Assistant Prof. position, and then the best Prof. position ... but it's quite likely that you might need to move, at least if you want to get the best position. I know few academics who work in the same place where they've done their graduate studies. I'm not saying it's impossible, but if you want the best opportunities, you might need to consider, at some point in your career, to move across the world.
There is no easy answer, and it's entirely up to you, but if you don't have a clear priority yet between going for what you might think is the best work opportunity for you and your personal/private life, you might not enjoy Academia ... (this is of course a pessimistic view, and plenty of academics have a remarkable career and a great personal life! but I'd rather point out the negative aspects so that you won't be disappointed later).
> 7 votes
# Answer
It's hard for anyone to tell you what to do. Ultimately your decision comes from within your own blend of views, feelings, and priorities.
But there are common patterns of thought that we've all encountered, and it helps to understand how others have dealt with them.
**Fear of change.**
This is a very natural feeling to have. Whenever you're thinking of moving out of a comfort zone into a new situation, it's easy to focus on the fear of the unknown, because there's nothing else to focus on. In your case, there's fear of the move to a new city, and fear of how this will affect your relationships.
One way of addressing this is to try and find out more about the new situation and how the change will affect you.
* where will you live ?
* what will your work schedule be like ?
* what will your office look like ?
* how will you and your girlfriend manage the distance in the relationship ?
and so on. Right now, your ability to make a decision is clouded by uncertainty. Thinking concretely about these questions will help make the new scenario more real, and you'll be in a better position to evaluate whether the move is worth it or not.
**Imposter syndrome**
The other fear you've expressed is that "your advisor will discover that you're not as smart as you/they thought". This feeling is called the Imposter Syndrome and is typically associated with academics or those preparing for advanced study. Ironically, your feelings of inadequacy might qualify you already !
But the imposter syndrome is just that: it's a psychological filter that's caused by a focus on negatives and a dismissal of positives. It sounds like your advisor-to-be is very supportive and wants you to succeed. While it's possible that you might find a Ph.D is not for you, it's also entirely possible that you'll do very well for yourself. What will make the difference is not some fate stamped on your head the day you were born, but the work you do, the effort you put in, lots of luck, and many things that are beyond your control. Here again, getting more information can help - if you haven't already done this, maybe you can talk with the prospective advisor and map out what the first year or so of your Ph.D might look like.
Ultimately whether or not you choose to move depends on many factors, and there's no wrong answer here. But it's helpful to recognize where some of the thoughts you express might be coming from.
> 6 votes
# Answer
I can't make a definitive recommendation one way or the other here. What I can tell you is that you need to consider the following:
* **Don't change jobs to get away from your present situation.** Running and hiding somewhere else is neither productive nor psychologically healthy. (In other words, make sure you are *going to* another opportunity, not *walking away* from a situation—although it doesn't sound like that this is an issue here.)
* **Is the cost of what you're leaving behind worth what you're gaining?** You seem to like living where you are. Is the opportunity for you to work with the big-name advisor important enough for you to give that up?
* **Before beginning a PhD, make sure that it's something you *really* want to do.** Is the project you will be working on something that fascinates you enough that, even if your work doesn't go well for a long time, you'd still want to go in day after day to get things back on track?
> 5 votes
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Tags: phd
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thread-8772 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8772 | Issue on conditional PhD admission | 2013-03-20T20:08:36.987 | # Question
Title: Issue on conditional PhD admission
I am an international student who has recently been officially admitted to a prestigious school in USA as a PhD candidate. I have sent them my transcript except my last year, which I was passing my courses by the application time. I am now in the second semester of that year. I haven't failed any of my courses in the first semester of that year, but I have failed the semester. The failure grade for a course is 10 from 20 and the failure semester GPA is 12 from 20 and my semester GPA is less than 12. The truth is I had too much work, TOEFL, GRE, IELTS, national entrance exam and also I was hospitalized and lost one of my courses in medical drop and other exams as a matter of fact to being ill! **Please also do note that I will be matriculated in time and without any problems!** In my admission form there is a sentence where it is said:
> This admission is offered subject to your maintaining your present level of academic achievement. If you have not already done so, you must provide proof of satisfactory completion of any studies in progress.
>
> In the conditions of admission part: --verification of all your previous post-secondary degree(s) earned outside of the United States is required. You must satisfy this condition of admission by engaging the International Education Research Foundation or World Education Services to verify your credentials.
I wonder what this sentence means. Does it mean that in my case, which I have had a rough semester, I should be worried about my admission and they will reject me because of my first semester bad GPA? Does a bad semester in the last year of B.S mean that you will lose your admission? Or is it just saying that you should finish your B.S and attend your new university in time? I should say that I have received my I-20 form and official admission!
Will they consider my case or will they just reject me even if I bring evidence of this fact? I am asking this because I have other admissions and it is best to know where to put the eggs. My question is how much should I be worried. It is also useful to say that this happened before my admission came and it is not because of having a good time.
# Answer
I do not know what they will do in your case. However, in general, the procedure is such that when the application process for PhD happens, most students doing Bachelors or Masters degress in other countries are in their final year and do not have grades to send. However, if you do fail, then the offer of admission no longer stands, *in general*.
For a PhD program, the minimum required standard is a bachelor's degree and if you fail that degree then why would they allow you entry? Having said that, now consider this. In certain countries, there are make-up exams for failed courses in a particular semester. If these make-up exams are taken before your offer of admission stands, i.e. Fall 2013 then you are good to enter. If not, then its bad luck for you. An offer of admission to a doctoral program only stands (*in general*) for that mentioned semester. You could potential defer the offer of admission another semester or year in order to take the make-up exams and then join the program. However, your chosen program may not allow this or may not have funds for you if you choose to join at a latter stage.
Basically, it all boils down to this. Contact the department immediately to ask for advice and tell them what options you have to finish your BS degree at home and whats the fastest route thats possible. Then see, what they have to say and take it from there. I speak from anecdotal evidence of a close friend who was forced to leave the offer of admission because he failed a couple of courses in his final year.
**Do not** try to *fake* your way through. I-20 or visa means nothing really for this problem and you will not be checked *in general* for proof of degree during your visa application process. But, be rest assured that you will be asked for proof of bachelor's degree once you join the program.
> 4 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, graduate-admissions, grades
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thread-8768 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8768 | 3 years into my phd program, want to shift to theoretical physics | 2013-03-20T18:23:05.467 | # Question
Title: 3 years into my phd program, want to shift to theoretical physics
I joined a phd in electrical engg 2 years back. But requiring physics, I did log of physics courses and I have now developed a deep interest in mathematical physics and condensed matter. But that has lead me to undergoing coursework in maths dept as i had already finished lot of basic/masters level courses in physics and which gave me a feeling that doing math courses thoroughly first is the right way to do any physics. But my supervisor now is terribly disappointed with me. Also I am confused about shifting university as I am already 2years + into a graduate program. Also there is a feeling that once am through the coursework , I might find some problem interesting to electrical engineers that I might solve with the new skills. But a few professors and my current supervisor are discouraging me saying it is a vague plan. So what should I do, any suggestions?
# Answer
> 3 votes
You can find many areas in microelectronics which are closely related to the condensed matter physics (i.e: Electronic band structure, semiconductor, Conductors, Superconductor, Ferroelectric, etc). My recommendation is to **find a specific field in condensed matter that is also interesting for your supervisors,** and pursue your PhD.
In your case, moving to another department is just burning two years.
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Tags: graduate-school, research-process
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thread-8782 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8782 | about referencing of exercises? | 2013-03-21T03:48:12.793 | # Question
Title: about referencing of exercises?
I am using different programming books for extracting problems to be applied to a group of students for practices and exams. I would like to know if its necessary to put from where I took the exercises. I always reference the material in my lectures, but in exams is this necessary?
Thanks
# Answer
To your specific question: I would not worry about referencing questions on an exam. Although exams could end up on the Internet if a students posts them, I find it hard to believe that "fair use" does not cover using the questions for internal educational purposes, and referencing the questions is almost certainly not necessary. That said, I am not a lawyer.
The bigger question might be
> How does one come up with good test questions?
It used to be (and may still be) that fraternities kept a filing cabinet full of course exams used in a class from year to year, purportedly simply for study purposes, but also in the hope that professors would re-use questions from year to year and this would provide a huge advantage to those studying from the prior exams. These days, it would be trivial to have a web page dedicated to scanned copies of old exams. Therefore, I would advise against re-using too many questions on an exam, or at the very least modify old questions to make it difficult to simply re-apply the exact same methodology to solve.
Crafting good questions is always challenging, but some would argue that it is fun developing questions that test the students ability to problem-solve in a format that works on a timed exam. Questions that have a single answer are easier to grade, but could limit the ability for a student to think outside the box, or to solve using alternate methods. Depending on the subject, this isn't always possible, either.
I am of the opinion that the best tests have many different types of questions, so students can show their own strengths in different ways. For programming tests, there might be a few questions asking students to describe what blocks of code do, others that ask the student to find syntax errors, others that ask for algorithm deficiencies, still others that ask the students to draft short snippets of code, and finally some questions that demonstrate that the student knows when to use certain constructs (e.g., when is a "do while" loop appropriate, and when is a "for" loop appropriate? How could you turn the following "do while" loop into a "for" loop?).
As a bottom line answer to your question: I would not worry about referencing the questions on the exams, but if you are worried about students cheating by looking up the references for future exams, it is probably worth trying to obfuscate the questions themselves, or to at least change them enough that studying the questions directly from the references will not give an unfair advantage to the students that do find them.
> 2 votes
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Tags: teaching, citations, exams
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thread-8780 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8780 | Is a IEEE student member counted as a member in a submission to a transaction? | 2013-03-21T02:13:33.317 | # Question
Title: Is a IEEE student member counted as a member in a submission to a transaction?
I am going to submit a paper to a IEEE transaction. I am a student member of IEEE. In the auther line of the paper, do I append "IEEE, Member", "IEEE, Student Member" or nothing after my name?
# Answer
> 8 votes
I have published in the IEEE and "Student Member, IEEE, " is what you should write after your name (if you care to), because you're **not** a full member. Note that it doesn't have any benefits to it — you don't get a discount/additional copies/favorable review/faster review/muffins/... nada. It is exactly the same as if you had listed nothing at all.
Perhaps the only advantage might be for senior members, who want visibility (as a member) in order to be elected a Fellow, and for Fellows, if they want to show off (but by that point, you probably don't care).
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Tags: publications, journals, terminology, ieee
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thread-8741 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8741 | Has it ever happened that one paper's findings were contradicted by another? | 2013-03-20T03:47:51.627 | # Question
Title: Has it ever happened that one paper's findings were contradicted by another?
Since reviewers don't check the experimental results by trying to reproduce the experiment, is it possible for someone to submit a paper which basically says "Method X was proposed in paper Y and according to them it improved performance by 15% as compared to baseline. However when we tried it, it didn't work so well (only 2% improvement). Hence we propose its modification which actually achieves 14% improvement as compared to baseline on the same train/test data."?
# Answer
1. Make sure the **difference** comes from the experimentation **not from the adopted technique/method**.
2. Make sure you have the **same settings** as the other paper. Sometimes people make assumptions for the sake of simplicity in experimentations. For example, I remember I did experimentation assuming acyclic graph exists.
3. Do you have some kind of **randomness** (i.e. generating random instances of the problem)? If yes, revise its output. Sometimes you examine easy instances while others base their experimentations on hard instances of the problem.
4. In some areas, there are **benchmarks** and robust solvers for particular problems/structures. If your field have benchmarks, try to compare your method against it.
Either way, I am sure you have important parameters to control the experimentation (i.e. number of variables..etc). check their role.
Most importantly, you need to **theoretically** justify why your method will save 14% while other method saves only 2% in practice.
> 10 votes
# Answer
Yes. To improve on others findings is a common situation. The fact that the first paper overstated performance may not necessarily be wrong from th epoint of their experimental setup but they may have missed some component that negatively affected their experiment. I would say that this reflects `incremental improveents` in the development of ideas in science. As someone once said: "If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be science".
> 5 votes
# Answer
Some fields deal with exact numbers in which case you don't have a contradiction, you have identified an error. When you are dealing with inexact numbers that have "measurement error", you need to be careful. As much as I dislike statistics, they can be, and really are, your friend when dealing with measurement error.
You say Paper Y found that Method X was 15% better than baseline. Did they do a statistical comparison to see if Method X was better than baseline, or did they calculate confidence intervals and really say that it was 15%+/-0.000001 better than baseline? Is your 2% difference from baseline statistically reliable? Is your 2% difference from baseline statistically different from 15%? Then we have your statements about the modified methods. Is the 14% statistically reliably different from the 2% improvement you saw?
If there is measurement error then all you can say is that it is extremely unlikely that your implementation of their method is the same. This doesn't really contradict them, and it definitely doesn't say they are wrong.
> 5 votes
# Answer
JeffE commented:
> It's obvious that it should happen at least 5% of the time, but my impression is that it happens a **LOT** more often than that.
The 5% aren't all that obvious to me: if I understood correctly, the 5% are the (in)famous p-value.
That is, of every 100 false null-hypothesis, 5 are rejected ("we found something") by mechanically rejecting H0 when the p-value indicates that the probability of observing such or more extreme results as we got reaches 5%.
```
| what the paper does |
| reject H0 not reject H0 | sum
------------------------+---------------------------+------
truth | null hypotesis | 5 95 | 100
v alternative h. | ? ? | ?
------------------------+---------------------------+------
sum | ? ? |
```
The number of contradicted papers, however, should depend on the number of falsely accepted hypotheses among all *accepted* hypotheses (whether true or not). The problem is, we'd need to know the number of correctly accepted alternative hypotheses to calculate which percentage should lead to contradictions.
This we don't know, but of course it depends on the number of true alternative hypotheses among all hypotheses, which we may call the "prevalence of good ideas".
If we stay in analogy to medical terms, the percentage of contradicted papers should be (1 - predictive value of rejected null-hypotheses). And this will be much larger than 5% if lots of "bad" ideas are tested.
Literature:
---
Here are two comments from pharmaceutical companies reporting on the issue for (mostly oncological) drug development:
> 5 votes
# Answer
It is completely commonplace, particularly in finance publications, to fabricate results.
A previous thesis adviser of mine actively encouraged not reporting results which did not support the story he was trying to tell, and to completely change test design and the statistical tests performed when it was possible to get results which did support the story.
It should come as no surprise that papers report results which contradict each other.
> -2 votes
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Tags: publications, reproducible-research
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thread-8702 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8702 | How to decline answering details about my thesis? | 2013-03-18T14:20:37.007 | # Question
Title: How to decline answering details about my thesis?
I am a graduate student studying Education. I am currently working on my thesis, am about half-done with this and I expect to finish in one year. For the research, I am visiting classrooms at various public schools.
Recently, one such public school asked that, in exchange for letting me visit, I share my advice about teaching. Since they welcomed me their classroom, I did not see much of a problem with this and did not think that would present any problems. I prepared an outline for a 90-minute discussion covering some areas, drawing somewhat on my findings related to my research. After sending this off to them before the lecture, I found they are quite disappointed and want far more from me, essentially they want the very core of my thesis.
* Is it acceptable practice for graduate students to be guarding of their work? Is this common enough that I can cite it as a reason for wanting to avoid sharing the details?
# Answer
I'm actually a bit surprised by the harsh comments here. I do come from Computer Science, so the situation might be a bit different.
But still, I know more than one student with advisers that *explicitly prohibited presenting ongoing **unpublished** work*. Sometimes it is a bit more relaxed (e.g. it is okay to present it to the people in your team or lab), but in general, **it is not uncommon *in my area***. The explanation I got once is that if a senior researcher with a lot of resources recognized an idea as potentially good and gives it to multiple junior students to work on, he can develop the idea faster than the "original idea holders" (i.e. 1 PhD student + his/her adviser).
On the other hand, I personally believe that the **whole point of research is to expand and share knowledge**, so I frown upon being too protective of one's work. Also, putting a date on your presentation, and making it available online, diminishes the chances of stealing.
That being said, I think offering a 90-minute presentation, with discussion, based at least partially on your work, is a very nice offer. The only reason I can think of why they would not be pleased is that they expected a talk on some specific topic.
Some suggestions about what you could do as an alternative:
* prepare an in-depth exhaustive talk about *just one problem/theory* from your thesis, preferably something already published in an article
* prepare a talk about *motivation* for your theories, problems that dictated the research direction and reserve some time for a *discussion session*, where you do offer your own theories as solutions, but other attendees are expected to participate as well.
