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thread-21630 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21630 | Might colleges and universities not consider me for an assistant professor position because I'm a professional tutor in addition to being a teacher? | 2014-05-29T05:26:26.597 | # Question
Title: Might colleges and universities not consider me for an assistant professor position because I'm a professional tutor in addition to being a teacher?
I'm a physical scientist, having completed both my Ph.D. and postdoc at top 5 U.S. universities. After working in industry for more than 10 years, I decided it was time for a career switch to academia, not due to economic reasons, however due to a strong passion for teaching.
I taught for 5 years in graduate school, and established my own private tutoring service years ago. In total, I've been tutoring for more than 12 years. Recently I spent one (1) year teaching at a top 10 public university, and am now teaching at a community college.
During spring 2014, I sent out ~32 assistant professor applications, and heard back only from one school. I interviewed there, however did not get the position.
**QUESTION: Is there a possibility that, once discovering my tutoring service (simply a matter of a Google search), colleges and universities might not want to hire me?**
Interested only in science education research, my passion is exclusively in teaching at the undergraduate level, and I've used the tutoring to hone my skills over the years. Understanding exactly where students experience the pitfalls of my branch of physical science has provided me with a unique insight into teaching, however I'm not certain everyone perceives it this way.
I very much appreciate anyone who indicate whether or not the image of a tutor might take a toll in terms of applications and interviews.
Thank you! Pensive
# Answer
> 8 votes
> I decided it was time for a career switch to academia,\[...\], due to a strong passion for teaching.
As others have already mentioned,
* sending out 32 apps and getting one interview might actually be a good success rate in physics.
* your absence from academic research for 10 years (if indeed you've been absent in the publications game) is a much bigger issue than your private tutoring service.
But I wonder also where you're applying. If you're focused on teaching, but are applying to R1 schools where research is the main focus, then you're less likely to get any traction (especially if you indicate this love for teaching in your applications). I realize that this sounds awfully cynical, but the fact is that at research-focused universities you're competing with people with heavy research profiles and an unbroken sequence of postdocs and publications.
At a more teaching-focused school, it's possible that your tutoring experience will be viewed as a positive, because it demonstrates a track record and commitment to teaching.
# Answer
> 6 votes
The only thing I could see that might be a negative about having this service would be the possibility of creating a conflict of interest—you should not be a university professor while simultaneously offering *paid* tutoring services in disciplines you would be teaching. In that sense, you'd be "double dipping," and it would be a serious ethical issue—are you somehow "rewarding" students who sign up for such a service?
You could address these concerns directly in your statement, if you feel it's appropriate enough. More likely than not, however, it's just a numbers game. With hundreds of applications for any open position, and only a handful of candidates to be interviewed, you probably "met expectations."
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Tags: teaching, job-search, science, rejection, assistant-professor
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thread-21574 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21574 | Is it ethical to submit a paper with the name of a co-author who cannot be contacted? | 2014-05-28T10:16:23.297 | # Question
Title: Is it ethical to submit a paper with the name of a co-author who cannot be contacted?
The paper in question is based on research my collaborator X and I did together some months ago. Our respective contributions to the research were around 2/3 for X and 1/3 for me. In terms of the actual text of the paper, X wrote about 1/3 and I wrote about 2/3.
During the writing of the actual paper, X decided to leave academia. I can no longer contact X: emails to the old address go undelivered and there is no forwarding address for physical mail. Attempts to find X through web searches and contact X through mutual acquaintances have been unsuccessful. X has thus not seen a complete draft of the paper, only the sections that were actually written by X.
In these circumstances, is it ethical for me to submit a paper with X's name on it, without a complete version having been checked by X and without X's approval?
If I do submit it, should it contain a note of the fact that X was unable to check the completed paper? I am considering the hypothetical possibility that I could have inadvertently introduced an error while writing the complete paper (and such an error might survive through peer-review and into publication); responsibility for such an error should be mine alone.
There is no possibility of separating out my contribution into a separate paper. Either the work has to be published as a whole or not at all.
I am in a field where alphabetical listing of authors is standard, so there is no question of the order of authors.
# Answer
> 66 votes
This is actually the subject of a blog post over at Adventures in Ethics and Science. In general, it seems that several possible actions are defensible. However, whatever action you take, you should make sure to
1. Document your efforts to reach your co-author
2. Let the journal editor know at submission time what's going on
RetractionWatch is full of stories papers that were retracted for having been submitted without a co-author's knowledge. These steps can help you avoid that fate.
Given you've done 1 and 2, your choices are then:
* Include the co-author, despite the radio silence, or
* Acknowledge the co-author
The problem with the first choice is that authorship signals endorsement of the paper's contents. If the missing co-author has not read and endorsed the final contents, having his name as an author is misleading. However, you can resolve this to some degree by including an explicit statement (e.g., in a footnote) that Author X could not be reached to review the final version of the paper.
The applicability of this choice also depends very much on **the journal’s official policy** and what responsibilities each of the persons listed as authors have met. I'm sure we can all agree that it would be out of bounds to forge the missing co-author's signature on a form that needs to be submitted with the manuscript! However, even if *you* have to sign a form stating that all the authors have reviewed the manuscript, you shouldn't do that either - tell the editor you can't, and explain why.
The problem with the second choice (acknowledgement instead of authorship) is that the missing co-author has presumably done enough to warrant authorship of the paper. However, you could argue that an essential part of authorship is to see the paper through to publication - and that if the missing co-author has not done that, he does not deserve authorship. Again, if you do this, you must clearly document the author's contribution in the acknowledgements and alert the editor.
Which action you choose will probably depend on authorship standards in your field and the outcome of your conversation with the editor. Whatever the result, make sure you clearly and honestly communicate the contributions (and lack thereof) of the missing co-author to both your readers and the editor.
# Answer
> 26 votes
If you can *document* that you have made a good faith effort to find X, and have been unsuccessful, I would think you would be covered on both the legal and ethical fronts. There's no reason for all *your* work to go to waste just because your associate has gone into hiding. If the publisher/journal won't accept them as an author without their signed release, publish it under your name and very prominently acknowledge their contribution (as a special note in the introduction). Make sure the journal is aware of this special case, so neither you nor the journal are blind-sided if X shows up. Note that you have been unable to contact them and would appreciate hearing from anyone who can reach them (and, needless to say, readers will likely have a hard time contacting them).
If you decide to publish "jointly", explain in an introductory note that X did not review the final work, any errors are solely yours, etc.
Do you know for sure that they simply left academia, and didn't in fact die? Have you checked "white pages" phone listings? Have you checked online death records?
# Answer
> 17 votes
The story makes me a bit concerned about the safety and well-being of X. I might try to vocalize that concern to X's former department head and see whether she has anything to say to allay it. If really not, then perhaps you might try: "I am concerned that X might be a missing person. Would you be willing to help me contact the authorities about this?"
Somehow though the vibe I am getting from you is that X really just definitely left his own career and does not care or want to be contacted by his former colleagues. Academics are famous for being a little distant, but truly making oneself unable to be reached is quite unprofessional and even irresponsible behavior. How much can you worry about the future academic career of someone who is willing to sever all contact with his former coworkers for the indefinite future? It is very strange and by the way disrespectful to you: did he say anything to you about your project or did he just completely leave you in the lurch?
Let's hope that X is still alive and well, but he certainly sounds like he had a dramatic "death" in the sense that Paul Erdos used the word: i.e., he has brusquely left the academic community. So I think that dealing with this as you would if he were actually deceased sounds strange at first but is a reasonable way to go.
In this circumstance I would do as @Dirk suggested: don't put X's name on the paper. ~~Dead men don't write papers.~~ Less preciously, there is an inherent dishonesty in listing someone as a coauthor in this situation. Rather you should carefully explain the part of the work that was due to X and that you unfortunately lost all contact with X and are forced to write and submit the paper on your own. Should you expect to have to explain yourself -- and in particular, explain that you did try the things that everyone (including me) thinks should have worked to reach X -- to a journal editor? Yes, absolutely. Is this going to create additional hardship for you in trying to publish the paper? Yes, it certainly might. It's kind of a crappy situation for you, honestly. But I don't see what else to do.
# Answer
> 11 votes
\[This was mentioned as a comment to the question, but since a couple of people thought it useful, I'm promoting it to an answer.\]
If your colleague X was a foreigner, try contacting the people at his university (usually a separate office or division) who handle paperwork for foreigners. The US govt tends to require a lot of information about foreigners when granting visas. They might have a forwarding address or phone numbers or something, maybe in his home country. You might have to go through X's ex-department if the people performing these services refuse to give information, citing confidentiality issues.
As far as whether to include X's name as a co-author, add him to acknowledgements, or omit him entirely, I would lean towards not including him as a co-author, but including him in the acknowledgements, and adding a note that you would like to have him as a co-author, but don't feel you can reasonably do so; and including a brief description of the circumstances. It is unclear whether acknowledgements require permission, in fact I asked a question about exactly that some time ago. Generally, I play it safe and ask for permission, but under the circumstances, I don't think anyone will blame you if you don't.
# Answer
> 8 votes
Typically, yes, it would be unethical. You should always allow co-authors the chance to review a paper.
However, this case of *missing co-author* is a different situation.. I'm sure if you try harder, you could find X. If you have exhausted all resources and absolutely cannot find X, you might consider bending the "rules" a bit and publish the paper with X's name.
You might also consider contacting the journal editor for their feedback.
# Answer
> 7 votes
Your university/department probably has a protocol for investigating research malpractice (ie the people who would be responsible for any disciplinary investigation if the "missing author" made a complaint about the route you eventually choose). I suggest you approach them for advice now. And definitely approach the journal editor for advice - they may have seen this before.
Ethically, there is no perfect solution. One thing to weigh up when considering whether the missing author should be an author: are your results controversial in any way? Do you have any reason to think that the missing author might disagree to any significant extent with what you've written? If so, this should weigh heavily in your ethical analysis of the various options.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I am surprised that a certain issue has not been raised here:
# Copyright
Depending on the country the copyright of his work may either lay with him or the university. If the **university** owns the copyright for his work than indeed with proper permissions from the publisher and proper acknowledgments it would be quite ethical to publish such a work. If however the **author** still owns the copyright it would be absolutely illegal to publish his works without his consent. Now, as far as I know most universities handle this quite well and it tends to be a standard clause in any contract, but it is **absolutely something you should check** as I have heard about universities where this was quite explicitly not the case on an ideological basis (just check your own contract).
# Associating X's name without his consent
Another issue that has not been raised is whether it would be ethical to publish X's name in the first place. Personally I am inclined to argue that in case that the copyright lies with the institution and author X has disappeared in such a way that you were not able to find him, it might not be in his best interest to publish his name, nor add any value for you. Now, don't misunderstand, I am not arguing for not mentioning him at all, rather I would refer to an anonymous author in the author list and in the acknowledgements describe the situation without mentioning his name.
# Answer
> 3 votes
If a co-author had died while a paper was being prepared, I would normally expect to see them continue to be listed, along with a footnote mentioning that fact.
The situation here is slightly more woolly because it requires more explanation and in the case of a death there's no risk that the co-author will reappear and repudiate the work. Nonetheless they seem close enough and a footnote along the lines of "X did A work but was unavailable to contribute to the final draft of this paper" would be appropriate.
As others have said, flagging the situation with the editors and any local ethics committee would certainly be prudent.
# Answer
> 1 votes
I would also say, yes, it is not totally ethical to have X as a co-author if he did not approve the final version. If all attempts to contact X fail, and also you are sure that X left academia for good, it would suggest to mention X's contribution in the acknowledgement in a honest way.
# Answer
> 1 votes
There is, of course, the possibility that the foreign-born author fears problems or retaliation at home if they published. Not knowing the topic, I can't say, but the persecution of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" with a **fatwa** and death threats springs to mind.
# Answer
> -4 votes
Can't you just rewrite the article? That is, keep all the ideas, techniques, etc., but produce an entirely new text? That would at least deal completely with the issue of copyright. In that case, you would be the sole author (though you *must* include a very generous acknowledgment note, for sure).
Even if your article contains experimental data/lengthy calculations, you can reuse that data as long as you remake tables, graphs, etc. as your own work. Again, conspicuous attribution is required.
And speaking as someone who has herself gone away abruptly from a doctoral research position, you should consider that the troubles you are going through right now may very well have been fully foreseen and intended by your MIA colleague. So that if you manage to finally track him down, he may simply refuse to publish or even flat out refuse to talk to you. And he's fully entitled to do so. (Not trying to imply that you mistreated your colleague in any way; I certainly felt mistreated before I left, and if someone ever came looking for me, for whatever reason, I'd tell them to shove it. But in my case I rather doubt anyone will.)
So, the gist of it, as I see it, is that you are fully entitled to use the ideas, data, that is, the *substance* of the work itself (with very explicit attribution and acknowledgment); but you cannot in any way list him as a coauthor without his formally expressed consent (that would be misrepresentation on your part); and you certainly cannot publish anything he actually wrote while omitting him as an author (which would be plagiarising).
On a final note: Keep in mind that, though he may appear to be missing, it is very possible he is still keeping an eye on whatever your lab/department is doing. If someone from my previous workplace did anything like that to me, I would be sure to be back to give them as much grief as I possibly could.
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Tags: publications, ethics, authorship, collaboration
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thread-21490 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21490 | How to maximize the benefit of an exchange opportunity during PhD | 2014-05-27T11:00:30.460 | # Question
Title: How to maximize the benefit of an exchange opportunity during PhD
My supervisor has asked me to stay in a lab in a foreign country for a few months. That lab has some collaboration with us but their research is actually not related to mine. I don't know why my supervisor asked me to go, but I think it would be a great chance to broaden my experience so I did not complaint.
Besides travelling around the city and knowing new friends, what should I prepare and what should I do there to utilize this opportunity to help my PhD? I hope this opportunity can both benefit me academically and personally.
# Answer
> 7 votes
This is standard practice in Denmark (where I'm currently located). All PhD students are essentially required to spend 3-6 months at a foreign institution. Similarly we host a large number of PhD students in our department for stays of about this length. So, this is a question that's pretty relevant.
To take advantage of this opportunity you have to think about what you personally hope to get out of it. I'd say there are several possibilities:
1. Discussing your research with people outside of your lab and narrow subfield. This can be a great opportunity to get novel feedback and insights. But, you need to make sure you actually have the chance to do this. Does the lab you're going to have regular meetings? Do you have a chance to present your work? Will you be able to go to local workshops/meetings/conferences at the host institution? We sometimes have students who end up not getting a lot of face time with members of their host institutions, which is unfortunate and you want to avoid that.
2. Learning whether there are other areas of your discipline that are interesting besides what you're currently working. Presumably after you're done with your PhD you'll have to move somewhere else. This may require you "branch out" slightly from your current research work into related areas. This might be a good opportunity to learn about somewhat related work and get some knowledge that might help you start a new project, or land a postdoc or assistant professorship in the future.
3. Getting a feel for another department. All departments and labs are different. They have different culture, different norms, different levels of social interaction, etc. This is a great time to see how another lab/department/university works and via that experience get some insight into aspects of that environment (and your home institution) that you do and do not like. This can be valuable for deciding what kind of environments you'd like to be part of in the future.
4. Networking. Going to another institution is a great way to broaden your network. But, you need to make sure you'll actually get a chance to meet people. You don't want to end up going somewhere and just sitting in your office the whole time alone. Make sure there's a network of PhD students you can meet while you there and that you make a concerted effort to meet with faculty. And, outside of work, try to make some friends.
So, to prepare, figure out what you want to get out of the experience and then make sure the institution can satisfy those things (and, as part of that, try to setup the desired opportunities in advanced by scheduling meetings, etc.).
# Answer
> 4 votes
A few months is a fairly long time, and that could either be good or bad. There's no easy answer. You must quickly do some research and find out what other benefits you might get from spending time there. It could be very boring and take away valuable time from your schedule, but frankly it can be whatever you choose to make of it. Being prepared and having a "can do" attitude, then, is crucial. Alternatively, you can always recluse there and get a lot of private thinking and writing done! Also, some of the travel benefits are obviously personal enrichment and growth, but we're talking here more about academic benefits. (These may intersect!)
Most importantly in my mind, foreign academic experience provides a different context to the research that you are already doing. Universities are usually multi-cultural places, and you may meet a lot of international students who will give you useful perspectives in addition to the host lab members. Email and join in activities with the international student society that they will no doubt have! We are global citizens, and to be a prominent and respected scientist in the future you will be expected to have a global presence. So, understanding global perspectives on your work is valuable.
That said, if you will be visiting a tiny country with little academic infrastructure or funding, this may not be a particularly relevant point. But if it's a well known university, or in a "bigger" country, then you should get some valuable perspective from it in this way, which will also improve the value of putting this experience on your CV.
Participating in nearby conferences, or at asking to give a research presentation at the host institution (e.g. just a regular department seminar), all looks very good on your CV. It's usually a "given" that you will at least be able to give a departmental seminar if you visit.
Finally, as a PhD student, it's sometimes hard to get adequate breadth of experience about your research area while working in one lab with one mentor. Look for the connections with your collaborator, not the differences. Realize that this is an opportunity to get "free" input on your work and advice about the broader field from people who care about similar things. You will probably learn some insightful, useful (maybe even surprising) things about your mentor's personality or scientific approach that will help you become more independently minded and mature as a scientist.
Maybe the perspectives of your host lab will help you broaden your appreciation for what you should aim for in your scientific career. There are a lot of bigger, inter-related questions beyond what your current lab cares about, which you might not yet be able to appreciate with your prior background.
Lastly, as an extra incentive, remember that your hosts might be your future peer reviewers or writers or recommendation letters! Personal networks are very important in academia, even if sometimes there is some scientific disconnect between the everyday work that you do.
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Tags: student-exchange
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thread-21646 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21646 | Which are the criteria I have to follow to choose a citation style for my book? | 2014-05-29T15:48:39.497 | # Question
Title: Which are the criteria I have to follow to choose a citation style for my book?
Suppose I have to write a book, how can I decide which citation style choose? I know that the most used are APA, MLA, ISO 690 but I don't understand what is the difference and which one is most used for what...
# Answer
I assume you are asking about an academic book, in which case the following applies:
1. If the publisher's style guidelines specify what citation style to use (many do), then use that one.
2. Otherwise, use the citation style that is commonly used in your field. Here is a list of the commonly used citation styles for many fields.
3. Finally, if several styles are commonly used in your field and the publisher has no requirements, choose the one that you think will be most useful to the reader. (For example, depending on the content and style of your book, you may find footnote citations more useful than in-text citations, or vice versa.)
> 3 votes
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Tags: publications, citations, books
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thread-21611 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21611 | For graduate admissions, are difficult classes valued over perfect grades? | 2014-05-28T21:06:46.640 | # Question
Title: For graduate admissions, are difficult classes valued over perfect grades?
I am an undergrad at a top 5 research institution for context, and this is pertaining to math Ph.D. admissions.
I know looking at grades in isolation w.r.t. admissions is a questionable thing to do in the first place, but from an admissions perspective, are difficult classes valued over perfect grades? I guess the example in mind would be, is it better to have a couple of difficult courses + mostly undergrad courses with all As, or a lot of difficult classes but some Bs sprinkled in?
# Answer
I think this is a pretty easy one.
> I know looking at grades in isolation w.r.t. admissions is a questionable thing to do in the first place, but from an admissions perspective, are difficult classes valued over perfect grades?
Yes.
> I guess the example in mind would be, is it better to have a couple of difficult courses + mostly undergrad courses with all As, or a lot of difficult classes but some Bs sprinkled in?
The latter is distinctly better. I got a B in the first graduate course I took as an undergraduate. (I then took 8 more graduate courses and got A's.) This did not stop me from getting into all the math PhD programs to which I applied, including the top three in the US.
> 4 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, mathematics, grades
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thread-17135 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17135 | How to write a math abstract for a conference in an experimentalist dominated field without "specific numerical results" | 2014-02-19T06:23:09.697 | # Question
Title: How to write a math abstract for a conference in an experimentalist dominated field without "specific numerical results"
Note that in experimental fields it is not uncommon that an abstract is required to have "specific" unpublished results 9 months or so before the conference. The problem is if you are a theoretical/mathematical researcher in these lab based fields often your mathematical model and derivations are the crux of your research and a numerical exploration comes later. How do you write an abstract for these fields highlighting that you derived the model, proved a bunch of existence and uniqueness properties (that they likely don't care about) and have just started your exploration of numerical examples (likely the only thing they care about) without having anything definitive to say yet about your numerical examples.
The most definitive thing I could say about the numerical examples is, "We show that for a given set of parameter space we observe X and for another set of parameter space we observe Y. This is the consequence of X being true in contrast to Y being true in our field of application". To be clear I don't know anything about the structure of the parameter space that yield the two distinct X and Y scenarios yet, but I do know that both X and Y are possible given some preliminary simulations, and that the difference between X and Y is interesting.
One thing to note is this is not a conference that includes a proceedings. You have an abstract and a talk, but no paper comes out of it. Papers are strictly for peer reviewed journals in this field. The answers to this question How to write abstract for conference when you have no results yet? seem to be more geared towards fields where papers come out of the conference.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Writing as a mathematical modeler in Epidemiology, and a regular submitter to conferences with these types of requirements, which are dominated by empirical research findings, this is something that's hard, if you approach it from the direction you have - with the numerical results coming at the "end" of your research.
It would be good to have *a* numerical result, because as has been mentioned, while you might not view these as the crux of your research, it may very well be the crux of why someone is *interested* in your research. Even as someone who does appreciate the theory side of things, I'm often rather more interested in the numerical results.
That being said, these conferences are mostly looking to avoid "Will be discussed" results, where there's no means to evaluate if you've done anything, or if it will be interesting. The latter is especially hard for deciding whether a presentation becomes an oral or poster presentation, because giving one of the precious oral slots to someone whose going to largely be discussing a slew of null results is (often) irksome.
You do however *have* results, and that should be enough to make it past the bar. If X and Y are both possible within the parameter space, and that *means something for the field*, then that is a specific result, and you should expand on why that's interesting.
# Answer
> 1 votes
It does depend on the type and reputation of the conference, but in my experience most conferences that are not publishing their proceedings will accept all abstracts that are clearly written and have no overt language, logic, factual, or similar critical problems. Looking at the question you linked to, I think exactly the same advice that is posted there is relevant to conferences with no published proceedings. I say this because the goal of your abstract here is primarily to attract attention and get people to attend your talk. (But, does this conference publish its abstracts? Some do.)
Following the advice given in the answers to the linked question will achieve this goal without putting you in an ethical challenge or leading you to claim things that turn out to be untrue or, worse, so misguided or ambitious that it's embarrassing.
It's up to you to convince the reader of your abstract that you *will* have compelling numerical results by that time. This comes from explaining your methodology and approach in a way that will seem reasonable and so can be reasonably expected to lead to exciting, specific results. If you don't expect to, then maybe your project isn't well designed or well suited to this audience.
It never hurts to have a short abstract regardless of the conference rules on length. KISS! (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is appropriate here. If you are severely lacking anything interesting to say right now, it could be as straightforward as a paragraph version of: "We will present numerical results from a novel form of mathematical analysis of problem X, which will impact Y." If the audience is interested in topics X or Y then they might well show up regardless of their confidence in what new results you'll have.
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Tags: conference, abstract
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thread-21612 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21612 | Informing your advisor that you are changing disciplines | 2014-05-28T21:17:29.860 | # Question
Title: Informing your advisor that you are changing disciplines
As a sort of follow up to a previous question, what is advice you would give for telling my MSci advisor I am switching disciplines (pure maths to statistics) for doctoral work? I will presumably ask him for a letter of recommendation. I do not want to come across as ungrateful for his work with me, but the direction of my current research with him has come to bore me. How do I tell him that is a major reason I am switching disciplines? Do I even need to disclose such? I am closing in on completing my work with him, so anything dealing with changing advisors right now is not an option.
# Answer
> 10 votes
## Directly.
"I've decided to pursue a PhD in statistics."
Then after the inevitable discussion:
"Can you write me a strong letter of recommendation?"
# Answer
> 1 votes
In many countries in Europe (France for example), statistics is a part of the Maths department. Theoritical statistics uses a lot of sophisticated mathematics, like measure theory, or functional analysis. A PhD in applied statistics would probably require a serious theoritical research, together with modelisation and programming.
So you should not be ashamed to switch to statistics. Tell your advisor this is not because of him, but due to your personal interest. Excellent scientist are driven by passion!
You may start the conversation by telling your advisor you're switching to physics. If he survives the shock, tell him you were joking and you are "just" going to statistics ;)
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Tags: phd, advisor
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thread-21654 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21654 | Short papers at computer science conferences | 2014-05-29T18:07:04.590 | # Question
Title: Short papers at computer science conferences
What is the purpose of short papers at computer science conferences?
I’m a first year PhD student. I spent a few months working with my supervisor on a long paper that we submitted to a conference. I then spent two weeks working on a short paper for the same conference. My supervisor said that it is fine to submit.
Would it have been better working on four or five short papers instead of one long paper? Or are short papers not well regarded at all—should I not consider working on them in the future?
# Answer
> 4 votes
The value of short papers at CS conferences (I guess this holds true for other subjects, as well) is that they provide you a way to discuss early results of a study in a venue of people who have similar interests.
You receive feedback before the "real thing". Some conferences in CS do also publish short papers in their proceedings but many of them do not. Under the *publish or perish* viewpoint regular papers carry more value.
On the other hand, a short paper is ideally followed by a regular paper, after some time. After all, you would make use of all the feedback received to produce the regular paper at another venue.
You ask "*Would it of been better working on 4-5 short papers instead of 1 long paper?*"
It depends on what you need to achieve. Five publications are likely better than one publication. But short papers often are not published. Even if they were: how much time would it take to have 5 papers peer-reviewed and accepted at X conferences, instead of a single 1 in a single conference? With a regular paper only, you have more time to move to the next thing!
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Tags: publications, conference, computer-science
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thread-21185 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21185 | Can I be admitted into a grad school program at a different university if I quit my current program? | 2014-05-20T07:24:58.113 | # Question
Title: Can I be admitted into a grad school program at a different university if I quit my current program?
I have completed the first year of my grad school program, but did very poorly during my second semester. I received low grades in two of my courses and failed the third due to health issues and an accompanying bout with depression. The problem is I no longer want to continue this MS program; I chose to enroll at this university because of the opportunity (it is #1 for my field of study), reduced tuition etc. Instead I want to apply for a five year Doctor in Psychology program elsewhere. What are my chances of getting into a competitive program if I dropped out of my masters? Should I complete my degree in order to avoid having the blemish of dropping out of grad school on my record? It seems like a waste of time and counteractive to pursuing my passions. I'm also concerned about the low GPA. What is my best course of action?
# Answer
With poor grades, it will be very difficult to get accepted at another program unless they are in in different fields (i.e., you could argue that during the course of the MS in psych, that you discovered that you have no talent for psych and that you want to go into a PhD for architecture or astrophysics). But that isn't the case for you.
However, you should know that you do not have to withdraw from your MS in order to apply to PhD programs. You can stay in your MS and apply to PhDs. You should note this in your application and state your intention to withdraw from the MS if you get into the PhD.
It will help your application TREMENDOUSLY if you can get a faculty member at your current institution to speak to why your performance was poor but that you have a latent talent that isn't reflected in your grades.
I should note that the likelihood that PhD programs will accept you given the poor grades will be pretty slight so I would not get your hopes up too much (or spend too much time and money applying to other programs).
Most "transfer" type students that we accept at the PhD level tend to want to transfer because of: 1) their original program is dissolving; 2) their adviser has left (either physically or mentally); 3) other issues about the original program that was not apparent when they applied.
> 1 votes
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Tags: graduate-school
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thread-21653 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21653 | Can one get a faculty position by posting CV on job websites? | 2014-05-29T18:03:00.937 | # Question
Title: Can one get a faculty position by posting CV on job websites?
As I see faculty positions in Europe and North America is always based on applications. Is it common that a department head suggest a faculty position to a possible candidate?
I do not mean based on personal connection. Job websites (consider those devoted to academic jobs) encourage job seekers to upload their CVs.
Is it common that a department head search CVs uploaded on academic job websites and suggest a faculty possible to a job seeker?
Is there any success story? Does this system work in practice?
# Answer
For entry-level junior faculty, the likelihood is almost none unless you are already a superstar.
People get invited to apply based on their prominence/brilliance in the field or through personal connections.
While it doesn't hurt to have your CV uploaded to a job website, the likelihood that a hiring department will use it to pick you up is not very high.
The reason is that for most job postings in this economic / intellectual climate is that any single job posting will get over a hundred applicants, if not more.
Even small schools can get over 200+ applicants for junior faculty postings. They have no need to solicit additional applicants.
\[Note this is the case for the humanities / social sciences in the United States based on my experience. Your mileage may vary.\]
> 25 votes
# Answer
I am not aware of any such websites, but I would still wager that the success rate will be pretty much 0. There are three main reasons for this:
* As RoboKaren already states, the academic job market is *very* competitive. Even for not particularly attractive positions it is no uncommon to receive more than 100 applications. There simply is no need for a head of a search committee to go scouring websites with academic CVs.
* It *does* happen that search committees actively approach candidates that they think will be very promising and invite them to apply (this is more common for more senior positions, but I have heard it happens for junior faculty positions as well, at least occasionally). However, this will only happen to you if you are eminent enough that your name comes up on its own. Search committees will not go looking for people to invite to apply, on a website or elsewhere.
* "Uploading a CV" in principle sounds like a colossal waste of time. Every academic has a website (at least they really should have) that people can use to find out everything they want about a job seeker.
I would recommend to stay away.
> 17 votes
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Tags: university, job, job-search, cv
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thread-21664 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21664 | Is there a way to check for similarities within a single text? | 2014-05-29T20:11:37.877 | # Question
Title: Is there a way to check for similarities within a single text?
I am reaching the final stage of my dissertation which means editing, rewriting, and more editing. I am looking for a tool which can help me in this process by checking for similarities within a single text of 150-200 pages. I will probably detect similar phrasings of key points manually, but I could use some automated help to make sure I don't repeat things in the same words. I know Word and other software can compare documents to look for similarities between two documents, but is there a way to look for similarities within a single document?
Thanks.
# Answer
This may not be the best solution, but there are lots of string alignment software packages readily available. Specifically, biological sequence alignment software is highly abundant. I actually did this once before using EMBOSS.
For many of these you'll need to convert your text to FASTA format, which I've written a script for:
```
#!/usr/bin/python2.7
import string
from sys import *
from Bio import SeqIO
from Bio.Seq import Seq
from Bio.SeqRecord import SeqRecord
def stripPunct(astr):
#For now, only output letters to satisfy EMBOSS
tmpstr = astr.translate(None, string.digits + string.punctuation + string.whitespace)
#tmpstr = astr.translate(None, string.whitespace)
return tmpstr
def main():
txtfile1 = open(argv[1],"r")
txtfile2 = open(argv[2],"r")
txt1 = txtfile1.read()
txt2 = txtfile2.read()
txtfile1.close()
txtfile2.close()
txtstrip1 = stripPunct(txt1)
txtstrip2 = stripPunct(txt2)
seq1 = Seq(txtstrip1)
seq2 = Seq(txtstrip2)
rec1 = SeqRecord(seq1,id="FILE_ONE")
rec2 = SeqRecord(seq2,id="FILE_TWO")
out1 = open(".tmp1.fasta", "w")
out2 = open(".tmp2.fasta", "w")
SeqIO.write(rec1, out1, "fasta")
SeqIO.write(rec2, out2, "fasta")
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
```
Here is what a matching alignment looks like:
My use case was slightly different, and I was comparing between two different but related manuscripts we'd written. For your purpose, you'll want to find a multiple sequence alignment package, since you'll want to find matches other than the best match (which would just be the entire document since you are comparing a document to itself).
> 1 votes
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Tags: phd, writing, thesis, copy-editing
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thread-21671 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21671 | Is a diploma updated in new request? | 2014-05-29T22:39:44.880 | # Question
Title: Is a diploma updated in new request?
When requesting the diploma/transcript for a new job, the transcript is signed by the current registrar, as transcript has issuance date. However, a diploma does not have issuance date (only the date awarded). Will the university reprint the diploma with its original signatures or generate a new diploma with signatures of current university officials?
I mean is it possible to check when a diploma has been issued from its signature or the signatures are always the same as the original print on the date awarded?
# Answer
> Will the university reprint the diploma with its original signatures or generate a new diploma with signatures of current university officials?
The policy depends on the university. For example, replacement diplomas from Harvard include the names of the officials who were in office at the time the original diploma was issued, but without signatures, while those from Stanford include the names and signatures of the current officials. Some casual web searching suggests that Stanford's policy is more common, but it's certainly not universal.
> However, a diploma does not have issuance date (only the date awarded).
Reissued diplomas are typically marked as such. For example, this is part of both Harvard and Stanford's policies, and web searching suggests it's very widespread.
> 4 votes
---
Tags: university, degree
--- |
thread-21685 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21685 | Is an algorithm that stitches together various algorithms "good enough" material for IEEE Trans? | 2014-05-30T07:03:30.247 | # Question
Title: Is an algorithm that stitches together various algorithms "good enough" material for IEEE Trans?
I have worked on a paper which utilizes concepts from signal processing and machine learning, and then implements them in a low-cost embedded system. Since the work was more on the implementation side, it required less mathematics and more engineering. Furthermore, since I was using hardware from a particular company which suited my application the most, among other contenders in peripherals and price, the implementation is really hardware-dependent. Finally, I cannot seem to find similar work. In that way, it is a bit novel. Is this something which will be acceptable for say, *IEEE Transactions in Industrial Electronics*?
# Answer
"Stitching together" some existing algorithms is not necessarily bad, if the combination is both valuable and non-trivial. It can be argued that *a lot* of today's research in computer science is mostly stitching together ideas that have existed for a long time. Further, I am a huge opponent of the notion that it is somehow better / scientifically more valuable to come up with your own (almost always inferior) algorithms for well-known standard problems just so that one can claim to have a higher "novelty".
That being said, it is of course hard to answer your question without knowing the concrete work. As a rule of thumb, read through a number of back issues of your selected journal. If all of them seem to have a much broader contribution than what you have in mind, your idea may be *too small* (but don't let the impostor effect get you, either).
> 5 votes
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Tags: publications, journals, ieee
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thread-21687 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21687 | Cite page of paper vs page of proceedings | 2014-05-29T11:03:26.483 | # Question
Title: Cite page of paper vs page of proceedings
I am currently writing my thesis and I use several papers that are available als single PDFs like this one
I did not want to write the bibtex on my own, so I searched online and found this:
```
@inproceedings{Rozinat:2005:CTM:2179586.2179604,
author = {Rozinat, A. and van der Aalst, W. M. P.},
title = {Conformance Testing: Measuring the Fit and Appropriateness of Event Logs and Process Models},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Business Process Management},
series = {BPM'05},
year = {2006},
isbn = {3-540-32595-6, 978-3-540-32595-6},
location = {Nancy, France},
pages = {163--176},
numpages = {14},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/11678564_15},
doi = {10.1007/11678564_15},
acmid = {2179604},
publisher = {Springer-Verlag},
address = {Berlin, Heidelberg},
}
```
**The problem:** When citing a particular page of this paper, I use the page number of the single article PDF because I don't have access to the proceedings book as cited in my bibtex file.
Is this a valid practice or should the page number equal the page number in the proceedings book?
If not, how would a correct bibtex look for this single PDF?
# Answer
@cgross My papers also tend to have many Mathematical equations. Sometimes, I only cite the paper without giving any reference to a Equation number from the other paper because I assume that the reader would read that paper before understanding mine. If there are some Math equations from the other paper that I want to use in my paper, I simply write "Please refer to Equation 6 in \[RA06\]". You are right about the page numbers as they don't match, so generally I refer by Equation numbers rather than the page numbers. What you wrote ("XY is defined as follows \[RA06\]: " and "XY is defined as follows \[RA06, p. 163-176\]: ") can also be adopted slightly differently. That is simply copy that Equation from the other paper in your thesis by matching with the mathematical notations that you have used in your thesis, and simply say in one line that this equation has been taken from \[RA06\]. This is what I generally see in many papers. I have rarely seen anyone "citing" specific page number unless the content is copied from a book. I hope it helps.
> 2 votes
# Answer
Page numbers are largely irrelevant. There are not so many dead tree copies around, and a digital copy may be modified. In that case, searching for the title on it is trivial. You are providing the DOI, that is a permanent identificator, so you don't have to worry about it.
On a practical thing, I just use DOI's API to get the citations, and leave them worry about the details:
```
[david@LCARS david]$ curl -LH "Accept: text/bibliography; style=bibtex" http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/11678564_15
```
That gives you:
> @article{Rozinat\_2006, title={Conformance Testing: Measuring the Fit and Appropriateness of Event Logs and Process Models}, ISBN={http://id.crossref.org/isbn/978-3-540-32596-3}, ISSN={1611-3349}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/11678564\_15}, DOI={10.1007/11678564\_15}, journal={Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, publisher={Springer Science + Business Media}, author={Rozinat, A. and der Aalst, W. M. P.}, year={2006}, pages={163–176}}
It is easy, fast to generate if you have the DOI, and minimises the risk of typos.
> 3 votes
# Answer
The Bibtex reference that you have cited here is from the ACM library. It gives `pages = {163--176},`, which are the pages from where the paper entitled `Conformance Testing: Measuring the Fit and Appropriateness of Event Logs and Process Models` starts and ends in the proceedings. I also write papers, and I am writing my thesis. I only use the page numbers as they are given in the ACM library Bibtex because these are the page numbers where the paper spans in the proceedings. This is a valid practice, and I have published in some top venues by following this rule.
> 0 votes
---
Tags: bibtex
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thread-21684 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21684 | Examples of teams of teachers? | 2014-05-30T06:02:45.230 | # Question
Title: Examples of teams of teachers?
There was another question In universities, how to team up with your colleagues? which talked about building relationships but what I am really curious about is:
**Are there any universities which actually have teams of teachers?**
I am not referring to simply two teachers sharing the same module. I am also not referring to teachers being friendly with each other. I'm referring to teachers actually being developed into a formal team. In a team not everyone has the same skills and those differences make the team stronger, not weaker. In teams there is a genuine interdependence. In a team, there are common objectives which you know have been met or not.
There are many examples of increased effectiveness of teams (and certainly plenty of books and articles written about them) but since teaching is such a solitary activity (meaning you do not interact with your colleagues while teaching) perhaps it is natural to ignore the idea of actually building teams of teachers.
**Edit:** When studying team dynamics, we can see that "real" teams do include some risks but my point is not about the weaknesses (which are typically overcome by the strengths). Teams normally operate an a higher level of efficiency than non-team-groups-of-people working together. A key element of real teams is that objectives are team objectives and individual accomplishments are not highlighted. For example, if 3 teams are all competing to get to the top of the mountain and we give a reward to the first person to summit the mountain, then we are really focusing on individual efforts (so each member would naturally think of themselves before the group as a whole). However, if you simply reward the team which first plants its flag at the top, then individual accomplishments are minimized and one member of the team is more likely to sacrifice for the greater good of the team.
Indicators of real teams (as opposed to groups of people who work together but are not a team) include: Interdependence, shared accountability (each answers to the boss but also to every other member), common goals, and members having skills which compliment each other in order to affect the common goals.
Do we ever see these qualities in groups of teachers?
# Answer
> 1 votes
In the more advanced levels, I have had subjects taught by several lecturers. Each one was teaching the part of the subject closer to their area of research and expertise.
On a more general level, there was a department of Astronomy and Atmospheric physics (climate and weather). Astrophysics subjects were taught by astrophysicists, and climate subjects by atmospheric scientists (do they have a cool specific name?). Inside Astrophysics, stellar evolution was taught by a different subset of professors than extragalatic astronomy.
It is also common for the senior professors to lecture, and the grad students to do problem solving. This is usually explained because a clear explanation of the theory requires experience and care; whereas solving exercises is a less critical task, ideal to build teaching experience. *(Bad people that hate professors may say that teaching theory requires less work, and once it is done they can repeat the same for years, but solving exercises requires more work)*
**Edit:**
Another example is the curriculum. Each subject is built upon the subjects taught before, with more or less coordination among the lecturers. Differential equations requires the knowledge obtained in Calculus, and it will in turn be used for Quantum Mechanics. If the Calculus lecturer fails miserably (for example, not covering the necessary material), the students will struggle through the following ones.
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Tags: teaching, collaboration, colleagues
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thread-21677 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21677 | Can a routine in R be published in academic journals? | 2014-05-30T02:09:57.713 | # Question
Title: Can a routine in R be published in academic journals?
I have developed a routine in R for longitudinal analysis of networks. I was wondering whether it can be published on an academic journal as a dedicated article?
# Answer
> 11 votes
Depending on the extent of your work, you may be able to get a paper describing your package and methods in PLoS One or a similar journal, or the Journal of Statistical Software.
Alternately, The R Journal is a peer-reviewed journal covering R software, which may be an appropriate venue if you don't have enough methodological material to build out a full paper for another journal
Finally, *many* journals accept code supplements for papers describing the *use* of your method, so you may be able to publish your routine's in a paper about the actual work you are doing.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Publication of an article about R code (in package form) is definitely a possibility. Whether your particular code is publishable is something for the reviewers to judge. There is always The R Journal, which is peer-reviewed and read by most serious R programmers. Journal of Statistical Software is a more general outlet that is not R-specific.
I see a lot of projects where a substantive article is published in a disciplinary journal (perhaps describing the algorithm or using software in a particular application) and then an accompanying piece describing the software specifically is published in JSS or The R Journal.
---
Tags: publications, publishability
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thread-21586 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21586 | How to use feedback on written publications efficiently? | 2014-05-28T13:13:51.017 | # Question
Title: How to use feedback on written publications efficiently?
Whenever I submit an article, conference paper or other written document, I get tons of useful feedback from my supervisors and other PhD students. So far, I've made sure to adjust my submissions according to their good comments, and then just throw the feedback away. But I feel like I could use that feedback much more efficiently.
I would like to categorise/condense the feedback in some way that makes it easy to identify my weaknesses and common themes, and also to see whether I'm actually improving in all areas or there are some recurring comments.
Does there exist a good framework for this task? If not, how should I approach it?
# Answer
> 4 votes
Your writing skills usually improve gradually over time. It seems like a very natural approach to obtain feedback and improve papers accordingly,thereby learning important skills.
If you want to be more efficient/structured I suggest that you not try to collect and categorize all feedback you get but try to build up a collection of "Tips and tricks". What I mean is, that you could skim the feedback for general advice and useful tricks that seems to be applicable in more general form (such as "write the introduction from general to specific and write the conclusion from specific to general") and collect only these bits.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Do you ever have the opportunity to peer-review other peoples' work? This may not seem related to the question of improving your own writing, but it really is. By reviewing the work of others, you generally tend to see where weaknesses can creep into a manuscript -- it is easier to see errors or different ways of wording things when the work is not your own. In doing so, you can often become more conscious if similar "things" occur in your own writing (and of course, you learn a ton from reviewing the content). Peer-review and copy-editing manuscripts for co-authors has helped me a lot in my writing over the last 15 years or so. Of course, I also took a 2 day course on scientific writing, which pretty much opened my eyes up to the reality that you are writing for the reader and must do everything you can to make sure the reader can understand from start (big picture) to finish (graphic details) the story you are trying to tell.
# Answer
> 1 votes
My approach is simply to be alert to *patterns* that recur in the feedback I get (or as you call them, themes), so that I can improve in those areas. For example, I have learned that I still have a natural tendency to write too short of an introduction (not providing enough context for my work), and to assume that my audience has knowledge that they may not have. Those are the faults that I'm trying to "cure" myself of at the moment, so these are the areas that I try to pay the most attention to as I write a paper or prepare a presentation.
I don't have a checklist of things to watch out for, although that's not a bad idea. I find that by focusing on a couple of my worst flaws, eventually I internalise what I've learned so that I don't need to think about it. For example, when I first started writing papers, my supervisors had to tell me to show a logical connection from one idea to the next, so that the reader could follow my train of thought. I tend to do that automatically now, which leaves me to focus on other flaws.
I find that I do best if I focus on improving one or two areas at a time, rather than trying to improve everything at once.
---
Tags: phd, publications, writing, feedback
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thread-18675 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18675 | Creating a research questionnaire with repeating sections | 2014-03-29T14:50:45.007 | # Question
Title: Creating a research questionnaire with repeating sections
I am preparing the questionnaire for my Doctor of Business Administration research; for the purposes of this question (on Academia SE), I am investigating techniques used in customising cars. It is conceivable that a respondent has used several techniques, so I envisage repeating the same questions, each time for a a different car or technique.
I imagine that the same repeating structure would be needed in a medical exam, where the respondent can give data about several complaints.
Is there a name for this technique? Does it have a canonical source?
I appreciate that this question might not be within the scope of this site.
# Answer
> 1 votes
This is a form of branching (I guess "conditional branching" based on a screening question).
A good model for this is the Bureau of Justic Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey. In that survey, respondents are asked screening questions that identify incidents of crime victimization (e.g., respondent was attacked). Respondents are then asked to complete an "incident report", which asks an extensive number of questions about the episode of victimization. Here's an example of such an incident report for the 2012 survey. Respondents may complete zero of these incident reports or they complete up to ten.
Another, simpler, model is the U.S. Census (or most household surveys) that ask for basic details about household members. For example, the 2010 Census Form asked for details of up to 12 household members. In a telephone or online context, of course, respondents would not see the questions relating to household members beyond the number they initially list.
# Answer
> -1 votes
It is usually referred to as a "**checklist**". This term also implies that multiple answers are allowed, while "**multiple choice**" may mean either single or multiple answers.
Depends you how you structure it, the name can change as well. For instance if you line up all the customizing techniques in columns and all the cars in rows, the questionnaire then can be called a "**checklist matrix**".
Regardless what you end up calling it, people are usually not very good at identifying the names of all these questionnaire formats. So, I will suggest attaching a non-technical description (like your question's wording) and/or an actual sample question in your document to avoid misunderstanding.
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Tags: research-process
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thread-21665 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21665 | Prestigious institutions with open admissions policies | 2014-05-29T20:49:40.960 | # Question
Title: Prestigious institutions with open admissions policies
Has any college in the US managed to unite being prestigious and being open access, at undergrad or grad level. I mean open enrolment in the European sense, where they have kind of minimal requirements (language cert, high-school and not much more).
I wonder, given that they could charge thousands $/year, what's the problem with admitting mass-wise new students (and provide them with decent teachers, materials and the like). Why limit the number of clients you get?
# Answer
> 5 votes
There are two fundamentally opposing ideas here. Yes, it would be nice if everyone could afford, and be admitted to, a top-tier university. But that's simply not how prestige works.
* If you admit lower quality students, the number of truly excellent graduates is diluted and your university will lose prestige.
* The loss of prestige may mean a gradual decrease in the quality of faculty, as the very best are hired by other prestigious universities. You'll certainly need to hire more professors to teach the extra students, and can you be sure that all the new hires will be just as good as those you've already got? There are only so many researchers in the world worthy of Nobel prizes.
An everyman's university will never have the prestige of a university such as Oxford, Caltech, or MIT. The key to the success of these top universities is *consistency*. Damn near every one of their graduates is a top performer, which is very desirable to employers (and also quite attractive for prospective faculty).
Once you lower the barrier to entry, their perceived quality will head downwards, and the flow-on effects will snowball.
There are many very excellent (and open) universities that are not as *prestigious* as they perhaps deserve, for example ETH Zurich is a truly excellent university that is open to all Swiss citizens who have passed their high school exams. This Times Higher Education ranking page shows somewhat quantitatively the elitism that is at play.
# Answer
> 4 votes
The best example, that I can think of, of a mainstream US university that is respected at both the national and international levels with a policy that is something like open access is Arizona State University. They have a fixed bar admissions policy: https://students.asu.edu/freshman/requirements
> Applicants must also meet at least one of the following:
>
> Top 25% in high school graduating class
>
> 3.0 GPA in competency courses (4.0 = A)
>
> ACT 22 (24 nonresidents)\*
>
> SAT Reasoning 1040 (1110 nonresidents)\*
Prestigious is a difficult concept to quantify. To some if it is not Harvard, then it is not prestigious. That said, ASU ranks in the top 150 in both the US news and THE rankings. Which I think puts them well within a reasonable definition of prestigious.
However, I think they are probably on the border of both "open access" and prestigious. That said, Arizona is not a particularly affluent state, so I think there is the potential for the model to work.
# Answer
> 1 votes
In partial disagreement with Moriarty's answer, I think that ETH in Zurich is an excellent example of a university that is both prestigious and open-access.
I was told by people there that the university is very sink or swim, and that each year they routinely fail a majority of the students taking, say, freshman calculus. (And that "freshman calculus" there is more like real analysis in the US.) A bit harsh, but I think necessary if you want to maintain extremely high standards but be open to all.
I don't know of any US university that does this.
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Tags: open-access, graduate-admissions
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thread-21705 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21705 | Does working in a project without being a first author of any of its papers help my career path in academia | 2014-05-30T15:03:04.097 | # Question
Title: Does working in a project without being a first author of any of its papers help my career path in academia
This question is related to my previous one. Basically, I'm working in the research project as the only PhD student, other members are post-doc and lecturers. After discussing with my supervisor and other investigators, it is clear that there is no funding left for me even though they want to. My supervisor wants me to continue working but lets me decide if it is what I want or not.
Personally, I want to continue working because:
* It's nice to mention about working in the funded project in my CV.
* I have an opportunity to work with many senior researchers and lecturers who can write reference letters for me.
However, since I'm only in charge of performing experiments to test/evaluate ideas of others, there is no chance for me to be the first author of any papers produced by the project. For all the papers that I help writing, I only write the experiment section, while other sections are written by more senior members.
So, I want to ask if it helps for my career path in academia if I work in a project with no chance to be the first author of any papers produced by it.
**Update**:
* My field is computer science in which the order of authors matters.
* The project will take more than a year to finish, so I wonder if it's better if I focus all my time on my PhD and private life instead. Because at the moment, working in it is like doing a part time job without salary.
# Answer
> Does working in a project without being a first author of any of its papers help my career path in academia
Yes, it helps, but first-author publications help more. Find a way to leverage your work on this project towards a first-author publication, talk to your advisor about switching projects, or find a new advisor.
> 5 votes
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Tags: research-process, publications, career-path, authorship
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thread-21690 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21690 | Student Travel Grant = Volunteering; is it worth it? | 2014-05-30T08:14:33.620 | # Question
Title: Student Travel Grant = Volunteering; is it worth it?
I have a paper accepted to a conference and my adviser is willing to fully fund the trip.
However, I am also eligible to apply for a "Student Travel Grant" (being a student author).
Pros of getting the travel grant:
* saves adviser grant money
* goes on my resume
Cons:
* i would have to volunteer and possibly spend half of each day with tasks at hand
I am not sure whether it's worth applying for the travel grant and helping at the conference, as opposed to just going there.
For those of you who have been in this or similar situations before, what would you advise?
UPDATE: I learned that the grant covers almost half of my total trip cost, and that the volunteering time is around 1/4 of the total conference duration, which is good; Hence, I have applied for it. Thanks everyone for your help.
# Answer
> 28 votes
Based on my own experience, I would definitely recommend applying for the travel grant!
The pros you have mentioned are fairly substantial. Regarding the con: I have never found any conference volunteer job to be at all onerous\*, and usually they have been fun and/or valuable.
For example, here are some volunteer jobs I have had:
### Volunteering at the registration desk
If I have this job, I get to meet all the attendees as they come in. Usually, when I first sit down at the registration table, I flip through the badges to see who is registered, and make a plan for who I want to meet. Then, if those people come in while I am "on duty" and they are not in a rush, I can strike up a conversation.
By doing this, I've been able to have some really "spontaneous" talks with important people in my field who I wouldn't have had much of an opening to meet otherwise.
I've never been asked to do this job for more than a couple of hours at any given conference, so I didn't feel like I was missing out. If this is my volunteer job, I can usually arrange with the other volunteers so I am "on duty" during a time when there are no sessions I'm interested in anyways.
### Taking minutes in meetings
Another time, I was a student volunteer at a conference that also hosts its sponsoring SIG's annual business meeting, and my job was to take minutes in this meeting. I got to listen in while all the big shots in the SIG talked about what they *really* think of the state of the subfield, the quality of the conference, the direction they'd like to see things go in, etc.
Also, the meeting was in the evening and there were no conference sessions going on, so I didn't miss anything while doing this (except maybe a nap).
### Mic shuttler, running the 1-minute madness session
Some volunteer jobs take place inside the conference sessions themselves, so you don't miss out on anything while doing these jobs.
For example, I've been assigned to be the person that carries the mic around to people who have questions during the Q&A after each talk.
I've also been part of keeping the 1-minute madness session (where poster/demo presenters get up one after another and speak for one minute about their poster) on time. The student volunteer coordinator described this job as follows:
> 1 person in charge of lining up presenters in the correct order, 1 person in charge of advancing the presentations, and about 5 are responsible for throwing the presenter with crumpled paper balls at the 56th second to get her/him off the stage.
(I didn't have to throw any paper balls.)
* YMMV. At a large, well-organized conference there will be lots of volunteers, you can choose which task you prefer, and no one student has to do too much work. At a smaller conference, things may be different.
# Answer
> 6 votes
Somewhat echoing ff524's response, I have volunteered several times as a student in order to make conference registrations cheaper, and have had a decent experience doing it.
**Pro**: Having worked at both a conference registration desk and as essentially an assigned "person" who knows who to go to if the podium computer locks up, something is wrong in the room, etc. I've had a chance to strike up conversations and introduce myself to important folks in my field in a way that wasn't just "Hi, I'm Fomite, your work is awesome..." There's often time to chat, especially during lulls in registration, the 15 minutes before presentations start when you're the only one there besides the speakers, etc.
For smaller organizations and conferences, there's also probably a fairly large overlap between staff (in my case, nearly complete overlap). This means you've had some time to chat with society staff members, and it never hurts to be on a first name basis with them and having been remembered as being helpful.
For limited attendance events, like "Meet the Faculty", etc. you might get first dibs on tickets.
**Con**: You do have a schedule, and that means you might miss something you are interested in. However, keep in mind the society isn't looking for cheap conference labor alone - they want students to come to the conference and benefit. I've never had my duties be so onerous that I missed out on a huge part of the conference. The only time there was a serious risk of there being something that I really wanted to go to that I would miss, I managed to swap with another student so I was then the room monitor for the session I wanted to attend - and could then go meet the people I was so interested in hearing speak.
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Tags: conference, funding, travel
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thread-19944 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19944 | Can you describe a required online science course that used discussion well? | 2014-04-28T21:20:26.117 | # Question
Title: Can you describe a required online science course that used discussion well?
I am re-designing an introductory biology course for an online summer session - five weeks of hard work for the students. They are mostly lower-division students who are re-taking the class or are adding bio as a minor.
I can transmit content no problem with videos and outlines. What I'm hoping to do is also present students with problems to solve and encourage them to work together through these difficult, new presentations of the material and help each other. I'm using Moodle, so this will likely happen in the discussion fora -- though I'm open to using a third-party tool.
Generally, students are not motivated by the joy of discovery, particularly in a double-time online environment. But they are willing to do work if it is clearly related to how well they will do on exams. I'm looking for data - has anyone taken (or taught) an online **SCIENCE** class that had group and application work they felt really improved their understanding of the material? If so, please describe.
# Answer
> 2 votes
The best experiences I have had in working in group, in terms of exogenous motivation, were encouraging competition: define a problem, divide your students into groups, set a time limit and give a reward to the first/best/any-criteria-you-consider group.
Live discussions/meetings can be more helpful that a forum in this sense: the probabilities of engaging in a fruitful dialog increase.
You may also want to take a look to gamification techniques:
If students are not motivated by themselves, the internal pulse of "trying to win" at something may do it, gaining knowledge along the way, without having the feeling of "doing homework".
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Tags: teaching, online-learning
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thread-21672 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21672 | Are there any aspects of PhD work that do not translate well to distance learning? | 2014-05-29T22:55:56.230 | # Question
Title: Are there any aspects of PhD work that do not translate well to distance learning?
In another question about distance PhDs (Do any schools offer teaching or research assistantships via distance education?), I received several comments noting that PhDs on-line are of inferior quality to on-campus PhDs. If what is seen of PhD work from PHD Comics is accurate, PhD students seem to spend much time working independently. So, what aspect of a PhD cannot translate to the on-line format? What aspect of the process cannot be effectively conducted via E-mail or any of the other various forms of on-line communication?
# Answer
A general answer is that a lot of PhD training is informal: it involves things that are taught by example, by osmosis, by noticing someone doing something wrong and correcting them (or right, and praising them). This kind of informal training is much more difficult in online interactions. Some examples are given below...
One specific aspect that does not translate well to online learning is the cross-pollination of ideas via proximity.
A big part of training PhD students involves putting a bunch of smart, talented, hardworking people together and letting them learn from, motivate, support, and bounce ideas off one another. A prerequisite for this is proximity; you just can't have the same kind of interactions over email. Some research centers are explicitly designed to encourage this. At the Bell Labs facility in Murray Hill, NJ,
> Some of the hallways in the building were designed to be so long that to look down their length was to see the end disappear at a vanishing point. Traveling the hall’s length without encountering a number of acquaintances, problems, diversions and ideas was almost impossible.
(Source: New York Times)
The research center I currently work in was built with a long hallway with this in mind, specifically to foster collaboration between students in different groups!
Another thing that does not translate well is learning scientific communication and mentoring skills. As a PhD student, I have many chances to practice speaking about my work to other graduate students, professors, and undergraduates. I also get to mentor M.S., B.S., and high school students in my lab. These skills are much more difficult to learn over distance.
A third thing that does not work well over email and Skype is learning the etiquette and standards of the field. This is something that isn't explicitly taught (usually) but that students are expected to pick up by osmosis from spending time with other academics and others in their field.
> 34 votes
# Answer
ff524 provides an excellent answer—although I think there are several other important points that are not discussed there.
* Experimental work cannot easily be done via long-distance arrangements, unless one happens to be near another research institution with the necessary equipment and support staff to enable the research to take place.
* It is also worth noting that online interactions are still not ideal for rapid development of *new* ideas and discussions. For instance, suppose during a conversation with your advisor, you want to make a quick sketch and show it to her. If you're meeting in person, you can easily develop the figure on paper or on a whiteboard (or similar), and adjust and make various comments. Such an exchange is extremely tedious online—to the point of being almost counterproductive.
> 22 votes
# Answer
This is meant to be in addition to your other answers, so will refer to them a bit.
First let's take your clarifying comment: "For non-STEM fields" I work in a STEM field, but have spent time discussing related issues with postgrads working across the university. Many of those in non-STEM fields seem or feel rather isolated anyway compared to those of use in a research group which works closely together. This is partly due to the organisational structure and funding situation leading to fewer PhD positions in some fields, as I understand it, both of which will vary between universities and countries. This could go either way - it could mean that remote working takes away the last vestiges of academic human contact, or it could mean that your tucked away in a corner of your own home alone, rather than a corner of the office. This relates to ff524's answer as well, though I'm coming at it more from the important aspect of getting through a rather strange life for a few years rather than learning academic or transferrable skills.
How much *library research* (wrt aeismail's answer) is necessary offline will vary hugely with subject - in my case very little, though access to textbooks at all but especially the early stages must not be neglected. They may not be realistically available for you to buy. Access to a more local university library as a visiting reader may be possible, but it would be unwise to rely on this and you may not be able to borrow the books.
You need a supervisor who's not just willing, but enthusiastic about the idea. I wouldn't want to be a supervisor's first remote student - let someone else iron out the difficulties first. You need to be on the same wavelength when it comes to collaboration tools, which means in practice you need to be happy to work with the tools your supervisor wants to use. This is a minor issue when you work in the same building, but becomes critical when you're widely separated.
> 6 votes
# Answer
I would like to stress a bit more the role of "motivation" as in the answers of ff524 and Chris H., specially in the emotional aspect of it. I would say that doing a PhD has an implicit feeling of isolation: in general, you become an expert at a really narrow field compared to the whole human knowledge (I love how Matt Might explains it in his Illustrated guide to a Ph.D.) and that makes sharing your experiences/thoughts harder (how would you share your troubles and toils with your girlfriend?)
Even if there is no one in your research group doing anything related, the fact of sharing a space (not even talking!) with other people going through the same processes is comforting somehow.
Intuitively, adding a layer of physical isolation on top of the experience would make it less stimulant.
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, online-learning, distance-learning
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thread-21717 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21717 | What changes should be notated in a journal resubmission? | 2014-05-30T20:45:48.633 | # Question
Title: What changes should be notated in a journal resubmission?
I am currently in the process of submitting a manuscript to a journal. During this process my manuscript has come back for revision, and the journal has asked for an updated manuscript with revisions annotated. What level of changes should be annotated? Similarly is it acceptable to provide a generic comment when changes are for flow and not for content (e.g. "sentence rephrased for clarity")?
As an example (in my perceived order of required-ness):
* Adding or removing significant content (figures, paragraphs, sentences)
* Rephrasing a sentence changing the meaning
* Rephrasing a sentence changing the grammar, but not the meaning
* Adding/removing words that are superfluous (or change the meaning in an insignificant way)
* alteration of comma's, periods, etc.
# Answer
An editor once "requested" that I submit a "tracked changes" or latexdiff version of my resubmission if I wanted him to deal with it in a timely fashion. Since then, my strategy has been to submit:
* revised manuscript (no annotation);
* latexdiff of revisions against version submitted last time, to highlight every last comma changed;
* cover letter, describing all scientific changes plus any major textual changes ("we substantially rewrote the methods section in an attempt to improve its clarity"). I refer the editor to the diff for minor textual corrections.
No editor has complained yet... ;)
> 20 votes
# Answer
What editors (and their journals) expect may vary. In the journal I edit, and also journals with which I am familiar as author and reviewer, expectations cover the two first points in your list. It is very common to request a point by point account for how reviewers' (and editor's) comments have been dealt with. This, to me is the important part of the revisions. Some editors want files highlighting changes, while other definitely do not. The important changes deal with the science and not the grammar or spelling. If the language has been a focal point for revisions, an editor will not likely check all changes you have made but rather read the manuscript to see if the language has been sufficiently improved.
While some (unclear what percentage) will not care about tracked changes, it is not wrong to supply them. Doing so allows the editor to chose which version (showing revisions or not) to use. But, always provide a clean version of the revised manuscript. I sometimes receive manuscripts with all changes visible in the manuscript and I feel uncomfortable accepting all on behalf of the author. The revised version is the responsibility of the author so the sharp new version should be included in the submission.
> 11 votes
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Tags: publications, journals, peer-review, paper-submission
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thread-4891 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/4891 | Academic discretion: Should one participate in online forums or Stack Exchange sites anonymously? | 2012-10-20T20:24:03.923 | # Question
Title: Academic discretion: Should one participate in online forums or Stack Exchange sites anonymously?
As we may ask and answer various questions on online forums or stack exchange regarding teaching, research, publishing etc; it may reveal our lack of knowledge on any basic topic. This might hurt us in the future as an already established academician. So, should we participate in those online forums or stack exchange sites under pseudo-names to remain anonymous?
# Answer
This is a very good point. There are certain questions I'd like to ask, but cannot because I'm not at all anonymous for the reasons you allude to or because current students might read those answers. That said, I chose not to be anonymous and I have adjusted my behaviour accordingly. Maybe my students like the idea that I can answer their questions on such a public forum (well, perhaps one of the more topic specific forums).
> 30 votes
# Answer
That's a good question. I don't have a permanent position yet, and I'm aware that anything I post here can potentially be read by future recruiting committee, so I'm also careful of the *way* I can ask questions or post answers. I don't think it's a problem to show that you might lack some knowledge, considering that you're also showing you're aware of it and taking some measures to get that knowledge.
That being said, nothing prevents you to log out and ask a question anonymously. Your IP is *not* public, so you're safe.
> 26 votes
# Answer
I think that using real names should be encouraged. And if someone feels comfortable with it - just do it. However, when it may refrain someone from asking questions, then it's better to use a nickname.
Why?
People are afraid of asking "too simple" questions (what may affect life d some SE sites). But in general, whether offline or online, there are two possibilities:
* pretend that to be all-knowing (knowing that they won't believe you anyway),
* ask when you don't know, even if it seems simple (and "a simple question" asked in one's field can be in fact very advanced).
Moreover, seeing **serious guys asking simple questions may be very encouraging** for others to ask. So please, if there are any postdocs and professors here, give a good example by using you own name (and not being afraid to ask under it :)).
Just comparing to regular interactions with TAs and professors - being able to say "I don't know" gives respect (unless someone is totally clueless, but it that case one cannot cover it anyway).
Furthermore, let me quote a part of the MathOverflow FAQ, as a part of **establishing one's scientific reputation**:
> We also encourage you to use your real name as your username. In your own enlightened self-interest, realise that participating in blogs, MathOverflow, the arXiv, and mathematical publishing are all forms of advertising for your "brand", even if that’s not your principal purpose (and hopefully it’s not). Since job applications require you to write your real name, you might as well use it everywhere else, too.
>
> Using real names reminds everybody that they are corresponding with real people, and it demonstrates a certain level of personal investment in your MathOverflow identity. If you use a pseudonym and you get into some kind of trouble (e.g. fights in comment threads or spammy-looking posts), the moderators are much less likely to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Moreover, **I've never heard of anyone's reputation (or job opportunities) being harmed by asking technical questions**. Allegedly it may help, but I've never heard the opposite. So, IMHO, the risk here is overvalued.
But...
When it comes to issues related to talking about frictions with other people, institutions, abuse, etc (and other sensitive things) - then I guess the best approach is to use anonymous post anyway. Or have a nickname only for a few posts.
> 17 votes
# Answer
I'll add an answer, because I am one of the posters who chose to participate to SE pseudonymously. I see two reasons one would want to do so. The first would be to set up a really airtight firewall between real-life identity and some online circles. This allows you to ask questions of a more personal or confidential nature, but also severely restricts the information you can give up (and thus your interaction with others on the site).
The second approach, which is the one I follow, is less stringent: I merely use a pseudonym to make the link between my SE identity and my real identity not immediately Googleable. But, the link can (and has been) established, *both ways*. I have given here on SE more than enough information (spread over questions, answers and chat) to uniquely identify my ID. I also know that some colleagues know my account name… in part because, I'll admit to it, I do wear those SE T-shirts at work sometimes :)
I am still pretty much myself, and don't restrict what I say any more than I would do to any person I would meet in the street and discuss with. I allows for some more candor, while still knowing one can be held accountable for one’s words. I like that.
> 13 votes
# Answer
I'll add few points, let me know if these could be considered as some sort of answer:
*Points in favour for revealing your name:*
1. your name and identity become associated with your reputation, hence telling the world that you're some sort of expert in that domain, area, set of questions
2. you can use such reputation for outside StackOverflow: informally, one such question arose on Meta-StackOverflow here and here and here and here. How recruiters will use this type of information is still premature to say
3. you can impress your students, friends and family :-)
*Points in favour for NOT revealing your name:*
1. as an academic, I value the anonymous feedback to my content, being project proposals, papers, or anything else. I would argue that one of the greatest features of the peer-review approach is **not to know who's your reviewer**, so that she can bash some extremely harsh feedback without the need of expecting some back-slash from it
2. as a SO user, your name, gender, identity should not matter, the quality of answers and questions should be more important. If you sample SO users, you will notice that the majority of them are not identifiable in terms of their nationality, gender, age or other characteristics. It seems to me that the users of "online communities" have more incentives to reveal such information; whether a Q&A site (as SO) does not strictly need that piece of information
> 10 votes
# Answer
Participation in a board such as this is strictly voluntary, and people have the choice to identify themselves by whatever means they choose: with their realnames, with pseudonyms, with login names, or with no names at all.
People are, of course, responsible for their actions and their behavior, but it's not up to us to tell them that they *must* be anonymous, or that they *must* use their real names. All we can do is tell the to do whatever they feel is appropriate **in their own situations.**
> 9 votes
# Answer
This is a great question. There have been several instances when I wanted to clear some doubts about basic stuff, and wondered if it would be appropriate to post it in a way that would be visible on my profile.
After going back and forth for a while, I created a pseudo-id, but in the end, I decided to just use my regular account. The intention was to make a point, that my students should not feel embarrassed to ask a question, even if it is a very basic question.
> 8 votes
# Answer
OK, here is one more data point to this.
In the early 90s I hit Usenet and fell in love with it. For about a decade I have, under my real name, actively participated in discussions about programming, literature, child raising, the organization of the `de.*` hierarchy, and whatnot. During this time, several Usenet search engines emerged, assembled data, swallowed each other like a pool full of sharks, until finally the whole data ended up at google.
And it's all still there! If you know my real name, you can find my views onto programming, books, and child raising as well as certain personal stories that I now wish I hadn't posted, and a few flame wars I participated in more than a decade ago. While it happened back then, I felt increasingly bad about this, but, being tightly embedded in communities I didn't want to give up, I failed to see how to change that. (Also, looking back at all that always made me think that the worst damage has already been done, and that I wouldn't be as stupid anymore. *Sigh.* How silly an idea.)
When it got to the point that, when I typed my name into google, it would suggest the remainder once I had barely started on my last name, I pulled plug and decided to go into hiding. Out of the likely online handles I picked one that hides behind a big institution at google, I setup an email address that I only use for services where I use that handle, and I became very strict about revealing my identity to members of online communities. (There isn't even half a dozen people, on SE or elsewhere, who know the name behind my moniker.)
Now, google won't suggest my name until I have typed the very last letter, neither my coworkers nor my superiors know my online name, and almost nobody out there knows who's behind *"sbi"*. I can ask questions, give answers, and state opinions just as I want, without having to consider the opinions of, or the impact on, any of them. I can speak openly about how I feel at work without having to fear my superiors might see it. I can ask questions about stuff I am working on that I could not ask if the company I worked for was known (because it would give clues to competitors), and I can discuss child raising without having to worry what my kids will think about me (or a prospective employer will think about the family they came from) — well, at least there's nothing *new* to worry about now.
> 8 votes
# Answer
I post under my real name, mostly because I started out by doing so on MathOverflow (where this is encouraged, and which I see as an extension of my public mathematical career). I have a general sense that this adds to the professional atmosphere of this site.
I'm not too worried about damaging my career by posting a question or an answer that looks stupid or "reveals my lack of knowledge". I have no doubt I've already done that a few times, but I have enough trust in the academic community to believe that a reader will understand that I write in good faith and my goal is to learn and/or help. I also trust that any reader will remember that they've had "stupid" questions or opinions of their own, and avoid judging me too harshly.
However, I do take care to keep my posts *professional*, remembering that I'm speaking publicly. Among other things:
* I try to maintain a calm, courteous and measured tone in my writing. I take extra time to make sure that what I post is reasonably well written, and hopefully not subject to misinterpretation.
* I will share my own experiences where they relate generally to academic life. I won't share details that implicate other people who could be identified, reveal confidential or non-public information, or expose details about my institution's internal politics. I won't post rumors or hearsay, or incidents that happened to other people (unless they're already public knowledge). I won't share experiences that are overly personal.
* I'll share my *personal* opinions or advice on academic matters, particular where I think my views are likely to be representative of the academic community as a whole, or a significant segment thereof. If I have unusual personal opinions on a particular issue, especially if I think they're likely to be controversial, I'll probably keep them to myself; partly out of self protection, but mostly because I don't think people who ask questions here are looking for answers from the lunatic fringe.
Contrary to ElCid's answer, I have no expectation of impressing anyone or building my academic reputation with my posts here.
If I have a question or answer of a sensitive nature, I would post it anonymously (using Tor or something similar to hide my IP address if I were particularly concerned).
I understand that other participants may prefer, for their own reasons, to participate under pseudonyms. I fully respect their decisions.
> 8 votes
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Tags: job, etiquette, online-resource, anonymity
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thread-17463 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17463 | Can I rearrange the given names of authors in Pubmed for importing to EndNote? | 2014-02-26T21:02:02.167 | # Question
Title: Can I rearrange the given names of authors in Pubmed for importing to EndNote?
When viewing a Pubmed citation, author names are listed in the format `Surname Initial Initial`. This means that when I am inputting a citation into EndNote I have to either type the names in manually or copy and paste then edit the order of the names into the `Initial Initial Surname` format that EndNote accepts.
E.g. the Pubmed author list:
> Frayling TM, Timpson NJ, Weedon MN
Would need to be rearranged to
> TM Frayling
>
> NJ Timpson
>
> MN Weedon
by hand in EndNote.
Is there a way that I can do this more efficiently? Perhaps by
* Using a preference on PubMed to have authors displayed in the second way
* Modifying a preference in EndNote to have it accept the first way
* Using a more efficient way to record new items to the EndNote database
# Answer
> 1 votes
Just import the reference as Pubmed outputs it and then change the output style within Endnote to match your preferred format. If it's a standard format for a well known journal, you should be able to directly select that output style, otherwise, you can make a custom format using the formatting code for the style you want. There are several online guides out there that give details how to do that. Examples:
http://libguides.usd.edu/content.php?pid=63203&sid=755800
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbq-naXl8r4 (see ~8mins in)
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Tags: reference-managers, pubmed
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thread-21709 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21709 | PhD: what happens if I quit? | 2014-05-30T15:47:42.040 | # Question
Title: PhD: what happens if I quit?
Here's my story. I moved from my home country to the UK in October to start a PhD in the UK with lots of excitement and positive expectations. However, what I discovered once I started was that the division I am in had never funded an Academic PhD project before (they focus on professional doctorates), the environment is not a research one (I share the office with lecturers and tutors, apart from another PhD student who won my same scholarship). My main supervisor, although supportive, is only at the university for for 3 days per week, has never supervised a PhD and has not an Academic PhD (but has the professional doctorate). My second supervisor does have a PhD, but follows me very occasionally, since only taking care of the 20% of the supervision.