* offer to come back after finishing your thesis, and presenting everything in-depth (possibly over several sessions) when all the work is finished, published and peer reviewed (see both my points below)
This should give you enough flexibility to avoid talking about any sensitive areas.
Also, some "guarding" explanations that seem quite reasonable to me:
* a PhD thesis is a 3+ year long effort, often a compilation of many works and ideas by the author. Even though it is centered around one subject, it probably deals with several issues, approaches, angles...
All in all, it is *a lot of material*. Explaining everything is something what is expected at a PhD defense: and even then, in that 1+ hour talk, some students can't cover all their work.
Thus, explaining that presenting everything simply requires **too much time**, and offering the school to **choose a issue you deal with that is of particular interest**, does not seem bad or disrespectful or overly protective.
* if you are against disclosing details of your ongoing work, you should be able to come up with some legitimate reasons. If the work is ongoing *and unpublished*, you can argue that you do not want to present **ideas that did not go through peer-review process**.
Peer-review is the process that (should) ensure excellence and relevance of published research. Judging the relevance and correctness of your own work is something *not left to the author*, and it *should be fine if you do not want to present something in detail that is not yet accepted by academic community*.
But, even in this case, and after such an explanation, offering to include some of this work **as a smaller part** of your presentation (e.g. ideas for future work, or discussion), with a **beforehand explanation** that those are just **discussable, underdeveloped ideas** and should be treated as such.
Bottom line is, *it is **not** acceptable to guard your research just because others do it*. But, if you look at **why** others do it and understand their reasons, you can decide whether that reasoning applies to you and your work.
> 15 votes
# Answer
The one valid point I can see here(\*) for not sharing the state of the thesis:
> For the research, I am visiting classrooms at various public schools.
**You should not share the preliminary details of your thesis if this could affect the outcome of your study.**
As I understood the question, the school (or some teachers or students) may be the *subjects you study*, so they should be as little influenced by you as possible (that is, don't tell them that they are in the placebo group).
(\*) things would be different e.g. if you were in an engineering field and working towards a patent
> 17 votes
# Answer
> Is it acceptable practice for graduate students to be guarding of their work?
Without saying **acceptable to whom** it should be, you won't get any good answer. Is that acceptable to you? Is it acceptable to your adviser? Is such a behaviour acceptable in the context of your "contract" with the subject of your research, namely the school you speak about?
> Is this common enough that I can cite it as a reason for wanting to avoid sharing the details?
This would be perhaps a bit field-specific, but as far as I can say, this is not a common practice, nor I would accept it if somebody would use it as an argument. In my opinion, this stance is very much against the purpose of publicly-funded research.
First of all, realize, doing research has a highly ideal objective: generate, advance and maintain knowledge of humankind. If this does not appeal to you, then ask yourself who pays for your research. If it is general public, i.e., taxpayers of the country you reside in, then they deserve to see your results upon request. If it is so, that includes the officials of the school in question. There is your answer.
Secondly, what is the benefit of you keeping the results private? Are you worried about being scooped? On that, see elsewhere on this site and build an opinion for yourself whether that is a real threat.
Finally, as a graduate student, you should be rather happy that somebody is interested in your research. Most of your peers do not get that kind of attention at all.
**To sum up:** Unless you are paid from a resource which contractually forbids you to disclose your research results, there is no "objective" reason to refuse sharing your results. It will of course remain your freedom not to share them, but in that case you must stand up to your decision and attribute the refusal to your own personal decision without hiding yourself behind some "common practice". Take responsibility for your decisions!
> 11 votes
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Tags: etiquette, thesis
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thread-1599 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1599 | Etiquette when talking to a researcher whose work you do not think highly of | 2012-05-18T06:38:06.747 | # Question
Title: Etiquette when talking to a researcher whose work you do not think highly of
What do academicians need to keep in mind when they are conversing with a fellow researcher whom they do not think highly of? I was reminded of *A Beautiful Mind*, where Nash (Crowe) says the following:
> I imagine you're getting quite used to miscalculation. I've read your preprints... both of them. The one on Nazi ciphers... and the other one on nonlinear equations... and I am supremely confident that there is not a single seminal or innovative idea in either one of them.
This is as forthright as it could possibly get! Suppose there is a situation where you have read a paper in some detail, and are sure that it is not just worth its salt. If you happen to strike a conversation with the author about the work itself, how do you go about it? How do tactful researchers react to this situation?
# Answer
> 36 votes
* **Be polite.** There's nothing to be gained by being a jerk. It's funny in the movies, but do people really say things like that in real life?
* **Be diplomatic.** State initially that you do not fully understand the approach or the motivation, and then after some discussion state that you do not fully agree with the approach taken.
* **Be succinct.** Point out clearly what you see as being the problem with the paper.
* **Be constructive.** Indicate places where you think the paper/research could be improved, with concrete suggestions of how you would make the improvements.
Alternatively,
* **Avoid the topic**. Talk about the football scores instead. *What about those Bears?*
# Answer
> 23 votes
"Thank you for your useful contribution to the field" seems to be a popular opening in such cases.
And as it might be you, rather than the author, who's got it wrong, then proceeding by the Socratic method can be both tactful and constructive. Start with establishing common assumptions, focussing on those areas where you think the mistake starts: "So I think you started by assuming XXX - have I got that right?" Then continue asking questions, stepping through their methodology, giving them an opportunity to either contradict themselves, or to clear up your own misunderstanding.
Failing that, there's the altogether briefer: "Thank you for your useful contribution to the field. Oh, please excuse me, there's someone over there I've been trying to catch up with for some time, and I must catch them now, while I can".
# Answer
> 12 votes
To understand that a paper is wrong can be much more difficult than that it is right. You might simply not get an idea or it could be badly written, or with rather a typo than an error.
* "Could you explain me the main idea of your paper?"
* "How can it be related to other research, ..."
or more technically
* "I don't understand how does X imply Y, could you explain it to me?" (\*)
or if it is about the general approach/philosophy
* "Personally, I prefer loop quantum gravity to string theory."
If there is a plain error, there is no reason to hide it. (Otherwise you would value tact over truth, which is IMHO a very bad approach to science.) But still it can be done politely, perhaps using (\*).
Rants are rarely successful at anything.
Moreover, judging quality or impact of a work is risky.
# Answer
> 7 votes
For a published departure from conventional scientific professional etiquette, see the survey article “Mathematics and the Internet: A Source of Enormous Confusion and Great Potential,” in which Walter Willinger, David Alderson, and John C. Doyle criticize scale-invariant network models of the Internet. The article is unusual for its polemic, insulting tone. While it is not unusual for researchers to insult other researchers in private conversation, it is unusual to see this in print. Its authors spare no opportunity to criticize their competition, as well as mathematicians and physicists generally, whom they regard as foppish, insular ivory tower aesthetes, whose nostrils are unacquainted with the bracing scent of an expertly soldered electrical connection.
The authors deploy a literary reference to insult their competition:
> “What about replacing power-laws by the somewhat more plausible assumption of high variability in node degrees? While the answer of the scale-free modeling approach consists of tweaks to the PA mechanism to enforce an exponential cut-off of the power-law node degree distribution at the upper tail, the engineering-based approach demystifies high-variability in node degrees altogether by identifying its root cause in the form of high variability in end-user bandwidth demands (see \[33\] for details). In view of such a simple physical explanation of the origins of node degree variability in the Internet’s router-level topology, Strogatz’ question, paraphrasing Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “… power-law scaling, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?” \[52\] has a resounding affirmative answer.”
The authors seem to suggest by this literary reference, which would not be lost on readers of the AMS Notices, that a model of the internet that predicts a power law node degree distribution is a “tale told by an idiot.”
The authors suggest that mathematicians and physicists must get their hands dirty, do some engineering and then contemplate the authors’ HOT models of Internet connectivity, which they assert, will be more mathematically interesting “… and certainly more relevant and hence more rewarding than that of the scale-free models of the PA type.” This sentence combines a dubious claim about what mathematicians should find interesting with a swipe at scale-free preferential attachment models of the Internet.
The authors conclude with these remarks:
> “In this article, the Internet has served as a clear case study, but the issues discussed apply more generally and are even more pertinent in contexts of biology and social systems, where measurement is inherently more difficult and more error prone. … Although the Internet story may seem all too obvious in retrospect, managing to avoid the same mistakes in the context of next generation network science remains an open challenge. The consequences of repeating such errors in the context of, say, biology are potentially much more grave and would reflect poorly on mathematics as a discipline.”
Why would mathematics be at fault? The authors do not cite the literature on the independent history of debate over the applicability of power law models in biology and the social sciences, e.g., A Brief History of Generative Models for Power Law and Lognormal Distributions by Mitzenmacher.
Again I mention this as an unusual example in print of what appears to me to be a departure from conventional scientific etiquette.
# Answer
> 6 votes
To add to other good answers: I'd try to avoid "engaging" on such an issue, either directly with the author or with a third party. Anything else risks being interpreted as either being an *overt* jerk, or merely a passive-aggressive jerk. Only when you are a big-shot of some sort can you perhaps "get away with" being a jerk. But these dynamics are much more reminiscent of grad-school common-room wrangling among first-year grad students than of collective working toward a common good. If you must say something (because you think that others are being disserved by bad work being mistaken for good), I'd advise being extreeeeemely apologetic, and not sounding sarcastic when you say "I'm sorry, I don't understand how ..." and then "Ok, maybe I'm just being dense, but I still don't see..."
Perhaps the interpersonal model that would keep you out of trouble best would be the mental image of a student of *yours* who has made a large mistake, but with good intentions, and whom you hope to steer back to something more sensible ... or else discover your own error ... but in either/all cases without *alienating* anyone.
Indeed, here, again, the situation is that *you* stand to profit by the errors or failings of competitors, so, although on one hand your judgement may be expert, and, thus, trustworthy, on the other hand you have some incentive to be hypercritical, and, thus, mistrusted.
And other parties have some motivation to "stir the pot" just for recreation, so... watch out.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I'm having trouble understanding why a conversation with someone whose work you don't think highly of should be all together different than conversations with others. Sure you may disagree with their work, but unless you are a real leader in your field remember that someone is looking down on your own work (and probably even if you are a leader!).
I've found most academic types to be cordial and get along fine. There are a few "rough" people that seem to bark a lot and act rude towards others, but they get a reputation pretty quick. You don't want to be that person, especially young in your career. Call me naive, but I guess I believe that what goes around comes around.
# Answer
> 0 votes
This could be tangential, but as an Associate Editor of a reasonably good journal, I once received a note from one of the authors:
> Reading your comments I found that there is a clear gap between your understanding and mine on what has already been in the literature, and what makes the contribution of the paper. I made multiple changes following your comments. But I did not follow those that are out of context.
with a personal email stating that
> I also never have experienced so much misunderstanding by either reviews or AEs in the history of my submissions.
on a paper that I gave my own review before sending it to other reviewers. So sometimes a rather strong language is being used. This particular author has published upwards of 50, may be close to 100, papers, which is a lot by the standards of the discipline we are in.
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Tags: research-process, etiquette
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thread-8713 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8713 | How to handle ego clashes within an academic department | 2013-03-18T22:43:40.807 | # Question
Title: How to handle ego clashes within an academic department
I am a new assistant professor in my department. While all faculty members have been welcoming so far to me, I find there are two or three distinct groups or *coteries* within the department. The coteries are distinct and comprise set of people who wouldn't mingle with people from another coterie. It is a bit awkward for me because there are even senior professors in different sets, and I want to be affable with everyone in my department.
How do I handle this sense of discomfort? Should I talk with the Chair? But the sectoring is pretty well-known and prevalent for a long time and there is little the Chair can do about it (or so I think!)
How do academic departments handle this situation of clash of egos usually? I am sure mine is not the only place where this clash is seen.
# Answer
The best advice anyone can give you, in my opinion, is: **Don't get involved**.
You're entering a new environment and it's in your best interests to just get along with everybody, as you already suggest you are trying.
If the issue pops up in any discussions, just avoid it. The last thing you want to do is get caught-up in a territorial dispute of which you probably don't want to know the origins, and that serves no purpose to anybody, least of all to you.
I would only advise discussing things with the Chair if these divisions start negatively affecting your work, and only discuss it in terms of how it affects your work. As you've pointed out yourself, chances are he/she can't do anything about it, or worse, he/she may be involved.
Things like this can happen even in the best departments, and the best thing that can happen in such a case is that new staff bridge whatever divide may be there by ignoring it completely.
> 21 votes
# Answer
With respect to coteries there is no difference between a university department and any workplace, corporate board, political party, sporting team, primary school playground, etc...
Coteries are just a fact of life everywhere one goes...
At some point in time you will start collaborating with people in your department on research in which you have a shared interest. Hence, by default you will eventually drift into one of the coteries, otherwise you'll be a loner in the department...
So, you'll have to eventually choose one of them, and to be a successful academic the correct choice should be based on shared research interests.
> 0 votes
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Tags: professorship
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thread-8802 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8802 | How many research interests should be included in a statement of purpose/objective | 2013-03-22T12:02:30.397 | # Question
Title: How many research interests should be included in a statement of purpose/objective
I am wondering how many research interest should be included in a statement of purpose. Is it better to include just one core interest or to include up to three as in my case?
# Answer
**Be as specific as possible. Do not bluff.**
Remember that admissions committees are looking for strong evidence of research potential. One of the markers of that potential is a deep interest in your intended research area. For that reason, it's important to describe your potential research interests *in specific and credible detail*. Why are you interested in field X? What specific problems are you interested in working on? What projects have you done? What papers have you read (or written)?
It doesn't matter all that much *what* you write about. We know that your interests will change over time. Nobody is going to limit you to the specific research topics you describe in your statement. Your statement is at least as much a demonstration of intellectual maturity as it is a description of research interests.
Eykanal's observations are correct. Most graduate school applicants "barely know what's being researched". A list of buzzwords mined from faculty web pages is not *credible*. You can't effectively describe what your interests are when you aren't familiar with the field. But I disagree with his conclusion; just because it's hard doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. **Don't be most applicants. Know what's being researched. Don't be vague, and don't just list buzzwords. Make yourself familiar with the field.**
After you've done that, writing about your research interests is easy, because you actually *have* some.
> 29 votes
# Answer
One big problem with writing research interests for graduate school is that you barely know what's being researched. How could you state definitively what your interests are when you aren't familiar with the field?
With that in mind, if you're a member of the minority of undergrads who actually performed undergraduate research and knows what you want to research, feel free to list a single field of interest. If you can list specifics (e.g., "Following up on both the research I did in last summer, as well as the research from the Smith lab in Princeton, I would like to examine...") that would be even better, as it would demonstrate that you know what you're talking about. (Pro tip: make sure you know what you're talking about when writing it.)
If you're like the rest, though, you don't know the field, and that's OK. It would probably be better to give a really vague statement than to list a few things. Compare the following:
> I'm interested in furthering my knowledge of the biomedical engineering field.
vs.
> I'm interested in the fields of brain-computer interfaces, tissue engineering, and medical device design.
This is subjective, but to me both statements say the same thing, with the first one being concise and the second one sounding like buzzword soup.
> 8 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, graduate-admissions, statement-of-purpose
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thread-8808 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8808 | Author did not make the major changes asked during the review process | 2013-03-22T14:53:24.133 | # Question
Title: Author did not make the major changes asked during the review process
I recently had my first paper to review. Since it was the first one, I took great care to be as constructive as possible and to formulate correct and accurate questions / suggestions. At that time, I recommended two major changes for the paper and a couple of minor ones (figures, typos, ...).
I just received the revised version of the paper, with the response to reviewer. One of the major changes I recommended was not fully taken into account by the authors. They did provide a very short answer, but it did not convince me. I read the new version of the paper carefully, to see if the content was changed to fit my suggestion, but it was not.
I am wondering what I should do now? Should I resend the same suggestion, pointing out it was ignored by the authors? Or should I let it go and tell the editor all the other changes were done according to my review? How should I tell the author they did not take my suggestion into account without being rude?
# Answer
> 40 votes
There are three possibilities:
* The authors think they have addressed your major comment: in this case, since you think they haven't, either they haven't understood your initial comment, or they believe that another change they have done is enough. It might be your fault (because you didn't explain your comment well enough) or theirs (because they didn't understand it). It's ok to point out that you believe your comment has not been addressed, and explain it in a different way, to avoid any possible confusion.