Therefore, since the beginning the experience has been very isolating and not really stimulating. In addition, for various reasons, I have changed the theme of my original project and since then I have the sensation that my main supervisor is not really interested in this, even though saying otherwise. Also, has no particular expertise in the specific subject I am doing research on, but has to supervise many people from the professional doctorate as well and is generally very busy (and yet doesn't even check emails during the whole weekend).
Moreover, I am doing clinical research and I have to face many logistical difficulties, such as the fact that the hospital in which I should work in is quite distant from the university (at least hours roundtrip), the collaboration from the staff and patients is hard to get and basically my PhD depends on lots of people whose sudden disappearance may lead to very big problems.
As a result, I am now approaching the 10th month and I haven't done anything yet, apart from having started the literature review the draft for a survey. I feel as this project is going nowhere and even if I managed to fix some of the logistical issues, the isolation, the lack of expertise of my supervisor and the lack of a research environment really bother me. My supervisor actually said my PhD is a "pilot" for the division to see if they should fund any other PhD in the future, but the problem is that the pilot is not going well.
I find myself thinking about quitting quite often in this period, but I am terribly concerned about the possible consequences: even if I quit I still would like to pursue a PhD somewhere else, but what are the odds of getting any other scholarship after having quit one? Also, I obviously can't apply somewhere else without quitting here, because I need updated cover letters, so this means that I would have to move back to my home country just to restart submitting applications. And without any money, of course.
I haven't spoken about it because I think that once I disclose my reservations with my supervisor would definitely lose interest in the project, so I am taking some time to think before doing anything. The problem is that I really don't know what to do. I moved to the UK because I thought I could have better opportunities compared to my home country, but I think I ended up in a quite peculiar and difficult doctoral experience; I am afraid that the fact of having already obtained funding is going to prevent me from having any other opportunity if I quit. Also quitting would have a very big impact on my psychological well-being, since I do not see myself as a quitter and I would totally feel it as a personal failure, despite all the variables that I have told you.
What do you think?
# Answer
If the program is really a pilot, then there are likely some people somewhere in the department who would like it to succeed. I would definitely recommend finding those people and seeing whether they can assist with any of your issues, both logistical and advisor-related.
Past that, though, I would definitely also seek other options. For many PhD graduates, their advisor plays an important individual at the start of their career, and not having that resource can make things very difficult for you. Given that you are already in an academic vacuum, you probably don't want to have that kind of handicap. Take care to make sure you're giving yourself the highest likelihood of success.
> 30 votes
# Answer
Originally written as a comment, converting to an answer at ff524's suggestion.
Addressing the spirit of your problem, if not the exact question asked: quitting should be the last-case scenario. Clearly you're not happy, and you need to talk to your advisor(s) about that. But do think about whether there are changes that could be made that would improve your situation. Could you spend time at another institution? Should the focus of the project change? Pilot studies don't necessarily work "straight out of the box", so everyone ought to be open to discussion. It may be that no solution can be found - but unless you raise the issue, people may not realise there's a problem.
Also, do note that many, many PhD students worry that "they've not done much" in their first year. But often they've actually learnt a lot, about their subject and about the world of research. So don't be too disheartened!
Edited to add: I have known at least one case where someone started a PhD, it didn't go well, and after a year they quit and started a new PhD in a different department at the same institution. However, I'm not sure what the details of their funding were - it's possible that they simply transferred their existing money to the new project.
> 15 votes
# Answer
Let me give you a very practical advice: Every big project is accomplished in many small steps. In order to get a better picture of what is going on, make sure that you have a good protocol of all the small steps you're taking. If possible, establish a weekly routine with your supervisor. Everybody has some kind of daily habit, try to figure out when your supervisor is, e.g., arriving to office, going for lunch, going for coffee, etc. Since, as you're reporting, it's difficult for you to get hold of him, try to catch him at some of these points, repetedly. This way you can build up a habitual relationship. You can't fix all of your problems in one discussion. You have to partition down your project related problems/difficulties into smaller, prioritized portions and then start discussing those independently. Giving your supervisor a brief update on what you plan as your next, small step can be done while walking to the coffee machine. All he has to do is to say "yes", "no", "maybe"- and this *DECISION* is what you have to document. So, also as a way to protect yourself, you have a proof of how you decided in agreement on how to proceed. Trust me, at one point all these small steps will add up to your larger project and you will feel back on track.
> 1 votes
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Tags: phd, supervision
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thread-21738 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21738 | Which kind of undergraduate course is better for a student wishing to do research in physics? | 2014-05-31T16:59:42.827 | # Question
Title: Which kind of undergraduate course is better for a student wishing to do research in physics?
I'm interested in theoretical physics and would like to do research in the same field. I have completed my high school and have decided to take a BSc in physics. My question is about the type of BSc course that I should get into. There are courses in which the syllabus includes a lot of other sciences like chemistry,biology etc and other type in which most of the course deals with physics(along with small credit courses on other sciences).
So, which one should I opt? Will the second type help me more during my MSc and PhD?
# Answer
The most important thing is to follow a course where you'll be stimulated, have access to good people and good resources, and be happy (personally, not just academically). If satisfying these conditions also determines which style of course you follow, then that's the best answer.
Otherwise... there's probably no definitive answer. Personally, I'm in favour of a broad scientific education. A lot of interesting developments these days are at the interface between two or more of the "traditional" sciences, and being able to bring in ideas from multiple fields is often useful in research. There's also the fact that you may find your interests don't (only) lie where you thought. My career has ended up being in a branch of science I never even considered when I was at school (I, too, wanted to do theoretical physics).
Choose a course that will give you a strong grounding in mathematics: it is probably the only part of a course that's guaranteed to be useful wherever your career goes. (I took advanced courses in particle physics... but I haven't used that knowledge since leaving the exam. Introductory linear algebra? Almost every day...)
In support of my position: note that some of the world's leading universities (eg CalTech, Cambridge) insist their students study multiple traditional sciences.
> 3 votes
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Tags: undergraduate, physics
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thread-21731 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21731 | Database of final BA/MA papers? | 2014-05-31T09:58:45.967 | # Question
Title: Database of final BA/MA papers?
Is there any open database(s) that offer access to Bachelor or Masters level final papers? Especially interested in top universities and computer science related papers. The thing is that other day I browsed through BA level papers defended in my university and many of them seemed to be a little too trivial. I'd like to see what is quality of papers produced by those who attend top universities.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Increasingly, individual universities are requiring students to submit digital versions of theses (particularly at masters level and above). However, as far as I know this is generally organised by each university individually, often under the auspices of the university library. I am not aware of any large centralised databases, though these might exist for particular subjects. A Google search for "student thesis database" or "student thesis \< institution\>" seems your best bet.
Do bear in mind that different institutions may have different requirements, particularly in the amount of time students are expected to spend on their thesis project: quality may not be directly comparable!
# Answer
> 0 votes
The database I am most familiar with is the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Database/UMI, which advertises having nearly 3 million items in it's collection (http://www.proquest.com/products-services/pqdt.html). The University of Texas website reports Proquest receives 90+% of all dissertations completed in the US each year (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/indexes/titles.php?id=114). It allows you to search by a range of criteria, including targeting either Master's or Doctoral papers, or searching by academic subject area.
Many universities include Proquest in their electronic database offerings. My university requires we format our theses and dissertations to be compatible with Proquest, and these are deposited immediately upon graduation, unless embargoed due to pending patents.
I am not aware of a database for Bachelor's level papers.
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Tags: publications, masters, bachelor
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thread-21739 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21739 | Statement of purpose for applying to graduate school in a different field of study than high school | 2014-05-31T17:12:40.827 | # Question
Title: Statement of purpose for applying to graduate school in a different field of study than high school
I have to write a statement of purpose for a computer science graduate program. In high school I was in a different field of study (aeronautics), then I switched to computer science for my undergraduate course after attending a computer science course which I liked.
Now I can't lie about this, also because this university also asked me about which high school I attended. But is this a negative thing to write on a statement of purpose? Maybe I should just write it on the fly without giving it much attention. Or instead I should say it clearly and justify my choice?
I ask this because I see that many people on the statement of purpose say that they always liked their field of study, from when they were children. So I don't know if the admission examiners would consider it negatively or not.
# Answer
Short answer: **It doesn't matter at all.**
Particularly in the US, high school degrees don't have "concentrations"; you simply get a high school diploma. In certain circumstances, your school may have a special focus, but accreditation rules for high school diplomas typically specify some distribution of courses which all students have to meet to receive the diploma.
Moreover, the statement of purpose tells us what you want to do in graduate school, why you want to do it, and why you're qualified to do it. That's pretty much it—most people on admissions committees aren't interested in knowing what early pearl of wisdom some random relative imparted, or other "humanizing" anecdote that too many applicants include. In fact, many of them actively hate it.
Statements of purpose are not your life story, they're a summary of your past and future career. Tell us about your relevant experiences, and why you should be admitted to **our** graduate program.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Most graduate programs will ask which high school you attended but this is can be a roundabout way to ascertain where you grew up (and perhaps to some degree your socioeconomic status -- i.e., did you go to a public school or attend an elite private boarding school,etc.). However, to be honest, most admin committees do not weight this information heavily. What you wanted to do when you were 17 has really little to do with who you are when you are in your twenties or thirties and going into PhD programs.
What is critical for applications is why you want to go to graduate school in computer science. What are the problems that intrigue you, what sub-specialty are you interested in, who do you want to work with, etc.
> 3 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, united-states, statement-of-purpose
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thread-18979 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18979 | How important is the country of academic experience in applying for US academic jobs? | 2014-04-06T11:38:06.080 | # Question
Title: How important is the country of academic experience in applying for US academic jobs?
I have long academic experiences in African universities (where I studied and am based). I had various administrative positions such as head, dean, vice president. Academically, I have supervised tens of students and published many paper in high impact journals. Now I want to apply for a position in American universities (for example, a Dean position).
When I compare my credentials and academic/administrative experiences with current Deans of American universities, I am fully comparable, but my worry is:
1. Do the search committee needs American experience for appointing someone in an American university?
2. Do the search committee consider academic experiences in developing countries not-competitive to American candidates?
I understand that there might be personal views, but is it the general strategies of search committees?
# Answer
To answer your questions:
1. They do not *require*, but they will usually *prefer* someone who is familiar with the academic system that they use. For example, small liberal arts colleges will usually prefer people with experience with small liberal arts colleges.
2. Perhaps not "not competitive" but certainly "less competitive" unless you are in a Tier 1 school in a nation that is known to have competitive tertiary education.
People have already noted in comments that there are two types of deans at American academic institutions:
* Academic deans who are heads of units (the Dean of the Graduate School, for example). These are usually promoted from within the current faculty body but on rare occasions are brought in from outside.
* Non-academic deans or deans of student services (the Dean of Career Services, for example). These can be promoted (or laterally transferred) from the faculty body but are more often hired for that particular role and specialty. Non-academic deans are much more mobile -- for better or for worse. They move from institution to institution, hopefully moving up the ranks.
I would say that in your case the possibility of moving into an academic dean slot are very small. You do have much more hope for a position as a non-academic dean.
I should note that one option that is open to you is to apply for a senior faculty position in a university with the intent of becoming Chair, then a Dean within that institution. There are often job postings listed for departments that explicitly want senior faculty -- including senior faculty who are willing to immediate Chair the department.
> 3 votes
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Tags: university, united-states, administration, job
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thread-18367 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18367 | Will my job have a negative impact on my profile as a graduate student applicant? | 2014-03-20T17:12:55.447 | # Question
Title: Will my job have a negative impact on my profile as a graduate student applicant?
I am a senior undergraduate in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, and I ultimately want to pursue a Master's degree in the field of Embedded Systems. However, my current financial situation prohibits me from paying for this, so I have decided to take a couple years off in order to save money and to apply for loans and scholarships. To that end, I have recently accepted a job in the IT department of a respected bank (I was unable to find a job in the field of Embedded Systems). Since I am not able to work in my target domain, will this time off negatively affect my prospects at top graduate programs?
# Answer
Masters degrees are often funded not by the university but by an employer. Generally with the requirement that you continue working during your program, which constrains choice of school geographically (has to be close to the employer), the rate at which you complete a program (part-time, not full load), and only works for the degree most closely associated with the job you do -- companies don't fund you to move on to bigger and better things elsewhere, they invest in making their employees provide more value back to them.
Your job history shouldn't have a lot of impact other than whether it enables you to be employer-funded, and in the case described of working in your field but outside your desired specialization, it pretty much rules out receiving that benefit.
On the other hand, most Masters (MS, MSE, or MEng) in Engineering programs even at highly ranked schools don't have extremely competitive admissions. So you might focus on trying to find employment (and the necessary visas) compatible with the program you want to enter.
> 3 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, graduate-school, masters, career-path, education
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thread-21765 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21765 | Should I ask colleagues of my mentor for internship opportunity? | 2014-06-01T06:34:37.247 | # Question
Title: Should I ask colleagues of my mentor for internship opportunity?
I have a mentor from an industrial research lab. I use the tool he has developed in my PhD research, and we have been working together for several months. We have some results that he likes very much, since my work is a new application of his tool. However, unfortunately our paper has been rejected two times.
About a month ago, I saw an ads of internship positions at his group, so I asked him about the position. He hadn't replied anything until some days ago, he replied that this year he is busy organizing a (top-tier) conference, so he was reluctant to get students.
The ads is still there, and I still want to apply. Should I ask his colleagues if they are accepting students? More specific questions:
* Should I ask my mentor which his colleagues are accepting students?
* Should I ask my mentor's colleagues, there are 4 of them, without notifying him?
* If I contact my mentor's colleagues, should I mention his name.
My worries are about the reference that my mentor can give to me. My impression is that he likes my work, but since the paper is rejected two times, I don't know that if it is good. I also don't know if it is rude asking to work with others while working with him.
My mentor is an established researcher with great personality, he treats unknown students like me just like his friends or colleagues. I'm very happy working with him, and I don't want anything that may damage our collaboration.
# Answer
> 6 votes
I think it would be perfectly reasonable for you to a) ask your mentor which of his colleagues might be accepting students and b) mention his name when contacting his colleagues, AFTER you've first made sure he's ok with this plan.
I don't think you need to be worried about a conflict: he's opened the door by saying that he's too busy to take on students this summer. As to whether he'd give you a good reference, that's quite hard to say, which is why it's best to ask him. Paper rejection in and of itself doesn't mean he doesn't like your work.
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Tags: advisor, internship
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thread-21753 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21753 | Making my advisor publish manuscript | 2014-05-31T22:52:26.300 | # Question
Title: Making my advisor publish manuscript
I gave a manuscript to my advisor while ago but he doesn't read it, what is the best action to do cause I need to publish it fast?
# Answer
If talking to your advisor doesn't work, I would suggest emailing your advisor with the draft, saying that you plan to submit it to XXX on such-and-such a date and that you would be grateful for any feedback he or she can provide you before then.
As mentioned by amirg, you might also run it by the head of your lab, if that's the standard in your field. (It's not in mine: computer science.)
> 2 votes
# Answer
Since, you are near your graduation, that means not only you know whether your research results are publishable or not but where to publish those results as well. Consequently, similar to what Suresh suggests, one of your problems is not only to publish those results but publishing them on a suitable venue which is a) close to your area of interest b) it is a high-profile journal of conference c) your paper has a lot of chances to be actually accepted. So, it is part of your job to actually find such a venue to stress the urgency of your publishing those results.
In this sense, have you checked the nearby CFPs (call for proposals) for related conferences or journals? Perhaps your advisor plans to submit your paper to an event which is 2-3 months from now and is already confident enough for your draft, so there is no immediate hurry to do the final changes now. Many advisors are very busy and allocation for their various tasks is done according to their deadlines, so perhaps this is the reason he has postponed providing feedback. If you have found an alternative venue for publishing those results with a closer deadline, it will be easier for you to convince him to check your manuscript ASAP.
But in the end, we are just random Internet strangers and the most proper solution is (as others have suggested) to TALK TO YOUR ADVISOR.
> 2 votes
# Answer
**Original Answer:** If you are submitting to a journal, you do not have to have your advisor's approval (unless you are using his dataset or it is coming out of his lab). If it is based on your own research findings, publish it as single-author.
**Editorial Note**: You did not indicate your discipline. As state in the original response, this answer is only applicable for disciplines where your research is independent of your advisor's research, lab, or research grants.
> -1 votes
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Tags: publications
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thread-21749 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21749 | Which is more important for PhD applicants — Quality or quantity of research papers? | 2014-05-31T21:55:46.970 | # Question
Title: Which is more important for PhD applicants — Quality or quantity of research papers?
While applying to a PhD program in computer science, which one is more important?
Publishing 4 or 5 medium/low-quality journal or conference papers or publishing only one paper in a top journal?
The review process of top-quality journals are usually 1-2 years. Which means, one has to begin his/her research during the bachelor's and submit the paper in the beginning of master's degree. But as far as I know, this is extraordinary (especially in my country).
An extra question would be: Regardless of the quality of the paper, is publishing papers in distinct areas or publishing papres in a specific area more important?
I'm willing to move to Northern Europe (UH, TUT, KTH, KU). So, answers from the professors/students of those universities will be highly appreciated.
# Answer
> 10 votes
I disagree with the assumption that top journals with slow turnaround times are more highly regarded than top conferences with quicker turnaround times. In most (all?) areas of computer science, the most competitive conferences are at least as highly regarded as the top journals. It is also not unusual for longer versions of conference papers to later be submitted to journals.
As David Patterson (UC Berkeley), Larry Snyder (University of Washington), and Jeffrey Ullman wrote in Evaluating Computer Scientists and Engineers For Promotion and Tenure:
> The evaluation of computer science and engineering faculty for promotion and tenure has generally followed the dictate "publish or perish," where "publish" has had its standard academic meaning of "publish in archival journals" \[Academic Careers, 94\]. Relying on journal publications as the sole demonstration of scholarly achievement, especially counting such publications to determine whether they exceed a prescribed threshold, ignores significant evidence of accomplishment in computer science and engineering. For example, conference publication is preferred in the field, and computational artifacts —software, chips, etc. —are a tangible means of conveying ideas and insight. Obligating faculty to be evaluated by this traditional standard handicaps their careers, and indirectly harms the field. This document describes appropriate evidence of academic achievement in computer science and engineering.
Your research advisor should be able to provide you advice more specific to your case.
I agree with amirg that having any publications when applying to a PhD program (especially based on undergraduate research) makes you exceptional. Your advisor's recommendation also counts a lot, especially if he or she is well known.
# Answer
> 6 votes
I will not focus on the conferences vs. journals angle here, as this has been answered by other people and I really think this is not the core of your question. I will assume you meant to ask:
**"Publishing 4 or 5 medium/low-quality venues or publishing only one paper in a top venue. What is better for PhD admission?"**
Firstly, I am not entirely sure in which timespan you plan to produce all these materials. In my subfield of Computer Science, writing 4-5 B-level conference papers takes most PhD students at least 2 years. Writing 1 top paper requires a very good idea, solid research skills, and typically at least one half-year of full-time research (often significantly more). Doing all of that as a (presumably) inexperienced undergrad or master student besides course work seems very ambitious. From my personal experience, a **very good** master student will publish 1 or 2 good papers during his master's. That's about the best I have personally seen among my students.
Now, the simple answer to your (implied) above question is that both are likely ok. Both, one top paper or 4-5 reasonable papers, are likely to get you into any of the northern european school in principle. However, note that admission to european schools is often not like in the US (see also here), meaning that it is well possible that you *still* need to find a professor to take you on, which may depend more on her/his available fundings than your CV.
However, when you said "4 or 5 medium/low-quality" papers, make sure that they are not **too** low-quality. There is a threshold from which a badly conceived paper can actually *hurt* your chances in some groups. It is hard to give a hard-and-fast rule here, but in the dark I would avoid any predatory journals as well as any conference that does not appear on any of the international rankings (e.g., CORE). If you have an advisor or mentor from the field, he will be able to help you with selecting reasonable venues.
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Tags: phd, publications, graduate-admissions, computer-science, paper-submission
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thread-21768 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21768 | Should I put my marked assignments online? | 2014-06-01T07:51:16.933 | # Question
Title: Should I put my marked assignments online?
I am working my way through an Masters and as assignments are completed and results have come back, I would like to put them online as a way of contributing back to the community.
However generally I do not see people doing this. Is there an etiquette or other implications that I am not considering?
# Answer
In my alma mater, this is indeed common. The student representatives actually maintain a repository of exam answers and assignment solutions for all large classes. Contributing to such a repository seems better than putting it online on your own web page or GitHub, because you need to think about how the students coming after you actually find your material.
As for other implications: the only thing that I can think of is that lecturers are sometimes not all that happy about this practice, as it makes re-using assignments from previous years more difficult. However, that's not actually that big of a deal, as most lecturers will assume that the solutions to re-used assignments are somewhere out there anyway, and adapt grading respectively.
> 5 votes
# Answer
One point to be considered is that the task might be recycled in the future and putting your solution online might be regarded as helping unknown future asignees cheating. Whether and to which extent this is an issue depends very much on the nature of the task and, of course, whether you have to expect the task to be recycled at all.
The only comparable case from my own studies were reports from the advanced physics lab course, where every student has been given the same tasks for years. Nontheless, there were quite a few past reports to be found online (mine among them) but stupid copying from them was quite risky as the tutors also were aware of this (and sometimes even were the authors of said old reports). Rather, old reports were often a much better preparation for the course than the actual manuals as the latter were usually didactically awful and at times even incorrect. I even “cited” an old report once or twice because it was the only available source for some crucial information. And even if the manual was good, having a different explanation of the same thing is beneficial to understanding it as it also depends on the reader what is a god explanation for him or her. All in all, I would say that the existence of old reports had a huge positive pedagogical effect on me and others.
> 4 votes
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Tags: coursework
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thread-21727 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21727 | High school summer research in fields other than biology/medicine | 2014-05-31T03:15:13.687 | # Question
Title: High school summer research in fields other than biology/medicine
I am currently in high school in the USA, and it is relatively common for students to work with various researchers in the summer. The majority of the work done is the medical/biology fields, and I would like to know whether this is a common practice (or a possible practice) in areas outside of biology and medicine.
The biology and medicine fields make sense for several reasons:
* My area (a large US city) has a large biology and medicine faculty (especially because it is considered a "hub" for medicine)
* Biology and (to a lesser extent medicine) seems to be more accessible to a high school student with a background in the AP curriculum and the medical programs available to students at the local districts. Subjects like mathematics are hardly accessible to undergraduates, much less high school students.
* Biology and Medicine are largely laboratory sciences, while the same can not be said about things like mathematics. Furthermore, the social sciences and the humanities (less present in my area, but still significant) seem to be nearly absent in summer research type work.
It makes sense, therefore that with a large population of students wanting to be in the medical field, and a large research faculty, that the practice of either formal (through a program), or more informal (E-mail a researcher for a spot in lab rotation), research happens in these fields. **So, is there a similar practice in mathematics, physics, the social sciences, or any other area of science?**
**EDIT:** In response to amlrg's post I have some further questions: how can I tell if a researcher in physics or math is studding a computational area? How should I go about approaching such a researcher\>
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It is interesting to note that the fact that a similar thing does not happen in the non medical/academic disciplines popular around here. For example, as an Engineering hub, you might expect that it would be common for students to shadow or intern with engineers, but this is *much* less common than high school research in academia.
# Answer
> 2 votes
This is not really a proper answer, but rather more like a stretched out comment. In the field of biology, lab hands can be relatively quickly trained. Now, they probably won't understand much of the science that is going on behind the scenes, but doing some of the routine tasks of "pressing buttons", they can free the more senior researchers to do the more challenging parts of the research.
Mathematics, on the other hand, often requires several years of training before you can start contributing in any way and there is no good way to avoid this. A beginning university student might have heard of the concepts that are being researched in some lab, but it is unlikely that a typical high school student can do much. This is all something that you already mentioned in your question.
Having said this, many things in the field of computational science (be it physics, mathematics, astronomy, biology, sociology, or whatever) are rather mundane and could easily be done by someone with a limited knowledge of the field (and I remember there being a recent example in astronomy where a high school student coded up an algorithm to find some shapes of galaxies/starts/something, and it worked so remarkably well that it ended up being published, but I could not find the reference right now). If you truly are motivated enough to contact and seek advisers in your area yourself, I am sure that many would be happy to show you the ropes. Don't be too discouraged, though, if some refuse (or do not even respond), as they might be too busy doing their own research to train new people who will shortly be leaving the lab, anyway.
**EDIT** to reflect the revised question: I want to point out that earlier I suggested computational science, but there are also experimental physics (for example) labs, which might also have something to do for an interested high school student.
There is no separate department for computational science, because it is not really a study of its own; rather you can use computers in any field (for the sake of completeness, there sometimes might be a department called computational science, but its scope is usually more limited than my definition here). Suppose you were interested in physics at institute X. Go to the website of the department of physics of X and see what the groups are working on. Find the homepages of the individual groups (professors) and see if they seem to be using computers (it will usually be more or less obvious from the types of figures on the website, or they might just explicitly mention it) and if their research appears to be of interest to you. See their publications, and while you some of the papers might be behind a paywall, try Googling the titles and you might find them on arXiv.org or similar free to access preprint servers.
Now the publications themselves are often quite technical, don't get disappointed if you don't understand much, but the introduction section should often be more or less understandable. One of the things you might want to look for is to see whether the group is using some software package (they should cite it if they do), or if everything seems custom made. In the former case, a considerable amount of the work might be in preparing files for the software and with some training could easily be done by a high school student.
As for approaching a professor, and I am hoping that other users on SE might comment more on this topic, the best way, I think, is to have read a paper or two by the group and to point out in your email that you have a rudimentary understanding of the science and the scope of the work. I, and I am not even the group leader, get emails from students (often from other countries) looking for a position (bachelor's thesis or something similar) at our lab because they are 'engineers'. Being an 'engineer' hardly qualifies them for the rather specific work we do and shows that they have not done any research as to who to send the email to, nor to what the group is working on (as they never, ever, specify what they want to do or why they want to join our group, in particular). These types of emails probably never get a reply from anyone (although a high school student just might, for their lack of knowledge as to the specifics would be more understandable). Essentially the more specific you can get in showing your knowledge and asking some questions, the better.
Much of what I write about is a lot to ask from a high school student, and might not even fully pay off in the end (i.e. you might get rejected). I hope that in any case this gets you interested in reading academic papers and gives you a better understanding of what it is that scientists do.
# Answer
> 1 votes
You can look for organizations for gifted high school students. For example in Poland there is Polish Children's Fund providing possibility of research work in institutes. In US I am not much aware of possibilities, but there is Center of Excellence in Education organizing Research Science Institute each summer. Such programs are highly competitive.
Another route would be asking participants of Intel ISEF with topics related to your research interests.
And I know a number of people who went into some collaborations through informal routes. But more than often they were onsite, visiting some institute and talking with professors a lot long before starting collaboration (rather than meeting / mailing with the main goal of summer internship). In any case, there are many random variables, but if you are really motivated it might be worth trying!
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Tags: united-states, internship
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thread-21777 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21777 | What does archival contribution in journals mean? | 2014-06-01T11:55:57.740 | # Question
Title: What does archival contribution in journals mean?
When I submitted my manuscript for publication in a journal, the editor rejected it with the comment "not enough archival contribution".
Please help me by saying what he meant.
# Answer
Presumably, he simply meant that your paper does not have enough long-lasting contribution to your field of study. That is, there either is too little contribution at all, or the editor assumed that your paper only has a very temporary contribution which will be outdated soon.
> 4 votes
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Tags: publications
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thread-21780 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21780 | Correct way of referencing equations, figures and tables inline? | 2014-06-01T12:13:06.790 | # Question
Title: Correct way of referencing equations, figures and tables inline?
What is the correct way of referencing an equation, figure of table inline?
I would currently say something like:
> It can be seen from Equation (11) that . . .
or
> Inspection of Figure (3) shows . . .
Is this method—capital letter for Equation/Figure/Table and the actual reference in round brackets—acceptable?
# Answer
> 8 votes
As far as I know, the standard in **mathematics** is:
* Put parentheses around equation numbers; don't use the word "Equation" unless after a period.
* "Figure/Table/Algorithm X", with no parentheses. Parentheses are reserved for equations, and square brackets for citations.
Example:
> This follows from (11). Equation (12) does not hold in this case. See Figure 13 for further information.
In your LaTeX source, use `from~\eqref{someref}` and `Figure~\ref{someother}`, with nonbreaking spaces and `\eqref` for the equations.
(The standard in mathematics is LaTeX; Word is often frowned upon.)
That said, as already stated in aeismail's answer, every journal has its own house style, which may override the standard.
EDIT: see also the answers to Referencing non-equations as to why adding "Equation" is not a good idea: not all numbered formulas are equations.
# Answer
> 5 votes
As a *generic* style, your method is probably the most frequently encountered. However, just about every publisher has its style guide, which usually includes instructions for exactly this sort of reference. Those guidelines should be followed when available; if not, then you are free to use whatever format you wish, so long as you use it consistently.
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Tags: citations
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thread-21799 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21799 | Can a publisher publish a manuscript without the authors permission? | 2014-06-01T22:09:50.093 | # Question
Title: Can a publisher publish a manuscript without the authors permission?
This is a follow on from Is it ethical to withdraw a paper after acceptance in order to resubmit to a better journal?
If a journal is willing to publish your submitted manuscript "as is", can you prevent them? Clearly if they want you to make changes you have the right to say no, but once the manuscript is accepted can you really withdraw it against the publisher's wish? Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?
In my field we electronically sign a copyright transfer when the manuscript is submitted that comes into affect if it is accepted for publication.
# Answer
Of course I'm not a lawyer, but I'd distinguish between two thresholds:
1. Before the paper can be published, you need to grant legal permission via a license or copyright transfer. If you haven't done that yet, then the publisher can't force you to let them publish the paper. That gives a narrow window in which you could still block publication after the paper is accepted (but whether you could ethically do so depends on your reason for objecting).
2. Once the published version has appeared (even just on the publisher's website), there's nothing you can do without a powerful reason. At that point, you would be retracting a published paper, which is a far more serious act.
In between these thresholds, I don't know what would happen. I'd guess that if you asked the publisher not to publish a paper you had already signed a copyright transfer for, then they would probably agree. After all, publishing a paper against the author's wishes could look bad, even if they were legally entitled to do so. However, if you didn't have a very good reason (such as a major error in the paper), then the publisher would be rather unhappy. I wouldn't be surprised if they asked you to cover any copyediting or typesetting costs, and this sort of unprofessional behavior would be terrible for your reputation.
> Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?
In principle this depends on the publishing agreement. In practice, the ones I've seen usually give the publisher final say, but the publisher usually defers to the author about anything intellectually substantive during the proofreading stage. (On the other hand, the author gets more or less no input into matters of style such as font choice, British vs. American spelling, etc.)
> 6 votes
# Answer
> Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?
Short answer: **everyone**. In more detail:
Acceptance of a paper means that the editorial board approves it for publication. Once the editorial board signs off on the paper, some combination of the author(s), the editors and the publishers must arrive at a mutually agreeable final draft.
In my experience, the role that the editors play here is highly variable: sometimes they work directly with the authors on the copyediting: e.g. the *American Mathematical Monthly* is incredibly picky (relative to other math journals, anyway) about copyediting issues, and they surprised me by **withholding final acceptance of a recent paper of mine** until I had (myself, under their very specific instructions) completed all the copyediting and formatting. And they seemed serious about this: a change to the bibliography would be solicited and uploaded as a separate revision. It ought to be evident that I was not completely happy that the acceptance of the paper was held over my head during a discussion of the copyediting, but that's a way to play it and I'm sure they have their reasons.
(The MONTHLY has, I believe, by far the highest circulation of any mathematics journal. It is published by the Mathematical Association of America, which is the more teaching-oriented of the two professional societies for mathematics in the US. On the other hand, there are three selective MAA journals, and of these the MONTHLY is by far the most "serious". Long story short: many roads lead to them, and they are forced to be very selective indeed in what they publish, although they select for different things than a top research journal.)
I had another experience in which the final editorial acceptance in a prestigious journal was made conditional on the submission of a new draft containing less "pompous language".
More typically the copyediting and formatting is either left to the authors themselves or done by an employee of the publishing company (who in many cases does this for papers in multiple academic disciplines and thus cannot have high-level subject area knowledge most of the time). In the end **both the authors and the publisher have the final say**: both parties must approve the final draft in order for it to published, and the documentation of this mutual approval is the publication contract.
Of course in practice this mutual approval is done in an asymmetric way between the parties: the publisher sends you a form in which everything has been spelled out in advance, in the pushy manner of big corporations everywhere. But if there are clauses in the contract that the authors have a problem with, they are certainly entitled to ask, and in my experience some minor "concessions" (i.e., changes to the boilerplate agreement) are often made by the publisher. A big part of the asymmetry is that the authors generally have a much larger stake in the publication of the paper than the publisher does, so insisting that one be able to refer to a paper in the bibliography by \[Cl14\] rather than \[3\] or one will take one's wares elsewhere looks like a strange arrangement of priorities, but if you really do feel strongly about it you are entitled to ask and who knows -- maybe you'll get your way. Asking them to mess with aspects of the typesetting that are part of the journal's standard style seems less kosher to me: one would reasonably expect the journal to want to keep its standard style, and if this was really important to you, you should probably have brought it up earlier.
Making sure that one really does send in the copyright form last of all is a good tip. I stumbled on this point recently when dealing with one of the world's largest scientific publishing companies. They kept doing something weird in the proofs, I kept pointing out their mistakes and though I took pains to indicate in every correspondence that I was not giving my final approval, after a few go-rounds they didn't get back to me, and eventually I noticed that the paper was published online...still with one strange typesetting mistake that was not in the version I sent to them. Next time I'll save the copyright form until the end.
> 3 votes
# Answer
> If a journal is willing to publish your submitted manuscript "as is", can you prevent them? Clearly if they want you to make changes you have the right to say no, but once the manuscript is accepted can you really withdraw it against the publisher's wish?
You can withdraw a manuscript at any time unless it is officially published (usually on-line). I cannot see that any journal could stop you from doing so and signing copyright forms should not cause problems since those forms usually concern the work done by the publisher to get the manuscript into publishable form. By this I mean copy-editing and type-setting and not generally the review process. Exactly what is covered by the agreement must be checked in each individual case (journal/publisher).
The fact that you can withdraw a manuscript does not mean it is necessarily a frictionless process. A case such as this falls outside of legal terms and into the ethical realm where you can do whatever you legally can or want but it may not reflect very positively on yourself. To withdraw a manuscript from a journal that has put in a lot of efforts, including, most likely, non-paid reviewers and scientific editors, with the excuse that you want to go for a higher ranking journal seems at least morally wrong. You should have thought about that much earlier.
> Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?
The journal will likely have rules for how things should look and be expressed. You have the opportunity to agree or disagree with any changes the journal makes, through its copy-editing and type-setting. However, when it comes to journal style, it supersedes your own views and an editor also has the right to remove material that can be considered offensive, rude or unethical in some way. The latter is to protect the journal reputation. Hence, you cannot expect your view to be final in such extreme cases.
Despite what I have just said, there are of course overzealous editors who do not know where to draw the lines. So because human interaction is involved also in publishing, all may not happen as you expect it but usually such circumstances in the extreme are exceptions.
> 3 votes
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Tags: publications
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thread-21801 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21801 | Should you mention previous rejections when resubmitting a paper? What is common practice? | 2014-06-01T22:43:14.787 | # Question
Title: Should you mention previous rejections when resubmitting a paper? What is common practice?
You submit a manuscript to journal A. The paper is rejected, either with a short dismissal ("not good enough for this journal") or with a longer rebuttal from the referees. You wish to resubmit it to a different journal B.
**Should you inform the editor at B of the previous rejection?**
What is ethically correct? What do people do in the real world?
Possible arguments in favor:
1. It is important information regarding the manuscript, you shouldn't withhold it.
2. In this way the editor at B can contact the editor at journal A to solicit an opinion from the same referees, who already know the paper and are in a better position to give a report.
3. It is not honest to submit and resubmit the same paper at different venues until you are lucky enough to get better-inclined reviewers; mentioning all previous history is needed to expose this practice.
Possible arguments against:
1. The editor at B will perceive what has happened as an indication that you consider journal B to be lower-tier than A, and possibly get offended (and biased against publication).
2. If the information gets to the referees, they might be negatively influenced, too.
3. Ultimately, is it fair that the previous referees are brought into the picture again, or should you start with a clean slate and new reviewers?
4. It feels silly to write "we got a negative report with no suggestions for changes, so we are sending the exact same manuscript at you with minor modifications".
The arguments against look weaker in my view, because they all imply a bias that "perfect" editors and reviewers should not have.
# Answer
Regarding your arguments for: 1. and 3. seem to be more like "axioms" than arguments. 1. in particular seems almost to be begging the question. As for 3., journals have (increasingly!) long lists of requirements for authors, some of them serious but also others that those "in the know" know that they may safely ignore: e.g. many journals ask that you submit papers *in their own template*, but there's no good reason for that, most papers that I've written or refereed do not do that, and no one cares. So the negation of 3. seems more reasonable to me: if journals wanted you to provide this information, they would ask for it. (Maybe you are trying to argue that they *should* ask for it. Interesting, but a different question, I think.)
Argument 2. is much more pertinent: if the referee's careful opinion is that your paper is valuable and deserves to be published in a research journal but just not in the journal that you have submitted to, one can indeed save a lot of people's time by carrying over the same referee to a different journal. If you want to do this, it seems best to ask the editor of journal A to get in touch with journal B. I've done this both as an author and as the carry-over referee.
But this is an option that the author gets to choose to exercise or not. In terms of the current practices, this is certainly true and I don't think anyone expects otherwise. Again, it is interesting to argue about whether it *should* be true....and yes, I think it should. The refereeing system is not strong on incorporating "responses to referees": when authors write back to the editors pointing out factual mistakes in a referee report, they are often told something like "I am inclined to believe you and that is most regrettable. You should definitely resubmit your paper to another journal of similar stature. Best of luck." Very often the referee acts not only as the jury but also the judge and the executioner in the current system. But for a paper whose work is agreed to be correct and novel -- or for which this evaluation was not even made -- then fundamentally, "not good enough for a journal like X" is nothing but an **informed opinion**. If that opinion is a sound one, a different referee will probably come to it independently. If it isn't, then I think the author has every right to start out fresh.
Let me also say that as a frequent referee, I do not feel the desire to know the provenance of the paper, and I don't think that would help me with my decision. I already have what I think is probably too much information at my disposal: namely the author's identity and thus their professional reputation, my personal view of them, and so forth. Being a good referee doesn't mean taking all possible information into account; it means taking exactly the right information into account to evaluate the paper on its own merits.
In the course of arguing against the "arguments for", it seems that I have espoused some of the arguments against: 2. and 3. I hope these arguments have been shown to be more convincing. (Arguments against 1. and 4. do not seem very compelling to me.)
> 12 votes
# Answer
You should **not** mention previous rejections. You **should** definitely revise and take into consideration the comments from the reviewers in Journal A.
I think it would be silly to simply resubmit the identical article at a different journal (unless it is the case mentioned below by @user11192 that you received a rejection with NO feedback), and if you are submitting a revised article then the critiques of the previous reviewer are no longer relevant!
Of course, if you are resubmitting, then you believe that your work is an original contribution. If the journal A reviewer simply didn't like your writing style or you didn't effectively communicate your work, then resubmitting is quite common. If the journal A reviewer pointed out that your work was unoriginal and had been published previously by someone else, then it is simply unethical to attempt to re-submit. In the more subtle case that the first reviewer felt that your contribution was not "substantial" enough, then you still want to revise, and may just end up changing your introduction/motivation more than your core work.
> 10 votes
# Answer
Many journals ask for information on previous submissions their electronic submission systems along with asking if the manuscript *is* under consideration elsewhere. The fact that some journals have rejection rates way in excess of 50% means that rejections are not necessarily terrible and down-grading your work. Part of rejections are also because the material may not be suitable for the journal in question, which involves no judgement of the quality of your science.
So, if your paper has been rejected as not suitable for the intended journal or some other technical reason, I see no reason to mention this at a resubmission. You made a mistake, full stop.
If the paper has been rejected for some scientific reason, particularly if it has been through review I think mentioning the history is worthwhile. There is of course no law that states you must.
The importance of mentioning the history of a paper is not so much to convey its rejection but to provide the editor with information on why it was rejected and what you took away from this to improve your manuscript. I very much doubt editors will contact other editors to check on previous submissions, none of the parties typically have the time to spare. Instead it is your description of why you think the manuscript should be published, the value of your science, and how you have improved it which is of use to an editor.
I have found out by accidentally assigning the same reviewers to manuscripts, submitted as new, that they have been considered elsewhere. As an editor, this raises a warning flag for me: "is the manuscript so poor/controversial/other that the author wants to hide its past"? The fact that people prefer to send material to certain journals before others is known to most of us. Editors are usually scientists that make the same choices, except perhaps to send it to their own journal.
I therefore think that being open about the problems can help. Of course,if your manuscript is poor, it just is; but if it can and has been improved, rejection by another journal should not stand in your way to get it published elsewhere.
Regarding reviewers, there are two form of replies I usually get when accidentally assigning the same reviewer as for a previous submission: (1) don't want to touch it again, or (2) want to see how it has been improved. The fact that a manuscript was rejected does not mean reviewers were dead against its content. Or, perhaps, some where but for reasons disguised as scientific. I therefore think it is also useful to know something about the previous process when a paper is resubmitted. the place for this is in the accompanying submission letter. Just make it brief but clear.
> 3 votes
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Tags: publications, peer-review, journals, etiquette
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thread-21814 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21814 | Where to add citation when having several paragraphs from the same source(s)? | 2014-06-02T10:05:31.767 | # Question
Title: Where to add citation when having several paragraphs from the same source(s)?
So, if I have three paragraphs, inspired and even having copied sections from the same source, do I add citation at the end of each paragraph or at the end of the third or where else?
# Answer
> 5 votes
When you have such a substantial chunk of information attributable to one source it can be useful to start the text by simply declaring the source. This can be done in the following way (exact formulation can of course be changed; I chose Harvard style referencing as an example):
> The following \[x\] paragraphs follow Name (yyyy) unless stated otherwise.
The formulation can be changed to better blend in with the text by adding details about what the information is about or why this source is good or should be repeated, or both. The "unless stated otherwise" can be omitted if you have no need to add other references in these paragraphs; I added it for completeness.
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Tags: citations
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thread-21819 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21819 | Is hiding publications in CV a good idea? | 2014-06-02T11:58:19.260 | # Question
Title: Is hiding publications in CV a good idea?
Here's my story:
I study computer science. When I started my master's degree, I had good research ideas and I wanted to publish them immideately (I now realize being in a hurry is the worst thing I did myself in my educational life).
My thesis advisor is a perfectionist. His philosophy is *all or nothing*. Therefore, he ignored my immature works and told me to get ready for my thesis only. He said that my thesis topic is one of the hottest topics in area and possible contributions to that topic would be huge improvement in my academic career.
But again, I was dissatisfied. So, with the ratification of my advisor, I published two conference papers with another professor. One is in ICCAE '12 and the other one is in ICKD '13. Those are not so good conferences, but still they are not in Beall's List.
Now, me and my advisor are writing a paper to submit a top conference.
Here's my question: Those publications are not a bit of scientific publications. They are barely at a level of senior project. When I'm applying to PhD, should I put those two publications in my CV or not? The acceptance notification of the conference is due to July. Until then, is it better to have no publications or two bad publications in my CV?
# Answer
In most fields, expectations of publications are very small when applying for a PhD position. What the committee will be looking at is your writing. In most cases, they will have only the thesis to study but in your case, you will also have a few publications, including the one for the "good" conference. The benefit of all of these is that they show you have been active and pursued publishing your results. That the first publications may not be strong will not surprise most, after all one of the main goals of a PhD is to provide the background to be an independent researcher and *publish*.
You may be in a dilemma if your papers are of disputable quality since avoiding to list them may, if found out, look like you are trying to hide them; regardless of your original intent.
To take this a step further: I think that adding comments on papers you think can reflect negatively on yourself can turn a negative to a positive. The reason is that you can show that you have progressed in your thinking to a point where you can be self-critical. This means that the comments you make have to be insightful and not just a list of excuses, in fact avoid excuses at all costs and provide good arguments showing your new insights.
So, think about how you can use your experiences (good or bad) in a positive way to show your capacity as a budding scientist. We all make mistakes, but not all learn from them.
> 35 votes
# Answer
It is not unheard of for undergraduate and MSc students to publish in "predatory" journals and conferences. I have a related question from the other side of the table: Value of light-to-none peer reviewed pay-to-publish articles
that is asking about how to evaluate students with these types of publications. I think the answers are pretty clear that there really isn't a problem with students who have previously published in low quality places or low quality work. It is possible that multiple low quality publications might cause a potential adviser to have concerns about future goals and your understanding of the system, but these can likely be easily addressed in your cover letter.
The question of whether undergrads should publish weak research has also been addressed: For undergraduates, is publishing "weak" research better than not publishing? and the general consensus seems to be that between having no publications or a low quality publication, having a low quality publication is generally no worse.
To then get to the heart of your question given someone has some low quality publications should he attempt to deceive a potential supervisor by "hiding" the publications, the answer seems to be pretty clear: NO. There is little downside and potential upside of including the low quality publications on your CV. A potential supervisor thinking that an applicant is attempting to deceive the supervisor has a clear and huge downside.
> 16 votes
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Tags: phd, publications, application, cv
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thread-21813 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21813 | How and what do I present at my PhD coursework | 2014-06-02T08:23:25.733 | # Question
Title: How and what do I present at my PhD coursework
I am a PhD Student & started my research few months ago. My research involves creating a predictive model for protein-drug interaction using soft computing techniques .The topic was given to me by my supervisor and was *not* my choice.
The problem is, I am a computer science student and have no idea about drugs or proteins or their interaction. My knowledge about the topic is completely zero. While I have read literature, I find the concept very difficult to understand. I find it difficult to search for technical papers of my interest. I would also like to mention that I have absolutely NO help from my supervisor, who also has no idea about the topic, despite being the one who told me to work on the topic.
Now I need to start with my coursework and it includes topics like drug-protein interaction and soft computing techniques. And, I have seriously no clue to how to go about my coursework. I don't know what topics should be included in the course work. My supervisor has just left me with the names of the coursework that's it. I do not know from where to start, exactly what to start and how to start. The days are just passing by and I have time constraints to present the same at the institute level. I am just going crazy thinking about it day by day and don't know where will I land up at the end. I don't want to leave PhD to whatever happens. My sincere request to you is to suggest something and help me out with it or anybody please suggest to me how to proceed.
# Answer
> 14 votes
I'm going to be a bit more harsh than the current answers, and ask whether you knew what you were getting yourself into when you signed up for a multidisciplinary graduate program. What you describe is very common in such programs; you enter with significant knowledge in one field (e.g., comp sci), almost no knowledge in another (e.g., biology), and your task is to familiarize yourself with both to the extent that you can perform academic-level research that straddles both fields. Anecdotally, I went through a biomedical engineering PhD program, and *every single student* who went through the program experienced some degree of what you are describing. Without knowing specifics, your advisor is likely not responding because they take it for granted that you will learn to cope the same way that all his other students do.
The solution is simply to start at the beginning and take it from there. Clearly, you won't find help from your advisor, but there are many other resources. Find other students in a similar situation and create a study group. Talk to the TA. Use online materials and forums. If the course is simply too advanced, drop it for now and take (audit?) a lower-level (undergraduate?) course first. I know many students who did this. They ended up fine.
You will likely encounter a similar situation many times, where you need to familiarize yourself with a brand-new field, and this is a fine time to figure out how to do it.
# Answer
> 7 votes
It is completely normal to be floundering early on in your research, and to feel panicked. You wouldn't have chosen this topic, but ask yourself this: If I woke up tomorrow knowing what I needed to know to do this research, would the topic interest me? If not, perhaps you should change topics. For what it's worth, I think it sounds like a very interesting topic. You don't need to become a biochemist; you only need to learn enough to write a simulation of some aspect of the problem.
When I need to learn the basics of a completely unfamiliar topic, I don't *start* with journal articles. I search the web for educational materials, something targeted toward undergraduates. At this point I'm trying to learn the basic terminology and concepts. I also look for online discussion forums where I might ask questions. I then read Wikipedia (which will have links to useful journal articles) and Scholarpedia. Once I start to understand some basic concepts, then I try to read journal articles. I'll probably discover more gaps in my knowledge; I go back to the web for basic info in those areas.
Your supervisor isn't helping you. That's something to be concerned about. Could it be that he or she is leaving you alone temporarily to see what you can accomplish on your own, pushing you to become more self-reliant? Or do you think your supervisor tends to ignore her PhD students? Talk to her other students, especially those who are a little further along in their research, to get an idea of her style. If you don't think you are compatible, a change of advisors is probably best.
# Answer
> 2 votes
I think it is reasonable that your coursework follows your research. As I see it, the issue is that you are not interested in your present topic, to that I would suggest to talk to your advisor, especially if he seems so uninterested as you claim. In the extreme case you could try and switch advisors.
I find it hard to believe that you are "forced" to research a specific topic, i.e. there are very few situations I can think of that possibility (e.g. a industry pays your PhD to research something of their interest).
As a personal opinion, and off-topic to this site, I find that protein modeling is a very broad and useful topic in CS with a great future. So, if you could manage to beat the learning curve, I imagine that your career would benefit.
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Tags: research-process, graduate-school, education, multidisciplinary
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thread-21832 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21832 | Advice: How to prepare myself for Adjunct Teaching | 2014-06-02T16:56:36.370 | # Question
Title: Advice: How to prepare myself for Adjunct Teaching
I will be receiving my Masters Degree in MIS this summer. I have a bachelors in Computer Science. I also have 3 years professional working experience. I am interested in teaching as an adjunct at community colleges. I have no training in teaching. I had an interview recently. One of the questions that came up was what is my teaching philosophy. I had no answer being that it was the first time had heard of the topic. My question is what can I do to prepare myself to be a better candidate for these positions. Do I need to take teaching courses or is there some reading that I can do to prepare myself. Are there any certifications for teaching at this level?
# Answer
I am a biology education researcher at a large public university, which means I spend a lot of time reading about teaching techniques and analyzing student outcomes. I teach college biology courses regularly. I say all this to emphasize that teaching well is a difficult skill set in itself. Being an expert in a **field** is only tangentially related to being an expert **teacher**.
So, I am assuming that you not only want to get hired, but want to become a good teacher. I'll suggest three ways to become an effective (and hireable) adjunct.
1. Read a book on university teaching. Most are geared toward new faculty. Some examples are: Teaching at Its Best or How Learning Works.
2. Google for the journal on education research in your specialty. For computer science, it looks like Journal of Computational Science Education. Read through several articles to get an idea of what the current issues in teaching in your field are.
3. Get **practice** teaching. If there is a community college, liberal arts college, or university near you, email some of the faculty and ask if you can assist for free during recitations/labs and help grade exams. Effective teaching requires understanding how confused students think and lots of practice helping guide them over hurdles. There may be legal issues to overcome here, but hopefully someone will appreciate free support.
It's easy to Google "how to write a teaching philosophy statement," but a good statement requires you to have some teaching experience to use as examples.
To summarize -- read up, get practice, appreciate that this is a *new* skill.
> 11 votes
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Tags: teaching, training, certification, preparation, adjunct-faculty
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thread-21786 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21786 | What should I do if a student has already done all the work for my course elsewhere? | 2014-06-01T13:25:26.070 | # Question
Title: What should I do if a student has already done all the work for my course elsewhere?
Some background info: I'm a graduating Masters Students teaching a Web Development Class. This is my first teaching gig and this is a required course for CS students.
I have one star student who is already VERY good at web development. He overhauled three of the university's sites, making them more accessible, beautiful, and more performant. He is also pretty known among the faculty because of this. Let's just say that he knows the whole scope of what is being taught in my class, probably more.
What I want to know is if there is something that I can do to help this student? What I'm teaching him is probably just tickling his capability, and he is also very driven enough to create sites for our university. Can I talk about my department (CS Department) to let him skip my class/have him create sites for the uni instead? This student is very smart and I really feel he is much more engaged with doing real world sites (our sites) that I want to give him my time to support this instead of simple workload.
I have also talked to him about this and he really does think that developing real sites is fun.
So would it be unusual if I approach my department about this request? If not, how should I phrase this?
\*Also, he closely works with me and a few other faculty for the site creation.
# Answer
> 19 votes
Talk to the person in your department who is responsible for overseeing the undergraduate education program (the title is usually a variant on "undergraduate advisor" or "director of undergraduate studies"). Such individuals usually have the authority to waive and approve courses that are not part of the "official" study plan when exceptional circumstances arise. This individual should be able to tell you what is necessary to obtain a waiver, and what could be used to substitute for it within the program.
# Answer
> 12 votes
I encountered a similar situation in the past. The student explained the situation to the lecturer and the lecturer agreed to give the student all the exercises in advance so that he could finish them in one go if he liked (instead of waiting and submitting a new exercise each week). The student did not need to attend class but had to do the final exam. That way the student didn't really get unfair special treatment (he got graded like the rest of the students) but could minimize the time wasted on something that he already knows.
# Answer
> 5 votes
Having the student do free labor for the department in return for a course credit is somewhat evil. Paid work should be paid work.
At my school, if a student can prove they already have the skills that we teach in core chooses, we have the option of waiving those applicable requirements and letting them take higher level courses instead. The core course requirement is waived, but the number and distribution of courses required are usually not.
In any case, talk to your chair or DUS/DGS as appropriate.
# Answer
> 2 votes
He signed up for the course didn't he? I'd give him the same exams but different assignments. Sounds like you are teaching at a Tech School. Give him a University course. You have a Masters. Make him learn something. Let him work on something more scientific such as how to take the Opera source and replace the crippled WebView of Android with an Opera browser as well as make a one-size-fits-all by letting Opera be embedded in place of the UIWebView in iOS. I know, that's a bit extreme; but, you get the idea. Give him a challenge. I'm sure there is something in the Web Dev space which takes scientific level of understanding. At least he can catalog the various and nefarious async and two-way-data-binding frameworks and compare and contrast. Open the "Challenge" assignment to all of the class. You might have a few sleepers in there. make it worth an "A"; so, then legitimately everyone has the same opportunity. Just some ideas. (Teaching professional courses is even more extreme: almost always there's one person in the class who knows everything and several who know nothing.)
# Answer
> 1 votes
At my university we have a system set up so a student can challenge a class and if they can pass the final exam then they get the credit for the class on a pass/fail system. The other choice in most colleges is having the student adviser for the program waive the class. I am a Computer Science Major and I have had entry level computer courses waived by my adviser because I knew the material well enough to advance to higher courses.
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Tags: education, accreditation
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thread-17051 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17051 | Without teaching experience, but industry experience, how can I begin teaching at college level? | 2014-02-17T14:37:44.927 | # Question
Title: Without teaching experience, but industry experience, how can I begin teaching at college level?
I have a desire to teach at one of the colleges/universities in my area. I think my experience in industry and my own educational background would be an asset to an IT program. However, I'm finding that when looking for positions, all require previous teaching experience. This requirement exists at the technical college, local community colleges and two universities in my area.
I'd like to start by teaching a night class or two. How does one go about translating valuable industry experience (combined with Bachelor and Masters degrees) to the teaching requirements that are desired by the institutions?
# Answer
> 8 votes
I've seen community colleges hire people with less than a master degree to teach IT. These people did have quite a few industry certifications, held respectable positions in the local community, etc. I heard people at the school saying "If anyone questions that person's qualifications, we have enough to support our decision." The CC in question was in a very small town, which I think had a lot to do with that decision.
In the end, your qualifications might be just fine. The issue is whether a school needs someone. The only way to know the answer to that question is to ask. Meet with the appropriate people at some local schools and explain your situation. It is quite common for schools to use adjuncts: partly because they are cheaper, and partly because they have current industry experience.
I have never seen a school which is angry when presented with an additional labor choice. So, you do no harm by scheduling a meeting to see if they would be interested.
As far as the teaching experience, that is more easily gained than you might think. You can see my answer here to a related question.
# Answer
> 3 votes
From my own personal experience, I recommend seeking out adjunct positions at the community college level. To get some teaching experience, I sought out a school in my hometown which also had apprenticeship-type programs and they were looking for someone to teach a semester's worth of courses for these students. All I had was a M.S. in engineering at the time plus some industry experience. Seek out the current faculty at some community colleges in your area and ask them if they know of any positions for which you could take on as an adjunct. As far as I know, the position that I was able to obtain was not advertised; I found out about it from a professor at the school.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Look for positions for sessional/part time instructors and apply.
An example posting might be Sessional Instructor or Adjunct Instructor.
Most of them require some evidence that you've done well in a similar course, so it may be prudent to have transcripts handy. It may also be prudent to email the department directly and say that you're interested in adjunct teaching and to ask about opportunities that they have, and to express your qualifications.
# Answer
> 2 votes
One thing no one has said: Being good at your job does not necessarily make you a good teacher. I have been the lead tech faculty for two good sized schools and have watched a lot of top-notch professionals flame out very quickly (almost including me!).
Make sure you look into the practice of teaching and have a plan so that when you go in for an interview you've got something to say about how you plan to approach your courses.
As for actually finding a job, universities ALWAYS need technical teachers. Don't listen to the pooh=poohers who say you can't do it without a Ph. D. In a lot of ways not having one but having boatloads of industry can work in your favor. You also seem to be thinking "IT," but lots of schools have programs in subjects like web design and they're hard pressed to find teachers! Take a good look at all of the curriculum offered and see where else you might be a good fit.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Get in touch with the institutions you mentioned and offer to substitute. Like everyone else, teachers get sick from time to time or have to go on leave for a variety of reasons after the term has started. When you offer to substitute, you are offering a solution to a problem that is almost an emergency--most professors do not have understudies (yes, large universities have TA's but smaller institutions were mentioned in the question0. Once you have substituted a bit, you will be in a better position to know if you like teaching and you will have at least a minimum amount of experience.
You didn't say whether teaching experience in your field is required, or just teaching experience in general. If it's the latter, you could go overseas and teach English (or teach in an ESL program) or take an education course that provided for hands-on experience.
But I think the easiest way would be to substitute. You could also contact high schools as well, they try to put an emphasis on IT when they can and someone with your industry experience--even if just a few days per month--would be a real catch.
# Answer
> 1 votes
It wouldn't hurt to find out who does the scheduling for the department, and meet with them in person. Tell them your career goals, and ask them to keep you in mind should any unexpected openings come up. Leave them a business card.
Nothing may happen for a year or two. But, sooner or later, a professor is bound to retire, or take a sabbatical, or be unable to teach because of an illness. A college may be all set on paper, but then have a sudden, last-minute need to hire an adjunct.
This approach requires a little bit of luck, and a mighty good first impression, but it could open a door for you down the road.
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Tags: teaching, masters, industry
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thread-21735 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21735 | Is it good practice/advisable to sum up passages from a reference into a few sentences in my own paper? | 2014-05-31T12:26:22.373 | # Question
Title: Is it good practice/advisable to sum up passages from a reference into a few sentences in my own paper?
Of course, I would retain the for me important points, but omit the details.
To the question in the title, I would like to add: If it is, how would it be best to point to that paper? Should I reference this as a "regular" citation or is it better to include some explanation, like "From \[5\] it is clear that ..."?
# Answer
I know people who restate whole *proofs* of mathematical theorems, either because the proof itself is interesting, or simply because the original presentation of the proof is poor in their opinion.
It is completely fine to summarize works of other people in your work, you just have to make it completely clear that it is not your work. But you can quote even whole paragraphs IMHO, without much problem (surely in math/natural science, I'm not sure how's it in philosophy and such).
> 2 votes
# Answer
I think there is no problem to sum up informations if they have been investigated already. You should reference this as a normal citation.
> "From \[5\] it is clear that ..."
It's better to write the title or the author's name (or research group) instead of reference number. If you take informations from a book or the like, you can use something like 'It is well known that... '
> 1 votes
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Tags: journals, citations
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thread-21842 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21842 | How does Faculty of Graduate Studies work? | 2014-06-02T22:35:05.407 | # Question
Title: How does Faculty of Graduate Studies work?
Canadian universities have `Faculty of Graduate Studies` for supporting graduate programs and students. However, I do not under stand how it can operates without conflicting overlap with the technical departments/faculties.
For example, someone is a student in Department of X, Faculty of Y. His academic and official matters are normally within the Department/Faculty. Now with the presence of Faculty of Graduate Studies, how is dealing with other different academic units?
1. How is the role of Faculty of Graduate Studies in parallel with the technical Department/Faculty?
2. Is there an equivalent system in the US or UK (an other European) universities too?
# Answer
I can't comment on the specifics of the Canadian system, but in general the university wishes to ensure that standards and requirements for (say) a PhD in theoretical physics are equivalent to those for a PhD in German Literature. Thus, the faculty of graduate studies will be responsible for establishing the basic structure and standards to which the various graduate programs must conform. They then delegate the detailed implementation of any given program to the department concerned.
In practice, this may indeed generate all sorts of "interesting" internal politics, as the faculty of graduate studies attempts to justify its existence, and the departments try to assert their independence.
> 2 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, university
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thread-21845 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21845 | Do American students enroll in unaccredited universities? | 2014-06-02T23:09:10.227 | # Question
Title: Do American students enroll in unaccredited universities?
In countries with central governmental control over higher educations, universities normally should be accredited by a governmental body to establish a university and enroll students.
However, in the United States (name if other countries have similar system), establishment of a university is different from accreditation. Therefore, a university officially starts to enroll students (correct me if I am wrong), then apply for accreditation by local accrediting agency.
During this period (establishment and accreditation), will students enroll in a university which has not been accredited yet?
# Answer
> 16 votes
There are two very different cases that should be distinguished.
You might have a brand-new university that is seeking to become accredited, but needs to be operating (with students) for a few years before accreditation is awarded. An example is Olin College which enrolled its first class in 2002, and received accreditation in 2006-2007. The first few classes of students do have to consider the risk that the institution might never receive accreditation, or might not establish a good reputation, or might shut down completely before they graduate. So the school has to do a good job of building a reputation fast.
Prospective employers of the first students could conceivably be bothered by the fact that the institution is not accredited; however, reputation typically counts for much more than accreditation *per se*. Also, in the case of Olin, note that accreditation came through just shortly after the first class graduated, and after that, nobody is really going to check whether they got their degree before or after accreditation.
The other case is universities that are not accredited and do not want to be. There is nothing illegal about this; in the US, accreditation is a purely voluntary procedure. However, most such institutions have a poor reputation or none at all. A few have genuine educational programs but prefer to remain independent of the accrediting process for philosophical or religious reasons. Others are mere "diploma mills" with no real educational product whatsoever. Students should be very cautious about choosing such non-accredited institutions, but they are free to do so if they want. Employers are likely to view such degrees with skepticism; however, this would be based more on the institution's lack of reputation than its lack of accreditation.
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Tags: university, accreditation
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thread-21857 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21857 | LaTeX itemize options: are they allowed to use in a master thesis? | 2014-06-03T07:47:09.180 | # Question
Title: LaTeX itemize options: are they allowed to use in a master thesis?
In my Master thesis, I used this:
```
\begin{itemize}[label=\ding{167}]
\item Access Windows XM from Ubuntu Server
\item List the directories contents of Windows XP
\end{itemize}
```
The output is:
My question: must I avoid the use of such beautiful things when writing my thesis or is it a normal thing to do ?
# Answer
> 3 votes
> Are they allowed to use in a master thesis?
I would think it improbable that such things are specifically *disallowed*, because it's just not something that people typically try to do. Overall, the effect is unattractive and does not follow good typographical practice. If your university policy does not object, your supervisor probably would (and should).
One or two unobtrusive ornamental flourishes *may* be appropriate on the title page, but certainly not in the main text.
If you are struggling for ideas on the typographical style of your thesis, I would highly recommend looking at the classicthesis and memoir packages. Of course you still must obey any official policy on the formatting, but these styles can at least provide a good start that's a little less sterile looking than vanilla LaTeX.
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Tags: thesis, latex
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thread-21364 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21364 | How do I compare my thesis research work to commercial products that I can't obtain? | 2014-05-24T00:44:22.417 | # Question
Title: How do I compare my thesis research work to commercial products that I can't obtain?
My MSc thesis work in Computer Science involves developing a software solution for a particular problem for which already exist several solutions, in particular commercial software. I know I can't ignore them in my work and have to cite them, but I have no access to them, so I can't perform any comparisons to prove that my work will actually contribute to research in this field, rather than simply being another software program trying to deal with the problem.
What's the best approach in this case?
# Answer
> 5 votes
It's my experience that software companies attempt to secure intellectual property rights for their codes in the form of patents. This is especially true in the United States. You could attempt to find information about the subject matter that you are interested in using the publicly available US Patent and Trademark Office portal, PAIR.
A search on a company name - as applicant, or keywords in the title or abstract might get you somewhere. If you are successful, you will not - necessarily - find code. What you might get is an outline of how the patent's subject matter fits into the existing state-of-the-art. In this way, you can map out what these commercial vendors' software does and if your work will extend the subject.
# Answer
> 2 votes
If you want to shoot high, read their advertisement. If they want people to buy their stuff, they probably say something like `Recovered 78% of the data after feeding the hard drive to a white shark`. Note that this benchmark will be done in the best possible conditions for their specific algorithms, but will give you a nice high target. If you get anywhere close, awesome! If you beat them, tell them to hire you!
If this is not available, you may email the company and ask them for a benchmark or some sort of quality assurance.
Lastly, to state the obvious: have you tried to search for "\[name of the program\] benchmark"? Maybe someone with a licence has done it and posted it online or on a research paper.
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Tags: thesis
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thread-21860 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21860 | Why are small cap and old style numerals not used in technical writing? | 2014-06-03T10:05:27.983 | # Question
Title: Why are small cap and old style numerals not used in technical writing?
According to the de facto standard book for typography, The Elements of Typographic Style, when we write abbreviations with 2 or more letters like SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope), small cap should be used and in LaTeX this would be `\textsc{sem}`.
Another case are old style numerals. When we write Arabic numerals in the passage, according to the book, old style numerals should be used and in LaTeX this would be `\oldstylenums{1234567890}`. I know mathematical equations or numerals in a table should not use old style numerals as they are considered standalone and do not disturb the flow of passage.
For me, I have never seen any publications with small cap abbreviations and old style numerals, and this seems to go against the typographic style suggested. The author of The Elements of Typographic Style said actually there is no rigid rule for typography when we aware we are breaking it. **So my question is why are small cap abbreviations and old style numerals not used in technical writing when they appear on the passage? Why are these rules are broken in technical writing?**
**EDIT:** The papers I usually read are from natural science like physics, chemistry and biology without computational nature. It seems to me the use of small cap and old style numerals is very rare in these fields.
# Answer
> 16 votes
The answer lies in a combination of technology and efficiency. In the old days when all was typeset "by hand" and not electronically, switching between Roman numerals and old style ones was not difficult. When electronic publishing became available, typography as a whole was ruined because everyone thought they now could make professional looking typography on their own personal computer and laserwriter. For a long time the digital typefaces did not include old style numbers because the character sets were too small to include those (E.g. PostScript Type 1) but now with the unicode standard, much more is included in a single type face. Thus, for a long time one had to switch from one type face to another to include these effects. In LaTeX, this was a little easier as you point out than in, say, Word.
The use of old style numerals was thus partly lost through the "digital revolution" but I also think it was lost because they simply went out of fashion. As with everything else typography and ideas within typography changes over time. I am not sure that the loss is entirely due to the introduction of digital tools but this introduction was a sort of final "stab in the back" from which it is hard to recover. In fact we are still seeing the effects of the PC in many publications since everyone is now the typographer without knowing much about the trade.
So to cap off, in the scientific publishing world, where speed is a key ingredient, attention to these details have simply not been considered as worth the time. One therefore must look at publications with more aesthetic goals to find fine typography.
# Answer
> 15 votes
**There are actually good reasons to break the general typographical rules and use uppercase numerals in technical writing.**
In usual texts, uppercase numerals are considered ugly or negatively affecting the readability as they form one block without ascenders or decenders and as they stand out from the text and are more difficult to read (for the same reasons that all-caps are more difficult to read). However, the properties of uppercase numbers are often desirable in technical writing:
* You may actually want numbers to stand out.
* In a formula, you usually want a number consisting of more than one numeral to be perceived as one element at first. For example:
> *x* = 1234 + 5678
Here the first thing you want the reader to see is that *x* is the sum of two numbers and not the exact values of these numbers (which would be more emphasised with lowercase numerals). Also, from a readability’s point of view, most formulas are a chaotic mess – using lowercase numerals would only add to this.
* There are several mathematical notations that do not mix well with lowercase numerals, such as indicating repeating digits in a decimal fraction with a bar above the number.
* You usually would not want to use lowercase numerals for super- and subscripts, as it makes it more difficult to recognise whether something is a super- or supscript or not. (Note that this is not the same as for lowercase letters, as they are easier to distinguish from their uppercase counterparts and exceptions, such as the letter *o,* are usually not used as variables for that very reason.)
* Using lowercase numerals for axis tics would make them optically less regular and thus be more emphasised, which is usually not what you want.
* In tables, uppercase numerals help outlining the rows, while lowercase numerals obfuscate the structure. (On the other hand, lowercase numerals may make some aspects of the data easier to recognise.)
While you could use uppercase numerals for tables and figure legends specifically, there is a gray zone between
* formulas in which lowercase numerals do not work well
* formulas in which lowercase numerals are no problem
* just numbers.
Therefore using lowercase numbers not at all or only in a few special cases like page numbers or affiliations is arguably the only way to achieve consistency.
A similar thing applies to super- and subscripts: While in normal writing no consistency issues arise, as a super- and subscripted numbers is always super- or subscripted, the semantically same number often appears in normal size as well as super- or subcripted in technical writing. Therefore using uppercase numerals only has a larger impact on consistency than in normal writing.
# Answer
> 4 votes
Without any evidence to back it up, my guess is that people don't know it, so they don't use it. As a consequence, it becomes a *de facto* standard of the field not to use them.
One would expect editors to at least be aware of this rules, but if they are not experts in typesetting, or don't personally like some of the rules, they may not be interested in enforcing them.
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Tags: writing, formatting
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thread-21868 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21868 | Is it a good idea to cite paper from publisher listed in Beall’s list | 2014-06-03T12:04:18.987 | # Question
Title: Is it a good idea to cite paper from publisher listed in Beall’s list
While writing the literature review for my paper, I found another paper which is closely related to my research. Unfortunately, the paper’s publisher is on Beall’s List. Hence, I wonder if citing the paper will have any negative impact on my paper.
# Answer
Do not think about the journal where the paper comes from. Just forget about it for a while.
Now, read the paper. Even better, be a reviewer for that paper. Evaluate it. Is it a good related work for you? Is it a not-so-good related work, so that you can criticize it? Does it help you to build some hypotheses, etc.? Then, just cite it. Otherwise, don't.
This is what you are supposed to do as a researcher. Build on top of other's work. Bad papers are in every kind of journal. Good papers are, as well.
Beall's list is useful up to a certain point but it has got limitations. One of which, it is a one-man's work. I do not want to criticize the list here because it does not even matter how good that list is. Be your own judge for the work you cite. Where the paper comes from is, in my opinion, the least of the issues you could ever encounter.
> 54 votes
# Answer
As said in the comments: Read the paper and decide on the ground of the content of the paper and not by the reputation of the journal. Don't get me wrong - I do not support predatory or fake journals in any way. But it happens frequently that "quality of the paper" and "quality of the journal" (both understood in a vague sense) do not match. Good journals sometimes publish not-so-good papers and also it may be that the authors of the journal you mention simply were not aware of the listing in Beall's list.
> 19 votes
# Answer
Journals get listed there for various reasons, and there is off course a subjectivity factor. One of Beall's pet peeve is aggressive marketing strategy, which is indeed annoying and suspicious, but has also been frequently used by established publishing groups. Check whether there is a post that describes *why* this particular journal/publisher is on his list (in this case the post is outdated and does not point out major misconduct).
While the presence of a journal on Beall's list does not in itself mean that the work you read is of bad quality, a lot of the 'journals' listed there have **no peer review** and **no editorial process whatsoever**. Most of these 'journals' will publish *anything*.
Which means that the burden of judging quality is on the reader only, as the other answers pointed out, but also that there are frequent cases of plagiarism. Chance are that the original content has been published somewhere else before, on a preprint server, or a university website as part of a dissertation, or even in a legitimate academic journal. Therefore, if I where you, I would google chunks of the text and make sure that you cite the original version.
Now, from an ethical point of view, a majority of the journals listed by Beall have as business model to pray on the necessity for researchers to have long lists of publications to raise their chances of getting funded or awarded tenure. Citing these, in a way, encourages that sort of behavior, which I personally find harmful to science, dishonest towards funding agencies and taxpayers, and unethical.
> 8 votes
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Tags: publications, citations, publishers, disreputable-publishers
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thread-21853 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21853 | Degree program changed before attending graduate school | 2014-06-03T03:50:22.653 | # Question
Title: Degree program changed before attending graduate school
I studied Bioinformatics at the undergraduate level but since I was short of one of the degree requirements and I had already been accepted to a graduate program, my university decided to re-name my degree to General Studies. The transcript obviously shows work done towards a Bioinformatics degree as does my research experience but the degree certificate would say Bachelor of General Studies.
Would a graduate school take issue with this even though I have been admitted?
# Answer
> 3 votes
It's possible that a grad school would have an issue with this.
In my experience, admission to a graduate program is always contingent on successful completion of the undergraduate degree. The grad program will require a final undergraduate transcript and reserves the right to rescind admission if they're not satisfied with it. Presumably your application stated that you were working on a bioinformatics degree, and your admission was based on the assumption that you would complete it.