* The authors disagree with your major comment, and did not change the paper accordingly: in this case, they should have explained it in the response to reviewers. It's ok to mention that your comment is not addressed, and it's up to the editor to decide whether the authors should comply and change the paper accordingly.
* The authors did not see your major comment in the original review, or simply forgot to address it. It's ok to mention that your comment is not addressed, and if you believe that it could be addressed quickly (e.g., some references missing), then perhaps it can go as a minor change for the next version, to speed up the process.
In any case, it's ok to mention that your comment has not been addressed. You might not know the exact reason why, so it's always better to assume that it's just a mistake. The responsibility to accept the paper as such is not yours, it's the editor's. You simply mention that you believe something is wrong with the current paper, you explain why you believe it's wrong, and whether you think it should published without changing it.
A typical response in this case could be: "The new version of the paper addresses most of my previous comments, with the exception of XXX. Indeed, it is not clear how the authors address the fact that YYY (another version of XXX) in the new version."
# Answer
> 13 votes
It is necessary to keep in mind that your review is likely not the only one, there should at least be a second reviewer. On top of that, thee editor can make suggestions to the author on what must, should or could be changed. I completely agree with the points in the answer of Charles, I also find it strange that you apparently did not receive an explanation to why or how your suggestion was not changed from the authors. It is, however, common that reviewers and authors disagree but what is right and wrong is another question.
What you should do is to reiterate what you think is necessary and if possible support your statement with more arguments. Since it still is up to the editor to make choices and there are also likely other reviewers to consider, you will never have the full picture yourself and you can only provide your view. It is possible the paper will go to publication without your points being met.
In some cases (journals) it might be possible to write a "Letter to the Editor" where one brings up the remaining questions. Such letters will be published along with an open response from the authors. Since you are relatively new to these processes, you could discuss the paper (after it has been published(!), if it is) with colleagues and consider writing such a letter alone or with someone. It is, after all, an open scientific discussion with differences in opinion.
# Answer
> 5 votes
If I were in your situation, I'd talk to my supervisor before taking action. All of the advice you already got here is quite sound, but it is also a fact of life that people who are new to the review process tend to be more strict than average. I would thus ask someone else in the field whether your suggestion seems reasonable, and if it does, then I would write about it to the editor.
I'm writing this from personal experience - I'm also new to the review process, and I tend to overestimate the importance of the points I'm raising. My own current solution is actually to go easy on the authors once the revised version is in, as a way of balancing this tendency of mine out.
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Tags: peer-review, etiquette
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thread-8798 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8798 | Factors contributing to Research apart from publishing Technical Papers | 2013-03-22T09:15:38.133 | # Question
Title: Factors contributing to Research apart from publishing Technical Papers
I want to pursue M.S. from USA. I know that it is required to have a background of publishing technical papers for getting admit in a good University. But I wanted to know whether is there anything else apart from publishing a paper that constitutes as "Research" by the Admission authorities? Thank You.
# Answer
* A **senior thesis** (or, if you're engineering, your senior project, if you did one) would probably be a good thing to showcase, as it demonstrates both your ability to perform work in a group as well as your ability to write.
* **Internships** are great. They show that you can work and it also can serve as a reference.
If you've done anything else particularly notable (e.g., won a nationally recognized science fair), you can mention it, but the number of people who've done stuff like this is pretty miniscule.
> 2 votes
# Answer
From your question, it is not clear that what MS do you referring to and seeking advice for. If you plan for MS by course, the admission committee do not usually evaluate you based on publications, because they don't need you to do research and therefore, it is not needed. They are looking for the university from which you did your UG, your marks, and your final project TITLE and your work.
If you are after MS by research, the story is slightly different, but still publication is not the only requirement. I guess, it is okay to have UGs without publications since UGs are busy with large number of subjects to take (depends on the universities they study) and CS is one of the majors that needs mini project for majority of subjects. Hence, you may not have enough time to be exposed to the research and publication, especially if your university does not approve research project as final project.
For MS by research, the main piece of evidence to show you know research is to prepare a very impressive research proposal. If you can impress them, you have the position. Sometimes looking at recommendation letter also works. If you have a good rec letter with some research-based recommendations and the admission committee know the person issued the recommendation letter, it may change their idea and cover some of your weaknesses. Also, doing vulonteer job is also important to demonstrate your ability to work in a new domain with different people in a team or as an individual.
> 1 votes
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Tags: research-process
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thread-8824 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8824 | What versions of a paper do I still hold rights to? | 2013-03-23T15:12:36.143 | # Question
Title: What versions of a paper do I still hold rights to?
I just had my first paper accepted for publication (hooray!), but I'm wondering how copyright works for the paper. I know that for this publication, the publishing house owns the copyright of the final version, but I'm wondering if that means that I still have rights to distribute earlier versions (e.g., on academia.edu).
If so, which version? I.e., how different does it have to be from the final version?
# Answer
After accepting the article, the journal will ask you to sign a copyright transfer. This document should describe in detail what rights the publisher gets, and what rights you retain. If it isn't acceptable to you, you can try to negotiate; your institution may have an intellectual property office that could help. If all else fails, you can withdraw the paper and submit it to a journal with different policies (perhaps even an open access journal).
It is pretty common for the author to retain the right to distribute preprints.
Congratulations on your paper!
> 16 votes
# Answer
A little more googling would have served me well - another answer directed me to http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo, which looks a good resource for determining rights for each journal.
> 10 votes
# Answer
I suppose you've just answered the question yourself, but I'd like to add that
a) it seems very common to make a copy of the paper available on your own site (or something like academia.edu) so I would think most journals do allow this (at least in CS)
b) it is good practice, too, since it makes it a lot easier for people who research your work to be able to download the paper straight away rather than having to go through institutional logins or have no access at all.
> 3 votes
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Tags: publications, copyright
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thread-7843 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7843 | Why do some conference have an "abstract submission" before the "paper submission"? | 2013-02-07T14:31:29.537 | # Question
Title: Why do some conference have an "abstract submission" before the "paper submission"?
I noticed that some conference have different deadline for paper submission: an "abstract" submission deadline, before the usual "paper" submission deadline.
For example, on the International Semantic Web Conference 2013 webpage you can read:
> **Submission dates**
> Abstracts: May 1, 2013
> Full Paper Submission: May 10, 2013
Why do they need the abstract before the paper? To estimate how many papers they'll get?
# Answer
From what I have observed, having a specific deadline for abstracts is used for two main reasons: **having a rough idea of the number of submissions** and **organise a bidding for the reviewers**.
Having the number of submissions can help deciding of a possible deadline extension and possible to "recruit" more PC members or reviewers if the number largely exceeds the expectation.
Organising a bidding based on the abstract allow the PC members to indicate their preference for each paper (e.g., I want to review this paper, I could review this paper, I couldn't review this paper), so that when the actual papers arrive, the distribution is already organised.
> 40 votes
# Answer
In my field (chemistry/spectroscopy/chemometrics), the abstract decides whether you'll get an oral presentation or a poster (total rejection is extremely rare). The paper submission deadline is usually after the conference.
Once submitted, the paper undergoes normal peer-review for the journal it is submitted to, which doesn't have anything to do with the presentation at the conference. The only connection is that the conference organisers have spoken with the journal editors that they'll collect papers about topics presented at the conference in a special issue of the journal.
So the paper deadline is needed by the journal editors to make people submit in time so that the special issue will be ready at the specified date.
> 12 votes
# Answer
An unspoken reason is to enable conference presenters to prepare their abstract months before their paper or poster is ready, while they are still doing their research. Some large conferences, such as the American Geophysical Union, request abstracts months in advance of final submission. What's a struggling (or highly distinguished--both find themselves in the same predicament) researcher to do? Write something, and hope that by the time of the conference, the research meets or exceeds the statement of the abstract.
> 2 votes
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Tags: publications, conference, terminology
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thread-8834 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8834 | Ownership of the code | 2013-03-23T17:55:31.433 | # Question
Title: Ownership of the code
My advisor sets the problem. I implement the solution for this particular problem and for the set of similar problems using a programming language.
My question is, can I put the code in the public domain, if I decide to do so. And can I run the code for other people in exchange of co-authorship for their papers?
Again, my advisor did not ask me to write the code, he asked me to solve the problem.
# Answer
> 15 votes
Most of the universities I've worked for have been quite explicit that they consider such material as "work for hire" meaning that they own the rights. In that case you need to find out what the university policy is.
Often you are allowed to open-source the code, but you *have* to find out.
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I'm in the United States.
# Answer
> 12 votes
Copyright differs a lot between countries. However, here I'd recommend to come to a mutual agreement without thinking about copyright fights in the first place.
That is, try to convince instead of trying to win a copyright fight.
In my experience, in academic context some strong arguments for FOSS licensing are
* Reproducibiliy is becoming more important. And this includes calculations. Questions about correctness can easiest be answered by "look at the code".
* The academic currency are citations. It may be much easier to convert a software into citations (by requiring users to cite you) than into money (this requires a whole lot of infrastructure)
* if it is a larger software: in academia people change institutions fairly often. FOSS licensing is a way to make it clear and legal that you have the right to maintain (and use) code even after you leave that university.
* If you stay in science, this makes a steady state of technology clear and legal: when you change institution, your new institute profits from the work you bring, and your old institution can profit from the fact that you can still look at this work. You profit by not re-writing wheels.
As for
> can I run the code for other people in exchange of co-authorship for their papers?"
Only *running* code IMHO is something that would be acknowledged, but it isn't enough of a scientific contribution for becoming co-author. So: **No**.
However, what you can do: write a paper and require users to cite this paper.
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A few points about the **German** copyright in this situation:
# Answer
> 7 votes
You really have to ask someone at your department, or take a look at the employment agreement you signed.
My experience is that I often just discuss with my advisor what we are going to do with the code, release it or not, and if so, under which license. A lot of the more general code I wrote is released under a GPL2 license. The problem of ownership often only arises when money is involved. The institutes where I worked until now where very positive towards making any software available under a public license.
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Tags: copyright, data, public-domain
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thread-8837 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8837 | Curriculum Vitae advice for PhD (non-US) | 2013-03-23T18:59:57.510 | # Question
Title: Curriculum Vitae advice for PhD (non-US)
I am asking this on behalf of a relative of mine. He has a PhD with a concentration in Policy Analysis and Environmental Science and is trying to get a position in either a university/public sector or the private sector (research/policy analysis). He has been searching for a while and has had little success and is getting pretty discouraged. I recently looked at his CV and it seems like it needs a lot of improvement.
There is the catch though: he is not able to look for a position in the US at the moment due to visa requirements. Therefore, he is limited to looking outside the US (anywhere really).
**Does anyone have any recommendations or advice as far as CVs go for academic positions outside of the US, particularly Canada or Europe (what should be avoided, what helps/hurts your chances, etc)?** Any advice regarding online resources or CV editing services that cater specifically for someone with a PhD would also be appreciated.
# Answer
While people often spend a lot of time tailoring the format of the CV, the two most important things are: do you have the experience the employer is looking for and can the employer easily find it. So while I agree that career services often suggest a cookie cutter CV one size fits all mentality, it really is a pretty god approach.
Unfortunately what really helps you get a job is a strong track record and not how that track record is presented on the CV.
> 2 votes
# Answer
In principle, there isn't *that* much of a difference in the structure of a CV for US-based positions versus positions in other countries. There are a few items related to HR-type issues that you would *never* put in an American CV (such as photo, citizenship status, date of birth, marital status, or number of children) that can appear in an international CV.
However, there may be issues with respect to the kinds of positions that your relative is applying for. Are they appropriate with your relative's accomplishment level? (That is, you're not applying for a full professorship in Germany directly out of graduate school, or the like.) Plus, there is always the issue of demonstrating a match between the candidate and the position in general, as well as the quality of the work being performed.
> 0 votes
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Tags: job, postdocs, job-search, cv
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thread-8829 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8829 | Article-based PhD and advisor's (new) role? | 2013-03-23T16:36:49.417 | # Question
Title: Article-based PhD and advisor's (new) role?
My engineering university offers a relatively new option to do an article-based dissertation, where the primary research is submitted (and hopefully published) in several scientific journals (at my university it's 3). The dissertation is then shorter than a typical PhD, because it describes how the articles fit together to form the thesis, etc.
It's a relatively new idea (for engineering PhDs and for me), which I find interesting as an advisor because it engages PhD students more in the research experience (publishing). Also, it is theoretically more efficient for the advisor and student (as a co-author), since time and energy spent on revising could be more focused on getting publications, and not only on a big PhD dissertation that few people will ever read.
There are other advantages described here (not my university).
My question is not about whether it's good or bad, but how the role of an advisor on co-authored papers might change in such cases.
For example, when students write a traditional dissertation (masters or otherwise), they often struggle with communicating. Students grow and improve written communication and contents of the dissertation in an iterative and incremental process (draft revisions after feedback from the advisor).
In traditional grad-student co-authorship setting, I would take a more active role as an editor (as my advisor did when I was a PhD student) on a paper, mostly because of experience and to increase chances of getting an article published. Sometimes that role is minimal, if only a workshop or conference is targeted, since it might be easier to publish there.
But with an article-based PhD, it seems that the active approach in editing co-authored journal papers is essential, and in effect *writing a big part of the dissertation* for the student. I realize every case is different.
I'd be happy to know from experienced advisors in this setting to know if and how an advisor's role must change in article-based PhDs.
# Answer
> 11 votes
The system of article-based theses has been the norm in my field and university for as long as we have been in existence, although monographs are also accepted. We therefore lack experience with monographs, although I wrote my thesis as a monograph in the US system once upon a time.
The main differences, as I see it, between monograph and article writing is that with articles, you must reach a high level very early during your PhD study. With a monograph you can work on all of it until the very last moment. With an article-based thesis, articles must be planned and written up early on. I would say that it is both common and useful to have the first paper being mainly written by the advisor so that the student can learn from scratch in every part of the article write-up. Since the goal is to make independent researchers out of the PhD students it follows that the advisor involvement should gradually decrease over time. This is of course good in theory but difficult in practise. The point is, however, that it is important to get an early start with the writing and the structure of the work has to be such that it is clear that publishable results can emerge after the first or second year.
Article-based these need to be thought through so that papers can be produced. We let the advisor and student write up a time plan for the PhD work which also outlines the basic research work and the resulting papers. The plan is filed by the subject responsible. This plan is followed up annually so that changes can be discussed between advisor, student and subject responsible. This is useful since everyone needs to think things through on a regular basis.
# Answer
> 11 votes
This topic is near and dear to my heart, as the number of days until I finish exactly such a thesis is measured in a single digit number.
If you field is dominated by journal, rather than book, publications, I think its a vastly superior system, leaves you better prepared for what you'll actually have to do in the future, and leaves your CV in hopefully a stronger place.
> But with an article-based PhD, it seems that the active approach in editing co-authored journal papers is essential, and in effect writing a big part of the dissertation for the student. I realize every case is different.
This has not been my experience - even the most active members of my committee who are co-authors on papers can't really be said to have written a significant portion of my work. Generally speaking, I would send them a fully fleshed out draft paper for their comments (which is exactly what I tend to do as first-author on a non-thesis paper), and then we'd iterate through the draft several times as they tinkered with language, added their own pet sentences, asked for additional analysis, etc. But the paper, in its final form, is very much dominated by my work and my writing.
One of the keys may be to not wait until the end of someone's graduate career to work on their writing. If someone needs you to fundamentally rewrite massive parts of their dissertation papers, in my mind they're *not ready to defend*. They should be at a stage of maturity where they can produce largely independent writing, in need of only the usual modifications a co-author would provide to a manuscript.
# Answer
> 7 votes
I am about to finish a thesis composed of papers published in peer-reviewed journals. I am the only author to half of the papers, and the others are coauthored with my advisor.
The process is as you describe, we do research together, discussing ideas, proofs (I am in mathematics), computer experiments, etc. and I usually write most if not all of the text, any my advisor makes suggestions on improvements.
I really think this process is superior to writing a monograph, since you get experience in the submission/review process, and being published really counts for something. Also, being the single author on some articles is usually a requirement for getting the phd, so people will know that you did some research yourself (of course, you discuss the progress with your advisor).