So it would be a good idea to contact the grad program and explain the situation. You probably don't want them to first learn about it when they get your transcript, and have them trying to guess what happened.
Some relevant questions:
* What was the requirement in question? Is it some critical course that they might reasonably have expected every bioinformatics student to have?
* Why didn't you complete it? Was a course not offered at a time when you could take it? Or did you fail a required course?
* If (as your question seems to say) this was a new requirement, imposed after you started your degree, how recently was it imposed? Could you reasonably have fulfilled it?
* What does your undergraduate advisor say about all this?
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Tags: graduate-admissions, university, application
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thread-21846 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21846 | recommendations for increasing the visibility and ranking of a faculty? | 2014-06-02T23:19:16.850 | # Question
Title: recommendations for increasing the visibility and ranking of a faculty?
I was wondering what it really matters for a university to climb in the university rankings, for example in Science fields such as Mathematics, Physics or Computer Science? I found that there are the following different services to let people know about lecturer's research in a Faculty:
* Google Scholar, I believe that one can put here even articles not peer-reviewed
* Scopus, the service indexed by Elsevier
* WebofScience, I have not used directly, but I believe is somewhat like Scopus
But I believe that services like Google Scholar are like arXiv, in the way that one can put a link to any research paper that one has made irrelevant if it was a good conference or not.
It is not better to aim to conferences that would be indexed in Scopus, DBLP, or that will use Scimago to raise the score of an institucion?
So what is the recommendation in these cases, to try that the papers are indexed in well known sites or a new faculty should only aim to have web presence?
# Answer
As ff254 correctly mentions, you are asking two different questions. "Climbing the rankings" is sort of a science of its own, and making your research be more visible to the outside is only a very minor part of it. I am not an expert on ranking optimization (I am happy to say that university rankings are not particularly relevant where I work), but if you really want to noticeably improve the ranking of your faculty, serious money and management commitment will be required (and better consulting than is available in an Internet forum).
Now, assuming that you are really more interested in making your faculty internationally more well-known. I sort of disagree with Simmy that ResearchGate is a good vehicle to achieve this goal. At least in my community, ResearchGate is not considered a "serious" source at all. Nobody goes to ResearchGate to discover new researchers (and the technical Q&A forum there is a joke). People go to *conferences* to meet up and coming as well as established researchers. That is, if you as a new faculty want to improve your international visibility, you should:
* Produce excellent research. This should be obvious, but having a bunch of mediocre papers listed in Scopus or DBLP will not make you stand out. One top paper will.
* Go to as many reasonable conferences as you can. Skip on the spam ones (no interesting people will be there and publishing there will not help you in any way), but even smaller conferences usually have a lot of interesting professors in attendance. Definitely go to whatever the big conference in your field is, even if you do not have a paper to present.
* Socialise. Don't be the person that just works all day in a silent corner of the conference room. Your task at the conference is not to write the next paper, but to get in touch with other researchers.
* Have a nice-looking web page. Publish all your papers as preprints there. Plus points if you do nice write-ups of your published or ongoing research in a recurring blog.
* (In some communities) have a Twitter account, and follow the big wigs and engage in discussions if appropriate.
> 12 votes
# Answer
In terms of trying to increase ranking, there are ways to do it, but they're somewhat tangental to research visibility.
Informally, from talking to the people who worry about things like that, the easiest way to increase your ranking, like the easiest way to increase your journal's impact factor, is to realize that all rankings are algorithms that can be gamed. Pick *an aspect* of the ranking and maximize that.
For rankings based on peer surveys, this is somewhat more difficult, and is going to be a rather long slog.
> 2 votes
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Tags: ranking
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thread-21006 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21006 | Is there a conflict of interest when the supervisor and co-supervisor are husband and wife? | 2014-05-15T18:21:20.190 | # Question
Title: Is there a conflict of interest when the supervisor and co-supervisor are husband and wife?
I have been co-supervised by my primary supervisor's wife. Suffice to say that this has been problematic where both have different research interests. Each asks me to do different jobs and they often bring their home fights to work. My primary supervisor is always submissive to her will whenever she is around. Though he supports me in every decision I do and my research behind her back. It is been a nightmare and was wondering if there are some written rules that such scenario is a conflict of interest.
# Answer
> 22 votes
Your supervisors are problematic in several ways, from what you describe:
* Pushing their own research interests over what's most beneficial to you
* Exposing you to unpleasant interpersonal issues between themselves that affect your working environment
* Not coordinating and communicating effectively with each other to co-supervise you
However, none of these things are necessarily the result of them being married. The same issues can arise (and I have seen them) with unrelated co-supervisors who do not get along.
In general, co-supervision by a married couple is not universally disallowed. (In my university it is allowed, and there is a husband-wife pair in my department that successfully co-supervises PhD students on occasion.)
*Some* universities do recognize this as a conflict of interest. This from the University of Western Australia (emphasis mine):
> Supervision must be free of actual or perceived conflicts of interest. Supervision by, or **co-supervision with, close relatives or those in close personal relationships** is generally not appropriate. All such cases must be declared at the time that supervisors are nominated. In cases where approval is given on academic grounds for supervision by, or co-supervision with, close relatives or those in close personal relationships, additional supervisors who are free of an actual or perceived conflict of interest must be appointed.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I am not aware of any written rules regarding this situation.
In our department (and other affiliated departments), there are quite a few professors who are married to each other. In most cases, I have seen that such situations tend to turn out exceedingly well. However, there are, as your situation goes, many times when this can go wrong.
The best advice under these circumstances is to treat their home fights as none of your business. Stay out of it, develop your own research agenda and pursue it independent of such pettiness.
If all else fails, **Don't walk ! Run !**
# Answer
> 3 votes
If any conflict between a student and one of the supervisors comes up, married supervisors have a strong incentive to support each other, rather than looking out for the best interests of the students. For example, they may pressure the student to include both supervisors as authors on all publications. It's even tougher for a student to stand up to two people in positions of authority than one.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Your situation is certainly very bad, but a *conflict of interest* in the context of academic research is when personal interests are at stake when reporting research results (e.g. wife owns the company that manufactures the products that husband's paper say are superior to the competition).
I found this definition of a CoI on various universities websites:
> A conflict of interest is a situation in which financial or other personal considerations have the potential to compromise or bias professional judgment and objectivity
The situation you describe is better described as lousy management, little respect from both supervisors towards you, and a blatant lack of professionalism from their part. However, it affects you, it certainly affects their productivity, but it's not *per se* a CoI. It's not like if one was reviewing the papers of the other, or was in the board that attributes funding to the wife/husband's project, etc.
My advice would be, whatever action you intend to take to get yourself out of this nightmare, **not** to refer to the problem as a conflict of interest. CoIs are a lot more serious than poor management and you will risk triggering the wrong type of investigation, ultimately deserving your cause.
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Tags: ethics, advisor, supervision, conflict-of-interest
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thread-21872 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21872 | Comparative quality of articles in questionable journals | 2014-06-03T13:06:23.013 | # Question
Title: Comparative quality of articles in questionable journals
This question on citing from publications on Beall's list got me thinking...
The list itself details predatory *publishers*, who follow bad practices or bad business models. However, is there any evidence that the papers themselves that are contained within those journals are any "worse" than articles in non-predatory, low impact factor journals? I'm not comparing to Science or Nature here, just any other run-of-the-mill journal. By worse, I mean:
* Poor research practice
* Lack of citation of previous relevant research
* Higher incidence of fraud
* Non-academic writing
* ...?
Does anyone know of a study that looked at this?
# Answer
> 7 votes
Maybe what I'm about to write was obvious to all. But just in case:
As I understand it, a "predatory journal" is a journal that will accept anything that is submitted to it so as to financially profit from the authors (and the buyers of the journal, perhaps). Moreover, they are not forthcoming about this practice because that would drastically lower their submissions (not to mention sales!). I would guess that most predatory journals would not want to accept papers of the sort created by Nate Eldredge's wonderful mathgen package: although it did happen at least once, I'll bet that incident was embarrassing (or rather, recognized as working against the game they are trying to play) for the Advances in Pure Mathematics. If that journal published a full issue of gibberish papers, then I think it would seriously jeopardize their profit line and possibly cause them to fold (and yes, get replaced by the next journal, but evidently people like Beall are paying attention not just to the journals themselves but the publishing companies behind them and even the people behind the publishing companies).
Sometimes predatory journals will still publish your paper if you tell them that at the end that you can't or won't pay. I found this strange at first, but I think I understand it better now: these journals want some papers that are actually for real in order in order to acquire a penumbra of plausible legitimacy for all of their papers. At the higher end you get journals most of whose papers are written by real researchers who need their work published somewhere and for various reasons they have chosen not to go through the time and effort of a selective journal. (I don't mean to imply that this practice is not still shady: of course pretending there is contentful, critical peer review when in fact there isn't is highly, highly academically inappropriate.)
What's my point? I don't think there is going to be any uniform sense in which papers submitted to predatory journals are worse than papers published in "real" journals. Demonstrably, some of these papers *are* real papers. However, if you agree that part of the definition of a predatory journal is that they accept virtually 100% of all submitted papers that are not too clearly gibberish (as well as some that are!), then it would be an amazingly strong indictment of the peer review process not to believe that the papers which have gone through a selection process and are among the X% of accepted papers for some number X bounded away from 100 are going to be, **on average**, better in every way than papers published by predatory journals.
Is there any evidence of this? I sure think so. Any kind of statistical study is either going to concentrate on a very limited range of journals which need not be of direct interest to any given reader or going to take a massive amount of work. I would rather suggest: select a predatory journal in your field and a legitimate, though run-of-the-mill journal in your field. Page through, say, the articles published by each one in 2010 (or some reasonable subset thereof). First evaluate the articles yourself: can you see the difference? Then look at official reviews of the article (in mathematics there are two internationally recognized services that write reviews of every single math article published -- except that certain journals they drop as not being worth their attention; I believe that similar things exist in many other academic fields). Then track citation statistics of the articles. Is there a difference? Is the difference subtle enough to warrant statistical analysis, or does it just stare you right in the face? I have done a little bit of this practice myself. I am getting inspired to try it more systematically.
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Tags: publications, journals, disreputable-publishers
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thread-21893 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21893 | Asked to tutor in a class I am currently taking | 2014-06-03T19:57:57.367 | # Question
Title: Asked to tutor in a class I am currently taking
I am in an accelerated Master's program in Engineering, we are taking a Probability course. At this time the class is review for me (I have a B.S. in Mathematics), we are moving very fast though.
One of the other students asked if I would be willing to tutor them, and offered to pay me for the time.
My main worries are that 1. I will get to a point where I am trying to summarize information I have just learned, 2. That I will have a good mathematical explanation but miss the point in plain English, and 3. that tutoring will cause me to not have enough time to study myself.
With those misgivings in mind, would it be more ethical/reasonable to just give some advice for free or to set up payment plan? I am not just going to say "No, I won't help" but if I was charging I would want to be able to give their money's worth.
# Answer
Like most things in life, being open and honest is a good policy.
Since you (presumably) are not close friends with this individual, and he is asking for assistance it is reasonable to request compensation as a tutor. Every person on this planet has finite time and resources. Having a near stranger request time should result in some kind of compensation, mutual friendship, or you should decline.
You can tell him that you're happy to catch him up to where you are while tutoring him, but if the topic advances faster than your learning, either work through the problems with him at a reduced rate (or free if you feel like it's equal contribution) or simply suggest finding another tutor at that point.
> 9 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, ethics, tutoring
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thread-21884 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21884 | How to react to flawed preprints? | 2014-06-03T17:53:47.203 | # Question
Title: How to react to flawed preprints?
Suppose you were to find what you think are serious flaws in a preprint (arXiv or something similar). What should you do? Now, after the obvious first step of contacting the authors and letting them know, what should you do if you were basically told off ("thanks for your interest" without addressing any of the technical concerns)?
Were this a regular journal, one might write a letter to the editor, or a comment (one might go this route even without contacting the authors in the first place), but how should you deal with preprints, whose contents is in a way still evolving? Would a "comment" paper uploaded to the preprint server not be considered rather aggressive (I don't remember seeing anyone doing this)? **Is there anything one can, or should, do *before* the (eventual) publication of the paper in some peer-reviewed venue?**
Stretching this well into the hypothetical, suppose that one did write a "comment" paper and uploaded it onto the preprint server. Would the authors of the original preprint be ethically obliged to cite this and address the concerns raised therein when submitting to peer-reviewed journals (assuming that they were to submit after being let known of the existence of the comment)?
# Answer
You have no need to do anything. By contacting the author, you pointed out what you believe to be a flaw. It could be you are incorrect, it could be that they deal with this in a future version, it could be that they simply don't care. To me, this situation is akin to the following xkcd comic:
People perform research, good and bad, every day. Once it's published you can feel free to write an article refuting their conclusions, but until then it's just informal academic discussion, and there's nothing you can really do about someone else being wrong.
*Disclaimer: Some disciplines may treat preprints as actual publications, and if so, the preceding does not apply. I do not know of any fields for which this is the case, but then again, there's a lot of things I do not know.*
> 18 votes
# Answer
As I understand it, the point of distributing (including posting, as on the arxiv) preprints is that one wants to both speed up and enhance the publicity of their paper and the feedback they get on it. A very common practice is to post preprints on the arxiv, see what kind of reaction you get, and then submit them for publication anywhere from a week to a few months afterwards.
So I think that it is fair to assume that if someone posts a preprint on an electronic server, they are interested in feedback from any interested party. Thus you were being helpful in contacting the authors about what you perceive to be a problem in their work. I think that in most cases, what the authors do with your feedback is their business, up until the point where it becomes submitted -- and you are an editor or a referee -- or published.
In particular, there is no "standard temporal scale" for modifying arxiv preprints: there are some famous examples of papers on the arxiv that have been known to be flawed for years but have not been "withdrawn". I would advise against that, but that's the authors' choice. At what point to make what you regard as less essential changes is really nebulous. To give one brief example, I found a lapse in the exposition of a paper I submitted to the arxiv last month just a few days after submitting it. I really wanted the paper to be understandable to everyone, so I did upload a new copy. More recently I discovered that a result that we attribute to mathematician X was also earlier done by mathematician Y (the two works were independent and use different methods). I certainly want to straighten this out before publication. But I have not yet uploaded a new version of the preprint: it's a judgment call.
Maybe the authors *are* addressing your comments. Maybe they happen to know that they're right and you're wrong. Or maybe neither of you is wrong and you're just not understanding the language in the same way. (I have seen this happen again and again.) It's hard for you to know what the authors are doing, and I wouldn't assume that your criticism hasn't gotten through: a bland acknowledgment of receipt is a pretty good first response to an email like that.
Should you upload a critical arxiv preprint yourself? Probably not, most of the time. Exceptions:
1) The mistake in the author's preprint is specifically detrimental to your own research. For instance if the information that the author's preprint is critically flawed is important to the refereeing of one of your papers, that's a reasonable call to action.
2) If the paper does something extremely important and is getting widespread "public" attention. For instance, if the preprint purports to solve the Riemann Hypothesis, everyone else believes it, but you have identified the flaw, then you'll be doing the community a great service by getting this information out.
These exceptions are fairly exceptional. Even in those cases I would counsel repeated contact with the authors rather than uploading the preprint straight away.
**Important Note**: I fear that my advice may be somewhat field specific. In mathematics, we really don't place a premium on openly critiquing each other: all other things being equal, that's a distinct negative. There are some academic fields where pointing out the flaw (or arguable flaw) in someone else's work is a really good paper of yours.
Finally, you ask if the authors would be ethically obliged to cite your hypothetical preprint. I think this is easy: you are ethically obliged to cite any source that you have specifically and substantively used in the course of doing your work or (especially) that has made you modify your work. So the authors would have to cite your preprint if they respond to it in any way. If their perspective is that your criticism is without merit, they do not need to cite it in their submission and it may in fact be inappropriate to do so.
> 8 votes
# Answer
There are plenty of papers on arxiv.org titled "Comment on... " e.g. http://arxiv.org/abs/0811.3876 (and also some titled "Response to ...") some addressing paper not yet published.
Regarding the last part of your question:pointing errors in a preprint is not rudeness. Ignoring such concerns is rude. A real life story is that of the flaws in two papers of Daniel Biss found by Nikolay Mnev (it seems that at first his private communications were ignored) and that forced Mnev to put a paper on the arxiv.
> 1 votes
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Tags: ethics, etiquette, preprint
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thread-21897 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21897 | Obtaining followup clarification/feedback from referees via the editor | 2014-06-03T20:29:45.077 | # Question
Title: Obtaining followup clarification/feedback from referees via the editor
\[This looks like something that might have been asked already, but I have not found a question like this on this site.\]
I recently had a paper rejected with resubmission from a top Bayesian Statistics journal. This was not a surprise. My main reason for submitting to the journal was to obtain feedback, which I did obtain. I received two reasonably detailed reviews, one more detailed than the other (the longer a bit over 3 pages), as well as a very short and somewhat cryptic (one short para) comment from the Associate (Area?) Editor. Also, these reviews were delivered very fast, which was good. I submitted the manuscript on 27th of April, and it was rejected on the 3rd of June.
The general tone of the reviews is captured by the EIC's one line summary
> Your paper has been read by an AE and two referees. They have all found the topic interesting but with several major flaws in the methodology and implementation
Now, some points in these reviews are unclear. Would it be reasonable to write to the editor asking for feedback on those points from the referees? Perhaps something along the lines of
> Is this what you meant? If so, the answer is this. If not, can you clarify, please?
or maybe just
> I don't understand what you mean here, can you elaborate?
Assuming the message is forwarded and the referee replies, I suppose there could conceivably end up being a bit of a back and forth with the reviewers via the editors.
On previous occasions I have not tried doing this, but I have come to believe there is no sense in being too shy in such matters. If you want information, ask for it.
However, I wonder if this is considered unorthodox, improper or inappropriate procedure. It is relevant to note that I am not an expert in Bayesian methods. However, the editors and referees apparently thought my paper worth the trouble of reviewing in detail. Regardless, my lack of experience/expertise may hamper me in understanding the finer points of what is expected in the field.
I will of course do my due diligence in trying to understand the content/purport of the comments, but I don't see the point of my spending hours trying to guess what is meant when the referees could (hopefully) clarify the point in a few minutes.
So, to summarize, the upsides are:
* If I get a response, my eventual fixes will be better and more targeted
* I don't waste a lot of time trying to guess what someone meant. Maybe it was even based on a miunderstanding
The downsides are:
* The reviewers/editors will not want to be bothered with responding to me. This will be especially true if this is not considered normal procedure
* They might be annoyed by my (possible) cluelessness in the area.
If I don't ask for any clarifications, then I will just end up making my best guess as to what the referee means. I don't think that the results would be as good as if I was to get clarifications.
# Answer
The simple answer is: there's no harm in sending the editor a polite email to ask. Provided your questions are broadly sensible, they're unlikely to hold a grudge against you for doing so.
However, I imagine that an editor is going to be wary of encouraging a discussion that might irritate his reviewers (who he wants to be able to use again in the future), or which appears to risk developing into a challenge to the review process itself. I suspect that you are unlikely to get a positive response unless your question is very limited in scope: for example, "Reviewer 1 comments that my results would appear to generalise the Jenkins-Smith theorem; however, I cannot find a statement of this. Would the reviewer be prepared to give me an appropriate reference?"
Have you asked a colleague to look over your reviews? Sometimes, counterintuitively, things are clearer to a reader with a shallower understanding of the intricacies of your work.
> 4 votes
# Answer
First, as an editor, I am not happy to see that you send manuscript to journals to get feedback. It is a terrible waste of time for reviewers and editors who work for you for free on their spare (or research) time. So, I suggest not using this as a strategy in the future but at least try to locate journals where you think you stand a chance to be published and also prepare the manuscript accordingly before submission.
To your question. There is no harm writing a letter asking for clarification. A service minded editor will at least reply. But, I doubt that you can expect much interaction with the reviewers, with or without the editor as a middle person since, as mentioned above, these persons are working to serve the community on their spare time and for free. If reviewers are known by name to you, you are of course free to contact the reviewer directly. Again, the degree of response depends on the willingness of the referee to indulge to such communication and, perhaps, their interest in the details of your work. But if your aim is simply to squeeze out information from an "easy" source, I think you need to think again because such behaviour could soon turn out a label.
In your question you specifically ask about requesting references, and I will add that it is not very helpful when referees just allude to references in their reviews without giving them, but then people tend to have different standards. This obviously goes for all sides of the process.
> 3 votes
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Tags: publications, peer-review
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thread-21899 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21899 | How should you address academic colleagues in the United States? Is the "Prof" title necessary? | 2014-06-03T20:47:11.253 | # Question
Title: How should you address academic colleagues in the United States? Is the "Prof" title necessary?
I've recently been hired as an assistant professor and will be starting this fall. As I'm beginning to be included on departmental e-mail and in certain decisions, I'm starting to interact (at least via e-mail) with my colleagues. How should I address them? As a graduate student and postdoc, I've always addressed faculty as Prof. X unless I was already very familiar with them or unless they've told me to do otherwise. Is it strange to continue to do this as a professor? I don't want to be disrespectful, but at the same time it feels a little stuffy to continually refer to everyone as Prof. X until they suggest I do otherwise.
# Answer
In the US, you generally address colleagues of a similar status by their first names—so your fellow faculty members would definitely be addressed informally. This would of course extend to collaborators and acquaintances in other departments.
I think the only exception to this would be in the case of *formal* communications—an official memorandum or letter from a faculty member to someone in the university administration, for instance. But otherwise, in any oral or informal written correspondence, I'd stick to first names.
(In other countries, follow the appropriate local traditions, as they may be very different from US standards.)
> 5 votes
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Tags: professorship, colleagues, assistant-professor
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thread-21923 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21923 | Positioning of elements in research paper | 2014-06-04T10:20:45.397 | # Question
Title: Positioning of elements in research paper
I'm currently writing a research paper in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and me and my professor have slightly different views on how to present and order the different elements that are necessary in a paper.
I have two parties that are interested in my research, my professor (and school) and the company I do the research for. The company has **no** experience with scientific reports.
My professor comes from an psychology background and wants me to write in an hour glass structure. I however believe that I should be writing it for the public that is going to profit from the research, which is in this case the company.
After a search I came across this: Is it a good academic practice to tell the reader in the introduction what the essay is about directly? In which I found the answer by Jeromy Anglim that I completely agree with.
This however only goes in to the introduction and says nothing about the discussion/conclusion section of the paper.
At the moment I have a conclusion section right after my results where I answer my research questions. After this I have a discussion section on what these results mean with the theory and all that belongs there. This was very appreciated by the company.
However, not so much by my professor. He says the conclusion **always** comes after the discussion, **or** is part of the discussion.
Long story short:
1. What is a good way to present the introduction and discussion/conclusion in a paper which has to be easily read and understood by non-academics.
2. If I do not use the hour-glass structure, what section of my paper would be the best place to justify this decision?
# Answer
Your problem is that a term paper for university is *not* the same as a company white paper. You cannot expect to write a nice white paper ("What is a good way to present the introduction and discussion/conclusion in a paper which has to be easily read and understood by non-academics.") and expect your professor to grade it as such. The conventions for white papers and academic reports are significantly different (and I would honestly be surprised of the positioning of the conclusions are really the only required change).
I like Suresh's suggestion - produce two versions of the report, one for the company, which focuses on the results and implications for the company, and one for the university, which is written for an academic reader outside the company. The style may well differ, even if the vast majority of the content will be the same.
> 5 votes
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Tags: research-process, writing
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thread-21922 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21922 | Research paper - translated plagiarism? | 2014-06-04T10:12:48.067 | # Question
Title: Research paper - translated plagiarism?
I'm writing a research paper in my native language, Serbian, on a specific electrical engineering and applied mathematics topic. Moreover, there are two published papers in English that hold much of the information I need.
Now, the topic itself is quite new and is unknown in Serbia, and consequently at my university. My plan is to sum up the results of the two papers, further expand on the theory behind it (which is only arbitrarily mentioned in the English papers), and finally encapsulate the whole idea.
So, strictly speaking, I won't be doing any original research, in terms of experiments or mathematical breakthroughs, but rather synopsize and provide a desired perspective on a modern topic that is novel to my national academic environment.
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**Q:** If I reference the two English papers and their authors at the end of the paper, do I commit plagiarism?
For example, if I see a nice sentence in one of the papers, and I translate it into my paper, are the references at the end enough for crediting the author?
Finally, is using the pictures from the two papers (with referencing them naturally) accepted practice? Or do I need to get the authors' permission to use them?
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Furthermore, does my paper still hold some kind of value, even though it doesn't provide original results? At the very least, it introduces a new, and very interesting topic to my faculty, and is generally a field I'm interested in researching, and eventually achieving some real and relevant results.
# Answer
**Referencing the papers at the end is not sufficient.**
Generally, the litmus test whether or not something is plagariasm is whether the reader is given an adequate impression of how much of the text is other peoples work. Readers don't always read entire papers, and in particular may not make it to the end.
In your case, I would suggest to state at the beginning what your two main sources are, and give some indication of how heavily you are drawing from them. Then, throughout the paper reference each bit you've taken from elsewhere by where it is coming from.
> 32 votes
# Answer
Your paper lies somewhere between
* a true translation, much like how a book in one language might be translated into another. In such a case, the article is usually credited to the original authors, with a note mentioning who did the translation
* a review article that surveys some fragment of the literature, possibly adding a larger perspective to the material being presented.
In my view, your work is closer to the latter than the former, especially if what you're trying to transmit in Serbian are the ideas in the papers, and not the literal words.
What might therefore be your best option is to convey the ideas in the works, clearly marked (for example a section header, or even some introductory text saying what you're doing), but without any need to cite specific translations (unless the occasional turn of phrase is so useful that you might as well put it in quotes).
In this case, you're clearly not plagiarizing, since credit is being given clearly and copiously.
I'm not sure about the copyright issues involved in reproducing pictures. Fair use should cover use of a few pictures (but **IANAL**). In any case, it's the copyright holder who needs to be asked (and this might be the authors, or the publisher: the paper should have a note about this).
Does such a document have value ? Well based on the context you describe, sure ! If it helps an audience gain access to material they'd otherwise be unfamiliar with or unable to read, definitely. This is no different from other review articles in other disciplines, and has the added bonus of language translation.
> 25 votes
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Tags: publications, plagiarism, translations
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thread-21875 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21875 | What to do when students bring me questions related to other courses and subjects? | 2014-06-03T14:35:34.897 | # Question
Title: What to do when students bring me questions related to other courses and subjects?
I teach all of the writing courses for one of my college's STEM department. Occasionally, students bring me questions related to their field, e.g. they are doing some project for another course and they want to know what tools I used for a similar real-world project I did before.
* If I help the students (which would amount to suggesting some books, tools, Web sites), perhaps the department will feel I am interfering in matters where I should not, as this is not my teaching area.
* If I turn away the students, perhaps the department or (students themselves) will feel I am not committed to serving the students.
What is the accepted procedure for such a situation?
# Answer
> 31 votes
There's no shame in saying you're not an expert in their domain specific knowledge. It's more important to know your limitations than to give advice you're not directly qualified to give. Direct them to a professor in that specific field.
If you feel you have sufficient experience to give (at least) a starting point, by all means share it with them. Just always make sure that you are clear about the limitations of your expertise.
# Answer
> 16 votes
As an undergrad, in my first year I had a great professor that was very good at explaining almost everything. For many students, he became another resource to solve doubts and get help, specially for those subjects where the lecturer was not so clear. If you asked him politely, he would gladly help if he knew the answer. I will always remember him as one of the best contributors to my education.
For some of his comments, I imagine he may have had problems with some other member of faculty. So he changed his policy: whenever he explained anything from another subject, he would close the door. Being realistic, anyone complaining because you are sharing knowledge of their domain, will probably have a bad attitude to many things. Whatever you do, something will upset them.
The only drawback of free help is that takes time from you. If this becomes a problem, you can just ask the students to come at another time because you are busy at the moment. You are doing them a favour, and they will not have any problem with it.
# Answer
> 6 votes
In my opinion, if you are not time constrained and have the expertise, by all means, help the student.
I am a math tutor in a local high school, and often a student will walk in with a science book to ask a question. If it's something I can answer, I'm happy to help. No science teacher would be offended, although they might be surprised as human nature is to pass the buck.
In general, it's great that a student looks up to you and values your advice. I'd just accept that and be glad to help.
# Answer
> 4 votes
The whole purpose of having students at a university is for them to learn things. Your university cannot reasonably object to you teaching the students things solely on the grounds that it was somebody else's job to teach them those things.
They could object on other grounds, such as you giving bad advice or spending so much time on this that you're not doing your own job properly but, as long as you guard against that, what real problem could there be?
# Answer
> 3 votes
I think there should be **no problem** as long as the **question can be framed *so that it is in the scope of your subject*** (even if the project that "produced" the question is not directly related).
This should ideally be done by the student, while asking the question, but if there is an obvious part of the question related to your subject, it would be okay to gently push your answer in that direction.
You said you do a writing class, so for me, these would be good examples of viable questions (independent of the concrete project related to those questions):
* Questions about writing tools (like LaTeX). If the student wants to know pros and cons of learning a new tool *in context* of a specific project, that is a valid question (as long as it was not explicitly covered in class). Even if it was covered during the lessons, a discussion based on a concrete example can be very useful.
* Questions about best presentation of data: given a great amount of raw data, what would be the best way to present it? (graph, table, raw format, just description) If the student comes with the concrete data, he probably has either some ideas or some doubts about what representation to use.
* Tools for analyzing or representing data. Again, no matter where the data came from, if there are some commonly used analysis tools (in the wide area), or representation tools, the question is related to the writing up the idea / project results, more than the project itself.
* Questions about general structure of the piece of writing. Sometimes the content of the work makes the most common practice not applicable, or some other structure simply better.
For example, one of my articles has the *Related work* as a second-to-last section, because it simply didn't fit in naturally at it's "usual" second paragraph place. The discussion with my supervisors help clarify that and *why* it was okay.
Basically, any questions where you are the best suited to answer, independent of where the question comes from, is not misplaced. Those kinds of questions show that the students are applying and synthesizing their knowledge, and *looking at it from a different (not-required) perspective*, which is a good thing. (If I ever was in that kind of situation,) those questions would make me proud of my teaching since it meant the students are applying what I taught them "outside the box" I gave them.
Of course, if it is not that kind of question, there is nothing wrong in turning the student away, perhaps pointing him to the right person to talk to. Simply saying that there are people who are better suited to answer their questions, while making it clear that you would be more than happy to help within your area of expertise, should be enough.
Students that you are directly responsible for (i.e. your supervisees) might be a different story, but that might be out of the scope of this question :)
# Answer
> 1 votes
One of the best ways for a university professor to aid a student's learning is to point them where they themselves could discover such tools.
Additionally, you could point them in the direction of your SME colleagues, experts in topics outside of the scope of your expertise.
Lastly, to maximize your likely full schedule, helping students identify resources could be something you provide to them as a group during advisor hours. Schedule a group resources time during your office hours so that you don't get overtaxed time wise.
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Tags: teaching, answering-questions
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thread-21889 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21889 | What Kind of Research Method is this? | 2014-06-03T18:59:10.733 | # Question
Title: What Kind of Research Method is this?
This is something I've been confused ever since I started my undergraduate research.
My research related to User Interfaces. Based on some of the previous years undergraduate research or from some research in the same year as me, as far as I see, have these steps:
1. Suppose we wants to design new interface for a system-X
2. We do the survey about the interface of system-like-X (but not X) to the users
3. From the survey, we get the data: what the users don't like from the present system interface, which part should be improved, etc
4. Then, we propose the new design based on that data
5. We then, again, test that new design with users
And now, my steps, according to my advisor
1. You design the new interface
2. Test it
I'm so confused, because, based on what would I design the interface? What standard or principle I should used? Also, in my case, I have to implement or develop the testing tools myself, which means that I got more work to do compared to my friend's workload. Could that be why step 1-3 skipped? But this is academic, I can't say the reason I choose that design is because "well, because that feels good/looks nice!". But my advisor never told me by what should I based my design on, she just "Yes, you design it first". But that's not my question here.
My questions are: In this case, where if I do not base my research on data, by what should I based it on? Should I use a principle to back it on or what? Is there a research method like this? What is the name of this research method?
In case I ask in wrong place or there's lack of information, please tell me.
# Answer
> 4 votes
You can base it on the data collected by other people already. There are many facts about user behaviors available in various research papers. This list has a seemingly good compilation of conferences.
So you base your design on facts and observations and user preferences that someone has published. Then your contribution can be using those principles to create a user interface for a domain, device, or a situation that no one else has explored yet.
I am not a usability person, but since the question was on research method, I thought I would provide my opinion.
# Answer
> 1 votes
In addition to bkd.online's answer, from your limited description I would call the extra steps in the first list *pilot testing* the user-design. Pilot tests are typically constructed to have a low time and cost data collection to get immediate feedback to improve the design.
In terms of research, the pilot study is typically not considered research in and of itself, but basically the same strategy can be used later on down the line to conduct actual research. For instance, you may have a question about the location of a widget in your design, and whether the location impacts users behavior. You can then set up a proper experiment where you randomly expose different uses to the different widget locations and then measure users behavior under these different conditions.
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Tags: research-process, research-undergraduate, methodology
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thread-21932 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21932 | Referring to the thesis itself | 2014-06-04T11:16:31.090 | # Question
Title: Referring to the thesis itself
I am currently writing my thesis.
How should I refer to the thesis itself? "This thesis", "this text" or maybe "this work"?
I think that the fact that the text is currently used for my graduation (which makes it my thesis) is no inherent property of the text itself. I am therefore hesitant to refer to it as "this thesis".
# Answer
Perhaps I may be missing something, but in general, I think something such as "In this work" or "This text" would suffice. The thesis itself will be a form of publication, and you are writing it from that perspective, so it is perfectly acceptable to make reference to specific areas within the thesis, especially since you are likely to have results or new content that may not be found in other publications of yours.
More specifically, what exactly about your thesis are you trying to reference? Is it a result that can be found on a specific page, in a chapter or a particular figure? If so, then I would make specific reference to where exactly the reader can find the information. Maybe when describing results collectively, you could say "the results presented in this chapter" so that it's more clear to what you are trying to refer.
Are you citing some exposited logic or text that was previously introduced or will be further explained later on? Then the common ways of referring to this would be "see above/below", "in the previous/next section", "in the section entitled X", or the Latin equivalents *vid supra* (v.s.) and *vid infra* (v.i.).
> 4 votes
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Tags: thesis, grammar
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thread-21916 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21916 | Who launches a private non-profit university? | 2014-06-04T07:07:47.760 | # Question
Title: Who launches a private non-profit university?
Universities are normally non-profit. For public universities, it is understandable that governments invest the taxpayers' money for education purpose.
However, investors of a private university should invest a huge amount of money (campus, buildings, facilities, staff, etc.) without ambitious hope for financial gain. At best (after a few years), a new university can earn enough money (tuition fee and donations) to operate without financial benefits for its original investors.
Who invests in private universities?
It cannot be financial investment, and not all cases are charity. Then, how does this system work? as it is rapidly growing in many countries.
Who makes the huge initial investment?
# Answer
> 6 votes
I'm only familiar with the US, but my understanding is that most (if not all) private non-profit universities were started with a single large gift from a wealthy individual, family, small group of individual, or a charitable foundation (usually started by one of the above). In many cases the institution is named after that person.
I'm not sure in which countries the number of private non-profit universities is "rapidly growing". I only know of a few recently started institutions in the US. One with which I'm somewhat familiar is Olin College. According to their web site, the college was started with a $460 million gift from the F. W. Olin Foundation, which in turn was founded in 1938 by Franklin W. Olin and funded by his personal wealth.
Such gifts *are* considered "charity" in that their main purpose is to benefit the community, and the donor doesn't receive a financial benefit. Of course, any given donor could certainly have personal motivations other than a genuine desire to do good (attention, guilt, fun, taxes, etc.), but there is really no way to guess.
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Tags: university
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thread-21900 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21900 | How to handle an advisor who communicates badly and puts me in a bad position as a result? | 2014-06-03T21:31:05.413 | # Question
Title: How to handle an advisor who communicates badly and puts me in a bad position as a result?
I'm frequently put in an awkward position by my advisor: he communicates pretty badly (vague, doesn't give enough information, isn't clear with what he wants, references things that could mean many things), and then I have to interpret what he means. If I interpret it incorrectly, I often get chastised because from his point of view, he gave me directions and I didn't follow them correctly. If I ask for clarification, I often get chastised because he sees nothing wrong with the bad directions he gave me.
I'm of course open to the possibility, but I don't think it's just me -- I've been in meetings with him and several other people, showing information that everyone clearly understands but he's very confused. Inversely, I've also seen other people be confused by what he's trying to say. To try and find a positive example, the people who seem to work best with him are people who mostly do their work independently (postdocs, for example).
It's very frustrating to me because I'm genuinely trying to work hard and please him, and I do think he has good ideas -- he just acts like the things in his head that are clear to him are thus clear to everyone else.
I know he tries to stress independence as well, which I understand is a valuable trait -- I know too many grad students who are basically passive "gophers" who just go down the list of what their advisor tells them to do and never end up thinking for themselves. And I appreciate that, but it can go just as badly in the opposite direction, when I'm pulling out my hair because I just have so little information about what he wants, but he thinks I have a lot.
Is there anything I can really do? I'm usually all for it, but I don't think talking to him directly and specifically would really accomplish anything here: he's successful and seemingly pretty set in his ways.
# Answer
> 49 votes
As an advisor who often thinks I'm giving clear instructions when I'm not :), here's one thing that will require a certain amount of pain, but might help long term.
You might have tried this already, but when you're given somewhat vague instructions by your advisor, try to spell them out as precisely as you're able to and repeat them back to him on the spot.
So your advisor says, "maybe you should try (vague idea) X, Y, Z".
You say, "so you mean that for (vague idea) X I should try A, B, ??".
Your advisor might say, "no no, I really meant D" while frowning fiercely at you. But at least then you've managed to get something precise out of him.
Or (and this has happened to me), your advisor says "Hmm. you're right: X doesn't make any sense: ignore that". In which case you've successfully eliminated one unclear option.
The "pain" here is that your first few meetings might go quite badly while you both struggle to learn to communicate with each other. But I suspect that if your advisor is merely not thinking carefully enough about the ideas he's suggesting, this will force him to think more clearly about them.
# Answer
> 19 votes
Every graduate student I have ever met or been spends more time than is ideal wondering exactly what their advisor wants them to do. Similarly, all advisors used to be graduate students, so they are familiar with the phenomenon, whether they presently have it in mind or not. As MHH says, graduate students tend to err on the side of "not wanting to look stupid". Again I speak from personal experience: my advisor was (and is) one of the quickest and deepest thinking mathematicians on the planet, and -- despite the fact that he is one of the warmest people I know -- I was powerfully intimidated in our meetings for several years. At one point I decided that he thought that I was a little bit quicker and lazier than I actually was...and I decided to nurture the "quickness" and reveal my very solid work ethic at a later, more appropriate time. In retrospect I am amused by the fact that I had such a psychologically astute approach -- indeed, I still believe that opinions about people's abilities are earlier formed and less mutable than opinions about people's practices -- which was nevertheless distinctly -- obviously, really -- counterproductive.
Because many students approach meetings with their advisors with a lot of trepidation, they also want to err on the side of having the meetings go as smoothly as possible, again in a distinctively unproductive sense. If your advisor says something that you think is not a good idea or outright false, it's so tempting to swallow it in the moment, go back and spend a week or two making sure that it's problematic, and then spending another week trying to figure out how best to break the news. But again, though psychologically understandable, that's exactly wrong: why are you spending weeks exploring an idea that you immediately perceive is bad?!? Instead if you have a thought like this, you should share it with your advisor right away. It might make him frown or momentarily dampen his enthusiasm: but that's all obviously worth it.
That advice is slightly off-center for your question, but let me return to center in repeat it in a context which makes it even harder to follow: if your advisor tells you something and you don't understand it, should you really go away for a day, a week or a month trying to implement the thing you didn't understand? Of course not. You should ask for clarification.
In your particular situation you seem fixated on the fact that it's not your fault that you're not understanding your advisor. In my view if you really see it that way, you're more than halfway to the decision of choosing a new advisor, which may in fact be the right one for you. Sometimes two intelligent, competent, friendly people who want to work together in practice can't interlock professionally. That's really a bummer when it happens -- I've been there -- but a certain point you have to acknowledge it and move on to a better relationship.
In your case though it sounds like you're not there *yet*. I think you included in your question what in some sense you know you should do and then brushed it off: you need to talk to your advisor about the the lack of precision in your communication. (You say that he *seems set in his ways*. Okay, but who cares? What matters is -- hat tip to the Prince of Denmark -- whether he **is** set in his ways.) It's either that or finding a new advisor, and since the latter is a larger undertaking in every way, definitely try the former first. In preparing for this critical meeting, you should practice conveying the problematic lack of precision without making either party "to blame" or individually being accused of being "unclear". This is actually true: in any communication, the onus of understanding lies on both parties. Rather, bring it up in a very positive way: you have perceived something that you feel will make things work much better. In the conversation, listen carefully to how your advisor feels and especially how he feels about you. If he is not open to this conversation or explicitly enunciates frustration with you for needing too much hand-holding: okay, you gave it a try. But if you phrase it in the terms that I did above -- you're serious, he's serious, but it's got to be better to spend a few more minutes to make sure you understand each other properly before you go off and spend all kinds of time and energy implementing those partially understood suggestions -- I really think your advisor should be receptive. In fact, as others have pointed out, I would go into that meeting with at least the hope that he's not actually at all unwilling to be more explicit and your perception of that is part of the miscommunication.
Good luck.
# Answer
> 6 votes
Now I can't be certain that what I'm about to say applies to your advisor, but it does apply to many interactions. I've learned that with any advisor (given that you have adequately prepared yourself for your meetings) always err or the side of "appearing stupid" to trying to "interpret vague directions". Science is all about clarifying confusion, and asking "dumb questions". In fact, some of the best research has it's origin from scientist questioning something that "didn't quite make sense" to them. Most likely the questions you ask aren't dumb, and even if they are, hiding the misunderstanding will only lead it to be revealed at a later time. Even worse, something might seem vague or confusing because the advisor is wrong or hadn't thought out all the details. Never set out do something your advisor told you, when you don't understand, that usually leads to problems down the road. Instead ask for clarification, even if you think it will tarnish your reputation a bit. If he appears fussy now, oh well, you still need to learn. If you think he is the one who is wrong or vague, asking (politely) specific questions is the best non confrontational way of approaching the situation, so you two can discuss the issue and mutually come to a consensus (which might be a consensus to disagree - for now - and come back to it later). If he is a good advisor he will respect someone asking him questions.
I know you said "If I ask for clarification, I often get chastised because he sees nothing wrong with the bad directions he gave me." What exactly does he say? I can often think I am being chastised by someone who doesn't intend on that being the case. Without more detail than this, I'd like to give your advisor the benefit of the doubt. It's possible that he really is frustrated, but that may not be the case here.
Note that many advisors can appear agitated when they aren't in the slightest bit upset or annoyed. This can occur for a bunch of reasons, but two common ones are (1) the advisee is projecting his own feelings of inadequacy onto the advisor and assuming the advisor thinks bad things of the advisee, when he actually doesn't, (2) he makes scowling or upsetting facial expressions when he is confused or thinking hard (this may have nothing to do with you).
I suspect (1) is especially at play here. Graduate students (and sometimes even professors!) frequently suffer from an impostor syndrome (me included), and the description of your advisor relationship could go along these lines.
If your advisor focusses on fostering independence, his students are going to fail a bunch of times; he (hopefully) knows this and views it as a good thing (and I agree independence is a very good thing to foster!). Your advisor most likely knows that asking a "good research question" and coming up with procedures and algorithms on your own, with only vague tips, is very difficult. He has likely had many students fumble around for years with nothing to show for it until one day, with their hard work it eventually pays off. You will come to your advisor with "strange" ideas; that comes with the territory of being this kind of advisor. The key for you is to not let your frustration lead into thoughts about what your advisor thinks of you. I often spin stories in my head about how my advisor thinks about things I do. These thoughts are unhelpful, and while it's easier said than done you should try your hardest from going down this path. Beyond working hard, what your advisor thinks of you is out of your control. Ask him the stupid questions, the people who ask stupid questions are often the people who get ahead in life.
When I was in undergrad I asked professors, grad students, and peers all types of questions. I thought, what do I have to lose, I'm just an undergrad. When I got to graduate school, I all of a sudden shut the "question asking off" out of intimidation and now realize that this was a major mistake which hindered my success during my earlier years of graduate school.
# Answer
> 3 votes
The problem isn't unique to academic circles.
One person telling another exactly what they actually want without confusion on either side is one of the hardest problems in the world.
So perhaps stick up an grad-student version of this old chestnut with "what the supervisor asked for" and "what the grad student heard" substituted for some of the silly ones to remind everyone that it's a common problem that's nothing to be embarrassed about but does have to be handled.
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/37541i926E3612BA3F8DFA/image-size/original?v=mpbl-1&px=-1
(it's been floating round the net in various forms for a long time)
I was lucky enough to be doing my postgrad in a different area to my undergrad so wasn't so embarrassed to keep digging detail out of my supervisor but you have to both invest the time in making absolutely sure you know what's wanted.
# Answer
> 1 votes
For situations like this, I think its important to rely upon other members of your committee for clarification. You probably aren't going to change the way your adviser communicates, but you might be more successful overall if you consistently communicate with your other committee members... or make sure one of them are present when you meet with your adviser. I was quite intimidated by my adviser in my PhD program, but my other committee members helped to keep things in perspective and clarify goals in ways that my adviser never could.
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Tags: graduate-school, advisor, communication
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thread-20294 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20294 | Cleaning up/Uniformize bibliography for long document | 2014-05-05T15:59:29.237 | # Question
Title: Cleaning up/Uniformize bibliography for long document
I was wondering whether existed some software that would take as input a text file bibliography (for instance a bib file if you use bibtex), and that run it through google scholar (or any other database), so that it can return a uniformized bibliography.
As an example, suppose you have two items from the same conference
```
@inproceedings{mpi,
author = {Surname1 Name1 and Surname2 Name2},
title = {Some nice work},
booktitle = {Editor of the Name of Conference},
year = {2004},
}
```
and
```
@inproceedings{RRnrj,
author = {Name3 S. and Name4 S.},
title = {Some nice work},
booktitle = {Name of Conference (Acronym)},
year = {2020},
publisher = {Editor},
}
```
and you would want it to return:
```
@inproceedings{mpi,
author = {Surname1 Name1 and Surname2 Name2},
title = {Some nice work},
booktitle = {Name of Conference (Acronym)},
year = {2004},
publisher = {Editor},
}
```
and
```
@inproceedings{RRnrj,
author = {Surname3 Name3 and Surname4 Name4},
title = {Some nice work},
booktitle = {Name of Conference (Acronym)},
year = {2020},
publisher = {Editor},
}
```
(or whatever is the norm on the database).
# Answer
If you have the DOI codes, the best thing is to use the API and get the references yourself:
```
curl -LH "Accept: text/bibliography; style=bibtex" http://dx.doi.org/[DOI code]
```
If you have them (and you should, for any modern article), parsing the bib to get them and getting the data can be done in a very simple script.
> 2 votes
# Answer
I think what you are looking for would be a reference manager. There are a number of commercial and free software available, many of which also support BibTeX files. I'm not sure what you mean precisely by "uniformized," but I take that to mean that some style guide was applied to them (since only the "Publisher" field was added to reference "mpi" in your desired output). Many of those software programs will also allow you to choose a particular style of citation, and export the references to a BibTex file again.
> 0 votes
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Tags: writing, citations, latex, bibtex
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thread-21907 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21907 | Is it permissible to request a new reviewing editor? | 2014-06-04T01:28:01.957 | # Question
Title: Is it permissible to request a new reviewing editor?
I submitted a manuscript to an established ecology journal and received reasonable reviews. The reviewing editor requested a revision. However, the comments from the reviewing editor were abysmal. First, the literacy and analysis were, in my judgment, poor by high-school standards. Second, based on the comments, I seriously doubt the reviewing editor read the manuscript. I have published 10 papers (mostly in higher impact journals than this one) and this reviewing editor stands out. I think I would rather withdraw the paper than deal with this person. Is it possible to request a different editor? I have never heard of that, but I have no desire to work with this person.
EDIT: The email from the journal contains 3 sets of comments. They are labeled "Reviewer #1", "Reviewer #2", and "Associate Editor." I am referring to the comments from the Associate Editor, who is not named. The comments from the AE synthesize the comments from the reviewers, which is his/her job, of course. However, it reads like the AE was busy and let his 12 year old son write it for him.
EDIT 2: Thank you for the input. I asked this question because A) the comments from the AE were unusually bad and B) it will require more finesse to deal with a bad editor than a bad reviewer. However, I have decided to proceed as normal anyway. I have already invested the time to get reviews and I need to deal with reviewer comments regardless. Once you are halfway into the forest, forging ahead is the quickest way out. So I will play the journal-review roulette even though I think it will be more random and aggravating than usual.
# Answer
You clearly have a very low opinion of the competence of the anonymous Associate Editor (AAE). It might be worth looking through some issues of the journal and asking around about the quality of the journal: does it really have the stature that you previously thought?
If so, then I would draw a distinction between the impression that the AAE has made on you and the effect this will have on your manuscript and your own revision process. The relevant question is: is it going to be more trouble to push this paper through to publication -- is it even headed in that direction? that wasn't completely clear to me from your description -- than to start fresh with a different journal?
It sounds like you think that the *referees* made reasonable comments, comments that you would have to address anyway before resubmitting. So what is the downside in preparing a revised version that addresses the *referees' comments*, together with a brief, unconfrontational reply explaining that the AAE's suggestions were considered but ultimately not followed? To me it seems strategically best to try this first and see what happens.
As a final point: let me address the question: How do you communicate to the journal your professional opinion that the AAE is truly incompetent? I would say that criticizing an unknown editor of a journal is difficult or impossible to pull off in a way which is likely to be productive: the risk seems too high that you would simply be writing to the person you are complaining about and informing them that their work is "poor by high-school standards". I tried to imagine a person who might respond well to that...and I did not succeed. In my experience, the current journal system makes the process of complaint / appeal / seeking of restitution so awkward as to rarely be worthwhile for anything other than a cathartic (Festivus-style?) airing of grievances: too much of the process happens out of your sight. The point at which you feel like you *need* to complain is probably the point to resubmit somewhere else.
> 9 votes
# Answer
As chief editor of a journal, I can say that I would see such a request as reasonable under certain circumstances (and it has happened). However, in the case you describe I do not see what it is that the editor has really done. The reviewers comments form the basis for your revisions and the editor should judge if any comments are more important than others and summarize what the editor sees as important revisions you should make. It is then up to you to do these as you see fit and if you disagree argue against those that need such action.
Change of editor requests come when an author feel a paper has been unfairly judged (usually rejected) and I know of one case where an editor rejected a paper after using a set of reviewers that were marked as "non-preferred" due to a conflict of interest. I also know of cases where a zealous copy-editor has modified the language to a degree that the science was almost completely lost. In your case, it is not clear what has happened to the manuscript, has it been rejected? have you written a rebuttal and argued against changes imposed?
I would suggest that you make the revisions you think are reasonable and provide a rebuttal on the *suggested* changes to your paper. If you encounter more unreasonable resistance from the editor, I think it is only fair to write to the Editor-in-Chief and state that you think you have been unfairly treated and wish to get a second opinion on the handling.
> 15 votes
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Tags: publications, journals, peer-review, editors
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thread-21945 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21945 | How do I cite ebooks without page numbers? | 2014-06-04T15:15:47.400 | # Question
Title: How do I cite ebooks without page numbers?
I am directly quoting a sentence from an ebook. Thus, I want to add the page numbering to its citation. However, different to the print version, which I do not have, this ebook (Amazon Kindle version) does not have page numberings but rather "positions".
Do I just pretend it's a page numbering and note in the bibliography that it is a Kindle version? Or is there another way?
In case this is of interest, I am using Latex with Bibtex.
# Answer
You are not providing page numbers with citations for their own sake, but to help readers to locate the cited passage, e.g., if they want to verify it or see it in context. (Therefore page numbers are already diminished in their usefulness for regular books as soon as there are two editions with significantly different paging.)
The arguably easiest way to locate a verbatim quote in an e-book is to just feed a few words into a full-text search. Thus giving page numbers or similar information has no purpose anymore. However, you could ease finding the location of the quote in a classical book by giving edition-independent location information, such as chapter and section numbers.
Note that this is a “utilitaristic” approach to citations. A relevant reader of your publication (e.g., a supervisor or reviewer) might have a “dogmatic” view on such things and thus require page numbers or similar for their own sake.
> 6 votes
# Answer
Since your quote is direct, I would not bother myself so much about it. Just cite the book and give a note that it's an `e-book`. You can add a chapter or section number if it exists. Anyways, it's a direct quote: people should trust you that it is there. And if they needed, then can use full-text search if they needed.
**However, it is necessary to provide as precise version information of the file as possible!**
> 2 votes
# Answer
In my opinion, in this case, it may be a good idea to cite your reference regarding the section and part from which you are directly quoting a sentence. I mean, you may cite the ebook the same as you used to do before, but, when you want the reader to be informed about the exact part in which your quotation exists; you may refer to the section and part instead of page numbers which do not exist. Another good idea may be mentioning the phrase: "PDF file position: Page ???" in the same place of citation in which the page number is mentioned and the reader will easily find the part of the reference.
> 1 votes
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Tags: citations, bibtex
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thread-21958 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21958 | Do the author's name and/or affiliation affect the visibility of a paper? | 2014-06-04T20:30:16.520 | # Question
Title: Do the author's name and/or affiliation affect the visibility of a paper?
Suppose two papers were published by fledgling researchers, perhaps PhD students, who are yet unknown in their field. One is Asian, has a surname which is long and difficult to pronounce, and perhaps also comes from a relatively unknown university. The other has an English name, and comes from a well-known university. But otherwise, the two papers are similar in content and on par in terms of quality.
Ideally, there should not be any preference with regards to citing either of the two papers. That means, in the long run, the expected citation counts of the two papers should be about the same. However, I am interested to know whether this is the case in reality. From my limited experience, I seem to have seen papers that referenced only other papers whose authors are European. Has there been any study that suggests whether the name and/or affiliation of an author affect the visibility and hence the citation count of his/her paper? I am aware that the answer might be different for different fields.
---
To ask the question in another way, is our perception of a paper influenced by the authors' names and/or affiliations? Do we not tend to infer the quality of a paper by these factors?
# Answer
> 16 votes
The short answer (from the view of an economist) is: Probably not. At least not in the way you suggest.
However, for most (i.e., not the most influential papers/journals) papers most of the citations (especially for PhD students) are "generated" by feedback from conferences, referees, supervisors, ... . Therefore, someone from Europe is more likely to encounter someone who knows the European paper and therefore only cites the paper from Europe. In addition, researchers from well-known universities have more visibility and are more likely to know the topic of papers from PhD students at their department.
So, even if there is is no discrimination with regards to the name and the affiliation we could observe the effect you described.
I do not know of any study covering your question, and I do not think there is a way to do such a study.
---
> To ask the question in another way, is our perception of a paper influenced by the authors' names and/or affiliations? Do we not tend to infer the quality of a paper by these factors?
I guess that depends on the person. I (and most people I know) are heavily influenced by the journal it is published in, not at all by the authors' name (to clarify: We are influenced by the fact if we know the person or not, but not by how the origin of the name / how the name looks like.) and maybe a little bit by the affiliation of the author if it is a top 5 or top 10 institution in the specific field of research.
# Answer
> 5 votes
> Has there been any study that suggests whether the name and/or affiliation of an author affect the visibility and hence the citation count of his/her paper? I am aware that the answer might be different for different fields.
I have no study at the ready, but I have often wondered the same and can provide some speculations.
You bring up the following factors that might play into whether a work may be higher cited:
* Status of the researcher
* Name
* Status of university
For computer science, the first point is usually not all that important, as the vast majority of papers have both PhD students *and* professor(s) as authors. I also don't believe that the status of the university very much plays into the decision whether a paper will be cited. At least for me, I never even remember which institution(s) an interesting paper comes from, unless I know the authors personally. I just don't consider that particularly relevant information. Interestingly, I remember universities more for papers from asian authors (see also next paragraph), as "National University of XY" is much better discriminator for me than most asian names. However, it's not that better universities stick more in my mind than smaller ones. To be honest, I can hardly judge the quality of asian universities outside of Singapore (where I stayed for a research visit once) anyway, except for absolute top institutions.
Now, whether the "memorability" of the name is relevant is an interesting question. For me it is certainly easier to remember US / european names than asian or indian ones. Critically speaking, I also have the strong impression that I cite more European or US authors than asian ones. However, I am 100% convinced that this also works the other way. Whenever I browse over papers by asian authors, they also seem to cite almost exclusively other asian authors, presumably for similar reasons. Whether this all evens out in the end I don't know, but I also don't really know whether there is anything that can really be done about it.
# Answer
> 3 votes
For multi author papers coming from well know labs I would be surprised if the surname of the junior author had much impact on citations since the popularity of the paper is going to be driven by the PI. For single author papers or unknown labs there could be a noticeable effect, but again I doubt it. I think most people search for literature based on key words wether it is an electronic search or a skimming of table of contents. If the authors or university Is know that clearly will increase the chance of citation. For unknown authors and universities, there is enough bias in this world, both justified and unjustified, that my guess is that there would be a correlation between citations and names.
---
Tags: citations
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thread-21908 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21908 | Graduate in three years and then apply for Ph.D. programs? | 2014-06-04T01:44:03.780 | # Question
Title: Graduate in three years and then apply for Ph.D. programs?
This is a question that I've been pondering for a long time and badly needs advice and different perspectives. Background: I'm an international student attending a modestly reputable college in the US. I'm a rising junior majoring in math and minoring in chemistry and psychology, with a GPA of 4.0/4.0 and pending publications in computational chemistry and psychology. I'm interested in Ph.D. programs in computational neuroscience (since this is a inter-disciplinary field, mostly I will apply to math or neuroscience programs).
So here is the problem: I really want to graduate early in three years, but should I? There are four reasons supporting this decision. First, due to some poor financial choices of my parents, it is risky if I stay in college for the total four years (getting a degree in three years is surely better than no degree at all!) Secondly, there is no professor here who works in the field of computational neuroscience, and the lack of relevant research opportunity is disappointing to say the least. Third, I find myself under-challenged by the curriculum. I'm taking the maximum course load with a lot of "hard" classes, but I find myself getting nothing out of the classes besides more facts and techniques. Finally, from the limited internship opportunities and readings I've done in computational neuroscience, I know that I will enjoy immersing myself in this field.
On the other hand, I can see how graduating in three years can put me in a huge disadvantage for Ph.D. application, and this is why I'm hesitant to make the final decision. One more year means more higher-level classes to take, more time to do better research, more time to prepare for GRE general and subject tests, and more time to grow as a person in general. I feel like even though I'm one of the best student in my college, but I'm certainly far from being one of the best in the country (which means diminished probability of being accepted by one of the better programs). I just want some more time to further challenge myself before I leave the college for good.
I would really appreciate some different opinion on this matter, and I thank you for reading through this long question.
# Answer
If it really is a risk that you might not graduate at all if you stay on another year, then maybe you could consider graduating early and hedging your bets. There are other ways to catch up and make yourself both more prepared and more desirable to PhD programs of your choice. For example, you could try and apply for a research position if you see any openings in labs, and either take courses simultaneously or or as someone else suggested, apply to a non PhD program first.
Either way, if there is an academic you know you would want to work with, it doesn't hurt to write them an email and ask them if they would be willing to take someone with only three years of college and if not, what would kind of skills and strengths they might be looking for. I did this when I switched fields right after college, and I was told that though I did not have quite enough qualifications, if I managed to do x, y, z I would be considered. That's what I ended up doing while working part time and two years later I got into the program (of course if you need a visa to work that's a different story).
However, if you can manage it financially, I would probably advise staying in college the extra year, and prepping for the GRE, taking courses relevant to your field, and getting those very important recommendation letters by making an impression on your professors. Also, most colleges have the option of doing a senior thesis, and if you want to go into a research career, while not a deal breaker, writing one can be very beneficial, no matter what area you write it in. Showing that you have the ability to do independent work is always a good thing when applying for doctoral programs. And it gives you a chance to work one-on-one with your advisors and can be as challenging and fulfilling as you make it!
Everyone is different, so you will have to decide on your own, but I'm always in favor of a little bit more rather than less time between college and grad school to be both psychologically and academically prepared. But that's just me. Good luck to you!
> 4 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions
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thread-21960 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21960 | A question about continuing education in an Engineering major or Sciences | 2014-06-04T21:35:01.127 | # Question
Title: A question about continuing education in an Engineering major or Sciences
I am MSc student of civil engineering and I am so much interested in sciences, mostly applied mathematics. My MSc thesis research is also focused on some analytical and numerical solutions to governing equations in field of the civil engineering. It is too difficult to start a BA in Mathematics, because I have to whether continue my education in civil engineering and apply for a PHD or seek for a job. I am so much interested in analytical solutions which exist in mathematics and applied mathematics; differential equations and PDEs. How should I satisfy my interest in mathematics, besides my future job or in my future academic life?
# Answer
It is very possible to go to a PhD program in applied math with a masters or even bachelors degree in engineering. I am in an applied math PhD program and many of my colleagues only took a couple of upper level math classes in college. Applied math is very broad and people with all sorts of backgrounds can get into these sorts of programs. But the question is what can you do now to explore your mathematical interests (an perhaps get into an applied math PhD program too)? The key is to do a few of the following
* take a few junior/senior level undergraduate math classes (or if you can handle it, graduate level math courses). You likely have the requisite background to take a class in undergraduate Real Analysis or differential equations. Basically you need to convince an admissions committee that you are capable of writing proofs. You don't need a math degree to do this; you don't even need a math minor to do this. If you do well in a single semester of real analysis some great applied math programs are more than willing to take a gamble on you if you have interesting engineering research and a good personal statement that really explains how you got a passion for math while working in engineering.
* incorporate math into your research. You say you do numerics, so prove your method converges, develop analytical error bounds, prove the existence or uniqueness of a solution. If your method is too complex to do the above, or you lack the knowledge to make progress in such an endeavor, create a "toy" problem which is similar but vastly simplified and prove something related to it. Toy problems often lead to stand alone publications, they are interesting to us applied mathematicians in and of themselves, and they have the added benefit of giving insight into your engineering research.
* Read math. Get yourself a book and work your way through it in your spare time. Just 1-2 hrs a day, of intense mathematical focus will surprisingly allow you to learn a lot more math than you would think. Start at the right level, for some this will be advanced and for others this will be not so advanced.
* think about math a lot. Just ask yourself questions a lot. Math is a mindset. Get away from the computer and coding and work with pen and paper (or a whiteboard) for a couple hours each day. Do problems -- putnum exams, course websites, math.stackexchange. They are all great resources.
> 3 votes
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Tags: mathematics, education, engineering
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thread-9827 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9827 | I am currently debating whether to leave my PhD program- any advice? | 2013-05-05T03:15:41.333 | # Question
Title: I am currently debating whether to leave my PhD program- any advice?
**TL;DR**: Young graduate student in his first year of a PhD program who has lost a passion for the academic world. Seriously considering quitting but don't know what to do. Science background.
**My background**
I'm 21-25, with a Science background, B.Sc in Physics. Took a year off between Undergrad and Grad school and worked full time as a research scientist. Theoretical background (most of my work has consisted of modelling). Strong quantitative and computer skills. Excel in presentation/project focused environments.
**General Information**
I am currently finishing the second semester of my first year in a PhD program at a top tier US school in an engineering program. I have a full scholarship that pays for all of my tuition and a living stipend (typical graduate student stipend ~$1800 a month after taxes, so quite enough to live off of). I'm not a US citizen (from Canada), so I'm here on a student VISA, so if I decide to stop I have 2 weeks to leave the country. I cannot hold any other employment in the US while here on my VISA. My PhD consists of ~1.5 years of combined coursework and research, followed by a qualifier at the end of that period (research based), then into your thesis (doesn't have to be related to what your qualifier research was on).
**Current Academic Situation**
I came first semester ready to start a new life...(first time moving away from home- did my undergrad where I was born). I did very well first semester (3.9/4.0 GPA) and research was on track (mostly lit. review). By the end of first semester however, I noticed that I was losing interest very quickly in both my coursework and research - it started to become very hard to get myself through to work on a daily basis. Went home Christmas break for a few weeks and came back to start my second semester and immediately noticed a big change. I started to struggle in my classes and fall behind on research. It wasn't that the material was too difficult, I just had no motivation to do it. No excuses here - just didn't really want to do it so I didn't. I reached the end of the semester and realized just how far behind I was. I am likely going to hit ~C average this semester (A last) and am drastically behind on research. I had weekly-biweekly meetings with my supervisor all semester, but I sort of hid just how bad things were going. Had a long meeting last week where I basically came clean on everything (said I was struggling in classes, behind on research) and the supervisor was very supportive. The supervisor believed in my potential and suggested I speak to a school counsellor and emphasized that this kind of thing was common for doctoral students.
**Personal situation/feelings**
I come from a family where both my parents have PhDs. Although my parents have always been supportive and open to my life, I feel as though they would be very disappointed if I quit and this pressure is very real to me. I have tried to have the conversation with them and their attitude is mostly: "just put your head down and work through it, it's just a phase". Quite frankly most people seem to think it's a "phase" when I tell them. Outside of school my life is great. I'm not unhappy or depressed, I have hobbies, friends, I work out - it's just school that makes me feel this way. I just don't like the academic world at all any more. I HATE classes (always have) and where in the past research has been the saving grace keeping me interested in school, it now is losing a lot of it's appeal.
Basically, I feel no passion or drive for what I am doing any more. This for me is a huge problem. I'm not the kind of person who lacks passion in life. Quite the opposite in fact. Right now I have no such drive for school. I have a long term long distance relationship with someone from home that is incredibly happy and stable. They visited here many times since I moved and we are doing great. I would be lying if I said it wasn't a factor in me wanting to quit. (Having my partner move here is a lot more complicated). The relationship has been incredibly supportive and is very aware of my current situation and has maintained a very neutral stance, trying to play devils advocate wherever possible and trying to make sure it doesn't influence the decision. I should state that I am pretty sure if I had to choose between school and the relationship, I would choose the relationship immediately with no regrets.
I have just reached a point where I find myself doing just about anything else but school work. I'll get groceries, clean the apartment, watch TV etc... before doing any work. I'm trying to stick around for a couple of months for the summer (to see if not having classes changes anything) but since talking to my supervisor I'm already having doubts about even that. At this point, I feel like moving home and getting any job would make me happier than what I am doing.
**Financial situation**
I have a few thousand dollars in the bank (enough to get me home /move out etc...) and zero debt. If I move back home, I can likely live with my parents for the first month to get back, then I'd be looking for a job and moving in with my partner. I realize having no debt puts me ahead of a lot of people and I'm not particularly concerned about the situation financially - I'm very lucky to have what I have and am aware of this.
So what's the deal? I know I have this amazing opportunity. I'm at a top tier school on a full scholarship. I wake up every day and get to work with the top minds in my field doing important research. I'm doing something a very small % of the population ever gets a chance at and yet still I have no motivation to do it. I'm not sure if I'm doing it for me any more, or I'm doing it so I don't let down other people in my life. My parents, mentors, friends, all the people who keep telling me how amazing this opportunity is. The more I look back, the more I realize that Grad school was what I did because I basically just didn't have another plan.
**What would I like to do**
I'd love to find a job. I don't need to make a lot of money to be happy - I live off of 22k a year right now and am perfectly comfortable. Money isn't a major motivator for me. Working in the financial sector, doing quantitative risk analysis, banking, DoD, just about anything sounds more appealing than school to me. I know I'm smart and I've got a strong quantitative background combined with very good personal skills. I'm great with people and one of the things I HATE about the academic world is how under-used that part of my skill set feels.
I have no idea what to do. I want to quit, but I haven't. Maybe I shouldn't? I've been looking into options, but quite frankly I'd much prefer to have some kind of plan before quitting - at the very least this pays my living right now. I'd love advice from anyone. Someone who's been in this situation, someone who hasn't It doesn't matter.
I know that what I am doing does not make me happy. But I don't know what will. Please help.
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**Update two years later**
I chose to leave school, and came home. My relationship fell apart but I found a decent job working for a tech startup and did that for about 1.5 years - I saved some money and took some time off and now I'm doing full time analytics consulting work for a website - It's working out well so far and I enjoy the freedom of it (work from home) etc. Though I do often wonder about what would have happened if I stayed, I don't regret it.
# Answer
> 56 votes
Here is my general advice for graduate students who are thinking about quitting graduate school (and I'll sprinkle in some specific advice):
1. At one point or another, almost every graduate student wants to quit, so *you're not alone*. The fact that you're not alone doesn't solve any problems, but it may give you some peace of mind. The advice from your supportive advisor to seek out counseling is a very, very good one.
2. The decision to get a graduate degree is personal and different for everyone, but regardless it is a long-term decision that will probably have a significant effect on your future. The five or six years of your life spent doing it could open up many doors; that is not to say that other opportunities aren't worth considering. You really do have to do what is best for yourself, in the end.
3. Getting a PhD really does require passion (and in your case this is weaning right now). You can push through a pretty good chunk of time without it, but if you don't find the passion, it's going to be a long haul. If you were passionate and lost that, try to figure out what it was that you were passionate about before, and see if you can get back in the groove. One of my favorite Richard Feynman stories is about how he rebounded from a slump because he watched a spinning plate in the dining hall.
4. If you hate classes, make it a priority to finish them up quickly so you can concentrate on the research! Classes, while important, are not why you are in graduate school. A friend's advisor told his students that he would be upset if they were getting A+'s, meaning that they weren't spending enough time on research.
5. You can take time off from graduate school and come back later. This is hard to do (particularly if you have to leave the country), and you can't necessarily expect the same financial support when you return. But, you can do it, and if you need time off, take it. My suggestion for you if you are still on the fence about staying in grad school is to look at an internship somewhere for the summer where you are away from school and can clear your head. Then come back next semester.
All of my advice is kind of ignoring what may be your most important statement:
> I want to quit, but I haven't.
If you've thought through all the reasons why you want to quit, and this is the answer, then you should take time off -- 'quit' is a harsh word, and not really a necessary one (see point 5). Your point is well taken that you shouldn't try to stick it out for anyone but yourself -- we all go through worries about disappointing others, but most people want you to be happy, and they will understand. You will almost certainly find a big weight lifted from your shoulders, and not extra pressure from those around you. Yes, having a plan before moving on is always a good idea, but I've been in a number of places in my life where I decided to do something before having a definite plan, and it all worked out in the end. Good luck!
# Answer
> 29 votes
Whatever you decide to do, just keep in mind that leaving a Ph.D. program because it's just not right for you does not represent any kind of failure on your part. I know plenty of people who didn't leave graduate school because they thought quitting would mean admitting that they couldn't hack it; **this simply isn't true**, and if your only reason for staying in school is that you don't want to disappoint your peers, parents, or advisor, then you should think long and hard about taking some time off from school and reassessing what you want to do.
# Answer
> 26 votes
Finish what you started.
I dropped out of a prestigious program 6 years ago, with much of the same reasoning:
* "The degree is just a piece of paper anyway"
* "If I want to learn things I can just learn them on my own"
* "What's the point? To spend that many years just to get a qualification to impress other people. I don't care about money, and if I want a job I can get a job now." (I was making $80/hour on contract work at the time.)
* "I'm planning on starting my own business"
But here I am, 6 years later, applying for grad school to give it another go.
Here are my reasons for going back: (I welcome people to correct me if I'm wrong about any of these!)
* Most full time employment is mindblowingly dull. As a student you don't fully appreciate this.
* A PhD is not very different from a job in the sense that you have to show up and do some work, most of which you don't necessarily want to do. The difference is, with a PhD you get something at the end, but with a job there is just endless tedium. Also with a graduate degree you get to use your brain a bit more.
* Your job prospects will be severely diminished, and your salary will be lower. It is fairly difficult to get a good research job without a graduate degree, and most opportunities outside of grunt work will be closed to you.
* In academia, you're used to working with smart people and having intelligent discussions, etc. If you leave and enter typical workforce, that goes away. There will always be a significant gap in academic potential between you and your colleagues and this will bother you because it means you are not hitting your potential and are effectively being under-utilized and under-paid.
* Feeling underutilized and unchallenged is very very bad. You will hate your job and therefore hate your life, and it all goes downhill from there..
* Everybody wants money. Most people that want money really badly, have at some point in their lives said "Nah, I don't care about money, money doesn't make you happy." Being broke doesn't make you happy either.
* The fact that you quit will forever haunt you. No amount of "Bill gates dropped out too" or "I'm too independent to need this" will make you feel better when you see your former classmates graduate with PhDs while you have to live with the fact that you started but gave up.
* In the workforce it doesn't always matter how smart you are. Most places I've interviewed have trouble hiding how impressed they were, and several have told me directly that I'm the best candidate they've ever seen. I always breezed through the most difficult interview questions and I've gotten offers from Google, Facebook, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, etc. BUT at the end of the day all of the jobs they offered were boring menial tasks. You could argue that it's possible to start with a menial job and then work your way up, but as I mentioned before, a PhD is also a job, why not just finish that?
Also, regarding your note on quantitative finance, please be very aware that the world of quantitative finance is very competitive and most places won't consider you if you don't have a PhD. I know because I tried several times to get a job doing quant work, but every firm I spoke with only offered back-end jobs doing menial SQL work. Your mileage may vary, but be warned that most people don't care about how good you think your quantitative skills are. (One fairly famous hedge fund manager told me very directly "everyone thinks they're going to be great at a new skill, so why would anyone risk their money on an unknown, unproven entity?".)