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Tags: phd, publications, advisor, thesis
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thread-8800 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8800 | Bad departmental funding, when do you leave the ship? | 2013-03-22T11:15:16.437 | # Question
Title: Bad departmental funding, when do you leave the ship?
As a post-doctoral researcher, I am employed directly by a university. Due to the economic crisis, funds are not overabundant right now, and a lot of expenses have been scaled back or even cut out completely in the last few months (library access, public hall lighting, building opening hours, research consumables, etc.). Now, it's already a week late on my monthly pay check (or more precisely, wire transfer), and we received a collective email from the departmental head. Quoting part of it:
> Unfortunately it is not possible for us to pay as usual on today's date, the salaries because of liquidity in our bank account. I apologize for this inconvenience which we are trying to overcome as quickly as possible. Although we cannot precise the exact date when the issue is resolved we are hoping to make payments during the current month.
How do you analyse this email? My initial reaction is very, very negative: **the first two duties of an employer, it seems to me, are to ensure workplace safety and pay salaries**. So, when I read this email, my first instinct is to ***run away*** (I already hear JeffE saying “don't walk, run”).
However, it's a bad time to look for a new job, so: what are my options? Is this a breach of contract? Should I just wait, and how long? **What do you read between the lines of this email, that perhaps I haven't?**
# Answer
In addition to what Ben suggests, you'll probably want to find out some things. Many such legal aspects are country specific, but I'll put in some points about Germany which could give you an idea what to look for:
* Your post sounds as if the wages were usually paid mid of the month. Is that actually legally fixed? (In Germany, if nothing is specified in the contract, wages are due at the last day of the month.)
* Find out whether your social insurance fees were paid on time.
* Find out what general rights you have and equally important: what deadlines apply
* Find out whether your social insurance covers this case.
E.g. in Germany, the unemployment insurance would be the ones to talk to as they cover at least some cases where no wages are paid though a contract still exists ("insolvency money")
And make sure whatever actions you take that they do not cancel your rights there.
* Do you have the right to stop working (so you can use the time to look for a new job)?
In Germany, if you stop working after the employer is too much back with the wages (\> 2 months IIRC) you retain the right to receive wages (plus interest if the employer finally pays. If he goes into insolvency, this is still important as it affects the money you can get from the unemployment insurance). IIRC, you have to warn your employer in advance that you'll stop working if he doesn't pay.
* Do you have extraordinary rights to cancel the contract (so you can tell potential employers that you can start right away)? Again, find out if you need to warn your employer that you may use this right.
* Find out what is happening around you. How do other universities deal with payments? Is it the university or your funding agency who don't pay?
Here in Germany universities often have an extremely bad reputation for delaying payments (and have had that for years): Years ago (i.e. before anyone started to speak of any kind of European crisis), I started working at a German university, and it took them 2 1/2 months to wire the first money. It was quite less than a full month's wage and they even had the nerve to call it an advance payment... I also remember that at a certain point later they deceided to shift paying wages from mid to end of the month - IIRC there wasn't anything that could have been done against that (there may have been an extraordinary right to cancel the contract).
Now, you ask what we read between the lines. What I read between the lines is that this office is not nice to you staff. With "not nice" I do not mean that they are not wiring the money (assuming that it is not the accounting staff that defrauds you), but what they could tell you in this situation.
* The text is extremely vague about when/whether the payments will be forthcoming there is hope that they will pay, but I'd have appreciated in your situation if they were hoping to pay *full wages* by the end of the month.
* Of course they cannot write "run and get yourself a new job", but they could have explained whether you are insured in some way, what you need to do in order to get that insurance, what else you could do, etc.
* In short, I'm missing somethins that shows that this employer is still *trutworthy*.
* On the other hand, the accounting staff is probably under extreme stress already for a while, so this may explain why they don't manage to be nice.
When you talk to them, try to let them know that you understand this and know that right everyone is putting pressure at them, and they didn't get their wages, neither. In short: try to be nice to them - being nice doesn't cost any money, and having a good standing there may actually help.
> 5 votes
# Answer
**Step 0**: Document all your efforts to find a solution to this situation. Save a copy of that email from your chair. If you need to resort to Step 4: Hire a Lawyer, a paper trail is invaluable. Also, as @JeffE noted in the comments: **stop working until you are paid.** This is your most powerful negotiating tool. Don't worry about breach of contract; your employer did it first by failing to pay you.
**Step 1**: Meet with your immediate supervisor. As a postdoctoral researcher, some/most/all of your salary probably comes from grant accounts, and not the department's general payroll. If there is a financial problem in your department you should still get paid.
**Unless**, in order to pay you, money has to be transferred from the grant account to the payroll account. This is how it works at my institution. If the payroll account is wonky, then you cannot get paid, regardless of where the money comes from.
**Step 2**: Meet with your department chair, one-on-one. He/she may be more willing to be forthcoming with the details in a personal setting. There could a rational, if scary, explanation for what is going on. It may be outside of the chair's power. It could be that the department was expecting payments from grants that did not happen. It could be that an allocation from the institution or state or whatever has not arrived due to budgetary problems. If meeting with the department chair is not satisfactory, go on to step three.
**Step 3**: Contact your institution's central payroll or human resources office. Ask about the situation nicely and politely, but make it clear that you want to know what is going on and when you will be paid. As these folks are either 1) removed from the situation if it is department specific, or 2) closer to it if it is institution wide, you will likely get an answer. Indicate that you believe the department/institution to be in breach of your contract and that you are consulting legal counsel (even if you are not yet). Sometimes, that will grease the wheels.
**Step 3.5**: Sit tight for a little while and see if it does not go away. If your institution/department does not have a history of such shenanigans, this could be a one-time, but very annoying, blip. Also, look for another job. Be honest with your supervisor about why you are doing so - this financial snafu has you worried about the security of your contract.
**Step 4**: Hire a lawyer. By failing to pay you per an agreed upon schedule, your employer is in breach of your contract. I would only go this way if you are desperate. 1) The litigation route is likely to take away a large portion of your time that you should be spending doing research or looking for another job. 2) Depending on the ratio of legal fees to missed pay, you might lose money overall. 3) The heavy handed approach may alienate your department, robbing you of recommendations.
> 6 votes
# Answer
In the comments I suggested **Walk, don't run** as opposed to **Run, don't walk**. Obviously, at some point you will need to get a job that actually pays you, hence you need to be looking in case things go even further awry. If however, during the next pay period you get paid everything you are owed, I would just let the "one time" screw up slide. A university level screw up doesn't really tell you anything about what your advisor thinks about you. I would talk to your advisor to make sure he/she thinks everything will be fine going forward. If you continue to not get paid, or are forced to take a pay cut, you need to decide if what you have is better than what is out there. As a post doc I would have rather had a few months of unemployment, or unpaid research time, than taking the first available job. You want to make sure you land in a good job, so don't go running off.
> 2 votes
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thread-8866 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8866 | Citing/Attaching unpublished papers in a Research Statement/Profile for a faculty job | 2013-03-25T16:02:53.063 | # Question
Title: Citing/Attaching unpublished papers in a Research Statement/Profile for a faculty job
I am a young academic and don't yet have any first author publications (several 2nd authors, though) but have several either submitted or very near being submitted. I am in a quantitative/scientific field.
My question is about whether it's OK to describe (and cite) finished research projects that are not yet published in a research statement for a faculty job. On a similar question, if the application requests copies of papers, can you attach "in process" papers?
Thanks for any opinion/experiences.
# Answer
## Yes!
Your task is to make the strongest possible case for your expertise as a researcher. Your case would likely be stronger with a few first-author publications, but having compelling first-author work in the queue is certainly better than *not* having compelling first-author work in the queue.
In fact, even if you have first-author publications, your research statement *must* describe your ongoing research agenda, in specific, credible, and compelling detail. Faculty hiring committees are just as interested in your future research plans as they are in your past research accomplishments. Preprints and submitted papers that support that agenda are definitely appropriate.
> 18 votes
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Tags: application
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thread-812 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/812 | How can a master student get research opportunities? | 2012-03-19T01:33:35.163 | # Question
Title: How can a master student get research opportunities?
I'm an international student in a master program in applied math department in the United States. There are two ways that I have known in which the person like me can find the research opportunities:
* Independent research: do it on your own. Is it common for most math students to do research in this way?
* Research for the master thesis: As I know, the credits for the master program in applied math in my school are mainly for courses. You will not do research until you are writing thesis.
What else opportunities can a math student like me have for doing research?
# Answer
> 15 votes
Find the hallway where your department's faculty have their offices.
Knock on the first door.
When the professor answers, say "Hi, I'm \[name\]. I'm a master's student, and I'm interested in doing research. Do you have some time to talk?"
Repeat for the remaining doors.
(It also helps to have some idea what *kind* of research you want to do, and to do some background reading on the professors' research before you talk to them. We like it when students say "I read your paper on X, and I have a few questions.")
# Answer
> 0 votes
I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the structures for funding mathematics research to comment directly. However, there could be the possibility of doing research as a part-time "job" to help earn some money. Since it's part of the university, it's normally allowed under the immigration rules (although you should check this for yourself, and this does not constitute legal advice!).
I would suspect, however, that in mathematics, this would be primarily the applied mathematics groups who would need such work, as they are more likely to have computer codes or experimental apparati to prepare and use.
# Answer
> 0 votes
take a look at projectnudge.com. They have a website that allows researchers to post and apply to research opportunities. I think in your case you can post a statement that you are a master's student interested in XXX and looking for collaborators to write a paper. If you want a collaborator who is a grad student or interested in a particular topic, just say so in your post.
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Tags: research-process
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thread-8873 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8873 | On the use of grant funds for extracurricular research | 2013-03-26T03:23:06.647 | # Question
Title: On the use of grant funds for extracurricular research
While reading the **PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH** section of some completed NSF award abstracts, I expected to find papers only within the limited scope of the goals of the proposal. To my surprise, I have found some papers in completely unrelated topics credited to the research grant that funded it. It doesn't even seem like a serendipitous finding or semi-related tangent either, but rather a complete deviation from the grant's intended purpose.
I'm sure that there are other justifications for attributing research grants for publications as stated in this post, but it made me wonder...
How can one justify using grant money to fund research outside of your intended purpose of the grant? Is this a common practice? Are there any negative consequences to using your grant to fund extracurricular research activities? Under what circumstances is it valid to do so and when is it inappropriate to do so?
# Answer
> 23 votes
I've also been funded by NSF's Division of Mathematical Sciences, so I can respond personally. To first-order approximation, the only resources that research grants in mathematics (and similar fields, like theoretical computer science) provide is money to buy food to supply brain cells.
If my brain cells (or my students' brain cells) produce research results during the active period of a grant, I *always* acknowledge the grant in the resulting paper and I *always* list that publication in my reports to NSF. It doesn't matter whether the work is directly *or even tangentially* related to the research outlined in the proposal.
If that seems inappropriate, consider the alternatives: (1) Shut off any part of my brain that is not thinking *specifically* about the proposed work. (2) Allow myself to think about other stuff, but don't acknowledge the grant if I actually make progress. The first alternative requires irreversible surgery that I am unwilling to perform on myself, and the second is *completely* unethical.
# Answer
> 13 votes
A grant is not exactly the same as a contract. When you propose a set of research tasks, you're basically saying that you hope to make progress on a set of problems with plausible directions. Reviewers fund you AND the work. It's common to hear people say in a panel, "This seems like a hard problem, but good things will come out of funding researcher X".
So at least with the NSF (and I don't have experience with other agencies), there's an understanding that you'll work on topics related to the grant, and that you'll work on other things as well - maybe even to fuel the next grant !
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Tags: publications, funding, acknowledgement
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thread-6035 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6035 | How do researchers from different institutions get to know each other to begin a collaboration? | 2013-01-04T16:59:18.177 | # Question
Title: How do researchers from different institutions get to know each other to begin a collaboration?
Quite often, graduate level research is done by researchers from different institutions, whether different universities or cooperation between a university and a private corporation.
How do the researchers get to know each other? How does the collaboration begin?
# Answer
Go to a conference/workshop. Ask intelligent questions in talks. Talk to speakers afterwards. (Have your advisor introduce you if you're shy.) Eat lunch with them and their students. Hang out in the hallways. Talk about your research. Listen to other people talk about their research. Listen to gossip. Throw in a few dirty jokes. Grab some coffee, or beer. Scribble on napkins. Go out for dinner with the students. Drink. Play pool. Try that new absinthe place around the corner. Scribble on napkins. Throw up in the alley. Stumble home. Sleep. Grab coffee. Run into someone you met at the absinthe place. Commiserate about your hangovers. Talk about your research. Scribble on napkins. Have a good idea. Skip the next four hours of talks. Fly home. Exchange drafts over email/github. Chat on Skype. Revise, revise, revise. Submit to the next conference. Repeat.
**Very important:** Do *not* skip the first 15 steps.
> 58 votes
# Answer
The key is really to widen your connections and make yourself known, and this can be done in several ways. To socialize in meetings (a la JeffE) is certainly one way. Personally I have never found collaborators that quickly, sometimes you strike up a conversation (at a meeting or through other means) and maybe years down the line, the right idea comes up where this collaboration gets started. So as with many scientific discoveries, collaborations may start where you least exepct it and with persons you have known for long for other reasons. Hence making yourself known for good science may attract other persons to contact you as will you with those you can see common ground. Becoming a "known player" (however you want to interpret it) in the field is also likely to provide results in the long term. I would also add that you should listen and learn from colleagues about other people. I do not mean gossip, but rather the way other scientists are thought of. This will prepare you for contacting them. Another example of get known and know your surroundings. Finally, also remmeber that we are all different in how we interact and there is therefore no single way to strike up collaborations.
> 10 votes
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Tags: authorship, collaboration, networking
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thread-8847 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8847 | Are there downsides to speculative applications for academic jobs? | 2013-03-24T16:24:04.267 | # Question
Title: Are there downsides to speculative applications for academic jobs?
Speculative applications, i.e. application without a job announcement being published, are common (well, at least normal) in non-academic jobs. But I am not sure the situation is the same in academia. Somebody has suggested me to send speculative applications to different departments for teaching or research jobs. I was thus considering the pros and cons of this type of applications.
The pros are almost evident (more exposure). However, I worry about potential downsides. In particular, how would potential employers look at such an application? Could it make me look bad? Is there any other downside I haven't thought of?
# Answer
Here is my standard advice to PhD students applying for academic jobs:
* First, look for departments that are advertising for faculty in your subfield. **Apply there.**
* Second, look for departments that are advertising for faculty, but not in your subfield. **Apply there anyway.** There is no way to tell *from the advertisement* whether the listed fields are requirements, preferences, or mere examples, or if they just recycled last year's ad without reading it first. (Yes, I have seen all these alternatives.)
* Third, look for interesting departments that are not advertising for faculty. **Apply there anyway.** There is no way to tell *from the lack of advertisement* whether they are really not hiring, or they just aren't advertising widely, or they just haven't posted their ad yet, or they *thought* they posted the ad but didn't. (Yes, I have seen all these alternatives.)
Before anyone objects: Obviously, I'm not talking about *your* department. Everyone knows that *your* department's advertisements are precise, timely, and highly visible. I mean *other* departments.
Of course, if you're thinking of applying to *any* department, whether they're advertising in you subfield or not, it's a good idea to contact someone you know in that department to find out what they're *really* looking for. If your contact says "No, really, we aren't hiring X," you can save yourself the trouble. But if you (or your advisor) don't know anyone well enough to ask? Fire away.
> 17 votes
# Answer
This answer is based on mathematics in the U.S. (I have no idea about other scenarios).
Before electronic job applications, submitting speculative applications was common. It never had a high success rate, and it would be foolish to waste time carefully customizing an application for a job that probably doesn't exist, but occasionally a job opens up unexpectedly. For example, a temporary replacement for someone going on leave. Last-minute openings generally aren't great jobs, but the job market is tough and it can be worth positioning yourself for whatever is available. Receiving speculative applications was only a small burden for the department, since there's no need even to read them unless they are needed.
However, now that most departments have moved to electronic applications, often centralized through mathjobs.org, speculative applications seem to be much less common. One reason is that electronic applications often require the applicant to specify which positions they would like to be considered for. If there's no appropriate opening, then it may not be possible to apply at all. (Another option is to apply for an inappropriate position and indicate a willingness to be considered for any other openings that arise, but this is rude and counterproductive since it wastes the time of the search committee for the position that actually exists.) Most departments still accept paper applications, but they are much more painful for everyone involved, so I would not recommend sending out speculative paper applications. Another reason for the decline in speculative applications is that mathjobs.org makes it much easier to advertise a position on short notice in a location every job seeker is aware of, so speculative applications are simply less helpful than they were decades ago.
> 7 votes
# Answer
As an employer, I'll give a feedback somewhat opposite to EnergyNumbers: if I receive what you call a speculative application<sup>\[1\]</sup>, I will not consider it spam **as long as it is relevant**, i.e. if I would really consider the candidate if I had an open position. I have a ready-made reply for such cases (I must receive one or two a month), and I add these people to the email list to which I send announcements of job openings.
The best inquiry, though, is indirect: if you know someone in that department, ask *them* rather than the other professors.
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\[1\] which I call a “job inquiry” or “spontaneous application” (the later is the common term in French, but probably not used in English)
> 4 votes
# Answer
One thing you could do that's similar to a speculative application, but better in some ways, is to email people in your field to express your interest in their department and ask them to keep you in mind if there are any openings. This can be helpful if there's a late opening, a visiting position which is not widely advertised, or even just to keep people aware that you're interested in case they have an opening the next year. Furthermore, they may be aware of jobs at other schools that opened late or were otherwise poorly advertised. My impression is that this approach makes sense if you are willing to consider a temporary job and if it is relatively late in the hiring cycle. It also can be more effective for your advisor to make these inquiries on your behalf.
> 2 votes
# Answer
I have a specific email folder for speculative applications, whether it's for jobs of any grade, PhDs, or Masters courses. It's called **Spam**, and all the speculative job applications go in there.
If I'm feeling exceptionally generous, I reply with a link to the University vacancies page.
And that's because one of the defining elements of academia is **rigour**. That means, among other things, being able and willing to follow experiment protocols. If the first thing I learn about a potential colleague is that they can't be bothered to follow our recruitment protocols, even though they're well-documented and linked to from our recruitment pages, they've pretty much already disqualified themselves from being an interesting candidate, unless they're really exceptional. (And as we know from Dunning & Kruger, the ones who think they're really exceptional, typically aren't; and the ones who are, typically think they're not.). Those guidelines are derived from legal advice in the jurisdiction of England and Wales. Other employers in the same jurisdiction might interpret the law differently; other jurisdictions will have laws with different implications.
So, as someone sending out speculative applications, at best you spend a lot of time (that could have been better spent researching, publishing, networking at conferences) customising your CV so that it's targeted uniquely at each recipient, taking account of their unique position, and eventually you find a place that has slacker rules, or you find someone willing to break them. At worst, you send the same application to dozens or hundreds of recipients, showing each of them laziness and contempt.
If someone wanted to get on my radar in a positive way, they **wouldn't** send a speculative application. They'd send me some research they'd done that was likely to be of particular interest to me. They might ask for feedback on an article before submission, or flag it up to me after publication, in a short, concise, email with a link to the article. They might arrange to bump into me at a conference or seminar. They might invite me to work with them on a paper they have in development, that overlapped with some work I'm doing or have done.
> -2 votes
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Tags: career-path, job-search, application
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thread-8886 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8886 | Students who did poorly on the final exam | 2013-03-26T16:16:05.870 | # Question
Title: Students who did poorly on the final exam
There are a handful of students in my course who came to class, did acceptably well on the midterm, and contributed to the (group) assignments, but did poorly on the final exam. The exam was a combination of multiple choice and long-answer "problem solving" questions. The class is heavily applied and has a strong emphasis on team project work but there was also a 50% exam component.
These students were surprised that they did so poorly in the course.
Is this an indication of a poor exam or poor instruction on my part? Is there something that I can do throughout my course to avoid this situation in the future?
Some articles (ex: http://chronicle.com/article/Stop-Telling-Students-to-Study/131622) advocate moving away from summative evaluations altogether for example.
# Answer
Apart from the natural response of blaming someone else for one's shortcomings (as students often do), it is difficult to see where the problem may lie. I have studied under a summative system and always found my grades were very clear and understandable to me, particularly if I understood why answers were graded as they were. Now I usually did not question someone's judgement unless I felt it was absolutely necessary.
Now, many years later, I am teaching in a system where courses are set up with learning objectives. At first I found this quite strenuous since each objective must be underpinned by clear grading criteria for each of the grades A-E and F. Note that the major difference is that the learning objectives means you do not grade on a curve but in terms of how students fulfill the goals.
Working with goal oriented criteria demands a lot from the teacher in first setting up the appropriate goals and then to make sensible criteria for how to judge fulfilling them. At first it seems tempting to describe the fulfillment as good, better, much better and outstandingly good or something of that sort but the point is to pinpoint what characterizes the standard for the specific grade. Since many criteria make up a final grade one must also explain the ways in which the different criteria are weighted together but that is a only a minor problem reminiscent of the summative system.
What I have found in the end is that not only should the criteria give the students better ways to understand where they stand but they actually provide me with more fuel to explain why they got the result they did. I now have a thought-through list of arguments for a specific grade which is not relative to others but relating to a set of goals and how to fulfill them.
If this is manageable everywhere is beyond my horizon to speculate on but I must say that after battling with the system (after it was imposed on us) I have found that it actually works in my favour—and hopefully also the students'). It makes the grading transparent. It is also possible to stake out issues that may reduce grades such as spelling errors in essays or missing labels in graphs or whatever details may matter.
Now so far this concerned the setup of the course in terms of grading. It is of course necessary to also add structure to a class that forces students to work with the new knowledge during the course. This could of course be any activity that makes students read the literature and reflect on its content. As an undergraduate I was in a system where studying was mainly done during a few 24-hour days before the exam. Once it was passed most was forgotten. As a graduate student I was in a system with lots of homework and other activities and I found that I really did not have to study that hard for the exam. So activities may play a role to help students reflect on the material. Exactly what activities can and should be used depends on the subject but the main objective should be to have students digest and reflect on the material.
A final issue concerns examination. Does the examination reflect the type of knowledge in the course? This is a big question and one which needs thought. There are many alternative ways of examining apart from written exams and since I hate correcting exams I try to test other ways. Again, what works depends on the type of course but look into other ways of examining the course to see if that will help.
I do not know if this is helpful as an attempt to answer your question but the topic of learning outcomes is difficult and whereas the learning at university level really IS the student's responsibility, it is the learning activities and assessments we make that can help them reach results.
> 11 votes
# Answer
I was just speaking with another instructor and received this advice:
* Grades are non-negotiable unless there's a clerical mistake.
* Transparency will help avoid issues at the end regarding mistakes. One way to easily post marks is to assign each student a unique number at the start of the course, which enables you to post marks as they come in.
I posted it as an answer to my own question because I believe it's helpful advice to know and something I wish I had considered more strongly at the beginning (especially regarding transparency).
> 8 votes
# Answer
If you believe these students understood the material (based on other measures like projects), but they did badly on the exam, then it's a problem with the exam.
While I was in college, problems like this came up a couple of times, and the professors handled it with one of the following solutions:
* Not having the exam, or removing the exam from final grades.
* Grading students with and without the exam and giving them the higher grade.
* Changing the grading scale for the exam (not necessarily on a curve).
* Offering a chance to re-take the exam.
Since your class already has projects, the first two seem like good options.
Of course, this is all based on the assumption that you think they understand the material and just did badly on the exam. If they also did badly on the projects, then there's a good chance they're just trying to avoid responsibility.
> 5 votes
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Tags: teaching, assessment, exams
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thread-8920 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8920 | Legal or duplicate to publish results in both dissertation and journal | 2013-03-27T15:38:24.897 | # Question
Title: Legal or duplicate to publish results in both dissertation and journal
Suppose one has published his results in a journal, then uses them in his dissertation, is it legal or duplicate?
Conversely, if one tend to publish some important results in his dissertation to a journal, is it legal or duplicate?
I know to publish same results in two journals is duplicate, but what about it between dissertation and a journal?
# Answer
> 3 votes
First it is important to state whether a thesis is published or not. In some countries theses are formaly published under an ISSN and ISBN number, in others it is a pile of printed paper that is seen by a very few. I am sure anything between these etxremes exist as well.
If you have a published paper and need to put it into your thesis, either as a reproduction of the printed version (the pdf from the jorunal) or you reset the final revised manuscript, you defintely must get permission from whoever holds the copyright. This could be author and publisher or publisher only, it varies between journals. The reason why the copyright applies also to re-typeset manuscripts is because the copyright covers any corrections the copyright holder has made to the manuscript.
In reality, I doubt many publishers care, but on the other hand it never hurts to get the permission in writing. since a thesis is usually published in very few copies, it usually is not a problem. But, if the thesis is also freely available as a pdf it may again be questionable and a too obvious infringement on copyrights.
The second part is quite tricky, is it a duplication to publish both in a thesis and a journal. If the thesis is an official publication, then yes it would be a duplication per definition. I know some journals are very strict about these things. To be more pragmatic, I wold say that it depends on how the thesis is distributed. If it is printed in a very small number and not freely available as a pdf then publishing in a journal should be possible. But I am sure this can be controversial and no consensus exists as to what is a reasonable middle way. In my field, manuscriprs are published in a thesis with ISBN and ISSN numbers (printed in about 200-3000 copies) but not available as pdf. These manuscripts are then later improved and sent off to journals. I think journals in general tend to turn a blind eye to the cases where thesis materials are recirculated.
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Tags: publications, journals, ethics
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thread-8916 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8916 | What should new faculty focus on when meeting with the university public relations representative? | 2013-03-27T13:52:53.377 | # Question
Title: What should new faculty focus on when meeting with the university public relations representative?
I am a new faculty member at a medium-sized liberal arts university that focuses on undergraduate education. I have recently been contacted by the university public relations representative and he would like to set up a meeting to meet with me and talk about what I am doing.
I recognize that this is a good opportunity to get exposure for me and my lab so I want to make the most of it.
What should I prepare/present to the university public relations representative for this type of informal meeting.
NOTE: As background, I am brand new at the university so I have just begun developing my research and teaching here.
# Answer
> 4 votes
What you should focus on: think through what of your work might be of broader interest to the public. Is your research interesting and on timely topics that the public cares about? If so, be ready talk about that. Are you innovating in teaching in a way that might be of interest to the public (maybe, teaching an unusually large class; teaching a MOOC; teaching a topic of broad interest; trying some innovative new experiment)? If so, be ready to talk about that.
Do not plan on giving a talk. Don't rattle on. The PR rep will ask questions and ask for more details. But be prepared to give a few highlights (a few sentences) on one or more areas like this, if they might be of broader interest.
If you don't have anything that might be of broad public interest, that's fine, too. Go in to the meeting preparing to learn something from the PR rep, rather than the other way around. Ask them to give you a brief tutorial on how to interact with the press. If you're interested in it, ask whether they have a media relations training program. Meet the person, and treat it as a networking opportunity to build a relationship you might use someday.
But overall: Don't overprepare. It's not worth spending a lot of time preparing in advance for this one. Go into the meeting, see how the PR rep can help you and how you can help your university, and move on to something else in your busy life as a professor.
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Tags: professorship, career-path, networking
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thread-8460 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8460 | Drawing Lines when Giving Ideas to Undergraduate Students | 2013-03-08T10:39:18.903 | # Question
Title: Drawing Lines when Giving Ideas to Undergraduate Students
I teach quite a few 'unprepared' students and I find they struggle with finding source material on which to base their reports. Basically, they need to read a lot and apply theories to different companies.
Where should I draw the line when giving them advice? I certainly do not do any searching or reading/filtering for them but if they choose a company and need to report on it, is it acceptable to give them some ideas about famous events at that company which might have happened a decade ago (or more but would still be acceptable for the purposes of the report)? Or, should I require them to do search, even for old events, and if they can't, then they can't and fail?
# Answer
The purpose of teaching, which includes both your lectures, later guidance on their projects *and also includes evaluation*, is for them to learn new skills. So, the question you should ask yourself is: **what skills do I want them to learn, and how do I achieve that best?**
Typically, it seems to me that (if you have enough time for it), it is *very* important to teach them not only to read, filter and digest information, but also to search for it (Information Age and all). So, you might want to make “searching for relevant information” a required skill. But that doesn't mean you should help them acquire it. In fact, you probably should:
* advertise it as an important part of what they are expected to learn
* help them learn it, i.e. show them how it's done
* evaluate them based on their performance
However… even if you do all that, it still doesn't mean you can't help them if they miss something. After all, if you are teaching them how to best look for information, they might realize it's a good idea to come to the expert they know in that particular field… *you*, their teacher. So, maybe they will come asking
> here are the relevant events I found about X in the archives… do you think I missed something?
or even:
> I see a spike in the data around the fall of 1974, and I have searched but couldn't find any event possibly related to that company, do you know of anything that might explain it?
in which cases you might want to answer them, if it seems they did their due diligence.
> 23 votes
# Answer
I think the problem most students are facing is **too much information on the net**.
For example, if your assignment for them is to figure out the *Impact of 2008 financial crisis to GM*.
If they google for "2008 financial crisis GM", they would get about 4,030,000 results.
The first one on the list is, *Scholarly articles for financial crisis 2008 GM*. If you click on that, you get 300,200 results. Do you expect them to read through all of them? I don't believe so.
I believe most undergrad student today do know how to search. But, they may have trouble with filtering them out because of the large volume of info they get on Internet.
In order to help them, you need to figure out how much time it would take them to find the info you want them to find, assuming they would do the search themselves.
In other words, you need to do the homework first. Pretend you know nothing about the subject. Search on the net. Find the info yourself. If you can do it in a reasonable time, then you can expect them to do it.
Using the example above, I cannot find the document you want me to find in a reasonable time frame unless you tell me specificly what you are after.
The line you want really depends on the assignment and student's willingness to learn. I don't think typing keywords is a problem, how to choose keywords and what to do after the search are what's troubling them.
> 1 votes
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Tags: teaching, ethics, undergraduate
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thread-8923 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8923 | How useful are professional society memberships? | 2013-03-27T18:50:07.597 | # Question
Title: How useful are professional society memberships?
En route to academia, are professional society memberships useful? So far, I feel like I have been paying ~$100/year for a few societies (with student discounts), just to receive copies of their monthly magazines that I only end up skimming over once. I get tons of emails that are vaguely aimed towards keeping people up to date with current research, but one can do that by reading papers anyways. So I don't really see a point to being a member.
Does anybody else feel this way? Are there actual benefits to being a member for societies like these?
# Answer
> 25 votes
In addition to the individual benefits they offer (subscriptions, electronic journal access, discounts, the possibility of distinguished or honorary grades of membership, etc.), professional organizations also contribute to the research community more broadly:
1. They organize conferences, publish journals, and support other activities, for example in employment, education, outreach, and public awareness. The academic community would be very different without these services, many of which need financial support.
2. They represent their field to the outside world, such as government funding agencies, and make the case for its importance.
3. They intervene in crises. For example, when the University of Rochester abruptly decided to cancel its graduate program in mathematics in 1995, the American Mathematical Society helped coordinate a very effective response, which led to the program's reinstatement.
4. They monitor the health of the field and help members address any concerns (for example, by investigating ethical complaints).
5. They help shape how the field is viewed within academia, through publicity, prizes, leadership positions, invited lectures, etc.
Membership dues help pay for these activities, which are also more effective when the organization represents a large fraction of the field.
Nobody has an obligation to belong to any particular organization, but it's a simple and valuable way to support the field as a whole. I'd recommend that every grad student join a couple of professional societies.
# Answer
> 9 votes
In my area, (computing and information science) there are 2 primary professional organizations that one is a member of. The first is ACM and the second is IEEE.
In my own context as a graduate student, there are 2 major reasons why someone is a member of ACM or IEEE or both as follows:
1. It gives me access anytime, anywhere to the ACM Digital Library and the IEEE Digital Library. This is important because it allows me 365 x 7 x 24 access to papers and citations and references in my own area of work that are very relevant and important for me.
2. It reduces the cost of attending conferences (sometimes by 15-25%) whether one is presenting a paper or poster or not (even though the culture in our area is that the adviser pays for conference attending funds but its good to reduce his/her financial burden).
A third, ancillary reason is that you can create your own Author webpages on these websites which is a good supporting place for listing your publications since they appear automatically in your author webpage once you publish and also tracks citations and references to your work.
In my opinion, there are no other practical reasons for being a member of these two organizations. Of course, this may and probably will differ from discipline to discipline but I just wanted to point out the reasons for being a member of professional organizations in my research field.