# Answer
> 24 votes
I'm surprised that both the question and the existing answers talk little about what *used* to motivate you to do research. You wrote, "where in the past research has been the saving grace keeping me interested in school, it now is losing a lot of its appeal". So what was that appeal, and how did it get lost?
Here are some possible answers, from my own experience; I'm sure there may be others in your case.
Did you get disillusioned about your field of research? Perhaps in the beginning you thought that if problems in this field were solved it would make a difference in the world, and now it seems that the big problems can't be solved and solving the small problems won't make a big difference?
Did you get disillusioned about academia? Did you have experiences that changed your view of academia? Did you come in the pursuit of truth and found that a lot of it is about the pursuit of publications?
Did you get disillusioned about your own abilities? Perhaps you were used to often being the best at what you were doing, and now you're surrounded by more smart people and your abilities seem less exceptional (and thus less motivating) in comparison?
Or perhaps your motivation had always been to please your parents and now that's not enough anymore?
I think having a clear understanding of what used to motivate you and why it stopped motivating you is a necessary and sufficient basis for the decision you're trying to make. If you lost interest in this particular field, you might have to look for a new field. If you lost the motivation that comes from a strong belief in your exceptional abilities, you might have to learn to enjoy being among the best and not necessarily the best. If your view of academia changed, you might try to find a place where academia is more how you'd like it to be, or if there doesn't seem to be one, perhaps academia isn't the right place for you. If you were only doing it for your parents, perhaps you should just leave. And if you lost interest because it turned out to be harder than you expected, then perhaps you should indeed "just put your head down and work through it, it's just a phase".
I think the key to sorting this out for yourself is to keep an open mind about your own motivations. Some of them may have been very pure and just got lost along the way and perhaps you can tap into them again; some of them may not seem so desirable now that you take a new look at them, and you may be glad not to have them anymore; but whatever they are, what's important is that you're honest about them to yourself and figure out how and why they changed, and that might allow you to see where they're leading you and whether staying or leaving is more in line with what's important to you now.
# Answer
> 22 votes
You are not alone.
Most graduate students are in their 20’s. Many have boy/girl friends and are away from their partners while in school. Many graduate students are international. They go abroad to study. They are away from their home countries. They study in a different environment/culture. They may have language problems. Fortunately, your situation is not that bad. Many graduate students go to graduate school as a family tradition. Their parents/relatives are academics. They were raised to be academics.
Most (if not all) graduate students have trouble with their course/research works in school one time or another. Many graduate students lose their interests in the school. Some quit. Some stay.
Your long post seems to suggest to me that you mixed your personal life with the graduate school life. We are human. We have emotions. We let our personal life interfere with other aspects of our life sometimes. We know we should not let it happen. But, it happens.
You did well in the first semester. Everything changed in the second one. Something happened. No one knows what happened except you. In other words, you are the only one who knows the answer.
I would suggest you to take a break, long or short, to figure out what you really want to do. Then, make your own decision.
There are good answers and commentaries here. I will not repeat them. I would emphasize something very important, your future is yours.
# Answer
> 9 votes
If you don't feel any passion or motivation after the second semester, I'd say you have to really take a hard look at if graduate school is something for you as you'd still have a few years to go. If you should quit or not firstly depends on what you want. You need to try and find out why you lost your passion. Was it there first, and did something cause it to leave? Where you ambivalent about graduate school, and now you found out it was not for you?
Please do not stay just because you might disappoint others, live is just too short for that.
# Answer
> 9 votes
PhDs are not for everyone. That's why most top-tier schools have about a 50% retention rate, some closer to 25-30%. You need to discover what makes you passionate, and it might not be what a PhD will get you.
I have a friend who is currently getting his Bachelor's degree. His father is a rocket scientist for NASA, so naturally he went into the Physics program. It took only a couple semesters of C's and D's for him to realize Physics isn't for him, so he switched to Computer Science. Then he realized he hates Math, so he wanted to switch majors again.
All this time, though, he has had a creative outlet. He makes things, sometimes out of leather, sometimes out of steel; the other day he came to class with a clay pot he'd just finished. Toward the end of this last semester he went through with changing his major one last time. He already has too many CS credits to give up on that major altogether, but he's dropping the Math minor that comes *de facto* and is picking up an Art minor instead.
I've never seen him happier than he is now. He found what he's passionate about, and it's not what his father did. You have to discover your passion. And it sounds like the job you had back home is just that.
# Answer
> 7 votes
Given the glut of PhD's I would suggest that you get a real job. A PhD is worth only if you are really interested in doing research otherwise you'll waste 4-5 years (then another 3-4 years doing a postdoc). Faculty positions are few and far between and then you'll have to worry about getting funds/tenure. So unless you're highly motivated by research/academia you'll mostly be miserable. In the industry a PhD doesn't make much more then a Masters and significantly less than a MBA, so there is no financial justification. Also there is a very good chance that you'll be working on things which don't even require a PhD. Some are lucky to find a good research environment but not everyone.
On the flip side if you do quit now then at some point you'll regret not getting a PhD. So think about what you want to do in life (besides having and providing for your children). A (PhD) degree is just a means to an end. People sometimes get emotional about it but they should not. Talk to your parents and I am sure they'll understand.
# Answer
> 6 votes
I know how you feel because even as an undergraduate, I once packed my bags. But a friend prevailed on me and I'm still thankful for not quitting. Consider the following:
1. If you start a count down to finish date and get really excited about seeing the day approach, you'll know time passes really quickly.
2. Our emotions/feeling/circumstances are temporary/passing but our achievements (good or bad) are permanent.
3. Creative/innovative people (like you) get tired of routine. If you take interest in something around you that requires you to learn something challenging (say music) or something alien to you, your PhD vital signs may be positively influence.
I am not an expert at these things but I know that when I get tired of routine... I stimulate my creativity somewhere else... Not for the gain but for the challenge.
Good luck man...
# Answer
> 3 votes
First and foremost, you have to look out for you, and only you. By this, I mean your well-being, your happiness and your own future.
As many have said, rather than quit at this stage, take some time out from the study. If I may suggest some things to do in your hiatus - volunteer work, teaching in a high school, perhaps try something completely different.
You are definitely not alone - I am a PhD student and have found myself in the exact some situation, took some time - concentrated on my job (teaching), travelled, lived overseas, even did some acting. I felt rejuvenated and ready to tackle the project. In my case, I returned to study. But, all situations are very different - you have to give yourself some time and space to work out what it is you want.
# Answer
> 2 votes
I read your post and from what I can see you don't sound like you enjoy your PhD or academic life in general. I personally did not find the reason why your situation became so hard. Perhaps you don't feel ok with the fact that your girlfriend is at home and you have to be somewhere else. Perhaps you you don't find the project entertaining. I'd say it might be the research itself that does not motivate you. One thing I am certain about is that you have to feel passion for doing research. You need to be determined and driven. Otherwise, it's easy to lose motivation.
You may need to ask yourself if you really need to stay where you are! PhD is for those who plan to be professional researchers. It's only counts if you plan to stay at any university. Not only will this have to be your everyday job, you will also have to be the person who proposes many new projects and be a leader for others. If don't see yourself in this roll, then it's probably better if you consider quitting. It's nothing wrong with quitting PhD. Besides, you can still begin a PhD somewhere else. You don't need to stick to the one you don't enjoy.
I can tell you that I met many people in my office. Everyone of them had their sort of crisis and this seems quite natural stage in the whole process. The research is also not a usual job and can be frustrating. Things always go wrong. Only determination, enjoyment, and passion make people stay and continue their PhDs.
As some of the others already said, It's nothing wrong when you quit PhD. Taking a longer break, coming home for couple of months, calming down may help you realise and understand a lot of things which are difficult to spot when you under pressure.
Good luck
# Answer
> 2 votes
It seems to me like the fundamental question here is that of whether or not your current feelings are part of a typical grad student "phase" or indicative of misaligned life goals, priorities, etc. on a much deeper level. Ultimately, a question you'll have to answer on your own and most likely by trusting your gut and intuition.
There are many, many reasons why you might be feeling the way you do now. From your description it's clear that you started the PhD process knowing you were accepting less than ideal conditions in some areas of your life with the understanding that these would be offset by other benefits. You might be more or less ambivalent about some of those benefits now that you're in the process, and the tradeoffs and benefits would certainly change if you were to switch sides and leave the program.
I would suggest assuming, for the time being, that one-year-ago you made a well educated calculation of the costs-benefits of the PhD program, in particular with a time horizon greater than 5 years.
Staying in the program then means trusting in the vision of one-year-ago you in that the long-term benefits to your life outweigh the immediate suffering (including the less than ideal use of your skills and the momentary loss of passion). On the other hand, your valuation of the tradeoffs and benefits of the PhD may have changed more than you expected, in particular with respect to your relationship or your connection to the research area.
The way to know this, in short, is to trust yourself. If your current path is just *wrong* for you -- if you feel you're compromising some fundamental part of yourself -- then trust that feeling. Otherwise, trust your prior vision: accept that your feelings are part of the PhD journey and trust that you'll find your passion again soon (when you stop putting pressure on yourself to find it).
One last thought that might really be the crux of the issue is that getting a PhD is a highly individualistic and very lonely experience. Richard Butterworth has a talk that really drove this home in which he says:
> A PhD, by its very nature, is a very individualistic venture. ... The next big surprise for people who are starting PhDs after an undergraduate degree is just how excrutiatingly lonely a PhD is.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Your issues are real and I do not want to discount them in anyway.
In my view, you are in a privileged position and if you can make the most of it, then it would be not be a loss (as you tend to describe your experience now).
Here is a simple test: think of where you want to be in (say) five years from now? If you want to be in a place which requires a PhD, then start working on it now, other wise get out.
I know this is simplistic but it works when the issues are complicated and there are no easy solutions. At least in this way, you will make an informed decision and will not have the guilt later on!
# Answer
> -4 votes
Just suck it in and get it!
After you pass all the formal requirements, you will have a mini-tenure for 3/4/5 years (depending on the Dept you are in). I was thinking to quit first two years but now (in the mini-tenure period) I'm enjoying my life and research (from 9 to 5 only).
Try it, if you don't like it, you can always quit.
# Answer
> -5 votes
See if you can get a Master's in your second year, so that your graduate studies are not completely wasted. This is but too common in doctoral programs that they let students who are admitted to doctoral programs without being the "doctorate material" to finish the required number of courses, take the qualifier as the bottom line as far as qualification goes, and let you off with a Master's degree. They don't like that, but that's likely flight overbooking: you know that some people are not going to make it. Discuss this with your adviser.
For what I see on the earnings curves, there's a notable jump at 4 years of college/getting a Bachelor's degree, where the average earnings jump up by may be 15% from "Some college" to "BA degree" category. After that, the incomes are pretty flat, with a very modest 2 or so % return per year of education. So you ain't losing much in income, but an unfinished degree puts a big "L" across your forehead. I mean, if you drop out and found a Google or a Facebook, that's fine, but the probability of that happening is about 1e-6. (You don't know how funny that 20k figure is going to look like when your new wife asks you: "As I am expecting a baby, we need a bigger house... and also please open the college saving account for our baby", so your bold statements about income are totally out of line with real life. Or at least the life you will have in 10 years time.) The engineers that I taught seem to be starting off at $40-50Kpa, and I see no reason why a guy with a decent quant background should be making less than that.
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Tags: phd, graduate-school
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thread-21986 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21986 | Citing a 'co-student's Bachelor's thesis | 2014-06-05T11:54:06.880 | # Question
Title: Citing a 'co-student's Bachelor's thesis
I am currently in the process of writing my bachelor's thesis. Another student is working on largely the same subject as I am, with a slightly different focus. Is it acceptable for me to reference his thesis in mine? If so, wat would be the proper form for this.
# Answer
> 6 votes
Of course it is acceptable as long as you know what you are referencing. So as long as you have read her thesis (or the part you are referring to) and you think it belongs in the literature review of your thesis: Do it.
However, if you want to use a result derived by her, I would advice against it, as you can not be sure if it really is correct. If it is not possible to avoid using it you should talk to your supervisor about it.
For the proper form: `@masterthesis` (as @Wrzlprmft already pointed out), `@thesis` (with `type = {Bachelor's thesis}` or `@unpublished` could be an option for you.
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Tags: citations, thesis
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thread-8855 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8855 | Undergraduate not doing homework (case method) | 2013-03-25T07:41:43.563 | # Question
Title: Undergraduate not doing homework (case method)
I've recently started teaching undergraduate students using the case method (management subjects). However, I'm finding that most of the students simply don't do the reading at home. Even though I (so far) have used only short cases (just a few pages), they still just don't do the work.
For those unfamiliar with the case method, if the students do not do the reading before coming to class, there is little to discuss in class. In the end, I feel like the class time is wasted.
Because of the design of the course, I actually don't have the flexibility to have this affect their grade other than to simply fail them. I cannot, for example, reduce their grade by 10%.
If anyone uses the case method with undergraduate students, I'd love to know how you get students to actually do the reading / thinking work required before they get to class.
# Answer
> 29 votes
I have some experience with lab practice in physics and chemistry, where we routinely ask students to read up on the work planned and do some preliminary calculations *before* they can come to the lab, in order to maximize their use of actual lab equipment. It's sometimes hard to motivate students for things that should be done *in advance*, but there are ways you can improve their involvement:
1. Make sure that **the amount of material is compatible with the time they have to study it**, and the demands on their time by other courses. If you're going to require something of them, it should be within reasonable limits. Also, make sure you convey that point to them: I have, on a few occasions, had to reschedule things to give them more time, because the material was very heavy and taking more of their time than I had assumed, or because they just had many other things to do (e.g., a full week of exams).
2. **Be crystal clear** that reading the material *before* classroom is actually one of the *requirements* of the class, and that it is entirely necessary to actually pass the class.
3. If you want further motivation, **introduce some sort of evaluation of their reading at the beginning of the lecture**: get two or three students to come up, and argue the case (or whatever it is you do in those lectures) before the others. Then, give them a frank assessment of how they fared, including “you failed miserably because you didn't do your homework”. Even if that evaluation doesn't count for the final passing/failing grade, it will motivate them and might introduce some **friendly competition**.
4. **If some of them still don't do a thing, *fail them***. After all, you had told them (and more than once) that reading the material is a requirement for passing.
# Answer
> 11 votes
I think **encourage and praise** are important.
**Encourage** them to say things even if they have no idea what they are talking about. If they say something wrong, point out why it is wrong. And tell them this is exactly why they need to take this class - they are there to learn.
If they say things right, **praise** them. Particularly, to those weak students. Everybody has his own weakness and strength. The weak students will get things right sometimes. Praise them when they did right.
Initiate the discussion in the classroom is your job. Find some hot, interesting topic to start your class. The topic may seem to be unrelated to what you are going to discuss in the classroom in the first place. Lead them to discuss the issue you want them to discuss. Encourage the discussion. Praise them when they arrive at right conclusions.
Once they are used to the discussions in the classroom, it will be **natural** for them to do their homework. This is because they are afraid of embarrassing themselves. They know they must prepare enough so that they can have something to say in the classroom and say the right things so that they would earn the praise instead of embarrassment.
Of course, you need to tell them if they keep quiet throughout the whole semester, you'll have no choice but fail the ones who never say anything because you have no basis to pass them.
Finally, I'd like to use this place to thank JeffE. I remember he said "scaaahu's excellent advice" in response to one of my first answers here. I was very much encouraged by this remark. I felt like my answer must not be a bad one. Otherwise, why did he say that? Thus, I continue to participate. You can see how important is **encourage and praise** to a mature adult. Not to mention undergraduates.
# Answer
> 9 votes
I teach courses that include lecture and discussion. If reading is not completed it is difficult to get the most out of the material. One thing to try is to begin with a 'low risk' reading assignment - something more fun and popular, or pepper your reading list with scholarly and more popular reading. There has been a lot of scholarship on the value of using graphic novels with college students. Decoding images and text at the same time is good for developing brains and can serve as 'bridging' literature to more complex readings. Fun reading can be a hook. I also have all my students on Twitter. This is new for me this semester. I have seen increasing participation from students if I ask them to post a discussion question, based on the readings, on Twitter. I was able to assess the depth of their knowledge of the materials based on the relative sophistication of the question. Most posted something, which I measure as engagement, what I am seeking. I allow the use of social media in class as well - Storify is a fun way to get students to summarize readings by harvesting multimedia from the Internet.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I took a graduate course in immunology a couple of years back. The requirements to pass the course were simple:
1. each student made 2-3 presentations in front of the class of basic research studies from a provided list. We had to create our own powerpoints, include the paper's graphics or provide our own, understand every line of the article, follow the footnotes, and possibly read related studies for perspective. Be prepared to answer questions from the class and the professor. Describe the research in our own words to prove we actually understood it.
2. while others are presenting, we were expected to have already read the article being presented, and be prepared to ask intelligent questions.
3. Write a paper based on other peer reviewed articles.
Each of these requirements was worth about 1/3 of the grade. You couldn't pass if you slacked off on any of them. Everyone had to show up for class prepared.
Obviously, this is a graduate level of responsibility, but I feel strongly that undergraduates can be just as responsible when properly motivated. Presenting a case study in front of their peers and professor is a strong incentive, and it can even get a bit competitive in a healthy way; someone showed up with a $3 laser pointer they bought on ebay, and suddenly everyone was getting one. The powerpoints got fancier and fancier as the semester went on. People really got into it.
For pass-fail I suppose you would simply make #1, #2, and #3 into requirements to pass the course. Why should someone pass if they didn't learn stuff? Anyway, this is just one data point and in a different field probably, but hopefully it might spark some ideas.
And I love Cailin's use of Twitter. Best use for that thing that I've heard of to date!
# Answer
> 4 votes
Maybe this could work for you. I once took a course where every lesson started with a brief quiz. We would get a very simple, very general question from the reading material, and use 5 minutes to answer it in writing, signing our names on the top of the paper before handing it in. It was made clear that this was not part of the grade, i.e. that the only purpose was to ensure we read the material. It worked well though, because nobody felt comfortable handing in an empty paper.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I know I'm basically just reiterating the earlier answers here, as most of these points have already been raised in one form or another (by F'x and scaaahu in particular), but I'd just like to add my summary of how I'd approach the problem.
\[*Note: Oh, wow, this answer turned out way longer than I thought it would. If you don't want to read all of it, I've **highlighted** the key parts so you can just skip the rest.*\]
For some background, I'm a graduate student in Helsinki, and I've grown up and studied in Finland. While Finns generally aren't quite as focused on "face" as people from some Asian cultures are said to be, we do tend to be rather shy and quiet, and sayings like "*talk is silver, silence is gold*" or "*it is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt*" definitely find resonance here. Thus, getting a lively classroom discussion going here can indeed be hard, something which I've heard several teachers from other parts of the world comment on.
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First, as you correctly note, you will need to make the students understand the importance of the assignments, and vague threats of "I may have to fail you" aren't going to do it. It's completely natural for students to try to minimize their workload, and if they think they can pass the course without doing the homework, most of them (except the few truly motivated ones) won't do it. And if enough of them think so, it's likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, unless you're actually willing to fail the majority of your class.
To address that, I'd suggest that you **introduce a points system** and make it clear to the students that:
* *X* points total are required to pass the course,
* each exam / project (out of *m* during the course) is worth up to *Y* points,
* each discussion class (out of *n*) is worth an additional *Z* points, and
* getting any points for a discussion class requires **active participation in the discussion**.
Having all this clearly set out in advance lets the students make their own informed decisions about how to prioritize their tasks. In particular, setting a definite pass/fail threshold means that they'll know exactly how much work they need to do to pass the course, and that if they don't meet that threshold, they *will* fail.
Yes, some students will probably use this as an excuse to skip some fraction of the discussion classes, figuring that they'll still score enough points in the exams to pass — but those are the same students who otherwise probably wouldn't bother with the homework at all, figuring that you wouldn't fail them just for that as long as they did reasonably well in the exams.
Choosing the point scores and thresholds is up to you, but a fairly common choice around here seems to be that the exams make up 50% of the possible points, and 50% of the total is also the minimum level needed to pass. Thus, in principle, one *can* pass the course without any classroom participation... as long as one is confident of getting an absolutely perfect exam score. (FWIW, as a personal anecdote, I did that once as an undergrad — I signed up for the final exam of a course with such a grading policy, mistakenly thinking it was a stand-alone exam, and managed to just barely pass. Got the lowest possible passing grade, though.)
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So much for the stick; you'll also want a carrot to go with it. I'd suggest telling your students that the aim of the course is *not* to stress them out, and that you're willing to **adjust the homework to fit their workload**, within reason, as long as they'll tell you in advance when they expect to be busy and when they'll have more time. Depending on how varied your students' schedules are, this might even involve some personalized assignments for students who, for some reason, won't be able to attend as many classes as they want or need to.
Such small kindnesses go a long way towards building goodwill and motivation, but there's a more subtle trick involved here as well: *asking for adjustments to the homework is itself a form of classroom participation*. Sure, it doesn't actually involve the *subject* of the course in any direct way, but as scaaahu notes, an important part of the process is to **just get the students to speak up in class about *something***, whatever it is.
Another reason why discussing the appropriate amount of homework with the students can help is that, psychologically, **being involved in making a rule makes people feel invested in it**, and thus much more likely to follow it than if it were simply imposed on them by an external authority. I'm pretty sure there's actual psychological research on this, if I just knew the right keywords to find it, but it's definitely an effect I've noticed in practice. Effectively, by setting up a mutual agreement with your students about the appropriate level of homework, you're depriving them of the mental excuse that "there's way too much stuff for me to do, I'll never have time for this."
As I already wrote above, I also think scaaahu's suggestion of encouraging classroom discussion in *any* form, just to get the students used to it, is a good idea. In particular, while stressing that active participation is necessary to earn points for a discussion class, I'd also suggest explicitly noting that having read or understood the material is *not* required (albeit highly recommended), **as long as one is willing to ask questions and discuss the topic**. Of course, you can still make demonstrated familiarity with the material a requirement for getting the *full* points, if you want.
One way in which that could help is that, just possibly, some of the students who say they haven't read the material (but can't say why not) actually *have* read it, but just don't feel that they've understood it well enough to discuss it without "appearing stupid" or "losing face". If you manage to convince those students that they'll *at least have to ask questions* about the material, they may even come to realize that their understanding of it is neither as poor nor as embarrassing as they thought.
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Finally, since I mentioned my background in the beginning, let me include a couple of tips and traps I've noticed specifically regarding Finnish audiences. I can't say whether or not these might apply also to your students, but they may be at least worth considering. (There are also some implicit assumptions about classroom style in the way I've presented things below, but the general points should be adaptable to different teaching methodologies.)
(Also, just to be clear, by "Finns" here I really mean "me, and some other people I've observed in class". Of course, as with any cultural or ethnic group, there's a huge amount of within-group variation, so nothing here should be construed as universal rules.)
One is that Finns generally don't like to interrupt when someone else is talking; it's considered rude. By the same token, if they do feel the need to interrupt you, they're likely to just politely clear their throat (or, in a classroom setting, raise their hand) or say "excuse me..." and wait for you to stop. Thus, *one way to kill off any hope of an active classroom discussion is to just talk too much yourself.*
Going off on a long uninterruptible monologue whenever someone asks something remotely relevant is particularly bad — you may think you're rewarding the asker by seizing on the topic they brought up, but it's more likely that you're just teaching everyone in the class not to ask too many questions if they want to get on with the course. Engaging the asker in a back-and-forth discussion is a much better approach, both because it gives them a better chance to participate, but also just because it gives them a chance to tell you "oh, I get it now, thanks!" without having to interrupt you.
Another trap is that Finnish students tend to be quite reluctant to answer questions which they consider trivial — there are several reasons for that, but I suspect it's partly a side effect of the early school system, where the teachers generally try to learn the progress level of each child and to direct questions of different levels to different students. While this is generally an excellent way of dealing with a heterogeneous group of students and making sure everyone gets to participate, it does have the side effect of teaching the more advanced students (who, of course, are the ones who mostly end up in academia later) not to even bother raising their hand for questions they feel are below their level, since they won't get to answer them anyway.
The problem here is that, if you don't already know your students well, you can end up asking a question and getting no answers, and having no idea whether the question was way too easy or way too hard (or just possibly both). My suggestion for dealing with that situation would be to ask something like "OK, so you all know this?" and seeing who nods. If not all do, direct the question to someone who didn't.
A third point, somewhat related to the first, is that Finns stereotypically don't like asking questions if they believe they can find the answer by just listening or reading more instead. (If you look at my Stack Exchange profile, you'll see that I'm a perfect example of the stereotype; I just counted that, excluding meta sites and code golf, I've posted well over a thousand answers and just *four* questions across the entire network. And most of those are self-answered.) If your students are like that too, they may be much more likely to speak up if they believe they have a reason to *disagree* with you than if they just don't *understand* something (even if they might actually phrase their argument as a question).
One rather cheap, but potentially effective, trick to encourage student participation in situations like that could be to deliberately make trivial mistakes, like replacing a plus sign with a minus in a simple equation, and see if your students spot them. If they do, thank them and encourage them to keep an eye out for anything else that might seem funny. If they don't, you can always just "notice" the mistake yourself a little later and correct it. Either way, you end up looking a little less like an infallible authority.
And, yeah, I realize that I've gone way off on a tangent at this point, so I'll just stop here. Sorry.
# Answer
> 2 votes
There are already a lot of answers and I feel a little silly about adding yet another one, but I think my view is very different. I would classify all the other answers as taking a carrot/stick approach to provide an extrinsic motivator. I would push for trying to use an intrinsic motivator. You need to demonstrate to the students that class is better and that they will get a lot more out of it if they read before hand. I would devote some time at the beginning of the next few classes for the students to either read the material or be lectured. You could either use a show of hands or an electronic "clicker" type quiz to decide when to move on. This will allow you to get to the "good" stuff, but obviously isn't sustainably. Stress throughout this initial period that the later portions of class would be better if they spent time before hand doing the reading. Further point out that less material will be covered if they don't do the reading before hand, or that you might have to switch to a less desirable teaching method (e.g., lectures or presentations).
# Answer
> 1 votes
I encountered a similar situation with some groups, but now only find the problem among the minority of students. When working with students who are not self-motivated, you must make them fear for their grade.
First, assigned students a short reading task to fit each assigned reading. One potential task might be a KWL. These are quite simple, but cannot really be completed if the students do not at least actually think about the topic.
Then, set the deadline to shortly before the class (or the night before), asking students to submit their short answers via E-mail. This lets you verify that they read the passage.
To deal with the pass-fail grading system, which I assume is for the total course grade and not for individual assignments, consider telling students that you will count how many times they miss these assignments, and if they miss 3, they have failed the course. Make sure the students see you keeping the record early on and let them see the tally for themselves.
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Tags: teaching, undergraduate
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thread-21939 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21939 | Can the communicating author remove some of the authors (4 out of 6) when submitting the second revision of a paper describing a database? | 2014-06-04T13:44:29.907 | # Question
Title: Can the communicating author remove some of the authors (4 out of 6) when submitting the second revision of a paper describing a database?
Our paper was due submission for second revision at a BMC journal. The communicating author, as I understand is responsible for handling all the communications between all authors and the journal, while also making suitable arrangement to cover any open access charges.
However, the communicating author in our case, without informing any author, removed 4 out of the total 6 authors while submitting the second revision. How should we deal with this? isn't it a academic fraud by the communicating author? Can't we, as students do anything to stop this?
# Answer
This sounds like an unpleasant situation.
If this happened to me, I think my starting point would be to ensure I had copies of anything that might be useful as evidence. Then, I would write (formally) to the person concerned, asking for an explanation of why they thought it appropriate to remove you all from the author list. I think this has to be the first step: it is always possible that there is a rational explanation (although it's difficult to imagine what it might be). You might choose to copy the letter to the head of the relevant university department, and perhaps to the editor of the journal - particularly if the paper has not yet been published, and so can be put 'on hold' pending resolution of the authorship dispute.
Of course, you will have to weigh up the benefits of asserting your rights to authorship against any potential cost arising from 'causing trouble'. You are *completely* within your rights to create a major fuss here, and your department *should* be entirely supportive. I think you *should* do something. However, there is a risk that some of the people involved will seek revenge, if they have any power over you (e.g. if you are still a student at the university). I am *absolutely not* condoning such behaviour - it is quite clearly bullying, and an abuse of power. However, it would be irresponsible to advocate taking action without encouraging you to also consider whether there are any potential adverse consequences.
> 32 votes
# Answer
We recently had an extensive discussion of how to deal with such an issue, should it arise, in a postdoctoral seminar I attended. A number of senior faculty contributed their ideas regarding how to deal with such an incident.
I would recommend a more gradual escalation than others have suggested. For example, I would not copy the editor of the journal or the head of the department on your initial communication requesting more information. I would start with communication just within your author group: for example, an email to the corresponding author asking for an explanation of why they removed your (and others) authorship without notification, CCing all other authors of the paper. This gives you a paper trail but also allows you to first address the issue without airing everyone's dirty laundry.
If the corresponding author's response is not to the removed authors' satisfaction, you should then, together, think about escalating your complaint (for example, by contacting the editor). I agree with avid that while you would be in your rights to do so, there is a very real possibility of a negative backlash. I think as a consequence the other dropped authors should be on board with such a decision, and you should have excellent documentation of your complaint.
Finally, this type of incident is a very good example of why every paper should start with an authorship meeting where everyone sits down, agrees on authorship and order, and what constitutes the responsibilities of authorship at each level (e.g., "first author will be so-and-so, and that means her responsibilities are to do x,y,z...and if she finds herself unable to meet all of those responsibilities, then authorship decisions will need to be revisited", etc.) Concretizing expectations prior to the work tends to lead to better working relationships and can prevent some very bitter arguments.
> 13 votes
# Answer
I say yes, this is academic fraud. I suggest to contact the corresponding author and inform him/her that your are going to inform the editor of the journal about the issue. Depending on the answer from the corresponding author you should indeed write to the editor and explain the case.
However, I am not sure what will happen then. Presumably things will get difficult and it would be much better if you could sort this out directly. Also you should communicate your strategy with the other authors and act open for all involved people.
> 5 votes
# Answer
The initial reaction to your problem is that it is wrong. There are, too many unknowns to say why this has happened, if you are deadling with negligence, absent mindedness, some more serious personality issue or whatever. I would suggest the following
1. Discuss with the other authors how you all became co-authors in the first place and compare your contributions to see if they fulfil some basic critteria such as those of the Vancouver Protocol (given by for example ICMJE and reproduced at Resources for Research Ethics Education. This will help you gain leverage for your authorship/contributorship. Of course, if you had some form of agreement to start with, then that should suffice. The important thing is that it is unethical to publish someone else's intellectual property without consent so establishing such claims can be important. This is why authorship or contributorship agreements should follow the Vancouver Protocol to begin with (I know they rarely do).
2. Approach the first author and ask him/her to explain the reduction in authors without prior discussion.
3. If 2 fails to yield results, write to the chief editor of the journal and describe the problem and that you wish to see the paper stopped. If the paper contains materials that can be attributed to the authors who have been dropped, that should be grounds for halting the process and starting an investigation, perhaps through COPE.
> 4 votes
# Answer
I'm assuming that by BMC you mean a BioMed journal? You should read the BioMed Editorial Policies page( http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/editorialpolicies ) which lists 4 requirements for qualifying as an author:
> to qualify as an author one should have:
>
> (1) made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
>
> (2) been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
>
> (3) given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
>
> (4) agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
>
> Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not usually justify authorship.
So if you can satisfy these criteria (especially the first two), you should be an author.
The same page also addresses authorship changes:
> In line with COPE guidelines, BioMed Central requires written confirmation from all authors that they agree with any proposed changes in authorship of submitted manuscripts or published articles. This confirmation must be via direct email from each author. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors confirm that they agree with the proposed changes. If there is disagreement amongst the authors concerning authorship and a satisfactory agreement cannot be reached, the authors must contact their institution(s) for a resolution. It is not the Editor’s responsibility to resolve authorship disputes.
So you need to deal with this in your institution; pointing out that is contrary to journal policy for authorship to change without consultation is a good place to start.
> 2 votes
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Tags: publications, ethics, authorship, paper-submission
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thread-22005 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22005 | Co-author blocking publication | 2014-06-05T17:03:18.833 | # Question
Title: Co-author blocking publication
This question is somewhat inspired by the question in When is a supervisor unable to request paper retraction if a paper gets published without her consent?, although I've no reason to suppose that the following situation describes the one prompting that question.
Suppose Alice and Bob do some research together, with Alice providing ~75% of the intellectual contribution (perhaps Alice is Bob's PhD student). Alice writes a draft of the paper, and lists both of them as authors.
Bob does not agree with part of what Alice has written, and says he does not agree to the paper being published in this form. Alice, however, is not willing to remove the offending section. (For the sake of argument, let's assume that neither Alice nor Bob can be said to be objectively 'in the right'.)
Is there any route out of this impasse? Can Alice treat Bob as refusing authorship of the paper, and publish the manuscript without his name?
# Answer
There are several options for Alice:
* Ask Bob if he is willing to give up his authorship. Then, if he says it is OK, publish without his name (but make clear in which part he was involved).
* Remove Bob's contribution from the paper and then publish. (Which might not be possible.)
* Find some common ground (maybe with the help of someone else) with Bob and then publish. (The best way, but may not be possible.)
* Do not publish the paper at all.
> Can Alice treat Bob as refusing authorship of the paper, and publish the manuscript without his name?
No.
> 18 votes
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Tags: publications, ethics
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thread-22001 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22001 | When is a supervisor unable to request paper retraction if a paper gets published without her consent? | 2014-06-05T16:07:09.007 | # Question
Title: When is a supervisor unable to request paper retraction if a paper gets published without her consent?
If a ex-PhD student publishes a paper from his thesis without his ex-supervisor's consent, the paper gets retracted upon his ex-adviser's request to the editor.
My question is: Could there be any exceptions from this rule?
# Answer
> 7 votes
I can see three main reasons why a PhD student would require permission from the supervisor to publish a paper:
1. Because the supervisor contributed to the paper enough to deserve authorship.
2. Because the supervisor is listed as a co-author.
3. Because university regulation stipulate that students require permission before publishing.
4. The supervisor is responsible for ensuring that external obligations are met (e.g. ethical handling of medical data; confidentiality agreements with third parties; etc etc.)
Now the third reason does not really affect the journal, but only the internal relationship between student and university. If the student lists the university as affiliation, they may demand to change this, but would not really be in a position to demand a retraction.
If the second case applies but **not** the first, again a correction of the misleading metainformation needs to be done, but this would probably not be grounds for a retraction.
The first case does merit demanding a retraction, but for this it is irrelevant that the objecting co-author is the former PhD supervisor of the publishing co-author. In particular, it would not really matter how exactly the collaboration of the two broke down.
In the fourth case, the missing permission by the supervisor itself would again be irrelevant for the journal. If the objection however is due to say lacking ethics approval for experiments required those, then the latter circumstance would be cause for retraction. Here, too, the details of the relationship between advisee and advisor are irrelevant, only the potential ethics infractions should impact the journal's decision.
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Tags: phd, publications, thesis, retraction
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thread-19515 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19515 | Electronic version of diploma in the US universities? | 2014-04-19T03:36:47.603 | # Question
Title: Electronic version of diploma in the US universities?
In a job application, I received electronic version of diploma and transcript (not scanned copy, but the official electronic file that the university prepared to be printed on official diploma and transcript papers).
Is it common in the US universities to give the electronic version of diploma and transcript to graduates?
I thought that the only version which will be released is that printed on the university official papers.
Is an electronic version of diploma and transcript as valid as a scanned copy?
# Answer
Some U.S. universities do release electronic copies of transcripts. They treat these as completely official document, and the documents are supposed to contain additional security features, which the recipient can verify.
For example, there is an information page about electronic transcripts from the University of Michigan.
However, if you are concerned about the electronic copy, you could just ask for a paper copy. It is not in any way unusual in the U.S. to ask applicants to have their university send official paper transcripts by mail directly to the potential employer. The applicant will pay the university a small fee to do this, of course, so many employers only request the official transcripts at later stages of the hiring process, and accept informal copies for the initial stages.
> 4 votes
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Tags: university, degree
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thread-21951 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21951 | Transitioning: PhD to Postdoc and Productivity | 2014-06-04T18:25:08.437 | # Question
Title: Transitioning: PhD to Postdoc and Productivity
I just finished a PhD in Math and I am starting my postdoc in September. I am currently just working on a few collaborations--working on projects that are follow-ups from my dissertation that are mainly strengthening my results or applying my results to interests of my collaborators. I hear a lot about the difficulty and stress in transitioning from PhD to postdoc and how the "clock starts."
I have a few questions about these statements:
* What are some concrete changes that you experienced when you transitioned from PhD to postdoc? Bonus points for math-related experiences.
* How real is this "clock starts" claim and what does it really mean? Math-related answers are more useful.
* Are there any adjustments I can actively start to make now to make the transition better?