# Answer
> 5 votes
This might sound controversial to some but my understanding of it all is that the whole society concept is a bit outdated. I have a feeling that most of those organizations or societies have older roots and try to live on the reputation of what it once was. In my own field I don't know a single person who's a member of the national/regional/global organization. I know some who used to be, though...
The only benefits I have figured out so far are discounts on journals, conferences and in some specific cases travel grants for younger scientists. The "problem" here is that the first two never really mattered much, in my experience. I don't know how it is at other institutes but we normally get access to a wide variety of journals via the university library network (in other words, I never had any reason to subscribe to journals) and likewise we are required to apply to travel grants in order to go to conferences, so having some percent discount does not make a huge difference (we either get the money to go to the conference, or we don't).
To refer to some of the points mentioned:
* as I mentioned in a comment to Shion's answer, providing access to relevant literature should be a responsibility of the department/university/research institute. It is such a fundamental part of the work so that not having access to literature would be a service-professional not getting a hammer/screwdriver from his employer. Access to literature is as much of a vital tool for us as a chisel might be for a carpenter..
* some of the other benefits, such as representation towards policy makers, could be extremely region-dependent. For instance; as a European resident, I see absolutely no reason to be a member of ACS, which is one of the biggest societies relevant to my line of work.
* organizations/societies do organize conferences but you still have to pay to attend, plus I have yet to come across a society-exclusive conference so far. Note that I do not dismiss the possibility, but rather stress how uncommon it is.
All that said, I do not advocate that societies are useless. I only suggest that given the meager salaries we get as grad students, I think you can come up with better use of the money that would have been spent on the membership fee.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Give for receive.
If you are a member of a professional society you can contribute, create projects, connect/meet people, improve skills, etc. In the other hand you can get/receive benefits:
* **academic**
+ professional prestige
+ international spot
+ professional collaboration
* **economic (commissions)**
+ training/organizing for events/congresses
+ society funding projects (graduate courses, infrastructure improvement)
The usefulness of a professional society membership depends on your personal interests, society capabilities and is harvested with time.
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Tags: conference, job, professional-association
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thread-3613 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3613 | How can a PhD student enlarge his academic collaboration network? | 2012-10-05T23:05:49.040 | # Question
Title: How can a PhD student enlarge his academic collaboration network?
I am a new doctoral candidate of information and computer science and about to initiate my research, and typically collaborate with my supervisor and other group members. But seldom will a researcher limit his collaborators to those within the department he's in; he has to enlarge his network. I believe energetically participating in academic activities/events surely brings benefit. As a student, my quick thoughts are, for example, applying for internships at some research institutes, summoning team members for contests, or taking part in open source projects. Can you kindly share other experiences?
# Answer
> 10 votes
Of course, you’ll get there by engaging in a lot of activities where you will meet new people and work with people who will learn to know you. I recommend choosing them according to a few criteria:
* **Activities of a seemingly technical (or practical) nature**. As a PhD student, you probably don't want to be on boring committees, board-style meetings, interdepartmental seminars. You will meet people, but not in a way that fosters collaboration. (However, you may want to attend these events for other purposes. Meeting key people involved in hiring decisions at a given institution is one such purpose that comes to mind.)
* **Informal settings**. This favors meeting new people and getting to know them much better. Favor small meetings over big ones. Aim for a few persons you want to meet. Identify people you would like to approach (at a big event), then check what events they attend.
* **Manage to invite people for talks at your institution**. Okay, this one might be a bit difficult for a PhD student in some places, but if you can manage to get someone invited for a day or two, get him to give a talk and discuss your research and his, it will be worth it.
* **Do not shy away from “learning” events**: tutorials, “hands-on with XXX library” type of things.
All in all, I think the kind of events you want to engage in are:
* Open source projects: you listed that one already
* Workshops close to your research topic: these typically involve few people and long discussions. Many of my strongest collaborations (and a few friendships) grew out of workshops.
* Tutorials organized on topics related, but not too close, to your research: you will learn stuff, meet people in a relaxed setting. Don't be shy of going to workshops where you already know some of the stuff, if only to put it in practice and discuss with the best experts. Also, be ready to present your own work and identify convergences with lecturers and other participants.
# Answer
> 8 votes
You might consider engaging with scholars whose interests overlap yours via **digital arenas** as well. Although the degree to which people in a given field varies by specialty, I'd be surprised if there aren't at least a few people in your niche of information and CS who use informal digital spaces to share work in progress, ask each other questions, and communicate about opportunities such as conferences and grants. For example, you might explore:
* **Blogging and commenting on others' blogs**: Start writing short, regular posts about academic questions on your mind or scholarly endeavors on which you've been working. Do short reviews of interesting books and articles you've been reading, or use the space to be thoughtful about what it means to be a Ph.D. student in your field. Leave meaningful comments and questions on the blogs of others in your field, or respond to these posts with a blog post of your own (linking to the other person's post both as a matter of etiquette and because many bloggers automatically get trackback notifications of ho's been linking to their posts).
* **Using Twitter as a Scholar**: Twitter isn't just for sharing photos of what you ate for lunch! Ryan Cordell provides some excellent advice on getting started using Twitter professionally and effectively. Use Twitter to share the links to those blog posts you've been writing (see previous bullet), cite intriguing articles you've been reading on the web, or ask questions of scholars whose work you admire. If your department doesn't have anyone already using Twitter for academic ends, you might try searching Twitter with some applicable hashtags (e.g. #computers? #infosci? some more specific terms?), following anyone who tweets about these topics and seems to be saying interesting things, and also check out who those people are themselves following. Many people use the Twitter setting that automatically notifies them when they have a new follower, so be sure to fill out your Twitter bio to create the professional impression you desire (e.g. what school are you at? what topics do you study?). Finally, consider asking interesting questions via Twitter and curating the responses via a service like Storify.
# Answer
> 1 votes
I am a biochem post-doc and just tried projectnudge.com for this exact situation. The site appears to be beta testing social science collaborations. I was told my posting will appear on the site soon when they start releasing the science collaboration proposals.
# Answer
> 0 votes
In the humanities, at least, websites like academia.edu are useful for following research trends and for connecting (and "following") the work of others. I've found it especially useful both for meeting folks with similar interests, and, when I've presented in or organized panels at conferences, for putting a face to someone's name while also seeing what else they get into.
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Tags: collaboration, networking, soft-skills
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thread-8930 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8930 | Should I recommend a student with a bad ideology? | 2013-03-28T08:42:59.823 | # Question
Title: Should I recommend a student with a bad ideology?
My problem is the following: I teach an honors course in an engineering discipline at a small university. (It is not exactly that, but "teaching an honors course" is a good approximation to what I do). Large US companies sometimes ask me to recommend the best students for an interview, and they are often hired. The policy of the University in general is that it doesn't discriminate on political opinions or religious beliefs or anything of that sort.
Now, I have a student who is a very nice person and has a great academic record but he supports an ideology that many would find abhorrent. (Again, this doesn't mean he is a bad person. For example, the famous mathematician and Fields Medalist Stephen Smale supported Stalinist communism in his youth, in reaction to unjust practices in the US: http://www.ams.org/notices/200011/rev-kirby.pdf ).
Now, if I recommend him, I think there's a reasonable chance he gets hired because he's pretty good in technical matters. But then I think he might really get into problems there because he supports his "bad" ideology in a rather ostentatious manner, and I'm afraid that this will reflect badly on me and on my ability to recommend other students. I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of employees would be hostile to his ideology.
Mind you, I wouldn't have hesitated for a second to give him a recommendation for graduate study, people are usually much more understanding of that sort of stuff in academia, and the only person he really would have to please in that case is his advisor, and if the student's research is good, the advisor would probably forget about all the rest. But working in the industry necessitates interaction with a lot of people, and I think his ideological views may cause problems.
What do you think I should do ? Recommend him or not ? If I don't, I feel it would be a kind of betrayal; especially since he wouldn't even know why he's not getting the interview some people less qualified than him are getting. I also have the impression I'm not the only one to have this issue with him, as he has been already "overlooked" for several positions where less qualified people succeeded.
# Answer
As stated in the other answers, no-one can coerce you to provide a recommendation, you are free to not recommend a student for any reason you choose, or no reason at all - if you are not comfortable recommending this student, then don't.
However, from your description, I would suggest that it's not the ideology at issue, but the student's interpersonal skills. I guarantee you that I have opinions that you would find absolutely abhorrent, and you have opinions that I would likewise. The point is that in a professional context we usually have the good sense to keep these things to ourselves.
It's not clear what your opinion of the student, and their suitability for the role, actually is. If you think that the way he expresses his ideology interferes with his ability do the job well, or his ideological standing is in some way relevant to the job at hand, then there is no conflict here. (For example, a raving misogynist would be completely inappropriate in a supervisory position.)
If you think that he nevertheless really would be an asset to the company, then you can either (i) informally suggest to your contact: "Here is a brilliant student who will produce technically excellent work, but be careful; he has a bit of a problem with appropriate boundaries at work." and/or (ii) write a letter that expresses his technical skills and omits any mention of personality or social skills. The omission will be loud and clear. In the end, it is up to the company to decide if the tradeoff is worth it.
> 107 votes
# Answer
I think for an appropriate answer I'd need to know exactly what the 'bad' ideology is. If it is something that could potentially be illegal or criminal, then the answer is clearly: don't recommend this person. However, if the ideology is something that is political, religious, or otherwise legal, you really can't bar this person simply because you don't agree with their allegedly 'bad' ideology. I'd even go so far as to say, if you don't recommend this person on the basis that they 'hate gays' or support socialism, you might be legally considered to be discriminating against this person. Ultimately, be subjective about this students work and objective about their qualifications.
> 57 votes
# Answer
Recommendations are an inherently subjective practice: people are free to support whomever they choose (or not to support, as the case may be).
If you do not feel that you can give someone a positive recommendation for any reason, then you are better off not doing so. If you believe that giving a positive recommendation to a candidate will damage your credibility, that of itself, I believe, is sufficient reason not to recommend someone.
On the other hand, if a company asks you simply to list, for instance, the top *X* students in your course, then you should not omit someone from that list for personal reasons; then the onus is on the company to decide who they want. Your job is to provide the objective information the company asked for.
> 27 votes
# Answer
In your question, you write:
> "Large US companies sometimes ask me to recommend the best students for an interview, and they are often hired."
I'd like to underline the words "*for an interview*" here. It doesn't look like the companies you're recommending these students for are just blindly hiring them based on your recommendation alone, *and that's a very good thing.*
It really is the interviewers' job to filter out candidates with unsuitable attitudes or insufficient interpersonal skills — that's the point of having an in-person job interview, rather than just hiring the candidate based on their CV and maybe an e-mail quiz.
Sure, it's possible that the student you're concerned about may try to be on their best behavior during the interview and downplay any problematic aspects of their personality — most people do, after all. But that's something any reasonably experience interviewer will know to account for. Also, if the student has enough self-awareness to know that they may want to downplay their ideology during the interview, they'll hopefully also be smart enough not to flaunt it excessively in the workplace either.
And conversely, this also comes down to *their* personal preferences regarding their work environment as well — if they don't feel they can be comfortable at a job where they cannot openly profess their ideology, to the extent they feel they need to, then it's unlikely that they would *completely* suppress any mention of it at the interview, either.
And if not, well, I would hope that the company also has a trial period for new hires. Most do, precisely because there are some workplace issues which may not always be caught at the interview stage.
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Coming at the question from another direction, it looks like your main *personal* concern here is that:
> "I'm afraid that this will reflect badly on me and on my ability to recommend other students."
I very much doubt that will be the case, unless you're actually being asked to personally vouch for the suitability of each recommended student to the job — a rather heavy and unusual responsibility for someone not actually working for the company.
Just make sure that you don't say anything untrue in your recommendations: if a student is lazy, don't call them hardworking, and if they are abrasive and prone to conflicts with others, don't say they're a great team player.
Personally, I'd suggest just writing up a fair recommendation of this student, focusing on their technical skills and any other aspect where they actually excel, and leaving those areas where they do not unmentioned. In particular, if you're not *sure* the student's personality would be a good fit for the company, you can just explicitly recommend the student *for an interview* at the company based on their technical skills, with an implied "just talk to this guy and see if you want him or not." Who knows, the company might be just fine with his attitude, or at least might have a slot for him where he can exercise his technical skills without it interfering too much.
(Of course, it's different if you're just being asked to send a list of names. But in that case, the company is definitely accepting the full responsibility for evaluating the candidates anyway.)
> 23 votes
# Answer
There are different levels of ideologist people. When I was a graduate student, I had friends from other religions and I had very close friendships with them, and on the other extreme, I had a classmate from the same religion as I had at the time, but I did not feel safe around him and I usually avoided any discussions with him. So I think an individual should not be judged only based on his political or religious point of view. Here the important issue is what that person is capable or willing to do because of his ideology. Is he an extremist? Is he an activist who is connected with questionable organizations? Does he have a criminal record? Is he bothering people with comments or discussions coming from his ideology? Is his actions (and his productivity) in the workplace is affected by his ideology? If I have seen one of these issues (or similar issues), I'll think twice about writing recommendation letter for him. Otherwise, I simply ignore his ideology. After all, the company is going to interview him and it is interviewers job to find out if he is a good fit for their organization.
I have to respectfully disagree with you about one thing you mentioned in your question:
> people are usually much more understanding of that sort of stuff in academia...
I don't know what your experience is in academia, but I have several very bad experiences about being judged in academia because of my point of view, my nationality, my religion, my personality, even because of my very personal issues like being single. On the contrary, I have worked and had several interviews with non-academic organizations and I have never seen such prejudices in these organizations. The reason is very simple. In business people are trying to make money and as long as you (as an employee) can help the organization to make money you are accepted and nobody cares what your ideology (race, religion, etc) is. But, in academia, money or advancement is not the first priority, and certain people can impose their will against **"officially accepted" academic goals**. Therefore it is easy to be judged in academia just because you think differently. Ironically, the fact that you have recognized this student as a person with a bad ideology shows that in academia people notice and judge people based on their ideology.
> 20 votes
# Answer
As an adherent of Objectivism (an ideology I'm sure many many academics would consider "bad"), I never had a problem with this kind of issue because I am not ostentatious about my beliefs, or the kind of person David Brin would call a "lapel grabber." It sounds like this student either is not aware or does not care that his manner of touting his beliefs makes others feel uncomfortable and alienated from him.
Here's the hard part: whether you write the recommendation or not, for the student's own sake, I suggest that you bring up this issue to him. He may decide to throw it back in your face (a pretty likely outcome if he's really in the grips of a true believer phase), but he can only benefit from hearing that his methods of pushing his beliefs are holding him back professionally and socially.
> 16 votes
# Answer
I find your question very intriguing. I have never had a problem of this magnitude but are frequently asked to write letters of recommendation and sometimes for people who I do not think are very capable and so the conundrum is there, what do you do?
If you are asked to rate people for a job where their academic merits are what counts then I think it is pretty clear that you cannot omit this person. After all, what if you recommend someone who has similar ideas but that you do not know about? The question becomes somewhat philosophical in the sense that it becomes: who's responsibility is it? Yours or the company's that hire the person? And add to that, where do you draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not? Other's may set different limits.
If the job involves tasks were the ideology might be key to the company the situation is of course worse and then it may become necessary to state the facts. But again, it is loose grounds on which we move and tactfulness is paramount.
If you are asked to write a letter of recommendation, you can of course deny based on whatever grounds (you can come up with). It is also possible to make subtle points through what you do not say in a letter. Whether such points are picked up on th eother side is difficult to say of course. But it would be possible to stress that "*academically* the person is very good" and other points along the same lines, circumventing the parts that are not something you endorse.
> 14 votes
# Answer
Supporting an ideology *in an ostentatious manner* (rather than privately or discreetly) is a *personality* problem.
Discrimination based on personality issues is fair game. Personality is relevant to employment and employability.
Someone who preaches ideology in the workplace clearly has no idea that ideological fanaticism has no place in the workplace. But that could just be because he is a student without much exposure to that world, if any.
Since this person is a student and you're the mentor, you can perhaps "fix" this person. Have a meeting and say,
> "Look, I want to recommend you for some potential employment. You have a great academic record and are qualified. But as your professor, it is my duty to you to also prepare you and all your young colleagues for the so-called "real world", in whatever little way I can. Now please stop me if I'm telling you anything you already know. What I'm concerned about that your, shall we say, exuberant enthusiasm in supporting Ideology X will create difficulties for you, if you carry it into corporate environment, which is not as tolerant as the academic environment. Modern workplaces have certain rules of conduct in place which rule out promotion of ideologies (including religions) as a form of harassment. Those rules are not intended to suppress the ideologies themselves, mind you, but only certain *behaviors* which lead to an uncomfortable workplace. So if I send some letters of recommendation and those people are interested in working with you, can you keep in mind what I just said? What you ultimately do is up to you, but I'd like to see you, and all of my students, succeed, and therefore I want to warn you of any potential stumbling blocks in your future such as this, okay?"
In other words, this can be seen as an opportunity to step into the role of educator/mentor and help the student. You and your institution helped to prepare the student so that he is recommendable for these jobs on technical grounds. (Five years ago, you could not have recommended that student yet, right?) So help the boy with something non-technical for once.
Anyway, the student's fanaticism could just be a phase of youth. A few years down the line, he may well have forgotten all about it. People can experience major ideological shifts in their life. When he owns a big property and a sizeable portfolio of equities, he will perhaps think differently.
> 9 votes
# Answer
If you can't recommend him whole-heartedly, don't recommend him. A lukewarm recommendation will be damaging for him and raise questions about you.
> 8 votes
# Answer
The fact that you have to ask yourself this question says to me that you should not recommend him...At this time. Being a teacher of any sorts has many responsibilities beyond the conveying of the subject matter of your class.
If you think this person has potential, I believe you have a responsibility to approach him on this matter. Try to keep your own feelings on his "belief system" out of it and focus on the issues with his interpersonal skills. Perhaps recommend a course or book that would help him improve in this area. This world needs good minds now more than ever.
> 6 votes
# Answer
I think you should try and figure out what your **primary** concern is; to protect your (former?) student from a potentially hostile work environment OR to protect your reputation towards companies that you have been in contact with.
* if you are primarily concerned about how the student would feel going into an environment that might turn out to be hostile towards him/her, just try to explain that his way of thinking, his belief... might not be appreciated and indeed might create tension in the future.
* If it's the latter, in other words if you are concerned about whether or not your reputation would be effected negatively; then I think you should not recommend a person that will likely not be appreciated by peers and employers.
Yet again another perspective to this is whether or not you can distance yourself from the candidate in question. I mean if company A comes to you and asks whether or not you have any talented student, you can recommend whoever, given that their academic/intellectual merits are top-notch. In that case I don't think you would be liable for any personality traits and such.
If the student wants a recommendation towards a specific company, then by giving that recommendation you essentially vouch for that person. If you don't think the student is a good fit for the company/institute, you should not recommend him/her obviously.
I apologize if my answer is a bit too vague, I feel I used too many "if"s there, but in my defense the question is pretty vague as well.
> 5 votes
# Answer
If you think he/she deserves being recommended, then do it. And don't be afraid of putting into your recommendation any peculiarities this person might have that you think are of interest to whom the recommendation is addressed.
As an example, I'd rather "warn" people at a slaughterhouse that the candidate is a vegan activist than either send a blind letter of recommendation or not sending it at all. Of course assuming the person fits the job and is recommendable *and* you think that kind of warning might avoid future problems.
If you treasure that person, then you want a good *lasting* position for her/him. Sending a recommendation that you think it will be misleading, will not have any benefit for your referee. If anything try to express why this peculiarity will not be a problem or even beneficial. If you don't think it will... then don't recommend him/her at all.
> 4 votes
# Answer
Although aeismail's answer is excellent, I will add my opinion that if the student's ideology would cause problems in the work (as implied) that is also a good reason NOT to recommend the student as it means the student would contribute negatively and would harm the company (harm team spirit or other group dynamics).
If you recommend someone who you could foresee having a negative impact on the company, then your reputation would naturally suffer (rightfully so).
It takes more than just good technical understanding to work well in a team.
> 3 votes
# Answer
In my opinion recommend him. Whatever his ideology, for you he is a best student and as per the university norms and your academical valuation he is eligible. So let him live his own life. by not recommending you cant help him to escape from "same situations" in future. May be he will change when he get into the work environment. The college life and professional life is different in my perspective. may be he will adapt with the situation.
> 3 votes
# Answer
Possibly there should be a means to describe emotional intelligence in people and elements like violent or hateful ideologies should be part of that profile. As to your immediate dilemma, I think you should make it open information in a draft format and give the student a chance to respond. I think its very important to make this sort of information available
> 3 votes
# Answer
If your only worry is a possible negative reflection on your judgement, I suggest a recommendation mentioning the students Ideology and his eagerness to share it. I'm sure the recipient will be thankful, because he won't miss out on a qualified candidate and can decide to assume him and handle the situation according to his best knowledge and/or the companies possibilities. Nowadays more companies than one would think have professional coaching services for their employees! Hope you will recommend him.
> 3 votes
# Answer
The main question here:
> is he doing something against the law?
If NOT then judge him **based on the field merit** nothing more nothing less.
I really hate it when academics judge students based on their ideology/race/religion..etc. Academia is diverse; you will see different students from different cultures, now If you feel uncomfortable with one culture/ideology, then do not let that affect your fairness to the students. If I were you, I can't let my believe in an ideology affects supporting my brilliant student.
> 3 votes
# Answer
As soon as you will send the recommendation letter directly to the companies, can't you simply warn about this concern in your letter? Then it is their responsibility to talk about it with your student, during the interview; and to decide if his positions and attitude is acceptable to them...
> 1 votes
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Tags: recommendation-letter
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thread-8835 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8835 | How do you make connections to faculty outside your department? | 2013-03-23T18:36:20.880 | # Question
Title: How do you make connections to faculty outside your department?
I feel like the answer to this question should be obvious, but it doesn't seem to be.
Anyway, in my second year on the tenure track, I find myself more confined to my corner of the ivory tower than I intended to be, and would like to branch out and meet other faculty in other areas.
My research (in theoretical math) is very specialized, so I don't have collaborations in mind. Also I would rather not volunteer for university-wide committees, as these look rather boring and I don't find myself inspired by the administration's pet projects.
Rather, I have in mind something intellectual and *fun*, that recaptures some of the enjoyment of being an undergraduate and hopefully leading to making new friends. For example, semi-public lectures on chemistry, theology, art history, virtually anything intellectual, ideally followed by discussions and debates over beer...
Obviously, the first step is to do a better job of carefully looking for opportunities at my particular university. (These have been a bit hard to suss out, but I could stand to look harder). Nevertheless I would be interested to hear success stories. What have people done to make connections outside their own field of interest?
Thank you!
# Answer
> 14 votes
I organized a beer night for tenure-track profs in our department (and this was later expanded to related departments). the basic rules were: it's once a month, anyone is welcome, and it happens even if I'm the only one at the bar :).
Do you have one person from a different department you can start this up with ? set up a mailing list and ask around to get maybe another 1-2 people involved. Start doing this regularly, and never lose a chance to mention this when talking to professors.
Word will spread. Tenure-track profs need support groups. Our beer night is very popular :).
# Answer
> 5 votes
I think this problem is very common.
I'm no expert in making new friends but I can tell you what work out for me in my internship at UT.
Starting from the lab, we use to hang out for coffee and talking about everything, most of the time it was not about the lab work. This was awesome, especially for an better understanding of the culture, food, girls... stuff like that. Dinners are also very good for socializing.
The housing service was also cool, they organized movie streaming sessions and social events, usually with free food (which means a lot a people and something to talk about).
Finally, when I did more and much stronger friendships was at church (I'm Seventh Day Adventist), people received me really, really well. Not directly related with the academia, but there lots of students in church and we talked a lot about our field of expertise.
Probably the most important thing here is find things you have in commom with other people so you have something to talk about and find more stuff, and so on. Sometimes is right in our faces and we don't see it.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Just start showing up to seminars in other departments. At my university, there are several different email lists that send out "Events this week." Seek out some talks are interesting and go. Maybe start with closely allied departments (CS, Stats, Physics). Then talk to the speaker if it was interesting, even if it's just to say "Hi, I'm \[XYZ\] from the department of \[ZYX\]. I really enjoyed your talk."If the speaker is internal then all the better, if from off-campus then there will certainly be other local people talking. I've had a blast doing this at talks completely outside of my field.
One of the very best things about being an academic is the sheer number of different interesting things that are happening on a university at any time. Academics are driven by curiosity, and a university is a smorgasbord of things to learn. You say that your research won't lead to collaborations, but you never know.
If you really want to stick your neck out, start an interdisciplinary seminar series. Seek out connections between disparate departments and fields.
As a side note: junior faculty should avoid committees above the department level if at all possible. Your department should shield you from these responsibilities. Your job right now is getting tenure. Those committees are for those with tenure.
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Tags: university, community
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thread-8978 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8978 | How much of a "personal touch" on dissertation is OK? | 2013-03-29T14:03:57.163 | # Question
Title: How much of a "personal touch" on dissertation is OK?
I don't know if this is the case at other institutions but at my university dissertations are published as A5-size books/booklets. There are some regulations on how the formatting is supposed to be but it's pretty relaxed otherwise. Common practice is that the PhD candidate designs the cover themselves.
Typically these covers feature an image relating to the work the person has done in the lab; a molecule, a graph, a microscopy shot etc. Recently a colleague of mine put a painting of herself on the cover. Just for the sake of clarity, not a painting she's done, but rather a painting of her made by someone else. This has raised some discussion among the younger students, such as myself. Thus I wonder, how much of a personal touch is OK really? Would something like I described above be seen as an ego-thing by a potential employer? I am of the opinion that it might be seen as a lack of modesty or "self-distance" (quotes are there as I am not sure if this expression exists in english).
Am I being too critical? As it's a multi-cultural international group of academics here, I wonder if there is a consensus regarding such "customization" of the dissertation.
# Answer
This probably depends a lot on how things work at your university. In the cases I'm familiar with (U.S. math departments), there are only four types of people who have an opinion about your dissertation:
1. You.
2. Your thesis commitee, particularly your advisor.
3. The bureaucrat who measures the margins and decides whether your paper is fancy enough.
4. Family members and friends who will want to take a look at the nicely bound volume and make polite comments.
Nobody else will pay any attention to your dissertation, unless you do an inadequate job of publishing its contents (in which case someone might be forced to look it up), you become very famous (in which case it will be an interesting historical document), or you do something so weird in it that people pass around copies for the amusement or shock value.
The painting on the cover might fall into the last category if it looks pompous or strange enough. However, most personal touches are not a problem if the four groups mentioned above don't care. Furthermore, the bureaucrat won't care unless you violate a known rule or do something so awful that they feel the need to dig up an obscure rule, and your family doesn't get a vote (you'll just be embarrassed if they think you've done something silly).
So the short answer is "ask your advisor".
> 10 votes
# Answer
Typically, you want as few "personal touches" on your dissertation as possible, as each one will increase time between your submitting it and the university accepting it. There are many places to assert your individuality within the research community (your speaking style, your writing style in your publications, the types of research problems you tackle, your mentoring style), but this is not one of them.
> 8 votes
# Answer
We have a very similar practice here, although I think our booklets are usually a little bigger (B5-sized instead of A5). Looking at the local university press guidelines for dissertation writers (in Finnish, sorry; there's an English version, but I couldn't find anything similar there), they say (translation mine):
> "The cover should describe the content of the thesis and invite one to read it. The cover may either be purely textual, or it may include pictorial elements. For textual covers, it is worth paying attention to typography and text layout.
>
> If you want a picture on the cover, it can be either a picture from your thesis, a picture chosen by yourself or an illustration selected by our graphic designers. \[...\]
>
> If the thesis is published as part of a series, however, the cover must follow the graphical guidelines of the series."
Putting a picture of yourself on the cover of your thesis seems a little unusual, because the cover is normally supposed to illustrate the *thesis*, and the person presumably didn't write her thesis about herself. However, as long as there's nothing clearly inappropriate about the cover (I *assume* it was a picture of her *face*...), it seems to be her choice to make.
Does that mean you should follow her example? Probably not, at least unless you believe there's something for you to gain by doing that.
Does it mean you should try to come up with a nice, elegant and unique design, illustrative of your chosen topic, for your thesis cover? Certainly, if you can! (Having friends or relatives who happen to be artists or graphic designers can help here.) At least, it won't hurt, and it just might increase the chances of someone picking it up and reading it.
Does it mean you should stress about it? Certainly not — "a molecule, a graph, a microscopy shot etc." are all perfectly good choices for a thesis cover, and a text-only cover is a perfectly fine choice too.
> 2 votes
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Tags: thesis
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thread-8983 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8983 | How do I sign my papers? | 2013-03-29T15:56:20.860 | # Question
Title: How do I sign my papers?
My name is Jorge Fernández de Cossío Díaz. In my country, we have two last names: the first (Fernández de Cossío) comes from the father side, and the second (Díaz) comes from the mother side.
I have been suggested various signatures:
* "J. Fernandez-de-Cossio Diaz", without the accents, since I've been told that this helps search engines locate my paper. The hyphens supposedly help the search engines to not mistake Fernandez-de-Cossio with two or three last names.
* "J. Fernández-de-Cossío Díaz" (with the accents, since that's how my is actually name spelled)
* "J. Fernández de Cossío Díaz"
* "Jorge Fernández de Cossío Díaz"
You can suggest new ones. I want to make sure that the search engines and citation indexes, etc, do not get confused. Also, if in my CV I write my name as "Jorge Fernández de Cossío Díaz", will it be ok if the papers are signed as "J. Fernandez-de-Cossio Diaz"?
# Answer
In principle, you can use any professional name you like to sign your papers. I have a few colleagues whose *nom de plume* (or perhaps *nom de LaTeX*?) is not the same as their legal name.
But by default, I would recommend signing your papers *precisely* as you sign anything else, including spaces and accents:
> Jorge Fernández de Cossío Díaz
It would be helpful for people citing your papers to state, somewhere in your CV and on your professional web page, that your last name contains three spaces. And you'll have to correct copy-editors who incessantly abbreviate it as "J. F. C. Díaz", but you'd have to do that with the other suggested variants anyway. Modern search engines have no trouble with accents.
> 8 votes
# Answer
While this decision should really be up to you, and all that you need to ensure is that you're consistent in using the same name, I'll share an anecdote, which might give you a different perspective on long names.
There was a researcher who, presumably from a similar culture/country as you, had a long name, which for the sake of anonymity, I'll call *L. Ipsum Dolór de Sit Amét*. In many journals, the rule for truncating multiple authors to *et al.* is (if using author names in citations, instead of numbers):
* 2 authors — explicitly name both
* 3 authors or more — explicitly name first and truncate the rest
(Some publishers name all authors if up to 3 total and name 2 and truncate the rest if 4 or more, etc., but the general idea remains the same)
Now someone I knew, had to cite a few papers of Dr. Ipsum Dolór de Sit Amét. Although the primary papers were by "J. SingleLongName and L. Ipsum Dolór de Sit Amét" and "L. Ipsum Dolór de Sit Amét and P. SomeoneElse", there was a closely related followup/auxiliary paper written by "P. SomeoneElse, L. Ipsum Dolór de Sit Amét and J. SingleLongName" which also briefly touches upon (as a background) the material in the other two and cite them.
Now this person was in a dilemma. Referring to the first two explicitly where ever they needed to, took up about three-four lines in a two column journal paper, leading to repeated breaks in the flow of reading. On the other hand, "SomeoneElse et al." was short, memorable and saved space and also contained the relevant idea being referenced to. So in the end, the person chose to cite all three once in the introduction, and use "SomeoneElse et al." everywhere else in the article (effectively making it seem more important than it is). You'd be surprised, but this is not an uncommon occurrence at all.
Now there are different ways to look at it — some might say it was unethical (extreme) or unfair to not cite the canonical article just because of the length of their name. Some might say that while they probably wouldn't do it, there is no *real harm*™ done, because regardless of the number of times it is mentioned in the body, it appears only once in the list of references and the web spiders will pick it up correctly. Few more might say that it doesn't matter since it's the same set of authors and if you drill down, it is obvious which is the canonical reference. Well, I'm not here to argue for or against any of that. But I will point out that a big impact of someone doing this is that **your name loses visibility** (not an issue in journals that use numbers for references) and people will only remember it as "SomeoneElse" and a bunch of others. Perhaps you're a special cookie that remembers all 5 authors of every paper, but I don't and many others I know don't.