# Answer
> 16 votes
The main difference I noticed when I began a math postdoc is that postdocs are expected to act much more independently than graduate students. Math postdocs are viewed as (young but) full members of the research community, not as apprentices. You will need to choose your own goals and set your own deadlines.
One important change to make quickly is to develop (additional) professional relations with established researchers from other institutions. Some of these relations may turn into research collaborations, but others may just be discussions at conferences that lead to other discussions or to invitations to speak at other conferences or departmental colloquia. Keep in mind that you will need to ask for letters of recommendation when you apply for jobs again, and that others in your field will be reviewing your grant applications when you submit them.
In terms of research, as a postdoc you should also expect to always have multiple research projects underway, whereas many grad students only work on their thesis. You should also aim for projects that have a high chance of giving positive results quickly. Don't spend too long on famous open problems or on results that would take a decade to complete. If you apply to research positions, you will be judged on your productivity in the time since you earned a PhD, and you only have a few years in your postdoc.
*The "clock"*: in an important sense, your vita begins when you finish your PhD. If possible, decide what sort of employment you want to have after your postdoc is over. Find well established colleagues you respect who took the path you are interested in, ask them for advice, and try to emulate them. You want to leave your postdoc with a vita that will make you as competitive as possible for the type of job you plan to apply for. A generic vita is unlikely to be competitive in the current job market.
# Answer
> 10 votes
My understanding of the "clock" comment is that math postdocs are almost all time limited, and, if you're staying in academia, the quality of the next job you get depends heavily (not exclusively, of course) on the work you do as a postdoc. The extreme way to look at it is that you have about two and a half years to conceive, write, and get accepted the work that will justify your next job. This is a big contrast to most PhD programs in math which take "5 or so" years; if you're making decent progress but not done after year 5 (or, depending on the program, 6, or 7, or 8...) you can scrape things together to keep going. As a postdoc, on the other hand, the time limit is fixed---at the end of it you're back on the job market with whatever you've done, whether you're ready or not.
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Tags: postdocs, mathematics
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thread-22002 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22002 | Postdoctoral applications - informal enquires | 2014-06-05T16:22:19.123 | # Question
Title: Postdoctoral applications - informal enquires
I have seen many Postdoctoral advertisements where they mention that an informal inquiry can be made to a PI. What are the kind of questions that can be asked? Should we attach our CV and mention our research interests while writing to them?
I have also seen advertisements where they tell to send applications to HR. While writing a covering letter should we address to them or to the PI of the project?
# Answer
> 5 votes
Introduce yourself (briefly), ask for more details of the project, perhaps ask for recommendations for background reading. Other things you might enquire about include the level of support for conferences, opportunities to teach/help supervise students, and the likelihood of follow-on funding (if the advertised position is relatively short). Note that you don't have to ask everything in your first email, and save yourself some questions in case you get called for interview. Attaching a brief CV can't hurt - but don't make me open an attachment to find out where you've studied and who you're currently working with.
Also, remember: writing this email seems important from your perspective. However, the PI probably gets dozens of emails daily, and will barely notice the precise words you use. Don't get too hung up on the content of your message!
I would always direct my letter towards the PI, even if it is to be sent to an HR contact for initial processing.
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Tags: research-process, application
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thread-3628 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3628 | At what stage of research career one can write a 'review article'? | 2012-10-07T07:13:10.043 | # Question
Title: At what stage of research career one can write a 'review article'?
At what stage of research career one can write a 'review article'?
Obviously a graduate student in the beginning stages cannot/may not write one. But how experienced does one need to be before attempting to write reviews? Does authoring a number of papers in the relevant field equips one for that?
Can a graduate student publish a review article? Do acceptance of review article (for publication) depends on the reputation of the author or co-authors?
EDIT: As @JeffE has pointed out anyone can *write* a review article; the question is about getting this write-up published.
# Answer
First, I'll remark that (at least in fields close to me: physics and chemistry), the process for submitting review articles is typically handled in a different way than other articles (which I'll call “research articles”). Review articles take a lot of effort to write, and that their publication may depend not only on intrinsic quality and scientific criteria, but also on editorial policy: if the journal has already hosted a review on a given topic, it is unlikely to publish another soon afterwards. So, the common practice is to come to an agreement with the editor before writing the full article. Either the editor contacts a scientist to offer him to write a review on a given topic, either an author sends an abstract to the editor asking if the journal would welcome such a review (with no guarantee as to the results of the peer-review process, of course).
This has an important consequence for your question: you can actually **ask the editor** of the journal of your dreams if a review by you and your co-authors would be welcome. Practices may differ between fields, journals and editors, but asking exactly the person who is going to make the decision is the right course.
Then, we come to what I would call the “customs”. It is indeed typical to gain some authority in your field before writing review articles. This usually means **working for a few years in a given field**, publishing some articles of your own, in short: getting noticed by your community. As such, it is not a typical thing to do for a graduate student. Maybe at the end of your PhD, jointly with your adviser. Most probably, later in your career: either as an experienced post-doc, or after having gained a faculty position.
With more than a few years of experience, my personal experience is that you perfectly write reviews (and the editors will accept if the work is good). However, **it gets easier with seniority**, as you will (i) more easily have your work accepted in more prestigious journals, and especially (ii) more easily get invitations to write reviews.
> 21 votes
# Answer
There are a number of different types of "review articles."
There are book and "show" reviews, but I don't think this is what you mean. These can be written by anyone, but are often written by junior people who are willing to stick their necks out a little.
There are also systematic reviews in which the literature is search systematically and the quality of each piece of literature is assessed against a predetermined set of criteria. Systemic reviews often only focus on a handful of studies. If there are more studies a meta-analysis may be conducted. These again are written by people at all stages.
"Tutorial" reviews which attempts to summarize a large swath of research. A literature review in a thesis is a good example of this type of review. These types of reviews often are published as book chapters. Many are solicited by an editor, but some are submitted. Again people of all stages can publish these.
> 8 votes
# Answer
> Obviously a graduate student in the beginning stages cannot/may not write one.
This is news to me, given my second paper was a review that appeared in a top ranked journal in my field. At the time, I was an *undergraduate* student.
> But how experienced does one need to be before attempting to write reviews? Does authoring a number of papers in the relevant field equips one for that?
Authoring a number of papers can help you develop a reputation, but *reading* a number of papers is how you understand the field as a whole. The process for the literature review chapter of a dissertation and the process for writing a review are very, very similar.
Similarly, there is no reason why a graduate student could not write a meta-analysis or systematic review. Indeed, in my graduate program, this was a common first or second paper.
> Can a graduate student publish a review article? Do acceptance of review article (for publication) depends on the reputation of the author or co-authors?
Often, review papers have to be invited, and this can depend on the reputation of a co-author, or an advisor that makes sure it makes its way to an editor's desk.
> 7 votes
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Tags: publications, review-articles
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thread-19799 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19799 | What is a "graduate school"? | 2014-04-25T01:45:08.240 | # Question
Title: What is a "graduate school"?
Specifically, why do some universities have a defined "graduate school" and associated "graduate faculty," with separate appointment process, and some do not, even when they offer many graduate programs? What is the organizational and administrative thinking behind this?
# Answer
In US universities, a 'graduate school' is usually an administrative entity that manages all aspects of graduate life. At the University of Utah, for example:
> The Graduate School fosters excellence by providing administrative structure and leadership to maintain and enhance graduate education at the University of Utah.
>
> Our programs offer financial assistance, rigorous academic opportunities, and professional development to students, staff, and faculty.
>
> We are guided by the principles of quality, diversity, and integrity as we help students to prepare themselves for successful, relevant careers.
The link posted in the comments suggests that faculty are required to be associated with the grad school in order to function as advisors etc. I think this is also an administrative action, designed to demarcate faculty that can advise students from all the other people who are designated as faculty (for example, adjuncts, research faculty, teaching faculty, and so on).
So there's no **academic** function associated with the graduate school.
You can think of the graduate school as the university-wide entity that manages the individual chairs of graduate studies at departments.
> 7 votes
# Answer
I am not sure about the US, but in Belgium, Universities are only allowed to give a "real" PhD when they have a doctoral school (equivalent to grad school) attached to them. In some cases this institute can be more silent (background function), and the university is the public face of the PhD, but it HAS TO exist and it has to be recognised. Concerning faculty appointed solely to the doctoral school... well, in my university, the normal faculty where the profs are working has a internal contract with the doctoral school and appoints normal staff to it for a given number of hours.
So in short. It should exist. But it might not be publicly advertised.
> 1 votes
# Answer
At many U.S. schools, faculty must "apply" to be "graduate faculty" in order to do various things related to graduate education: teach graduate courses, sit on thesis committees, serve as thesis advisors, etc. The university's official catalog for each year will have a list of these faculty members. The faculty don't receive anything special (like extra salary) for this.
There is typically a very straightforward "application" consisting of a cover form and a vita that has to be submitted every few years. From the perspective of faculty, this is just a small bureaucratic thing to take care of every few years. It is essentially invisible to students.
Someone in the graduate college reviews each "application" to make sure that the faculty member meets the necessary criteria. But the goal is typically just to document that the graduate faculty are qualified - which already we know they are when they are hired. So the faculty who "apply" are rarely in doubt about the outcome. Faculty who are removed from graduate faculty status typically have stopped being active in research (e.g. on their way to retirement).
> 1 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, administration
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thread-22007 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22007 | Should I Use the New Term in the Title Which is Introduced in the Paper? | 2014-06-05T17:12:14.933 | # Question
Title: Should I Use the New Term in the Title Which is Introduced in the Paper?
I'm thinking of a title for my conference paper. In the paper, I define a new term, say *Hurble Gurble*.
In the title shall I use itself or the definition of it, which is 8-9 words?
> Very Good Method to Live in Hurble Gurble Streets
or
> Very Good Method to Live in in Streets Where Cats Usually Sleep on the Containers Rather Than Inside
Which one is more proper?
**Edit:** The term is *planarized*, which means points in 3-D are usually grouped on the planes.
# Answer
> 11 votes
Coining a new term in the title of your paper -- while defining it there or not -- is definitely something that you are permitted to do (so it is "proper", as you ask). I have seen this thing happen: the first example that sprung (!) to my mind was
> Duchin, Moon *Curvature, stretchiness, and dynamics*. In the tradition of Ahlfors-Bers. IV, 19–30, Contemp. Math., 432, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2007.
>
> \[First sentence of the MathReviews description of the paper:\] The author introduces stretchiness, a new and interesting notion describing a kind of curvature of a metric space.
On the other hand, not only is this the first use of "stretchiness" in all of MathReviews, it is also the last.
A recent paper of mine is called "Quadratic reciprocity in abstract number rings", and you have to read the paper (or at least the abstract) to learn what an abstract number ring is.
Whether you should use a new term in the title of the paper is a very subjective and personal choice. I guess it's no secret that many, many people instinctively roll their eyes a little when they encounter a new word being coined. (In fact, I this to be an interesting socio-linguistic phenomenon. But moving on...) Making up your own language can make you look arrogant, overly playful, simply ignorant of existing nomenclature, and so forth. But the majority of academic terminology was coined by some prior academic within the relatively recent past rather than the mists of prehistory: as new ideas and new objects are created, we need new words for them.
Maybe -- maybe -- a good rule of thumb for this is that if you don't feel acutely that something would be lost upon removing your new term from the title, then it really doesn't need to be there. If you introduce the terminology within the paper itself, then you give the community a chance to chew on it, and then others can decide whether full promotion of the new term is a good idea. In fact, if I apply this standard to my own paper above, I am coming around to the idea that the title could be changed. The *concept* of an "abstract number ring" is not as important to me now as it was when I first started writing the paper.
Whether it is good or bad in your particular case seems impossible to answer without (i) seeing the title of your paper and (ii) having some real expertise and wisdom in the subject area of your paper. I would suggest that you find someone who satisfies (ii) -- e.g. a current or former advisor or mentor -- and show them your paper.
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Tags: publications, paper-submission
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thread-22003 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22003 | I have been pigeonholed, how can I solve it? | 2014-06-05T16:46:07.160 | # Question
Title: I have been pigeonholed, how can I solve it?
I can program, write papers and research. I'm better at research, but due to the lack of programmers I've been assigned programming tasks in my current institution. Additionally, I have little evidence to support that claim in my CV, I am "good" now (and I have strong personal evidence), but I don't have a long track of publications to prove it (because, to be honest, I wasn't good before).
How can I prosper in research if my CV and the interests of my superiors point me in the opposite direction? Is there any escape?
PD: I was a PhD student in another institution, I'm close to finishing my PhD but I don't get any spare time from my current programming obligations in the new institution, where I am a postdoc.
# Answer
It is clear from your recent questions that you feel exploited in your lab, and it is good that you want to do something about it.
However, first things first. What is your agreement with your current mentor / lab head / whoever? Essentially, what is your "job"? If you have been specifically hired to "help out with the programming", or something like that, it will be difficult to convince whoever is paying your salary that you now actually would like to do something different. Not impossible, but maybe also not easy.
On the other hand, if you have actually been hired to do research, but now end up being more of a scientific programmer because that's what the lab currently needs, it is time for a good one-on-one meeting with your lab head. You wrote in a comment that you do not foresee this going well, but I really see no way how you can change your situation without talking about it very explicitly to your lab head. It should be easy to see for most sane persons that not only your lab has needs, but you and your career have needs as well (and working as a scientific programmer can easily be a dead end for an academic career - no first-authored publications, no faculty job). Try to make a plan for a suitable compromise between you helping out the lab with your programming skills, will still being able to progress your own career. Should your lab head really not be willing to compromise at all, it may be time to move on.
Possible compromises could include:
* Hiring an actual scientific programmer, perhaps with funding that you help acquiring
* You training some of the junior staff to do their own programming
* You helping others in their programming problems, but ultimately let them do the majority of it themselves
* You supervising some undergrad or master students that can help out with programming tasks
* etc.
> that they appreciate more (because they are their own PhD students and now postdocs, it's emotionally logical, I'd say)
That's not logical, that's BS. A lab where people "coming from the outside" are valued less than those that "have always been there" is a terrible, toxic environment.
> 6 votes
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Tags: publications, career-path, workplace, code, management
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thread-22004 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22004 | PhD student leaving current program for reasons of safety. Recommendations for what to do next in terms of schools and catching up? | 2014-06-05T16:56:50.983 | # Question
Title: PhD student leaving current program for reasons of safety. Recommendations for what to do next in terms of schools and catching up?
I am a PhD student who lost a year in school due to factors beyond my control.
First, several non-school related issues made it difficult for me to focus on school. Then, a little later, I was harassed and threatened by someone in my program. The harassment continued for a couple of months before I ceased leaving my house altogether. Eventually I talked to the graduate supervisor about the situation. They agreed that it might be best for me to leave for a while. But, I am left with two problems:
1. Most deadlines for schools have past. The ones that haven't, don't seem like a good bet by way of funding. Should I try to find a program to apply to anyway? If not, what can I do to get my year back? I was kind of on a roll before, but now my thought processes feel stagnant and slow — Any recommendations for getting back up to speed?
2. My grades from this year are poor. I do not think they accurately reflect my academic potential or my understanding of the material. Should I be explaining any of the extenuating circumstances to prospective schools when I do apply?
# Answer
> 12 votes
I think the department is 'on the hook' to do more than just vouch for you (whatever that means). Sit down with your advisor and the graduate supervisor. Work with them to identify programs which would be a good match for your research plans and with which they or other department members have strong ties. They should be working their networks to help you transfer as easily as possible.
If you're only a year in, you might also want to think about whether you want to cleanly start over at the new university--retake any classes, etc. as opposed to trying to get credit for any classes you passed in your current program. Were you accepted to other programs before? See if one of those are still a good match.
I know you want to move for various reasons, and you may not want to do anything with the person who harassed you. However, if that person is not getting punished, counseled, or something, the problem is likely to recur with someone else. Ask the department to do something, if only to require the person to undergo a psychological evaluation.
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, application, harassment
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thread-22010 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22010 | Dealing with emails that could be interpreted as being endorsed by you | 2014-06-05T17:52:54.317 | # Question
Title: Dealing with emails that could be interpreted as being endorsed by you
Student A had an examination the other day for a course that he liked very much and by a professor that he admires. There were only 4 students in the course.
After the examination he opened his email and saw that another student B sent an email to the professor including:
> "It was a difficult examination. I hope you will consider this as **our** excuse for leniency. **We all did the examination entirely on our own.** **We** hope you have nice afternoon and the next month brings you a pleasant surprise just like **we** expect a pleasant surprise from **you** due soon!"
*(the bold letters were not bold in the email, I just highlighted them for focusing)*
Clarification: The email of Student B to the Professor was CCed to all the other Students, including Student A.
There was not any prior communication between students A & B about letting student B talk on behalf of student A.
Given that the examination participants were just a handful, Student A feels deprived of his right of self-expression, not to mention that having somebody telling to the professor that he wrote the examination on his own can be considered from ridiculous to seriously insulting.
What do you think is the right way for student A with respect to his typical relationship with the professor? Is just "letting it go" the best option? Is any kind of "corrective email to the professor denying the representative mentality of Student B", even in the mildest way overreacting and drawing attention when it is not needed?
# Answer
With a class of only 4 students, the email could be interpreted as being sent by the entire class. Normally in this case, the names of the 4 students would be listed in the email.
For a larger class where it is obvious that the email is form an isolated student the best thing to do is to drop it. Making an off hand comment about how crazy the student who sent the email will only put the professor in an awkward situation.
For a small class, a simple email, ideally just to the professor, but reasonably cc'd to everyone, would be to say that student B does not speak for you.
> 7 votes
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Tags: exams, interpersonal-issues
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thread-19996 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19996 | Is it unethical for professional societies to offer conference discounts to members? | 2014-04-29T17:24:46.720 | # Question
Title: Is it unethical for professional societies to offer conference discounts to members?
There is a recurring pattern I see in conferences organized by several professional associations. Two different conference fees are offered, X for members and Y for non-members, with Y\>X. Often, the annual membership fee for said professional associations is less than Y-X, so becoming member is cheaper than paying the non-member fee. For example, for different reasons today I have stumbled upon the pages of this, this and this conference.
I can only see two possible reasons for this practice, both ethically dubious:
* to force people to become members, increasing artificially the dimension of the professional association.
* to "move" funds from the conference treasure to the association treasure, leaving them available for a larger number of activities.
Often conference fees are paid by research funds, while membership fees are paid personally by the researchers, so this practice also has unpleasant side-effects on their personal finances.
Questions:
1. Am I overlooking more plausible justifications for this practice? Do you agree with my analysis?
2. How ethical do you find this practice?
3. Should I raise the issue with the professional societies I am a member\* of?
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\*: You can probably guess the reason why I am a member. :(
# Answer
> 10 votes
Typically the organizations that do this are professional societies. And, as you mentioned, they have many more activities than just running the conference, so having membership fees separate from conference attendance fees allow them greater flexibility to manage their accounts.
Some places allow membership fees to be paid out of institute funds (this depends on the country and the situation, of course). However, many countries also make such professional expenses tax-deductible (after a certain threshold). Obviously it doesn't recoup the full cost of the membership, but it's better than nothing.
However, one additional point to consider is that most such conferences require that at least one of the authors of a presentation to be a member of the society. (Sometimes, this requirement falls on the presenter herself.)
# Answer
> 8 votes
I find this practice 100% ethical. I don't see any argument to the contrary in your question.
Nobody is forcing you to do anything. You don't **have** to attend any conferences. But conferences cost money, so if you attend then you do **have** to pay something. Even then, you don't **have** to become a member. The non-member registration fee is generally not so high as to be prohibitive.
This is no less ethical than your local supermarket distributing coupons. You don't **have** to shop there and you don't **have** to use the coupons even if you do. In fact, in the US many supermarket chains offer memberships that give you discounts -- that's not unethical!
As for your second bullet point, in my professional society I know that conferences actually **lose** money and are subsidized by other sources of society income (mainly journals). I don't know if that is typical.
# Answer
> 3 votes
I think that the question is written from the perspective that the conference is somehow an independent entity from the sponsoring organization. But that feels somewhat ahistorical to me. To have a concrete example, consider a society I am a member of: the Association for Symbolic Logic, founded in 1936. According to their web site,
> The Association for Symbolic Logic is an international organization supporting research and critical studies in logic. Its primary function is to provide an effective forum for the presentation, publication, and critical discussion of scholarly work in this area of inquiry.
Of course there are societies much older, and much younger, but presumably each was founded by a group of individuals who agreed that a common organization would help their goals in some way.
The conferences organized by these societies are "meetings" in the genuine (non-academic) sense: they are an arranged time and location for members of the society to gather and confer, like a family reunion. The conferences are arranged by committees from the society, rather than by independent organizers, and the general expectation (and reality) is that the majority of attendees are members of the society.
These conferences are not like a car show where the goal is to draw in a large group of otherwise unknown people. The conferences are usually open to the public (with registration), but the general public is not the main audience - the members are.
This is where the bullet points in the question go astray, in my opinion: they assume that the main goal of the conference is to attract non-members to attend, when in reality the conferences were created to advance the purposes of the society and provide the society members an opportunity to confer and present their work. If an insufficient number of researchers thought that was worth the membership fee, the society *and* its conferences would disappear.
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Tags: conference, fees, professional-association
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thread-21663 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21663 | Should I include a bibliographical entry in the Works Cited pages for works I just mention? | 2014-05-29T20:07:24.070 | # Question
Title: Should I include a bibliographical entry in the Works Cited pages for works I just mention?
Should I include a bibliographical entry in the Works Cited pages for works I just mention?
For example, if I mention the work of an author by title just as an example without quoting from it, should I include an entry for it in the Works Cited page?
# Answer
> 1 votes
Yes.
A bibliographical entry allows readers to unambiguously identify and locate the work you mention. (Which they must be able to do if they would like to verify your claims about this work.)
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Tags: research-process, citations, writing
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thread-22035 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22035 | Is it plagiarism to publish a table that was published earlier in a different journal? | 2014-06-06T08:28:24.793 | # Question
Title: Is it plagiarism to publish a table that was published earlier in a different journal?
I need to a include a table which contains the basic characteristics of study participants. However, in a related previous publication that dealt with a different hypothesis, the table was published. The present submission deals with the same study population but a different study than previous one. I need to give the basic clinical characteristics of the study population.
* Will it be appropriate if I just cite the previous publication in the table title?
* Will that prevent me from getting accused of self-plagiarism?
# Answer
> 13 votes
The fact that you deal with the same study population means that you have the right to show information about the population just as much as in both studies. To cite the other study, particularly the table, is perfectly fine. But, if the table is key to the paper, for example, in the methods section, it seems more appropriate to include the information in your new paper. It is also perfectly fine to reproduce the table just as you can reproduce a figure from another paper but then the table might include or lack information that is superfluous or needed, respectively in your new study.
I would therefore suggest that you create your own table and format it to suit your purpose best. You should also cite the other study and state that your new study is based on the same study participants as the previous study and then also refer to both tables to indicate the kinship. That way it is obvious that you are not trying to conceal that the tables contain the same information but that the information is key for both studies. It should be clear to the reader that there is a common basis for the two studies.
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Tags: publications, citations, journals, plagiarism, tables
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thread-22040 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22040 | "Awaiting Editors Decision" what could it mean? | 2014-06-06T10:09:18.553 | # Question
Title: "Awaiting Editors Decision" what could it mean?
I submitted my paper to a engineering journal. It underwent a major revision and then a minor revision. The minor revision was some grammatical stuff. Now it is in the "Awaiting Editors Decision" mode for the past one week. I am sort of tensed about it. What does this mode mean for a journal review process in general?
# Answer
Once you submit your revised manuscript the editor handling your manuscript will look through your revisions to assess if they are satisfactory. Since revisions were in response to a minor revisions verdict, it seems likely that the next step would be accept unless the revisions were not satisfactory, in which case additional revisions might be necessary. In any case, the editor is now assessing your manuscript.
You write that the paper has been in this mode for a week. For any normal journal and thereby workload of their editors, you should not expect any change in status within such a short period. In "my" journal editors have three weeks to reach a decision on how the process should proceed. If the status remains for longer than, say, 3-4 weeks, you can start to consider contacting the journal and ask about its faith. But, please check if the journal has any specific time limits for their processes. Some do, some don't. The bottom line is that you are premature to worry at this stage.
EDIT: As Strongbad points out in a comment the term "Awaiting Editors Decision" strictly indicates that the paper has passed reviewers. this is indeed the general case, also in "my" journal. So in your case, the signal is, as I was, albeit not as clear as I intended, aiming at above, that no additional review is necessary and the editor is assessing the paper for submitting the final verdict.
> 17 votes
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Tags: publications, peer-review, editors
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thread-22037 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22037 | Should I cite sources about a technology description? | 2014-06-06T08:56:39.490 | # Question
Title: Should I cite sources about a technology description?
I want to add some description of a technology (Node.js = server-side JavaScript) in my thesis. The description is about what exactly this technology is, how it works, what it can do etc.
I want to use Node.js Wikipedia page, a blog page, one of my supervisor's lectures for gathering information.
Should I cite these sources, given the fact that they say pretty much the same things and these things are just observations, not scientific contribution?
# Answer
> 5 votes
If something can be deemed common knowledge in your field there should be no need to cite it.
MIT define common knowledge as;
> Broadly speaking, common knowledge refers to information that the average, educated reader would accept as reliable without having to look it up.
There is further detail on that link about Common Knowledge and it's applications. They also say that there best advice is: 'When in doubt, cite your source.'
That said if you are taking something verbatim from a source you should cite it.
Just on your sources; in academia you tend to shy away from citing from wikipedia etc. You can see a discussion on that issue at this question
# Answer
> 3 votes
This is the same as citing any other software; you would follow the standard guidelines for such citations. APA guidelines follow, from this Purdue website:
> # Computer Software/Downloaded Software
>
> Do not cite standard office software (e.g. Word, Excel) or programming languages. Provide references only for specialized software.
>
> > Ludwig, T. (2002). PsychInquiry \[computer software\]. New York: Worth.
>
> Software that is downloaded from a Web site should provide the software’s version and year when available.
>
> > Hayes, B., Tesar, B., & Zuraw, K. (2003). OTSoft: Optimality Theory Software (Version 2.1) \[Software\]. Available from http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/otsoft/
As usual, you should check with your journal to see whether they have any specific formatting requirements/require any other specific information for such citations.
# Answer
> 1 votes
## Add a footnote
This is supplementary information that isn't required for your thesis, but for some readers might be useful for understanding the context.
This isn't realy a citation - most likely you aren't using Node.js documentation as a *direct source* for something that you are writing there, unless you're comparing details of some API descriptions. You probably are using a part of node.js technology, and the reference is to extra information about that part, for people who don't know a prerequisite. So it's something where using a footnote would be the most appropriate way.
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Tags: citations, computer-science, software, wikipedia
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thread-22047 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22047 | How prestigious are the meetings of the Optical Society of America (OSA)? | 2014-06-06T14:08:10.097 | # Question
Title: How prestigious are the meetings of the Optical Society of America (OSA)?
Usually, and especially for the IEEE conferences, it is easy to know whether a conference is good or not. For example, top-tier, second-tier and third-tier conferences are known and agreed upon.
For example, the IEEE ICC (1st tier) conference is better than IEEE Globecom (2nd tier). My question is, how to define the tiers for the OSA meetings and conferences.
Is there anyone familiar with the OSA meetings and conferences who can shed the light on how to interpret the acceptance in an OSA conference? What tier does an OSA conference belong to? How to know it, etc....
Kindly note that I am not asking if the acceptance as a poster, or even a talk is prestigious. I am strictly interested in the classification of the meeting and conference.
I know that a poster acceptance is less than being accepted for a talk, and that it is merely for discussions and feedback on new or emerging research topics. However, I believe that a poster presentation in a top tier, is better than a poster presentation in a second tier, therefore, I am asking about the OSA meetings and conference classifications.
Thank you.
# Answer
> 3 votes
AFAIK for disciplines related to the Optical Society of America (which is a well-recognized organization), the most prestigious things are journals - either by it (for example, JOSA A, JOSA B, Optics Express) or not (e.g. general physics or general science journals). When it comes to conference, its importance is related only to speakers/participants (so there is no general rule).
In any case, a poster presentation is never prestigious, be it by OSA or not (usually almost everything gets accepted).
I would ask that not every field have well-defined tiers for conferences. For example in mine, there isn't. And if you care for prestige - if you can't tell the difference - the chances are people seeing you CV won't be able to tell the difference either.
Usually review of abstracts (especially if no feedback is given) is to decide which things are suitable for talks (the best), posters (almost all others), and which - neither (they make no sense, are on another topic, of very poor quality or are OK but there is limited space for posters for some reason).
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Tags: conference, professional-association
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thread-22006 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22006 | Should I publish as sole author and do everything or invite coauthors so that I mostly just do the programming and benchmarking? | 2014-06-05T17:07:50.730 | # Question
Title: Should I publish as sole author and do everything or invite coauthors so that I mostly just do the programming and benchmarking?
Consider the concept of opportunity cost.
There are two possible situations:
1. I program everything, do the evaluation with a benchmark, tell nobody, write everything and publish alone.
2. I program everything, do the evaluation with a benchmark, write something and publish with four other authors, that mostly write the paper.
What should I do?
To answer your possible questions:
* They are not going to program, no matter what, so that doesn't help to save any time.
* Publishing without telling them anything may be perceived in a suspicious way, specially by external reviewers and considering there may be past papers in which I wasn't alone.
* It may also be perceived as if I'm not a good team player, which worries me, as finding a new job may be harder due to this.
* The order of the authors is alphabetical, and I'm not lucky in that sense.
* They are more reputed than me.
PD: the original idea for the paper either comes from me or it comes from someone else. The implementation is always my task. At this very moment I could refine one of those ideas and improve it (the previous version is submitted but not reviewed). I'm very confused about how to proceed.
PD: I am a postdoc now but I am a PhD in a different institution (I haven't defended my thesis, it's nearly finished).
# Answer
I had discussion with several well-known professors with experience (30+ years in research) about this sort of thing, how did they list authorship in their early papers where they were the less well known authors. I started publishing only several years ago, so I will give their opinion (which I agree with I should add). *Their response was the same across the board*: the person who did most of the work they ought simply list themselves as first author when writing the paper and if the coauthors ask them about it, then they just discuss their concern with their coauthors honestly. If your coauthors are real scientists (regardless of whether they are more well known than you), and if your claim is true, they will agree with you.
If your coauthors are administrators mostly, and it's convention in your field and location, that they are added to your paper and listed ahead of you, consider working elsewhere, otherwise the problem cannot be solved in that environment.
There is another option: publish with them according to whatever convention is appropriate, and if you did not get listed as first author when you did actually most of the work, then at the same time also extend the work (\>40% different material) on your own and publish a second paper in another journal as single author, covering both new and old material. (This is how you also find out who the major contributing author was on a particular work, where there are both team and individual papers at once.)
The first solution minimizes opportunity cost; the last solution requires more time and hassle for you, but you don't forgo anything academically, only some time writing a second paper and doing a bit more work.
> 6 votes
# Answer
My answer is straight foward.
If the original idea was from somebody else and the implementation is yours, publish the paper with the people who had the original idea. Of course, you'll be one of the authors.
If both the idea and the implementation are yours, publish the paper as you are the sole author. Pure and simple.
> 6 votes
# Answer
I can relate to your question. I've also works in projects where I'm the person doing all the programming/implementation. Actually, in some of those cases the people in question don't even want to work on the paper, so I guess you are doing better with your people.
I think that one issue to keep in mind is that an active collaboration, assuming the other people are in there with you, is helpful, because it helps keep one focused. I don't know if you have experience working on a project alone, but it can get pretty lonely. And working on an applied research project which requires both writing a paper and an implementation is a lot of work, usually over a long period of time, and it can be hard to keep focus. If you have actual reasonable collaborators (even if they don't do programming) as opposed to people who just want to put their name on your paper, they can definitely help to keep you focused, so in theory in can be an easier, faster, more pleasant process.
I do think that if both (a) much of the ideas come from you, and (b) you are doing the entire implementation, then you should be first/main author, so you should try to find some way to be recognized as such. Some journals now require a section where the author contributions are listed. Even if they don't require it, perhaps you could add one? Just a thought. This could help to emphasize that the bulk of the work is yours, if that is indeed the case.
> 1 votes
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Tags: publications, career-path, code, management
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thread-22042 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22042 | Is my career over if thesis went bad? | 2014-06-05T16:33:25.457 | # Question
Title: Is my career over if thesis went bad?
I wrote a master thesis which went quite bad, due to communication problems with advisor, and my advisor said he is not willing to continue guiding me for PhD studies.
Specifically, I was asked to prove that the elementary theory of finite field is decidable, and I had no background on model theory. I had difficulty understanding, for example, the proofs of Riemann hypothesis for curves and Chebotarev's theorem. As such, I made mistakes when I wrote the thesis. It felt like the subject is too large for one thesis so I was unable to fill some details in some proofs. When I asked for guidance for some of the proofs, he did provide assistance, but only after six months time.
However, I have studied math on my own and I know that I am able to understand math by working on my own. Is there any hope for my math career if my thesis advisor said so? I have done couple of small new proofs for some old results, but they are so small that I guess I won't get a publication to any journal.
# Answer
It's very hard to switch to a different advisor or even a comparable school when your thesis goes bad. This is because the first question a potential advisor would ask is what happened with your old advisor ... if both you and the advisor don't have a reasonable answer to that, you will have a very hard time.
That said, there are alternatives:
* You could try working for a year or two and then returning to PhD studies.
* You could try switching to a different area. There are lots of areas where a student with good mathematics abilities could find interesting problems (economics, computer science, physics, ...)
* Switch to a less respectable school that might be willing to take a gamble on an unknown student with a good background.
In short, one of the most important decisions a student can make in his/her graduate career is an advisor.
> 5 votes
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Tags: masters, thesis, mathematics
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thread-22055 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22055 | Should I switch from an M.A. to an M.S. program if my department allows me to choose? | 2014-06-06T17:57:58.270 | # Question
Title: Should I switch from an M.A. to an M.S. program if my department allows me to choose?
I work in industry and am also attending a major U.S. university to get another master's degree, this one in Applied Math.
When I entered the program, the department offered a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree for Applied Math. This year, the department made a change to Master of Science (M.S.); any new students coming in Fall 2014 will be M.S. students, and any current students will be given the option of switching their degree from M.A. to M.S.
Should I make the switch from M.A. to M.S.? I already have a M.S. degree in engineering. In my opinion, all other things equal, M.S. is considered more rigorous from an employer's perspective.
# Answer
> 4 votes
In general, I believe your assessment is correct—for scientific disciplines where both an MA and MS are possible, the MS degree is usually regarded as more rigorous than the corresponding MA degree.
That said, whether *you* should switch is a matter that requires some thought. Does the change require you to complete more courses? Will there be any impact on your expected graduation date, and the cost of getting the degree? If not, then I would definitely switch. (Moreover, since you already have an MS in engineering, there's no point in getting an MA afterwards. If you didn't have a master's, you'd need to figure out the relative advantage of finishing faster versus the more rigorous degree.)
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Tags: graduate-school, masters, university, degree
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thread-22032 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22032 | Apply for PhD before finishing my Master's degree | 2014-06-06T04:00:29.740 | # Question
Title: Apply for PhD before finishing my Master's degree
I am now in the middle of my master's degree and I plan to graduate in August 2015. I currently study in Germany and for most engineering students here it is common to finish the five-year program (3 or 3.5 years for the bachelor's degree and 1.5 to 2 years for the master's). I'm thinking about applying for robotics PhD programs at different US universities but I noticed that most of them have a deadline in December for programs starting 9 months later. I don't have any publications in any international journals because in Germany this is mostly done by PhD students. But I have worked a lot during my studies (1 year internship, part-time research in university).
I don't want to lose one year waiting to start my PhD but in the same time I think that my master thesis will be a great asset while applying for such a program, especially when I will be willing to continue my research and PhD thesis in the same field as my master thesis. Do you think I should take the GRE and apply for next December or wait until getting my master's degree? And how this would influence the selection process.
# Answer
> 13 votes
It's not a big deal for you not to have publications—remember, many of your peers also will not have published anything, either!
Moreover, it's important to note that in the US, most of the applicants for graduate school do so in the fall of their *fourth* year of studies—which would, contentwise, typically line up with the *third* year (or sometimes even second year!) of study in a German program. So, in many ways, you're already much more experienced than your counterparts.
If you're interested in doing this, I would recommend that you just go ahead and apply. The worst that can possibly happen is that you're not accepted, in which case you find another means of achieving your goals.
# Answer
> 2 votes
In the US in many fields, it is common to go directly for the PhD. So by all means hurry up! The fact you are in a master is a plus. The only potentially negative thing I can imagine is if your current supervisor or the other professors might feel afraid you will not complete the masters or will not put as much effort after being accepted into a PhD and as a result they may not write enthusiastic letters of recommendation. Side comment: Europeans tend to write lukewarm recommendation letters (probably more realistic), they don't understand that can hurt the applicant a lot.
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Tags: phd, masters, thesis, application, deadlines
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