So if this is a concern, you can use it in full, but abbreviate it to a short one. For instance, use Jorge Fernández de Cossío Díaz in the author list under the title, but in the "cite as" section, use **J. F. C. Díaz** or **J. F-C. Díaz**.
> 7 votes
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Tags: publications, citations
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thread-2055 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2055 | Should I respond to emails (resembling spams) asking for my papers? | 2012-06-18T19:12:01.420 | # Question
Title: Should I respond to emails (resembling spams) asking for my papers?
I started to get emails like this:
> From: Firstname Middlename Lastname `<someotherfirstname0000@hotmail>`~
>
> Title of paper.
>
> I need the article to study.
>
> thank you!
>
> Firstname Middlename Lastname
Title of paper identifying one of my papers.
Is this the beginning of academic spam or phishing? Do you get such stuff regularly?
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**The first reaction** I had was to answer with an ironic version of how I'd like such an email to look and how I'd have answered it.
**On a second thought** I decided that the email was so rude that I won't answer it.
After a few hours I got the very same email a second time. I noticed that the sender name is not the one of the names in the "signature". Also, the sender is rather unknown to the more relevant part of the internet (including pubmed).
# Answer
> 12 votes
I don't even think this is for harvesting papers. My guess: it is to validate email addresses so that actual spam campaigns can achieve a better return on investment.
# Answer
> 6 votes
The worst case of responding is a little more spam, so I would respond. I often find myself in a culture slash between what I consider rude and students consider acceptable email behavior. It wouldn't surprise me if a number of students were prepping for an exam and all wanted your paper.
As for the paper phishing bot, it seems like it would be more efficient to use student library access to download papers (automatically) than to collect them via email.
# Answer
> 2 votes
The beginning and the end of your account contradict each other, so I do not understand if you got this message many times, from several different addresses, or once or twice, from the same person.
In the first case, it definitely seems a spam-like behavior.
In the second, it could be a honest message from a grad student with poor English knowledge. Check if the names are compatible with this explanation; if so, I would definitely answer. It could even earn you a citation. :)
# Answer
> -4 votes
My guess is it's someone setting up a bot to try and get research articles for free. Once your paper is published, the copyright is owned by the journal. Unless you paid for open access, you are breaking the copyright by sharing the article. In addition, you are probably also breaking the terms of the subscription to the journal your university has.
**In other words, ignore the email!**
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Tags: publications, email, spam
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thread-8893 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8893 | Which topics should be covered in a teaching statement? | 2013-03-26T20:34:38.537 | # Question
Title: Which topics should be covered in a teaching statement?
In mathematics, submitting a teaching statement (also called teaching philosophy or similar names) is part of the application package for any teaching jobs (and most research jobs). I suspect it is a part of the application for academic jobs in other disciplines too. I have written a teaching statement and I rewrite and modify it every now and then. Since I wrote it myself I think it is perfect and I cannot detect its possible flaws and mistakes. Therefore, I am looking for tips and advice for improving my teaching statement. I particularly appreciate any advices from people who are involved in hiring committees. My questions are:
Which topics would members of search committees like to see in a teaching statement? or alternatively, which mistakes in a teaching statement can ruin an applicants' chances for getting an interview?
In order to make this Q&A useful for others, I didn't restrict it to mathematicians. However, I'll appreciate if someone has a specific advice for writing teaching statements for mathematics jobs.
# Answer
First things first:
> Since I wrote it myself I think it is perfect and I cannot detect its possible flaws and mistakes.
It is imperative that you have someone else read over your statement with a critical eye and with the experience to provide quality feedback. You'd be surprised at what you can miss in your own writing, and how the tone may come across different to others.
> Which topics would members of search committees like to see in a teaching statement?
This will be dependent on the type of department you are applying to -- at many institutions, research ability trumps teaching, and your statement might not count for much (see below for a caveat about being too gung-ho). Assuming the reason you are asked for a teaching statement is because the department that is hiring does value teaching, I suggest the following:
1. Demonstrate your understanding that math is difficult for some students, particularly as it gets more abstract. If you can, provide a brief example of a topic that was hard to teach and how you ended up teaching it.
2. Provide examples of how you changed your teaching based on student feedback or your own assessment. Showing that as a professor, you'll continually try to improve your teaching goes a long way.
3. Talk about curriculum development -- if you have ever designed a course, make sure you mention it. Describe what you enjoyed about the course development process, and how you addressed the challenges.
4. Try to convey your passion for teaching -- some of the best teachers are the most passionate, and if you can get that across (only if it is true, of course!), all the better.
> Which mistakes in a teaching statement can ruin an applicants' chances for getting an interview?
1. As with any writing, poor grammar demonstrates a lack of attention to detail (or ability), and that will torpedo your application. Again, have others read it over and provide feedback.
2. If you are applying to a school where teaching takes a back seat to research, don't make it sound like you live for teaching; you don't want to say that you've stayed up all night crafting the perfect lesson when you should have been doing research.
3. Don't be boring! This could be a difficult one depending on your writing style. I've seen teaching statements that made it sound like the teacher would be the most boring professor in the world. Again, examples from your own teaching can help make the writing more interesting.
Finally, your teaching statement can be more personal than your research statement, so it is okay to let that come out a bit more. Demonstrating why you'll be a good teacher is the most important part, and this should be apparent in the essay.
*Edit*: I should add -- as with any other letter or statement, you should feel free to craft different letters for different jobs. If you're applying to a college where professors teach three or four classes per semester, you can expect they will pay more attention to your teaching statement, and you should taylor it appropriately.
> 16 votes
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Tags: career-path, mathematics, job-search, faculty-application, teaching-statement
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thread-8988 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8988 | How necessary is a List of Figures and a List of Tables in a dissertation? | 2013-03-29T17:19:51.260 | # Question
Title: How necessary is a List of Figures and a List of Tables in a dissertation?
I am writing my dissertation (word-limit 10,000 words) and am wondering if I should include a separate *List of Figures* and *List of Tables* Section after my Table of Contents? The university guidelines do not specify whether they're required or not.
I will have about 3 figures and 4 tables when I'm finished.
# Answer
> 6 votes
To be honest, with a short dissertation with only a few figures and tables, it probably doesn't really matter one way or the other.
If your institution's dissertation guidelines say anything about it, follow them. If not, I'd say just include the lists, unless you feel you have some good reason not to. In which case, don't. Your advisor should let you know if they believe such lists should be added or removed, anyway.
Or you could just ask your advisor about it to begin with.
# Answer
> 4 votes
You should definitely ask your advisor but normally you only need a list of tables or a list of figures if there will be more than 5 items in the list. For three or four items, I would not include a list.
However, in the schools I am familiar with, there are clear dissertation guidelines so it is understood what is expected. If it is unspecified then I would go with what I said above.
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Tags: thesis, formatting
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thread-7508 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7508 | How do I get recommendation letters? | 2013-01-27T06:08:56.640 | # Question
Title: How do I get recommendation letters?
I have had a different set of professors every semester and as batch sizes are pretty big ~80, and with every professor dealing with 3-4 separate batches of equivalent size, for barely 3-4 months at a time, it has been hard to develop one to one relationships with professors. In such a scenario,
* How do I decide whom to approach for a recommendation?
* How should I go about this to get a good recommendation, in this specific scenario?
# Answer
> 8 votes
Given the OP’s situation explained in his question and the following comments that he has trouble with getting recommendation letters written by his professors themselves, if I were him I would
> > Find the professor who would write the recommendation letter himself.
> >
> > Find the professor who taught the class which I had very good grade.
> >
> > Find the professor who taught the class in which I was most interested.
Usually, I need three recommendation letters. Now, I have three.
My personal experience is that I tend to have good grades when taking the class I am very interested. If I had good grade in a class I was interested, the chances are the professor would remember me and more willing to write the recommendation letter himself for me.
# Answer
> 6 votes
In addition to scaahu's fine answer, even though I know it is difficult in some places, I would emphasize that students should begin to develop personal relationships with professors *long before* you need one to write a recommendation letter.
My experience is even with mass lecture classes like you describe (and those aren't even that massive - but 3-4 mass lectures are quite a few per semester) if you take the time to meet with the professor, ask for extra curricular work (e.g. to be involved with projects the professors are conducting), or be very active and engaged within class you can develop that relationship a professors needs to write a quality recommendation letter.
# Answer
> 5 votes
While both saaahu's answer and Andy W's answer are on target, I will add my thoughts.
Make yourself known to the prof from whom you want the letter. You can do this in many ways. If you sit in the front or are particularly active in that class, the prof will naturally remember you (and naturally feel more comfortable that he/she know enough about you to write a recommendation letter).
If you want a letter from someone whose class you took a while ago and you did not do anything to stand out, then you must take up some extra work now (see if you can help that prof with some projects so he/she can get to know you more).
For me, I don't expect students to develop a relationship with me long before they need a letter but I do expect them to make their abilities known to me. I've had students who are silent in my classes then come to me and ask for a reference. When I tell them 'sorry, I don't know enough about you' they get a little sad but they also understand quite quickly when I explain things to them.
So, if you want a letter, help the prof to help you.
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Tags: professorship, recommendation-letter, internship
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thread-8967 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8967 | On the definition of research | 2013-03-29T04:20:20.327 | # Question
Title: On the definition of research
I'm writing a proposal to acquire funding for a competition to be hosted at my university. The competitors are restricted to graduate students who are engaged in *research* under the auspicies of a faculty advisor from my university. In the process of making my proposal more clear and precise, I find myself struggling with the problem of defining what exactly is (and more importantly, what *isn't*) research.
At first, I equated *research* with *publishable* in a peer reviewed journal, but I soon realized that the terms *publishable* and *peer reviewed* would have to be defined... And even if I do that, then I would have to define the words that I used to define those words, et cetera ad nauseam.
I want to approach it the same way I would approach mathematical set theory: it's either research or it's not, and there should be no room for ambiguity. But I suspect that any attempt to define *research* this way will certainly either circumscribe or inscribe the set of all things we call research.
I don't think this is necessarily the best way to approach defining what is research, especially for my purposes. Is there another way I can approach clarifying what constitutes *research* as opposed to other publishable works in the context of academia?
# Answer
> 6 votes
For purposes like this, I would define *research* as **loosely, broadly, and generically** as possible. If your definition is too strict, then you exclude valid efforts, and you will likely be bound by the language in your proposal.
For example, if you define research to be "scientific investigation," then you exclude the humanities. If you define research as "investigative work leading to a peer-reviewed publication or conference presentation," then you may inadvertently exclude unpublishable and unpublished results.
If the requirements of the agency do not specify the need for a definition of research, then do not supply one. If you are writing to an agency that regularly supports research proposals, then there is no need to define research - they know what it is. If you are writing to an atypical funding source, like a business, local government, or charity, then they would probably rather you be inclusive (and thus generic) unless you have specific instructions otherwise. Leave the job of deciding whether an entry is qualified research to the judges of the composition.
If you feel that you absolutely need a definition, then "investigative work" is probably generic enough. Your institution's Office of the Provost may also have an "official" definition of research for your institution.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I suspect that, for your question to be properly answerable, you'd first need to define what you *want* to mean by "research". In particular, from what you write:
> "The competitors are restricted to graduate students who are engaged in *research* under the auspicies of a faculty advisor from my university."
I gather that your university also has some graduate students who *don't* do anything you would call research, or you wouldn't feel the need to be so specific.
So, what is it that these students, which you want to exclude from the competition, do instead? Just coursework? If so, why not just write **"research (not merely coursework)"** or something like that?
(If you *do* want a fancy definition of "research", I'd go with something like "original work intended to contribute to the body of academic knowledge". But you'd probably be better served by just explicitly stating what kinds of student activities you want to include or exclude from your admission criteria.)
# Answer
> 2 votes
Have you verified that the definition isn't provided by the competition itself? Typically, there are pretty well-defined guidelines as to who is and is not eligible to apply for a given contest (i.e., "only full-time students", or "only students currently funded under a research grant"). I would definitely either contact the competition sponsor or check their website to ensure that they haven't already defined what does and does not count as research.
# Answer
> -2 votes
How about trying to define research would it help to spcify "Scientific Research". Since research is a search for new knowledge it is thus a wide term. Since `Science` is defined as "the body of reliable knowledge itself, of the type that can be logically and rationally explained" (shamelessly stolen from the wiki page for Science) the word scientific would exclude everything not included in the definition. Or, is there any academic research that does not qualify as science?
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Tags: research-process
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thread-9009 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9009 | Where can I get presentation slides of research papers | 2013-03-30T18:40:23.297 | # Question
Title: Where can I get presentation slides of research papers
When I go through the `Abstract` section of a research paper and find a subject that I'm interested in, then I go through the whole paper. But going through the whole of it, takes lots of extra time getting things, that I'm already familiar with, to get familiar with other similar things, and to grasp the author's overall idea. Rather, I found, `Presentation Slides` very helpful to me to quickly grasp everything.
I found lots of presentation slides at slideshare.net. Are there any other site where I can get the `Presentation Slide`'s of research papers?
# Answer
A common problem, when you're starting to familiarize yourself with academic literature, is getting stuck on a particular detail which you don't fully understand. If you don't allow yourself to read further before you've understood the difficult bit, you may *never* manage to finish the paper.
The advice I've most often been given for such situations, which I would also strongly endorse from personal experience, is to set the problematic point aside (maybe making a note in the margin, if you're reading a paper copy, or the electronic equivalent if your reader supports such) and just keep reading. There are several reasons to do that:
* The issue you got stuck on might be explained later in the paper, or it might become clear from context what the confusing part actually means.
* If something seems wrong, it might actually be: mistakes do creep into even the best papers. Often, the errors that do slip through are the ones that more experienced readers may not even notice, since they know what the text is clearly *supposed* to say, and thus automatically and unconsciously correct it while reading. In such cases, reading the rest of the paper might make it clearer whether what looks like an error actually is one.
* If you get to the end of the paper, and still feel like there's something you haven't understood, it may be clearer once you come back to it. Or, if not, you can always show the paper later to someone more familiar with the topic and ask if they can explain the issue.
* It's also possible that, even if you never do manage to understand some detail of a paper, you may still get something else useful out of it: the detail might not actually be essential to the main conclusion of the paper.
In fact, I'd go further and suggest that, on your first pass through a paper, you shouldn't even *try* to understand everything in it. Just skim the paper briefly to get a general feel for how it's structured and what the authors are aiming for, maybe stopping to look at any interesting figures. Once you've done that, you can go back and read any interesting sections more carefully.
In particular, many academic papers tend to follow a general structure where the introduction describes the context and the problem, the "conclusions" section at the end describes the (proposed) solution, and everything in between just documents the (often tedious and abstruse) process of getting from one to the other. To quickly go through such papers, it's often a good idea to "eat the dessert first", skipping to the conclusions section immediately after (or even during or before) the introduction. Once you know what the authors have actually concluded, it's often much easier to follow the description of how they got there.
> 6 votes
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Tags: research-process, publications, presentation
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thread-9011 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9011 | Is teaching calculus important for getting a job as a university professor in mathematics? | 2013-03-30T19:50:30.657 | # Question
Title: Is teaching calculus important for getting a job as a university professor in mathematics?
I am a master's student currently deciding between two different Ph. D. programs in mathematics. The two programs have very different teaching opportunities as a grad student. One of the two programs I'm applying to allows (and encourages) students to teach a first-year calculus course, and the other one does not. However, I would be able to teach a college algebra or precalculus course at the other school. Would it reflect badly on me as a job applicant if I have no experience teaching calculus?
# Answer
I would be truly shocked if any hiring committee cared at all about whether you taught calculus versus pre-calculus. Doing well at either would show that you can adequately handle teaching service classes.
> 28 votes
# Answer
Part of the answer depends on your prospective area of expertise. Usually math professors teach the undergraduate courses that are closer to their research area. So, if you work in analysis, you will likely be assigned a calculus course; if you study algebraic geometry, you will probably get an introductory abstract algebra course; if you do research in Riemannian geometry, linear algebra.
That said, I would not worry much about which course you teach at this point. **This distinction should not be your primary concern** in deciding between two PhD programs. Any teaching experience will do for now, and you will have many opportunities to compensate in future. Moreover, most hiring committees will focus more on your research activity than on your teaching in any case.
> 7 votes
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Tags: job, teaching, mathematics
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